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 
CMW, you’re quite right. But even the minnows deserve a mention every now and then.
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The football world can breathe a sigh of relief now though, based on Cat’s sporting trifecta theory that you can’t be good at rugby, cricket and football all at the same time. The fact that our national football side is fairly dreadful anyway is neither here nor there.
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@Deebee – I can’t understand why they’re playing five matches. We saw last week that a one-off game is the best format and it’s been clear for a while that the best teams only play two or three match series or for that matter not at all!
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So once again, punters have underestimated Argentina. Entitlement? A whiff of a complex of superiority ( those Argies better at playing rugby than us? oh come on!)? Does noone watch them play vs NZ or SA?
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Nobody told us the first Lions match was yesterday!
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@flair
You could see at the end that the Argentinian players were delighted with the win
…and looking down their record – the Lions were the only team they hadn’t beaten in a test*
I wasn’t at all surprised they were more – that dreaded word – “cohesive”, and they’re devastating in broken field – real switch from the old days of a bruising pack and the 10 kicking loads of pens
(* for some reason Wiki separates England and England XV, and NZ and NZ XV – probably non-capped matches)
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Trisk, for me it was obvious Argentina would win.
Great half backs, excellent pack, fast back line and playing heads up rugby. As they were missing several starters, the new boys would bring what Argentina never lack: intense motivation and what they call ‘grinta’, their furious determination. Everything but a surprise.
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Trisk, for me it was obvious Argentina would win.
Great half backs, excellent pack, fast back line and playing heads up rugby. As they were missing several starters, the new boys would bring what Argentina never lack: intense motivation and what they call ‘grinta’, their furious determination. Everything but a surprise.
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Trisk, for me it was obvious Argentina would win.
Great half backs, excellent pack, fast back line and playing heads up rugby. As they were missing several starters, the new boys would bring what Argentina never lack: intense motivation and what they call ‘grinta’, their furious determination. Everything but a surprise.
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Three times lucky? How do I do this?
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Flair – I have absolutely no idea. It doesn’t let us ordinary mortals post the same thing twice.
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Looks like I got out in time…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2d0ln068x4o
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@Flair – By the third time it was everything but a surprise.
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Watching leisurely the game in Twickenham.
19-12 for England at HT.
Slow paced quiet game except England winger (EFB) received a RC – a 20 minutes RC?- for an old fashioned clothesline cum punch to the head to France FH, who was not even assessed for an HIA afterwards.
Yesterday T-14 semi final between Toulouse and Bayonne wasn’t much better. It’s too hot and players are knackered.
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Watching leisurely the game in Twickenham.
19-12 for England at HT.
Slow paced quiet game except England winger (EFB) received a RC – a 20 minutes RC?- for an old fashioned clothesline cum punch to the head to France FH, who was not even assessed for an HIA afterwards.
Yesterday T-14 semi final between Toulouse and Bayonne wasn’t much better. It’s too hot and players are knackered.
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BB – that’s ridiculous.
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Apparently they got a message ‘late on Thursday’ to go into HQ on the Friday to be told this. Its been hanging over them for most of this last school session (and the Glasgow summer holidays start on Wednesday!). Some have managed to escape to other jobs, a few might take early retirement (if they can afford it), some might take Voluntary Redundancy.
The basic salary for a City Councillor is £21,000, plus add-ons. Glasgow Life had to save about £100,000, the equivalent of 5 Councillors. Reckon they could get rid of 5 easily and nobody would know the difference, and that money could be put to better use…
It’s similar to what they have done to the Public Libraries. They have taken all the Librarians out and put them into the Mitchell Library (HQ) to ‘oversee’ the libraries, yet the actual day to day running will be by assistants (of whom one is my son-in-law) and Community Staff. There seems to be one ‘Higher-Up’ in particular that’s pushing this system. Mrs BB worked in the Mitchell and didn’t have a high opinion of this person. Enough said!
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Bugger. Another great gone.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/jun/21/ian-mclauchlan-scotland-and-lions-great-dies-at-83
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It’s widely stated that the Boks have a positive win record against every international side, bar New Zealand. Which is in fact not correct. Any guesses?
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Quite correct! The Barbarians have played the Boks eight times, won four, lost three and drawn one. The weight of history will be on their shoulders in Cape Town this weekend.
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Quote of the year so far, from David Evans (better known as The Edge, from U2), on taking 62 years to apply for Irish citizenship: “I’m a little tardy with the paperwork,”
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SA XV (XXIII) to bow the knee to the Baabaas on Saturday:
Starting Lambs: 15 Aphelele Fassi, 14 Cheslin Kolbe, 13 Jesse Kriel, 12 Damian de Allende, 11 Kurt-Lee Arendse, 10 Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, 9 Morné van den Berg, 8 Jean-Luc du Preez, 7 Vincent Tshituka, 6 Siya Kolisi (captain), 5 Lood de Jager, 4 Jean Kleyn, 3 Asenathi Ntlabakanye, 2 Malcolm Marx, 1 Ox Nche.
Dessert Menu: 16 Marnus van der Merwe, 17 Jan-Hendrik Wessels, 18 Neethling Fouche, 19 Franco Mostert, 20 Kwagga Smith, 21 Cobus Reinach, 22 Manie Libbok, 23 Andre Esterhuizen.
Difficult to comment on a lot of players, because they play in Japan and England, so don’t get to see them very often. Or they play for the Sharks and are shit for most of the season anyway. Backline is virtually full strength, with perhaps SF-M to be replaced by Pollard against Italy and maybe van den Berg too, although we’re a bit thin on decent 9s at the moment.
Forwards are interesting – du Preez needs a big few weeks to get back into the reckoning, whilst Tshituka is one of those Sharks who’s blown hot and cold all year. Congolese born, so no sniping from the braai about foreign players in sides (yet). Lood de Jager is finally back after two years out with various injuries includikng a heart condition, so it’ll be interesting to see how he goes, with our retreaded Irish international in the 2nd row. Asenathi Ntlabakanye is the 150kg Lions prop who makes people laugh or cry depending on whether he’s running into them or next to them. Great to see Marx back as starting hooker: as good as Bongi’s been over the years, I think his star is fading.
The bench is interesting, having pinched Marnus from the Scarlets, prop/hooker Wessels building his reputation, lock/flank Mostert evergreen, flank/8/centre/wing Kwagga in the frame, centre/flank (kidding) Esterhuizen to smash things up and Manie Libbok to miss all his kicks (hopefully not – but there’ll be howls of outrage from Pretoria to well, Pretoria at his inclusion).
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Ntlabakanye has apparently shed 18kg in intensive training at Bok scrum coach Daan Human’s farm to get him into shape for the Bok squad. Rassie very pleased. I wonder if I need a Bok call up to shed a few pounds?
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Great interview with Finlay Calder, once you get past the adverts (and The Hask!). Some of the names Fin talks about on the 89 Lions tour showed what a tough bunch they were.
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To get us in the mood
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Hopefully, with the game starting later in the morning, Refit hasn’t launched himself out of bed to get the alarm for an early start, thus retaining the use of his shoulders.
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Big dilemma: do we or do we not fork out for Sky?
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I’ve paid for NowTV for a couple of months. Think it was £26 for each month and I’ll cancel after the tour. Maybe not for everyone though.
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Bloody hell, Sky have an ad break, come back from the ad break, then go straight into another ad break (a mercifully short one).
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Don’t worry, my shoulders are intact.
I was up early. Been out to the post office, got my nails done*, done a bit of shopping and got a hot, roast pork sandwich for lunch.
*I partially knackered my left wrist, when I did my shoulders and it makes it difficult to trim my nails now. So I get them done professionally once a month – and it would be a waste not to get them painted at the same time. I’ve gone bright green this time 😁.
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Good start from the Lions!
Poor kick off reception by the Lions!
All square.
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I’d completely forgotten about Nick White and his silly ‘tache. And I was happy.
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Great run from Pollock! That’s the better side of him, he’s been getting on the wrong side of the ref up to now.
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Ok, the Force player counting down at the rucks and then screaming “How long?! How long!?” can get in the bin.
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I am loving how much Pollock is winding up the Force players. And that’s on pause for a bit, as he gets a team yellow.
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He might be winding them up, but he’s been on the wrong side of the ref for most of this game. Needs to wise up a bit.
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Not watching, but the Force player yelling like that has a 93.75% chance of being Nic White. Not sure any of the others can count down.
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Probably more than anything else, the Lions need to fix the lineout.
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Oh, that was a beautiful try.
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Greenwood is absolutely insufferable on the mic.
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Shame, looks like Williams has done his hamstring. He was playing well too.
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Just seen the Force collars described as either Harry Hill-esque or darts shirts.
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Ooh Pollock!
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Time for SA vs Baa-Baas. And you can’t see the kickoff because they used too many fireworks. Awesome.
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Lood doesn’t seem to have missed a step.
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It’s a bit of a feisty match, in the pissing rain.
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Spare a thought for the poor souls who forked out their hard earned rands in order to watch the dirge served in Capetown.
Baabaas can’t string three consecutive passes, can’t scrum, loose all possession at line out time and all SA do is kick for touch, maul, and score from close range.
Strangely a few unusual niggles as well. Not the best advert for the game.
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Spare a thought for the poor souls who forked out their hard earned rands in order to watch the dirge served in Capetown.
Baabaas can’t string three consecutive passes, can’t scrum, loose all possession at line out time and all SA do is kick for touch, maul, and score from close range.
Strangely a few unusual niggles as well. Not the best advert for the game.
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Sam Cane leaves a rugby pitch for the final time.
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POM leaves a rugby pitch for the final time.
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