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 
But then Ulster score, and it’s 7-all.
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Embra score again, too easily again.
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For the third time in about as many minutes, Zac Ward (having returned from the bin) has got bundled into touch in the 22.
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Shame, cos it was otherwise a nice try!
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Embra score again.
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TRY Juarno, running down the pitch!
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19-14 at HT.
It’s been a strange old half. Kick-off was delayed by 10 or 15 mins because of a ‘medical emergency’, I think someone in the crowd, so the players were hanging about freezing their arses off.
Then the things that we have been shite at for the past couple of years, ie scrums and line-outs, have been very good, but our off-loading game and broken-play defence have been terrible. It’s like they’ve never met each other before, although of course it’s not our first side. But same for Embra.
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Also, Postlethwaite went off; not sure why. Shame, as he was definitely one of our better players.
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Now we’ve lost Hume as well! Fuck!
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Not getting any better. Sheridan in the bin for a high tackle with review.
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TRY Ulster! 19-all and conversion to come.
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Ah well, it was a difficult touchline conversion.
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Sheridan’s card has been upgraded to a 20-min red. I’m gobsmacked; seen much worse deemed ‘only a penalty’.
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TRY Wilson!
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Our scrum has been very dominant, and it must be down to the youngster whose name I’d have to look up.
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Izuchukwu taken out very dangerously in the air. Yellow with review.
Commentators think it should be a straight red.
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Izzy going for an HIA, unsurprisingly if a bit belatedly.
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TRY McKee! That’s the fifth!
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Ulster have been a lot better in the second half, passes more or less going to hand, etc.
A number of worrying injuries, though.
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TRY Carson! (Perhaps)
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Looks fine on the replay!
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19-40!
I would never have expected that in the first half. I thought Edinburgh would win.
26-0 to Ulster in second half.
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Sorry, Ticht, your side was much the better in the first half. But disappeared in the second as we grew stronger.
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Tom McAllister is apparently the miracle prop.
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“Tom McAllister is apparently the miracle prop.”
Come on, we all know who The Miracle Prop is just now. Fingers crossed for four tries in a row tomorrow…
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Clyde, if I recall (through my currently brandy-induced haze), if you can put approximately 100 points on your oppo tomorrow and the other results go the right way, you can avoid the wooden spoon.
And hand it to England.
Come on, you know it means enough to you.
Although it would be very hard lines on Italy.
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We can hand it over by putting one point on Italy if France do the necessary…
To be honest if we end up on the same number of wins as someone then I don’t feel that we’re last. Have never cared for points difference/bonus points etc – I accept them as a necessary evil to keep a modern audience satisfied, but that’s as far as it goes. People getting worked up about finishing fifth if they’re in a tie with third on wins has left me utterly bemused before now and I feel the same for things down the bottom.
Now getting that win is the thing. I don’t buy into some of the hype about Italy and to be honest find some of it a bit patronising. The improvement (both in results and style) is to be respected, but they’re not competing for the Championship yet, they’re just an OK bottom half team who with a fair wind could do better than that in the near future but may well not. For the time being that’s what we’re aiming to be too and the signs have been promising the last couple of games so it’ll be interesting to see what happens. I wouldn’t be surprised by a step backwards any more than a step forwards.
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We can hand it over by putting one point on Italy if France do the necessary…
To be honest if we end up on the same number of wins as someone then I don’t feel that we’re last. Have never cared for points difference/bonus points etc – I accept them as a necessary evil to keep a modern audience satisfied, but that’s as far as it goes. People getting worked up about finishing fifth if they’re in a tie with third on wins has left me utterly bemused before now and I feel the same for things down the bottom.
Now getting that win is the thing. I don’t buy into some of the hype about Italy and to be honest find some of it a bit patronising. The improvement (both in results and style) is to be respected, but they’re not competing for the Championship yet, they’re just an OK bottom half team who with a fair wind could do better than that in the near future but may well not. For the time being that’s what we’re aiming to be too and the signs have been promising the last couple of games so it’ll be interesting to see what happens. I wouldn’t be surprised by a step backwards any more than a step forwards.
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Don’t know why that’s appeared twice, one for my hard core fans I guess…
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You’ve done a Flair!
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Oof, that ‘tackle’ on Izuchukwu was horrible.
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Nerves for today starting already. Would dearly love us to win, of course.
BUT
This is Ireland, in Dublin, with a day’s extra rest and THAT record record against us.
BUT
If we play as we did in the first half against England and for 65 minutes against France, then I think we can win.
BUT
No Cummings or Brown who have been great as locks. Our bench is more decent than it has been, D’Arcy Rae having been a big surprise and Zander looking a bit more like his usual self.
BUT
Ireland will probably win and those gits on Virgin Media will still look smug.
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I want Scotland to win with a BP ( sorry Thaum) so that France have to go all the way vs England. All or nothing!
This comment will probably come back to bite me, but hey, the 6N is fun and I wouldn’t mind Scotland winning it.
Lets see if I can post it twice, to emulate CMW.
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There’s a bloody great big grey cloud looming towards BB Towers, coming in from the west. An Ominous Omen, I feel. It probably won’t be the only grey cloud around here this afternoon.
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TOT does a number on Z-fags at the scrum, and Osborne is OVER!
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Oh fuck. Not sure Zander was the first to go up in the scrum, but hey…
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Scotland’s ball retention is scary.
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And now Darcy Graham has returned the favour!
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Yes!!!!
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I see why Graham wears a cap now, that’s a shocker of a haircut.
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Two fantastic tries in 7 minutes. This is going to be delightful.
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SHEEEEEEEHAAAANNNN!!!
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Three in 10mins now.
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We’re giving Ireland too easy access to our 22.
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Irish 11 so offside going into that maul, right in front of the ref. Can’t understand why they don’t give penalties for that anymore, when so many piddling technical fouls do get pinged. Terrific game so far though!
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In an emergency, we could put McCloskey at 15. He’s pretty good under the high ball, and we saw last week that he’s got the pace.
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Pity we don’t have Izuchukwu, who stole innumerable Scottish line-outs last night!
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The mid-play adverts are really pissing me off now.
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Refit – I might have sworn at the telly myself.
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BALOUCOOOOOOOOONNNEEE!!!
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