Six Nations have announced that they are ringing the changes for next year’s tournament. OvallyBalls had an exclusive mole in the decision room.
Six Nations Clown Five: Listen, chaps, I’m awfully sorry we failed to get the Six Nations behind a paywall so that we could destroy the popularity of the only tournament that is broadly watched, but we’ll try again in a couple of years.
SNC2: I’m not a fookin’ chap.
SNC4: Ah, bellissima! Like me, you are wearing a molto clever disguise to our top-secret meeting in this luxury ristorante.
SNC2: Catch yerself on. I’m wearing what the boss told me to wear: blue.
SNC5: Can we just get back to our onions? We have a tournament to ruin here.
SNC6: Onions? Oignons? En France, we return to our moutons.
SNC3: We quite like our lovely sheep as well.
SNC1: Ach, can we knock the tired wee 70s jokes on the heid? We’ve two major things to discuss here: playing matches on a Thursday (a THURS-DEE!), and deep-sixing one rest weekend.
SNC3: Thursday matches! It was bad enough, look you, when the Friday ones started. Working people are not going to be able to get to these matches, or maybe even watch them on the telly.
SNC5: Surely they will just have their servants do anything necessary on those particular evenings?
SNC6: Bah, the British do not know how to live. They eat their dinner – and quelle horreur d’un repas – at a silly time. They are weaklings who cannot stay up to a reasonable hour.
SNC4: Sono d’accordo.
SNC1: I dinna like the Thursday match, but I’m a wee bit more concerned about losing the rest weekend. That’s 5 Test matches in six weeks. Do we not have a small concern about player welfare there?
SNC3: We’ve not got a huge squad to field from the valleys.
SNC4: È vero, this also concerns us.
SNC2: Agh, it’s all right, we’ll just call on Leinster’s academy if half the squad end up in the hospital.
SNC6: Eh ben oui, we have many teams in the Top14, and perhaps we can bend the rules on players being called up.
SNC5: No worries here either, chaps … heh, heh: and chapesses. So is it all settled, then?
SNCs 1, 3 and 4 (simultaneously): Fuck off / vaffanculo.
SNC5: Perhaps I have not yet properly explained the emoluments available to those who agree to these proposals.
[whispers]
All: Crack on!
Ovally Balls 
It has been a pretty limp showing from Edinburgh though…..
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Genge scores the first try for Bristol in less than a minute :)
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Fitzharding runs a lovely line and breaks through the Pau defence. Grondona is on his shoulder and scores Bristol’s 2nd try. 14-0 12mins.
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Pau keep creating half decent situations, only to be let down by some very loose passing.
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This time Grondona breaks the line and Marmion is on his shoulder to score. 21-0 26mins.
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Bristol taking full advantage of their breaks!
Not sure what happened earlier after about 50 minutes, but the Bulls seemed to be hanging on, until they weren’t!
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Shambulls is what they’re being called on a thread down here.
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van Rensberg breaks the line and passes to Ravouvo on the wing. There’s a little shimmy of the hips and he scores in the corner. BP try. 26-0 37mins.
Pau then cock up the restart. Not going well for them.
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Bristol get a pen from the scrum on half way and stick it in the corner. They set the maul and Oghre is driven over for try 5. 33-0 at the break.
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Bristol lineout on the Pau 22. Ball in-field to Marmion, who chips towards the line. Van Rensberg has a but of a juggle, but holds on to score. 40-0 45mins.
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Pau come this close to scoring, but a second-row player drops the pass.
Bristol now have two Grondonas on the pitch. Seems greedy.
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Tom Jordan is playing a blinder. Half break and gets behind the defence. The ball is recycled and Jordan’s on the other end to find Batley (5) on the wing, to score in the corner. 47-0 50mins.
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Ooh, Pau get something. Nice grubber from Robson on the edge of the Bristol 22. Brau-Boirie is chasing and scores. 47-7 55mins.
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Bristol score immediately. Lineout on the Pau 22, the ball is passed to Boshoff and he brushes past some weak tackles. 54-7
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Oh dear. Bristol clear long from the restart, all the way to Pau 5m. Pau try to move the ball infield a bit and the ball squirts out the side of the ruck. Grondona jnr grabs it and scores. 61-7
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2nd try for Pau. Several pick & go’s on the Bristol line, then the ball wide to Brau-Boirie. Nice little step inside and he scores his second. 61-12 63mins.
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The main commentator has just described the match as “fizzling out like a wet weekend in Weston Super Mare”, which is about right.
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Pau must have done quite the squad rotation, for the team 2nd in the Top14 to put in that performance.
Slightly disappointed Bristol didn’t get to a point a minute.
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I was at the Munster-Gloucester match. First European game in Cork in 20 years. This time we played at the GAA stadium Pairc uí Chaoimh (Pawrk ee Keev if you want a rough guide to pronunciation)
Threat of a weather warning kept some away but sold 35k-40k tickets. In the end, rain held off – juist started as we walked back to the bus (and then kept raining till some time in the early hours)
Performance was fairly ragged for about 50 mins – but finally broke the Gloucester 2nds
Downside of a GAA stadium is that football and hurling are played on pitches 150 x 80, and as a result rugby pitch is quite remote from stands and terraces – so atmosphere can be quite dead. Obviously, the performance didn’t help – because as I recall the atmoshpere at the South Africa game 3 years ago was great.
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And in case you wonder why the game was moved – answer is $$$$ (or more appropriately €€€€)
Cork GAA are millions in debt over the stadium so – apparently – aren’t charging excessive rent as they need to get cash in the door – they take a cut of food and drink too.
South Afirica in 2022, and Crusaders in 2024 were trial runs for this. Now they’re happy they can sell out a Heineken cup game – next one will probably be the Stephen’s/Boxing Day clash with Leinster in 2026 (or maybe if lucky a Euro QF – the trip to Dublin for the Toulouse game in 2022 still rankles)
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Also attended my first U18 game this season – in Cork – our lads toughed out a narrow 19-17 away win. 19-17 at half time – with the wind in our favour. No score in the second half – though hwe left a couple of tries behind.
My eldest has aged out – and middle child is still recovering from ACL – so neither playing. Big difference I could see from last year was the pack.
Last season they were mainly U17s, so most – if not 90% of scores came from magic in the backs – who were mainly U18s. – as the pack were underpowered in the big games.
A year older makes a difference – 2 of the 3 tries came from phase play, and the tackling in the 2nd half was superb – not sure the opposition had any 22 entries in the second half – despite the wind advantage.
It also occurred to me that we’re unusual in that our best player is not the 8 – he’s handy, but our best are the centres, 6 and our LH (albeit Munster converted him from 8)
In almost any Munster unaderage game – if you want to know who the best player is – he’s almost always the 8
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Boan Venter has signed for the Lions from July 2026. Great news for us! Edinburgh, not so much!
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Deebs, I honestly think he’s one of the best props in the URC, he’s better than Schoeman. It’s a terrific signing for your lads. Once he declared for the Boks it was only a matter of which SA side snapped him up when his contract ran out, rather than “if”.
I think he arrived as a good prop but he’s leaving as a brilliant one. He won’t have grown up dreaming of playing for Scotland so although I would have loved to see him batter opponents in the 6N, I think most if not all Edinburgh fans will wish him nothing but the best.
He’ll probably end up a RWC winner in a couple of years, which he certainly wouldn’t have done with Scotland.
Now we have to get on with developing Mikey Jones to take over from Venter, hopefully Boan and Pierre will help him in the months to come.
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In the end, rain held off – just started as we walked back to the bus (and then kept raining till some time in the early hours)
I’m omitting a day here – it started raining Sat night and kept raining early hours of Monday morning – low, level fine mist – like being in a cloud
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Ticht, he’s definitely improved out of sight during his time in Edinburgh, so a debt of gratitude there. Sometimes players just need a change of scenery and different approach to unlock their potential, and this seems to be the case with Venter. Now all the Lions need to do is find somewhere safe and attractive to play their matches and the fans may actually return.
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John Higgins has crashed out 0-4 in the Scottish Open. What does this mean for Scottish rugby?
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Anthony McGill, the only other Scot left, is currently 3-0 down too.
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It means that GT is their coach.
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It means that GT is their coach
@bb
What’s your (and Ticht’s) view on Townsend? I’m sensing some dissatisfaction, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen explicit criticism.
Outside view is that he’s probably outstayed his effectiveness – is that fair?
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Ticht probably has a better idea of the ‘word on the street’ regarding Toonie. My gut feeling is that he should go, and probably should have gone after the last RWC. There were boos at Murrayfield after the Pumas game, which is pretty rare.
A number of the players have won things with their clubs, in particular the Glasgow boys. Would they have beaten the Stormer, Munster (away) and Bulls (away) in consecutive weeks under Townsend? Would they have come back from 21 points down against Toulouse under Townsend? The connecting factor in all this is Franco – the man has legend status amongst Glasgow fans. He also got us to our first European final. I would be really sad to see him go to Scotland, but I’d rather he went there than to a rival club or country. Folk were worried that he might have left at the end of last season, but I (a personal opinion) think he must have had some sort of reassurance about the national job to make him stay.
Toonie was a good coach with Glasgow, winning the Pro 12, but I think the SRU panicked and made him Scotland coach too early (and got rid of Vern too early).
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Just be glad you didn’t get the 12 inch extended mix reply….
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I think the SRU panicked and made him coach too early
I can imagine that having won the Pro12 – they were afraid he’d be lured away to England or France (or further afield)
Flip side is you might have thought he’d do an “O’Gara” and try further afield to reinforce his credentials.
But that said – not sure O’Gara is mad keen to coach Ireland, iirc he’d said someplace he’d have his eyes on England if he went into a national team role.
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Personally, if Franco Smith could meld the undoubted talent available to Scotland into a formidable side, I’d be delighted. Such talent in the backs, and just a couple of hulking forwards short of a very good pack too.
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just a couple of hulking forwards short of a very good pack
That’s true of most teams (SA, England, France – maybe Georgia as exceptions)
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Fair enough, Trisk, we’re a bit spoilt at the moment. My first real memories of Scotland were from the mid 80s and early 90s – some fearsome loosies in particular, but also some immovable property in the front row.
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On the subject of Townsend, I have no insider info on this, but there is a sense that he’s taken Scotland as far as he can among many supporters. I’m beginning to come around to this way of thinking myself but I temper it with the knowledge that we tend to over-rate our players. Glasgow are way more successful than Edinburgh but they’ve never beaten Leinster in a knock out game, so Scotland struggle against Ireland. Glasgow also don’t go deep in the Not Heineken – I’m not counting a couple of wins for Embra and Glasgow in torrential rain at home to Toulon and Toulouse as indicators of anything.
We do seem to have a mental block against some sides – we can be competitive against England and France but not Ireland for some reason and those two probably don’t consider games against Ireland as done deals like we do.
We have a couple of players coming through in the forwards – at 19 years old 136kg, 1.94m tighthead Ollie Blyth-Lafferty is a genuine prospect, he went very well in the scrum against Toulon and Castres. Liam McConnell is a genuine 6 in the Peter O’Mahoney mould – the sort you hate playing against but would be first name on your own team sheet. He’s 21 years old. The word on him is that he bruised many a rib and a good few egos in training over the summer at Edinburgh and he has forced his way into he team this season. He runs the lineout even when Grant Gilchrist is there, he is hard as nails. Old School.
Glasgow have players who could really step up in the next few years, Blair Kinghorn’s cousin Gregor Brown is going to be some player in the backrow, as are a couple of their young locks. I just hope we get these guys on the park and up to international speed whilst we still have the likes of Finn, Huw Jones and Darcy Graham available.
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Soz, I put an “e” in O’Mahony’s name where it shouldn’t be
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What’s the chances of Tiggers v Glass being a good game?
I’m after the best entertainment as I have no skin the contests this evening, so it’s the above, Leinster v Ulster or Cardiff v Scarlets
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Massive sporting conflict this evening. We have Mark Allen on the snooker, Cardiff v Scarlets, and Leinster v Ulster – with McCloskey returning.
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Good start for Thaum’s lads
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Tiggers game pretty scrappy so far. Interesting to see how Cam Henderson plays. Starting a lot for Leicester, but didn’t even get into the Scotland Autumn squad.
Leicester just scored their second try, great run from Kata.
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Is it? Checked the score a few mins ago, and it was 0-0.
My keyboard is driving me bonkers. Lost the physical Ctrl, Z and T keys some time ago, but in the last couple of days, the a, letter-before-r and exclamation point have all stopped working. Have memorised ascii code for a, but fuck the rest.
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Double Kok 7-12 in Dublin
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Brilliant try from Tom Stewart, treating James Lowe like a toy in handing him off for the score
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Ticht
❤️
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Soroka was very lucky that Murphy ducked, he could have seen red if the Ulster fly half didn’t get so low
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7 – 17 in Dublin at HT. Ulster well worth their lead. McCann on the blindside, the hooker Stewart and Stockdale have been very good, also of course Werner Kok
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Weird try for Leicester at the end of the first half. Hassell-Collins is clear, gets tap tackled a couple of metres short, but is sliding towards the line when the Gloucester 15 slides in to tackle him, then another Glous player comes in too and they hold him up. BUT, it seems as though the second player comes in and makes contact on the field of play, not in goal, so it was deemed to be stopping an obvious try. So penalty try and 10 minutes in the bin for number 15 (although if anything it should have been the other player).
All a bit confusing, but then Dickson is the ref, so….
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Checking in on Ulster for the second helf. (Cen’t be ersed with escii et the mo.) Some dodgy kick decisions, but you cen never heve too much Kok.
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Gone beck to Cerdyff. Pleese send updetes.
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