Rugby - New Year, New Coaches, New Laws

[MOBIUS]

I'm really enjoying basking in the radioactive glow emanating from the spectacular case of sour grapes from our English friend...

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Originally posted by Havak
I have two questions:

1) What is a noun?
2) What is a...well, you can probably guess the rest of this sentence.

Damn Midlands red-brick Universities.

I'm really enjoying basking in the radioactive glow emanating from the spectacular case of sour grapes from our English friend...

Make the most of it till the Paddys and les grenouilles stuff you.

[Havak]

Good lord there are no sour grapes involved here.

I was just pointing out the fact that even when the Welsh win a Grand Slam they offer no threat whatsoever to the tri-nations sideS immediately afterwards.

[LDiCesare]

Make the most of it till the Paddys and les grenouilles stuff you.

Mind the and. If the Welsh beat the Irish, I'm afraid they'll beat the French too afterwards.
Lièvremont has hinted he'll make less innovations in the last match, so maybe the French team for the last match will be more experienced, but he's really playing a risky game selecting inexperienced players during the tournament.

[Havak]

And that logically mean that Ashton played a very safe game by selecting the experienced (but poor) players that fell over against Wales.

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Bravo M'sieur Lièvremont - I just realised there was an accent - for having the courage.

[Havak]

Ellis and Tuilagi both return from their long term injuries for our game against Leeds tomorrow.

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Against poor old Leeds. You bully.

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Nice joke, even if it's been adapted to rugby. For reference, Cootamundra is in SW NSW, a hot, dry and unpleasant place:

A Cootamundra farmer dies and goes to hell. The Devil can't help but notice that he doesn't appear to be suffering like everyone else, despite the 35-degree heat and 75 per cent humidity. So the Devil goes over to the farmer and asks why he's so happy. The Coota man says: "I like it here, the temperature is just like ploughing my fields in November."

Right then. Very annoyed, the Devil cranks the temperature up to 40 degrees, with 80 per cent humidity.

"Even better!" exults the farmer to the Devil. "It reminds me so much of Christmas Day two years ago, when all the grandkids were over!" The Devil, now furious, decides to make the farmer really suffer, so he turns the heat up to 50 degrees and the humidity to 100 per cent.

The farmer turns to the Devil and says, "This is great, it's just like working in the silo with my friends in January."

Beside himself with rage, the Devil can stand it no more. Trying an entirely different tack, he turns the temperature down to freezing point and sets the weather control to SNOW. "Lets see what the farmer has to say about THIS," he says to himself.

A little while later, the Devil finds the farmer, only now he's jumping up and down for joy and yelling, "The Waratahs have finally won the Super 14 grand final!"

[MOBIUS]

Ha ha, told Martyn Williams where to go today...

Well, for a parking space...

The Blues game today against Munster was a thriller with a try to win in the final play of the game!

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Jeez, Andydog, you and your wee ones' support for Sarries isn't doing them much good. Barrack a bit harder, son.

Glos -v- Quins was entertaining. Glos would have won fairly comfortably if Willie Walker had kicked half straight. Still, Quins' persistence and willingness to toss it around paid dividends. They've improved 200% since I saw them earlier in the season. The new England squad scrummy looks promising and Balshaw was again embarrassing under the high ball, even if he looked dangerous in attack. Actually, I thought the Quins' full back, Hill, looked handy. Nick Easter was very strong, won MOTM, but it was interesting to see him alongside Narraway, which I hadn't before. While strong and pretty sure, Easter looked slow.

How did you feel at half time in your match, Havak?

[Havak]

You noticed that we contrived to give Leeds a big lead then?

My answer would be "hungry and thirsty". I never felt the result was in doubt. Honest.

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They scored a heck of a lot of points for a team who aren't famous for scoring points. How did Harry Ellis go?

The England coach has obviously been reading the BBC forum. He has succumbed to the Simpson-Daniel army. S-D had a good day yesterday. He can certainly find the gaps, even if Quins' defence isn't always the tightest. His own defence wasn't much tested, though. But the coach is obviously a selective reader of the BBC forum. He somehow manages to overlook the Balshaw poison.

[Havak]

Why JSD over Varndell is a mystery to me. Both have the same weaknesses but at least Tom's is improving as he works on it.

Ellis came off the bench - as one would expect he looked a little rusty and the distribution was a bit pedestrian but his pace seems fine.

Geordan Murphy got yet another untimely injury for his ireland ambitions.

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Shame about Murphy. He was v. good when O'Sullivan finally played him in his best position.

Cipriani in at full back is sensible. He's never going to dislodge Wilko and he's never going to get experience coming off the bench. He also can't be any worse than Balshaw. Nice to see the broad backside of that nong hooker, too. Hopefully Tom Croft will be up with the pace of the game this week. For the coach's benefit.