In the exciting battle for the wooden spoon between Ireland, Wales, Italy and England, coaches have not learninged much from their previous selection errors. To be fair to Italy, they don’t have a huge range of players from which to select, and they have played brilliantly; they could and possibly should have beaten Ireland, so we’ll let Quesada off.
As for Ireland, it seems that Farrell has at least learninged that the Prendergast experiment has woefully failed after watching him splash around in the shallow part of the pitch in the first match, and create his own wadi in the second. While Crowley, like his other possible replacements, is dubious with the kicking tee (and by the way, kicking points is only HALF YOUR FUCKING JOB as a fly-half), he’s clearly much more effective on the pitch.
The inclusion of more Ulster players made a clear difference in the second match with Player of the Match being narrowed down to a choice between McCloskey, Baloucoune, Fischetti and Zuliani: two Ulstermen, and two Italians. So of course Farrell drops Izuchukwu, who also performed well, and Timoney remains on the bench.
As for England, the inclusion of Stewart continues to please ABE supporters, and Genge is always on a hair trigger for a card. Maro is looking less saint-like these days. Boris Johnson’s illegitimate son, the Pillock, provides a figure one loves to hate, sadly also because, like most super-villains, he’s pretty effective.
On to Wales. Well. Their set-pieces are functioning well, and I reckon they can beat Ireland. Also first-week Scotland, but not brilliant second-week Scotland. Probably not Italy either, especially if they keep kicking possession away, although possession is often coughed up anyway.
France obviously don’t need any learnings*.
*Have I mentioned how much I hate this horrendous evisceration of the English language?
Ovally Balls 
Menoncello scores off a forward pass that the officials don’t seem to have noticed
It was the other way around when he was playing vs Ireland
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It’s a lovely evening in Belfast.
No, it’s not, it’s the other thing. Gale-force winds, driving rain, etc. But Zac Ward has scored, and Doak’s conversion managed to pass the posts before the wind grabbed it and threw it wildly!
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Bath and Saints are both playing at 1000mph. Saints 7-21 up, helped by Reid getting a really dumb yellow 2mins into the match.
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This is a much better match than you’d expect under the conditions. We are 10-0 up, so of course I like it!
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And TRY TOT!
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Zac Ward in the bin (quite rightly) for lifting a player by the legs.
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Ulster leading, McIlroy leading, not sure about the darts and snooker, but in the minor sports Norn Ireland doing okay!
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What do you mean, minor sports? You’ve just named two of most important ones! (Rugby and snooker, to be clear.)
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At the moment, in snooker, there are only qualifying matches for the World Championship, and several Northern Irish are already qualified, including Mark Allen, former world number one.
The tournament starts in earnest next week, I think.
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TRY Izzy on his 50th cap!
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Pollock gets picked up, past the horizontal by Barbeary and Lawrence and then dropped on his shoulder. Andrew Brace goes “just a pen”.
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La Rochelle score in the 41st minute. Damn.
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24-10 at HT.
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9 tries in the first half at The Rec. Bath fighting back from 14-35 down to 26-35 at the whistle.
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Another try for Ward, but in the corner. Dubious if that can be converted in this wind.
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Oh, thought it bounced in off the post, but apparently not. Very close, though!
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TRY Ward (Bryn this time)!
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The wind is ridiculous. Doak’s latest conversion attempt looked lovely, but the wind just grabbed it and whooshed it away.
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Finn just made a half break, got caught and as he was falling off-loaded out the back to Pepper who was on his shoulder. Magnificent.
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Hmm, La Rochelle are a lot better and we are a lot worse in the second half.
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Well, McCormick over for Ulster. My worries have now melted away.
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Final score 41-24, with La Rochelle scoring at the death.
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Just watched the Ulster highlights, the first Ward try was a lovely line.
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It was a good line Refit and he still had a fair bit to do to get to the line, nice try. Well done Ulster.
I think Hollie is a good ref but she looks comically small in the midst of two professional packs.
I watched the Bath Saints game, it was a belter, unfortunately there were a couple of controversial decisions by Brace that are still the talking points today.
Personally I think it evened out across the match.
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7 mins into France vs Italy and there’s a TMO review, but all the comms have broken. Ref’s on the touchline with a mobile phone.
Yellow and a review for the Italian 3, for head contact.
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Well, that was really bloody stupid by the Connacht 14.
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Three yellow cards and a penalty try is probably not how Connacht envisioned the first half going.
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Mon
Ra
WEEEDDGGEEE!!!!!!!!!!!
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Won’t get nilled….
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Toulon won’t be nilled either…..
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What a pass to Smith 😲
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Toulon are shipping an awful lot of penalties. Lucky they haven’t picked up a second yellow.
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Really impressive defence by Glasgow on their own line, especially considering they were on a warning.
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Bugger.
Well done Toulon. Suspect we maybe just ran out of steam against a good side.
Now, come on Sale…..
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I think that Toulon winning means their semi final will be in Toulon? Or were they ranked lower than Leinster so it will be in Dublin?
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Gripping game in Glasgow. Toulon not there yet but at least they got out of their T14 torpor.
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BB , Toulon were ranked rather lowly, I expect them to travel next time as well.
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Actually if Sale won vs Leinster, then Toulon would host Sale. I think they can already book their plane tickets to Dublin.
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Lest I forget, Bath vs Northampton was a cracker. Watching English clubs make watching England even more bewildering (save for their last game vs France where there was little at stake). Huge contrast between the national XV and the clubs/ provinces, unlike in France, Ireland or Scotland.
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Well, that’s a bit disappointing. Leinster vs Sale isn’t exactly a good advert for rugby. Lots of mistakes and scrums. Meh…
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Keenan’s having another blinder.
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Glasgow were poor, Edinburgh beat a very similar Toulon side in December and Edinburgh are not good.
Congratulations to Toulon but Glasgow failed to show up when it mattered, there was very little on show in attack after McDowall had cut them open a couple of times early on.
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I think missing Horne and Dobie in particular were big losses for us. Afshar may well come good, but this was too big for him I think, especially with another young 9 on the bench.
I just had an inkling that today might just be a game too far for us this season. We haven’t yet got the strength in depth to cope with the number of players out that we have, although I think we are (slowly) building that. But it will need to accelerate next year with the number of players we are losing. Sadly, we can’t go out and buy an All Black off the shelf.
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