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 
Think I’d be buying a new keyboard, Thaum.
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Em hoping Sente will oblige.
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keyboerd
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Ryan gets a yellow for a pretty thuggish clearout
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penalty to Ulster 12 – 17 on 62 mins
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James Ryan being a dick? I’m shocked!
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12 – 20 even
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Damn, James Lowe in at the corner after a series of pick and goes from Leinster, Byrne misses the kick
17 – 20
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Cerdyff meking much herder werk then one would hev thot. Nice breek by Faletau.
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Ticht – bugger.
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A yellow card for McCann – deliberate knock on with a line break on the cards
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Gah! Penny with a stupid clearout give sLeinster a penally and they kick to the corner and of course they score
22 – 20 with the kick to come
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20min red for one of the Tigers props, dangerous clearout. They’ll be 14 men for the rest of the match (card is on 66mins). Doesn’t seem to faze them though, 6 minutes later Chessum barges over to score their 7th try. 45-7.
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24 – 20
C’mon Ulster!
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Nooooes.
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Brace is no feart to penalise Leinster for their gamesmanship, it’s good to see
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ach, just as Ulster looked like they were getting somewhere there was a Hail Mary pass and a knock on, scrum to Leinster on 79 minutes and 36 seconds
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and that’s all she wrote
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Feck
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Thx for the live news. Exclmtion point.
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A point of order – two songs have featured in Dublin tonight, Dirty Old Town and Fisherman’s Blues, both of which are Scottish.
Not that it matters or anything, it just tickled me.
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Prendergast isn’t all that.
The Munster laddie looks a better bet to me.
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Cerdyff could’ve won it but mede e stupid kick et the end, end lost. Beh. Humbug.
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On the up side, Merk Ellen is up 4-1 end only needs one more freme to win.
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Well, he lost thet one. Still two more metch fremes to go.
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The Gruan have chosen their best album of 2025. I did a search for the best albums of the year a couple of weeks ago and it came up with the same answer – Rosalia, Lux. I’ve been playing it in the car, at home and whilst walking – it’s just an amazing piece of work, absolutely beautiful.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/dec/19/the-50-best-albums-of-2025-no-1-rosalia-lux
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Ellen wins (bang). Yay.
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Tiptoes in to see if the Thauma household survived last night’s results…
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Cerdyff meking much herder werk then one would hev thot. Nice breek by Faletau.
Thauma’s keyboard seems to have gone the Hollywood version of a South African accent! Leo Dic couldn’t have done it better!
!!!! – got a few spares for you Thauma.
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Heh, that did occur to me.
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Lions about to get thumped by a rampant Stormers/Lions about to batter the Stormers and screw up their lead at the top whilst not qualifying for the playoffs themselves anyway. Take your pick. Mine is the former, I’d be delighted with the latter.
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‘Mon ra Weedge!
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A good win, though doesn’t sound like a great performance. We’ll take it. On to next week!
PS – why are the Ospreys playing Munster and not the Dragons? And what are Connacht playing the Dragons and not Munster?
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Spectacular pre game fireworks for the Quins/Bears game. Not sure why. Players running on in the dark. All this seems a bit overblown to me.
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Genge looking VERY unimpressed by all the pre match crap.
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Lovely soft hands from Genge.
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I was not expecting Bristol to be doing such a number on Quins in the first half hour. Somehow we’re 19-0 up and only had 3 phases in the Quins 22.
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That was way too easy for LRZ!
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Clock in the red and LRZ scores the BP try for Bristol. 0-26 at half time.
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2nd half not starting any better for Quins. Yellow card for their hooker and concede a soft try inside 3mins.
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Booo! LRZ got white-line fever with 2 players outside him and got tackled. Rubbish, hook him!
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Maybe he thought getting a First Down was enough?
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Tom Jordan gets a yellow for in at the side, at a maul. And that’s why you don’t let backs do forward work.
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And now Grondona and Woolmore are of for HIAs.
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Quins finally score, after what felt like 400 phases on the Bristol line, Isgro pirouetting over a pile of bodies. 60mins on the clock, 7-33.
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Genge is back on, because of the HIA and still hitting the line at full speed.
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And he’s just run 50m down the wing to score! The rest of the team have gone bonkers.
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Genge runs half the length of the pitch to score (at least)!!!!!
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Meters made, Quins 160 vs Bristol 478!
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Bugger, we just get back to 15 and Williams (12) gets a yellow for tripping a Quins player.
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