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 
Baa-Baas finally do points! Jaminet sliding over in the far corner. He also converts. 7-40 on 65mins.
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The comms team have just pronounced Joe Marchant’s surname like he’s French.
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If you missed it, try to find the T14 final between UBB and Toulouse. Quite the game!
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I made a joke about Andre Esterhuizen being a centre/flank. He played flank yesterday after coming on as a replacement. I think Rassie reads OB!
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It wasn’t the best match at a rainy, cold and slippery Cape Town, but served its purpose. Kolbe, KLA and Fassie were excellent as a back three despite the conditions, Lood de Jager showed what we’ve missed with him out for two years, Marx was classy (haha) at hooker, and Marco van Staden surely isn’t getting another cap? He really isn’t Test class. We also lack a world class 9.
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Ok, I really need to find highlights of the T14 final, if this is the result
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taking 62 years to apply for Irish citizenship
A bit weird – like you don’t have the right to vote in general elections (opposite of Irish citizens in UK)
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I only caught the 2nd half plus extra time of the Top 14 final.
I guess the tweet above gives away the result (as does my comment about extra time) but watch it if you can.
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If the Official Top14 youtube channel ever decides to post the highlights, I will. The Prem/URC get them up in a matter of hours. The whole Baa-Baas match has already gone up.
Eng v Scotland in the U20s at the moment. A penalty try and yellow card to both teams, Scotland leading due to scoring a ‘normal’ try. 12-7 to Scotland.
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Martin Offiah’s son passes to Kieran Bracken’s son, who scores to put England in the lead.
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The U20s is free to watch on RugbyPass TV.
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Full Keystone Cops at the lineout, for Scotland’s throw. Players running back & forth, half of them step out and then an England pod fall over. The ball is then thrown right over the top and hits the ref 🤦. Scotland scrum 🙄.
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Jesus. The England 8, James, just ran in a try from 40m!
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28-12 to England, on the half hour mark.
We need to get this commentary team onto Sky. All they’re doing is describing the action, with the occasional fact or analysis thrown in. It’s refreshing.
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England are going to play the last half hour with 14. The 6, Timmons, gets pulled out of a ruck and decides to elbow the Scotland player in the face while he’s lying on the ground.
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It’s 31C in Verona, where they’re playing.
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Yikes! SA are beating Australia 71-10, with 6 mins to play in that match.
England score the first points of the second half, on 72 mins. A lovely chip & gather from the full back. 47-12
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Missed the very end of the match. Final score 56-19 to England. SA did even better against Aus, 17-73.
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On the Midol website, some great pics of the Toulouse celebration, including a certain Blair Kinghorn in speedos during the press conference. Hope French rugby never changes..
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Or here:
https://www.lefigaro.fr/sports/rugby/top-14/top-14-bus-arrose-la-chute-de-saito-clapping-geant-en-video-les-champions-de-france-celebres-accueillis-par-les-toulousains-place-du-capitole-20250629
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Or here:
https://www.lefigaro.fr/sports/rugby/top-14/top-14-bus-arrose-la-chute-de-saito-clapping-geant-en-video-les-champions-de-france-celebres-accueillis-par-les-toulousains-place-du-capitole-20250629
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There’s a 3hr livestream recording on Youtube, of that bus journey.
Still no actual match highlights though.
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‘Blair Sliphorn’ is quite good.
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Tomos Williams out of the Lions tour. A real shame.
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Ben White with the short hop over from NZ to replace him. (Not Van Poortvliet, like Greenwood was pushing for).
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Poor old Ben White. Just when he was feeling at home in New Zealand’s wintry weather, he has to shift across to the gold Coast and it’s perma-summer. The sacrifices one makes!
In other news, the Bok camp are claiming (pfft!) that they have been working with Andre Esterhuizen as a ‘utility player’ to slot in at 12 or flank for months now. Bollocks! They stole the idea from here.
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Squidge on the Force match
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Not sure Squidge needed a whole 9 minutes to analyse that! Queensland will be a sterner challengbe tomorrow, but the Lions will be a stronger side too, with a little more cohesion from time together. Building nicely!
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Boks to face a weakened Italy on Saturday. Everyone down here punting the Boks by 40+ Sigh, Italy to win their first Test in SA. It never goes well when we’re overly bullish.
15 Damian Willemse, 14 Cheslin Kolbe, 13 Jesse Kriel, 12 Damian de Allende, 11 Kurt-Lee Arendse, 10 Handre Pollard, 9 Morne van den Berg, 8 Jasper Wiese, 7 Vincent Tshituka, 6 Marco van Staden, 5 Lood de Jager, 4 Eben Etzebeth, 3 Wilco Louw, 2 Malcolm Marx, 1 Ox Nche.
Replacements: 16 Bongi Mbonambi, 17 Jan-Hendrik Wessels, 18 Vincent Koch, 19 RG Snyman, 20 Franco Mostert, 21 Kwagga Smith, 22 Faf de Klerk, 23 Willie le Roux.
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Try Freeman!
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From the sounds of it (well the sight of the writing) on the Graun, the Lions have been a bit disjointed thus far, but still 21-12 up at the break. I expect they’ll kick on in the second half, but probably a bit concerned that the midfield is a bit runny, and the pack not really gelling properly (from the commentary).
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Lions have moved up a couple of gears in the third quarter and are now 40-12 up. Not a full-strngth Reds side, but still, you feel the Lions are hitting hteir straps at the right time for the Tests.
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Lions seem to be picking up a couple of injuries, which I suppose is expected at some point, but you really hope they don’t lose too many players before the Tests start.
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Lions Pastries – Itoje back doing Itoje things, Morgan excellent, Finn and JGP looked promising, Freeman better than against Argentina, Conan went well, Aki and Jones good too. Tries were good, and I thought Mitchell and Smith (F) also did well when they came on.
Lions Anti-Pastries – Neither front row looked completely dominating, Chessum was quite, I thought Curry was poor (maybe they could swap him for his twin without anyone noticing?), Daly’s injury, restarts (they can’t blame Scott Cummings for these, the one Conan and JGP missed in particular was a real howler), and poor old Duhan. I think he’s more explosive than Lowe, but any mistakes he makes seem to be amplified. To be honest I thought the Reds second try was just a bad bounce and he took his try well.
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Chessum was quite quiet…..
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Biggest anti-pastry to me would be are all the games going to be boringly one-sided apart from the test matches?
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Bit down on the whole business really. In no particular order:
Australia aren’t a great team so even if they raise their game and win then it’ll be a bit of an embarrassment for the concept as Ireland/England/Scotland would all be quite well placed to beat them on their own.
Very little representation for my lot – wholly justified of course though a shame Tomos Williams injured himself.
Tour matches get worse every time. Probably only really worthwhile in NZ these days though who knows if even that will still be true in four years time. Not the Lions’ fault, just a negative to professional sport – the SH teams stopped touring properly when the game went pro and cricket teams stopped doing it many years ago too.
Team full of ringers. Not the coach’s fault – just the way the game is now.
On the plus side:
The style of the rugby has to be an improvement on four years ago.
Internationals are often entertaining at the moment as long as Wales aren’t playing.
Wales aren’t playing. Well, not in Australia anyway…
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the SH teams stopped touring properly when the game went pro
When was the last time France sent a full-strength side to the SH? I can’t remember, to be honest. Italy have also sent an understrength side out here, althogh not quite as ‘C’ team as France.
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@Deebee – God knows. Did they used to tour in the way the Lions did or the SH teams did up here playing a load of club and regional sides? I don’t think the individual British or Irish teams did to the same extent? That’s the sort of thing that I was getting at.
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Oh great, like for like replacement for Daly , a speedy outside centre/ wing/fullback is…… you guessed it, Baby Faz. Combine that with the utter disgrace that is Mack Hansen picked over Darcy Graham, and I am as disinterested as never before in the Lions. Oh well, the NRL is coming to the boil nicely, State of Origin is going down to a decider, and the Canberra Raiders are going well.
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CMW – don’t remember them ever doing extended tours, playing club sides etc, but they haven’t sent a full strength side to the SH in years. I’m expecting the Kiwis to give them a hiding. Hopefully, it’s where the ABs peak for the season!
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I wouldn’t say the Farrell call up does much for my level of enthusiasm either. Didn’t really have anywhere to go in a downward direction though.
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Such a shame for Daly. What are the Lions options at wing now? Duhan, Lowe, Freeman and Hansen? Still decent, and I suppose the likes of Kinghorn could be shoehorned into wing, but surely the Lions have enough 10s? Or is the armless assassin being earmarked as 10/12?
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@Deebee – Had a look on Wiki and it seems they did some longish ones if you go back far enough and then kind of halfway house ones as the 70s/80s go on. Think the last proper SH tours over here were early 90s. Lions have done well to keep things going as long as they have, but things are now very much in decline.
So far it looks like there perhaps won’t be any teams of an appropriate strength to play them – and that is repeating what happened in SA four years ago when I think there was one meaningful match (which South Africa A won) outside the tests – whether by necessity or by design it doesn’t really matter. As I get older my patience for one-sided sport has been almost completely exhausted. I think it’s connected to my role in the main sport I play being largely to try to ensure the exact opposite. And Wales are catering for all of my one-sided-sport-watching ‘needs’ for the time being.
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Ireland team to face Georgia on Saturday:
15: Jimmy O’Brien (Naas/Leinster)(8)
14: Tommy O’Brien (UCD/Leinster)*
13: Jamie Osborne (Naas/Leinster)(7)
12: Stuart McCloskey (Bangor/Ulster)(19)
11: Jacob Stockdale (Lurgan/Ulster)(38)
10: Sam Prendergast (Lansdowne/Leinster)(8)
9: Craig Casey (Shannon/Munster)(captain)(18)
1: Jack Boyle (UCD/Leinster)(2)
2: Gus McCarthy (UCD/Leinster)(4)
3: Thomas Clarkson (Dublin University/Leinster)(6)
4: Cormac Izuchukwu (Ballynahinch/Ulster)(1)
5: Darragh Murray (Buccaneers/Connacht)*
6: Ryan Baird (Dublin University/Leinster)(27)
7: Nick Timoney (Banbridge/Ulster)(3)
8: Gavin Coombes (Young Munster/Munster)(2)
Replacements:
16: Tom Stewart (Ballynahinch/Ulster)(2)
17: Michael Milne (UCD/Munster)*
18: Jack Aungier (Clontarf/Connacht)*
19: Tom Ahern (Shannon/Munster)*
20: Cian Prendergast (UCD/Connacht)(4)
21: Ben Murphy (Clontarf/Connacht)*
22: Jack Crowley (Cork Constitution/Munster)(24)
23: Calvin Nash (Young Munster/Munster)(10)
*denotes uncapped
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I’m sure no-one is surprised that the Farrell announcement has a lot of people being extremely normal, on social media.
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the utter disgrace that is Mack Hansen picked over Darcy Graham
No arguments here – although I understand Hansen played well enough on Tuesday. Farrell likes the roving 2nd playmaker he offers but frankly he wasn’t good this season.
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Ireland team to face Georgia
1: Jack Boyle (UCD/Leinster)(2)
2: Gus McCarthy (UCD/Leinster)(4)
3: Thomas Clarkson (Dublin University/Leinster)(6)
That’s a callow enough front row to face Georgia – though the replacements are barely older
Good to see Izuchukwu, Timoney, and Coombes get a run
McCloskey / Osborne is a good centre pairing
Baird has more caps than the rest of the forwards put together – which is not a good thing as he’s mainly looked good in flashes and rarely put in a command ing performance
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Would it be unreasonable to think Georgia v Ireland could be highly competitive?
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