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 
I’d bite your hand off for a boring championship win.
The celebrations would be interesting enough.
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@Ticht – I’d be happy for us to win a game, not sure we’d know how to react at this point though.
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@cmw
2019 was the slam game when we scored at the start and then Anscombe kicked you to death
Was it so long ago? [… Googles…. ] Yes, I see it was.
I really remember about a minute from half time 10-0 down, we got a pen on the 5m line and Stander tried to the tap and dropped the ball….knock forward and whistle for half time….
They make you place the ball on the ground to tap it now (Lake? are you listening at the back?) but this was when ppl got away with the RL habit of bringing the foot to the ball in the hands
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In connection with nothing much – yesterday, I somehow landed on the very first “blog” in 2019
What a cavalcade of names – some of whom i remember well, and a good few who – to my shame – I’d forgotten.
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Wow, that takes me back. Shame so many seem to have dropped away. Prolly bloody ‘Real Life’ getting in the way.
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Oh dear.
Henry Pollock advertising underwear on Premier Sports with the tagline, “protect your pollocks”
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Jesus, Ticht! Fortunately I missed that.
Cardiff 3-0 up at HT in the most horrible of conditions.
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TRY Cardiff! A running one!
Leinster still at nil. :-)
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Top rucking by the baddies
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Meanwhile, in WRU news
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Leinster scored and – crucially – converted while I wasn’t looking. It’s 8-7 with about 7 mins to go.
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Cardiff win! Yay!
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Cardiff did well to get over the line, thought they’d blown it with the yellow card, but managed to scrap it out pretty well in the end. Still a bit of a stretch to see them as any sort of serious contenders at the end of the season, but they must surely make the play-offs now and deserve some credit for having done so well so far.
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Yes, it was a brainless card! But they have played well this season. Not perfectly, but well enough.
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I can’t say the Embra Scarlets game last night was high quality, far from it, but if you get a chance to watch the highlights you’ll see some cracking tries from both sides.
It was great to The Tuipulotu Middle One back in action after nine months out.
If Edinburgh can find a couple of half backs we might be on to something. Funnily enough there is a scrum half and a fly half in the academy who play for Scotland U20 and another fly half who is actually still at school in Edinburgh, he’s been playing 10 for Scotland U20 in the 6N, with the former captaining the side from 12.
Over to you Sean Everitt.
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Btw, Scarlets played 18 year old Carwyn Leggatt-Jones at fly half last night and he did very well. He was unfortunate to be charged down for what proved to be the winning try, but he is definitely one to watch.
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Ye gods, the URC highlights are garbage. Cutting the commentator off mid-word (never mind mid-sentence), the outcome of the Leinster card review is just caught as background noise, half time happens during an edit and who needs to see conversion attempts in a tight match?
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Refit – those probably were the actual highlights.
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LIONS!
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Bugger!
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BB – that’s what they get for wearing Reform-blue kit.
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Ospreys start brightly with a converted try, but then Ulster come back with two quick ones of their own, unfortunately not converted. Playing some lovely rugby.
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Ospreys absolutely destroying our scrum.
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Quick comments on the Munster game – watched while cooking dinner.
Good start but continually overplaying – a tip on, a pull back – going from side to side and creating no breaks or compressions.
Looks impressive but easy for the defence to drift over and back
More direct in the second half and better for it.
A point dropped effectively.
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Still 7-10 at HT. Some drama, no further scores.
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If we manage a BPT – and the win, of course – we will go second, shoving Leinster down! And we still have a match in hand.
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The win, never mind the BPT, is looking increasingly less likely in the second half.
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Yep, Ospreys score after completely dominating the half so far.
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Ulster score!
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One point in it as Doak’s gone off and Murphy has missed the sticks.
But hang on, something is being checked.
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Oh. Marcus Rea has been done for a dangerous clean-out.
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Fuck. Ospreys score again. That’s the match.
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Ulster nearly score for a LBP at the end but fail.
Kok had the worst game I’ve ever seen him play.
I suppose I don’t mind losing to the Ospreys TOO much; they’ve had a tough time of it.
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I haven’t done a Real Rugby report for a while, our stride was broken a few weeks ago when we fell to local rivals Haddington in a top of the table clash in the Arnold Clark East Region League Division 1 (Men’s). That put Haddington in the hot seat for promotion to National 4. The word is that Haddington will defeat most of the most if not all of the teams in that league. They refused promotion last year because they didn’t think they were ready and couldn’t guarantee player numbers for the long away trips. They are in a position to do so now so breast of duck to them as Sag used to say.
Dunbar entertained Dalkeith yesterday and ran out 73 – 5 winners. They used to beat us handily and their big forwards were seemingly more interested in fighting than playing rugby – this left big gaps all over the pitch.
just a little description of one of our tries, the opposition were hammering at our line with pick and goes, they had at least five attempts from their heavier pack. The last one saw our number 8 turn the ball over and our scrum half immediately shipped it left from under the posts. A couple of passes released our inside centre to go the length and dot down under the opposition sticks.
If a team’s collective body language could say, “fuck this, I’m off” it was that moment as it took us over the 50 mark.
I was doing the scoreboard and got quite the workout.
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‘Scuse the typo in that :-(
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In case you need your daily dose of rugby, try to find last night game between Bordeaux and Pau. It was a cracker, though both teams were missing major players. French rugby at its best.
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They refused promotion last year
@ticht
That’s happened a couple of times recently in the Munster Junior League – a Munster club was relegated from AIL but the champions refused promotion for the reasons you noted.
process is one club gets relegated and replaced by club from same province. Provincial junior league champions then play off, and winners then playoff against the second last club in AIL Div 2C – juniors don’t always take this seriously.
That might change as Div 2 will be regional in 2026-27, so current Munster junior champions – Kilfeacle – might go for it. In the past, they’ve won the MJL and then looked at trips to the north and looked at their bank balance and decided to leave it off.
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Flair, I enjoyed that match.
Trisk, I remember looking into this a few years ago when the number of national leagues was the subject of several discussions and extraordinary AGMs at the Scottish Rugby Union.
Ireland was the only other country in the world to have the same number of national leagues below professional rugby as Scotland – bonkers, with far more pressure on players’ time through work and family commitments and generally the fewer players we all have available as clubs, it’s madness to have so much travel.
On the other hand it can get a bit dull playing the same teams every year. It could be that two teams go up due to us having 9 clubs in the league and if we are given the chance we will probably take it. The committee have said that if the players all buy into it by committing their time we’ll find the money for transport.
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I’ve just had a quick look some of the Scottish league tables and several of them have had teams withdrawn from the leagues whilst other have had points deductions – there’s even teams sitting on a negative number of points. This will all be down to lack of players and non-fulfilment of fixtures.
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@ticht
Munster Juniors have been pretty good last few years – very few concessions (penalty is nasty … minus five pts and another minus five next season) and only a couple of teams clubs have folded mid-season.
It’s the cups that tend to see concessions – too many of them shoe-horned into the season.
Not sure how it goes in other provinces. Leinster are organised slightly differently in that “metro” league includes 2nds and 3rds and so on – whereas here senior clubs 2nds are excluded from the J1 level but their 3rds and 4ths etc can compete at J2, J3 level with junioir seconds etc
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Dave Rennie the new All Blacks coach. If they’d just waited a week, they coulda scooped up Steve Borthwick for a song!
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A team I approve of!
Ireland:
15. Jamie Osborne (Naas/Leinster)(13)
14. Robert Baloucoune (Enniskillen/Ulster)(6)
13. Garry Ringrose (UCD/Leinster)(72)
12. Stuart McCloskey (Bangor/Ulster)(26)
11. Jacob Stockdale (Lurgan/Ulster)(41)
10. Jack Crowley (Cork Constitution/Munster)(33)
9. Jamison Gibson-Park (Leinster)(49)
Replacements:
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O’Pfffttt!
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O’Pfffttt!
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” they coulda scooped up Steve Borthwick for a song!”
I wonder what song you would have to sing. Non-singing Saffers are safe I suppose..
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“A team I approve of!”
Plenty of Ulster I see. If we’re the new Italy I think you should be starting your back up nine and ten though…
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Could certainly start with Doaky at 9! Not so sure about back-up 10, though.
If our set-piece is as horrible as it has been lately, you stand a good chance of beating us. I expect you to absolutely demolish our scrum.
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I’m really pleased that Timoney is getting a start; he bloody deserves it. Also very chuffed that Doak will almost certainly get a cap; it’s unfathomable that this will be his first.
Turns out that Izuchukwu wasn’t dropped; he was injured and I think will be training with the squad again this week.
I’ll whisper it: I would have started Tommy O’Brien over Stockdale.
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@Thaum – Hard to see what O’Brien did wrong.
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Turns out that Izuchukwu wasn’t dropped
Concussion – during training
Hard to see what O’Brien did wrong
Yeah – wasn’t good against France, out of the 23 vs Italy, back in 23 vs England and did well, out of the 23 again
A team I approve of…
Kelleher/Stewart had been mooted
As was Doak in 23 as Casey is carrying some kind of injury since Castres.
Timoney deserves a start – he was good vs France and other games (let’s face it he’s deserved a start long since)
O’Toole at LH is taking a chance – been rumours all season that Farrell wanted him switched from TH, but Ulster haven’t (afaik) played ball there
Not so sure about back-up 10
Yeah, could go anywhere. If Crowley injured or not playing 80 by design – probably Frawley. Injury to a wing – and it’s musical chairs….. Osborne to wing and Frawley to FB, or Ringrose to wing and Frawley/T.Farrell to centre
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