Yet Another Cycling Forum
Off Topic => The Pub => The Sporting Life => Topic started by: Mr Larrington on 01 February, 2019, 10:00:08 pm
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I'd love to know what the French coach told the team at half-time to make them bollix up the second half that badly.
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France clearly had their finger on the self destruct button longer than Wales did.
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You can't judge a lot from 5 minutes' highlights, but that looked like a lot of fun - unless you happen to be French, of course.
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I don't usually watch Rugby, but I watched that game and it was thoroughly entertaining. I think the terrible weather played a massive part in a lot of the fuck ups...
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Scotland-Italy pretty much according to the form book but I hope those smug bastards at Paddy Power lost their collective shirt after the game in Dublin :D
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It seems to be assumed by those who think they know about these things that Wales will have no trouble in beating Italy next week - I am never so sure about these "sporting certainties" - and will therefore set up a very significant game against England at Cardiff for a week or two later.
It seems from the Graun's article that Wales' win yesterday was the biggest turn-round ever in the history of European/British rugby. I'm not a fan of these records as when I first started watching rugby over 50 years ago the try was only 3 points so you have to analyse the result in order to make a fair comparison. I had in my mind England v Wales 1970 as a bigger turn-round as I recalled, incorrectly, that England had been 13 - 0 (two converted tries and a penalty) up when Gareth Edwards was taken off injured and Chico Hopkins replaced him. I knew that Wales had won 17 - 13, but I had sadly forgotten about Mervyn Davies' first-half try*, which brought the score back to England 5 - 3 Wales. Wales scored 4 tries, 1 conversion and one dropped goal, so under today's points values, that would have been 25 - 17 to Wales. But Mervyn Davies ruined it... :D
*there's a 14-minute video of the highlights, introduced by Max Boyce
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England* seem to have done reasonably well this evening.
*Rugby. Not Cricket.
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Bonus point against Ireland in Dublin, not bad. :thumbsup:
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Bonus point against Ireland in Dublin, not bad. :thumbsup:
I was hoping England wouldn't get that last try and the bonus point so that Scotland would be top of the table.
Seems they are anyway.
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Wales-France: :(
England-Ireland: :(
Bloody weekend all round.
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Bonus point against Ireland in Dublin, not bad. :thumbsup:
England relaxed a little to rely and paid the price. That Ireland try in the last five minutes woke them up again and they nearly got another try. I thought it was a good performance by the England pal though, as for,the most part they kept the pressure on the Irish and just didn’t let them get any momentum.
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It seems to be assumed by those who think they know about these things that Wales will have no trouble in beating Italy next week - I am never so sure about these "sporting certainties" - and will therefore set up a very significant game against England at Cardiff for a week or two later.
I'd be keen to bet against Italy in that one - what odds do you want, I'm sure we can come to an agreement :)
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It seems to be assumed by those who think they know about these things that Wales will have no trouble in beating Italy next week - I am never so sure about these "sporting certainties" - and will therefore set up a very significant game against England at Cardiff for a week or two later.
I'd be keen to bet against Italy in that one - what odds do you want, I'm sure we can come to an agreement :)
I think the last time I bet on a rugby match was when the Roberts Norster and Jones beat a vastly over-hyped England side in something like 1989. The BBC were so sure that England were going to win in Cardiff for the first time in 26 years that they assembled the entire 1963 team in the studio before the match started. Sadly, the guy who lost the bet (a pint, IIRC) was cremated last week.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/that-1980s-sports-blog/2013/mar/20/remembering-england-cardiff-five-nations-1989
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Aha I see now - this was a cunning plan so I'd THINK I would win some money off you, but ACTUALLY you'd shoehorn in another "vastly over-hyped England side" anecdote.
Well played sir!
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Aha I see now - this was a cunning plan so I'd THINK I would win some money off you, but ACTUALLY you'd shoehorn in another "vastly over-hyped England side" anecdote.
Well played sir!
Well, of course! I have absolutely no shortage of anecdotes about shit England rugby sides and quite a lot of them are true.
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So do you still think Italy will beat Wales?
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No. I think Wales will win. But I thought they would beat France without the latter totally ballsing up the second half. I have a suspicion it will be much closer than the pundits seem to think. Note the expression I used in the post in question: "I am never so sure about these sporting certainties." Quite a bit of nuance there if you care to look for it.
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No. I think Wales will win. But I thought they would beat France without the latter totally ballsing up the second half. I have a suspicion it will be much closer than the pundits seem to think. Note the expression I used in the post in question: "I am never so sure about these sporting certainties." Quite a bit of nuance there if you care to look for it.
I suggest you look for any reputable pundit stating that a Wales win is a "certainty".
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No. I think Wales will win. But I thought they would beat France without the latter totally ballsing up the second half. I have a suspicion it will be much closer than the pundits seem to think. Note the expression I used in the post in question: "I am never so sure about these sporting certainties." Quite a bit of nuance there if you care to look for it.
I suggest you look for any reputable pundit stating that a Wales win is a "certainty".
Surely "reputable pundit" is an oxymoron. Their job is to hype teams up to sell papers or persuade people to tune to a particular channel.
I think I'm a reputable pundit in that I have over half a century of watching rugby and other sports and the unexpected turns up far more often that one might expect. ;) I just don't try to make any money out of it. At least, not since Wales v England 1989.
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Perhaps I'm missing something - where are these "sporting certainties" of which you speak reported?
(I think we all know that sport creates expected results and unexpected results. )
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Perhaps I'm missing something - where are these "sporting certainties" of which you speak reported?
(I think we all know that sport creates expected results and unexpected results. )
I was referring to the opening paragraph of this article:
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/feb/02/warren-gatland-wales-france-six-nations-paris
Warren Gatland predicted this would be Wales’s toughest game of the Six Nations. He claimed that if Wales beat France in Paris they would have a great chance of winning the championship. He is right. Having pulled off the biggest comeback in Championship history with their extraordinary 24-19 victory, Wales swan off to the Riviera for a few days, as they prepare for their assignment in Rome next Saturday, which they will surely win.
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https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/feb/05/thousands-of-six-nations-tickets-touted-on-viagogo-investigation-reveals
I think perhaps this post belongs in the thread entitled "Unsporting life".
I can't remember whether the first international match I attended was Wales v Australia or Scotland v Wales, in 1972 or 1973. Both were in quick succession. I recall a pal and I paid face value for the tickets at the Cardiff Arms Park, just walking in the day before the match (it was a very weak Aussie side and the tickets just weren't selling) and handing a small sum of cash (probably about a quid - I can't remember) to a bloke at a desk. The second occasion, we paid cash at a turnstile - no paperwork involved. It cost 60p.
Edit: research indicates that the match at Murrayfield, won 10-9 by Scotland, was on 3rd Feb 1973, and the Australia (24 - 0 to Wales) match was on 10th November 1973.
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“Ireland will be like a wounded buffalo, nostrils flared” says Alan Partridg John Inverdale.
;D ;D
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Scotland would appear to be the better team on the field, but the score line doesn’t agree.
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Too many handling errors. Shame they didn't get a bonus losing point though.
Ah. They didn't manage the bonus point because yet more handling errors. :(
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Yum! Soddige and chips.
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I think my pre-match caution concerning Wales' chances today was amply justified by events so far.
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First half hour not too bad.
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First half hour not too bad.
it’s been a bit one sided.
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Second half not good, but championship not quite over yet...
Wales played a great second half.
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Second half not good, but championship not quite over yet...
Wales played a great second half.
We’ll need some serious help from Scotland if we’re not to be runners up.
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Second half not good, but championship not quite over yet...
Wales played a great second half.
We’ll need some serious help from Scotland if we’re not to be runners up.
On Scotland's performances to date, fat chance. It's looking like a slam.
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Don’t write Ireland off...
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Wales may yet regret not scoring 4 tries against Italy for the bonus point.
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The French have, when it's way too late, suddenly remembered how to play le rugby. WTF is going on over there?
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They do this every so often: confidence caves in completely and they try to second-guess themselves out of despond, failing miserably. It takes a team as generous as Scotland to give them a few points so that they can get their heads back together again.
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Don’t write Ireland off...
Yes, I’d forgotten that Ireland were still to play Wales.
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That is the final round I think. ‘Twill be a tense affair.
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Don’t write Ireland off...
If they play against Wales the way they played in Rome yesterday...
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Welsh slam. Don’t see Scotland winning any more matches in this tournament. Normal service restored.
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Ireland beat Wales, England beat Italy, probably even declaring at half-time. England win championship, Wales a gallant but regretful (Italy) second.
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If only we'd declared at half-time in Cardiff - you're a tactical genius Peter!
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And if France had declared at half-time against Wales ;D
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What's with all this talk of declarations in a rugby thread?
It's just not cricket.
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It's just occurred to me that it is possible for a team to achieve the Grand Slam yet fail to win the championship.
Five wins would be 20 points.
Four wins plus five bonus points (obviously that includes one losing bonus point) would be 21 points.
That's mad. I hope I never see it.
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You get three bonus points for winning the Grand Slam.
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It's just occurred to me that it is possible for a team to achieve the Grand Slam yet fail to win the championship.
Five wins would be 20 points.
Four wins plus five bonus points (obviously that includes one losing bonus point) would be 21 points.
That's mad. I hope I never see it.
Jaded is right about the three points. However, as I understand it, it is equally possible that next weekend that Wales and Ireland will draw and England will win. That means that the championship will go to a team with 4 wins and one loss and the team with 4 wins and one draw will come second. That is also totally ridiculous.
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If you have any kind of bonus point system, it will create alleged anomalies.
If you award points for big try hauls, then of course there will be a flip-side. In this case, draws aren't worth very much.
(In practice, the funny-shaped ball game creates so few draws that it's not a big issue. In the sensible-shaped ball game, 3-points-for-a-win makes a big difference to tactics.)
My personal preference in these round-robin systems is to have Result-between-the-two-teams as the first "Decider" - in which case Wales could not finish behind England.
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You get three bonus points for winning the Grand Slam.
Ah. Ok. Thanks.
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It's just occurred to me that it is possible for a team to achieve the Grand Slam yet fail to win the championship.
Five wins would be 20 points.
Four wins plus five bonus points (obviously that includes one losing bonus point) would be 21 points.
That's mad. I hope I never see it.
Jaded is right about the three points. However, as I understand it, it is equally possible that next weekend that Wales and Ireland will draw and England will win. That means that the championship will go to a team with 4 wins and one loss and the team with 4 wins and one draw will come second. That is also totally ridiculous.
We can but hope ;D
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If you have any kind of bonus point system, it will create alleged anomalies.
If you award points for big try hauls, then of course there will be a flip-side. In this case, draws aren't worth very much.
(In practice, the funny-shaped ball game creates so few draws that it's not a big issue. In the sensible-shaped ball game, 3-points-for-a-win makes a big difference to tactics.)
My personal preference in these round-robin systems is to have Result-between-the-two-teams as the first "Decider" - in which case Wales could not finish behind England.
Agreed.
I know you are amongst those who don't consider chess a sport, but because of the nature of the game there are some well-tried and tested means of breaking ties, which are very common in the typical weekend Swiss-paired event - a hybrid between league and knockout tournament in which typically a group of 40-odd competitors will compete over only 6 rounds. Basically, your opponent in each round will be, as far as possible, on the same score as you are.
When I began controlling tournaments over 30 years ago, the first tie-break was sum-of-progressive-scores, which gives weight to games won early on. The chances are that if your SOPS is high, you will have had to play stronger opponents than someone whose SOPS is low. The next tie-break was sum-of-opponents'-scores. The drawback of this was that in the final round two very strong players might be looking at what a couple of rabbits on board 18 were doing before they knew who had won.
Then, someone had the bright idea of taking the game between the protagonists as the first tie-break criterion and FIDE changed the rules. It generally works well, but I can remember one event where there was a tie for first place in which player A beat B, B beat C, C beat D and D beat A. It was our club championship and I was one of the 4. I think in the end we agreed to share first place.
If England do win the title as a result of a Wales-Ireland draw, that will be most unsatisfactory. This bonus point nonsense really makes it pot luck. If a good side plays Italy on a lovey dry pitch in Rome in March, they are far more likely to notch up a hatful of points than if they play them in Murrayfield on a wet February afternoon when there's little chance to show off ball-handling skills.
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The problem with the head-to-head tie-breaker comes if Ireland beat Wales next week. You would be in the situation where Ireland have to come higher than Wales, Wales have to come higher than England, but also England have to come higher than Ireland.
I can see the point of the bonus points, as it gives some extra interest to the games themselves, and otherwise you would end up with it being points difference only. However, I can agree with the 3 points for a grand slam too, as it would seem a little strange for a team that won 4, but gained 6 bonus points (5x4 tries, plus 1 for losing by less than 7) could come out 2 points above the team that beat them if that team collected no bonus points at all.
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yes, of course you could still get a 3-way "daisy-chain" tie ! But then you bring the other deciders in, by agreed sequence.
(the 3-way will be rarer than the 2-team version) England's +83 points difference should be deservedly rewarded, some might say ... :P
The next decider could well be a bonus-point system like the current one. All just MHO, and I plan to bet Wowbagger 50 notes that Wales will beat Ireland, to make this all irrelevant ;)
There is another loophole in the current system which I haven't heard mentioned - if a team scores 3 tries, and is leading by 11 points as the 80mins is up, its in both teams interest to play on until one of them grabs the extra bonus point!
[please adjust accordingly for any minor errors in the above ... ]
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There is always the (perfectly satisfactory) situation in which a title can be shared. I can't see how anyone suffers from that situation. It won't retract from the games - they will already have been decided. It won't detract from the spectacle.
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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Five_Nations_Championship
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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Five_Nations_Championship
But if it had been the Six Nations back then the winner would presumably be the one who hammered Italy the hardest ;D
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Points difference was not used until more recently. In 1973, everyone just won their home games.
For the purposes of positioning in the table, the teams were placed in order of points difference, but the title was still a 5-way tie.
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Also: France. WTF ??? First unchanged team for 16 years, play like they first met in the tunnel.
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I appear to be the only person in the village not wearing a Wales top.
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France wins 26-14* but the Italian captain is man of the match. Eloquent.
*or thereabouts
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I appear to be the only person in the village not wearing a Wales top.
It’s looking like excellent news st the moment. :thumbsup:
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Where has this Scottish side been fot the last 8 weeks?
England need to start playing again.
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Smugly satisfied with our championship and Grand Slam.
Astonished at the Scots comeback!
Depressed that they only get fired up when playing the English. If they can play as they have done this second half, as Matthew effectively says, why not more often and against teams other than England?
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I was right about Wales winning the slam.
I was wrong that we wouldn't have enough to stop England.
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What a final day! Three brilliant games. I feel gutted for the Italians though.
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Ireland capitulation, they've really underperformed this year.
England WTF? That is the bizzarest game I've ever seen. It really did look like two different games. I know that kind of lapse will be punished at the world cup. Some of those Scotland tries should have been snuffed out thirty yards from the line.
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We were in the pub for all three matches. Just before I left we got a one word text from Tomas Francis (Wales tight end prop who is from our village), it said "Party!"
His Dad and cousin went down to Cardiff to see the match, I hate to think what state the three of them will be in later tonight.
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I listened to the England game driving back from Birmingham. When I started listening it was 31-0, but the Champioship was already gone, after a stunning Welsh display.
As an Englishman who can be a Scot I was most disappointed that England managed to scrape a draw.
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And a technical question, without that last try, would yesterday have been the first time a team received two bonus points in a match?
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Just binge-watched all three of yesterday's games. WTF did someone slip into the Sweaties' half-time Irn-Bru ???
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And a technical question, without that last try, would yesterday have been the first time a team received two bonus points in a match?
No as you get three bonus points for winning the Grand Slam. So in the match that seals a Grand Slam you could get 4 Bonus points if you scored four tries as well. Wales got 3 bonus points on Saturday.
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I meant England, who had four tries and were about to lose by 7 points or less.
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And a technical question, without that last try, would yesterday have been the first time a team received two bonus points in a match?
No as you get three bonus points for winning the Grand Slam. So in the match that seals a Grand Slam you could get 4 Bonus points if you scored four tries as well. Wales got 3 bonus points on Saturday.
So they got 3, not two! ;)
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_ftDaeVTOE
I found this video of Saturday's Wales v Ireland first half. Can someone tell me what language the commentators are speaking please?
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_ftDaeVTOE
I found this video of Saturday's Wales v Ireland first half. Can someone tell me what language the commentators are speaking please?
I'd guess Georgian.
(Based on the general sound, some specific words, and also after googling the name of the person that uploaded the video.)
Enabling subtitles is amusing.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_ftDaeVTOE
I found this video of Saturday's Wales v Ireland first half. Can someone tell me what language the commentators are speaking please?
I'd guess Georgian.
(Based on the general sound, some specific words, and also after googling the name of the person that uploaded the video.)
Enabling subtitles is amusing.
I think you are right. I looked the guy up on facebook and bunged a post of his into Google Translate. Georgian is the answer.
Georgia actually is a pretty decent rugby playing nation.
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I just watched the extended highlights of the England-Scotland match. Crikey! What a wonderful spectacle!
I've never seen that little Scots winger before - Darcy Graham. He looks very impressive - reminds me of Shane Williams.
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I'm now watching the full England Scotland game. Last week I watched Wales v Ireland. There seems to be a preponderance of pinch-featured goal-kickers.
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John Barclay was another big miss for Scotland. He's back playing at last so hopefully will be available for the World Cup.
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The problem with the head-to-head tie-breaker comes if Ireland beat Wales next week. You would be in the situation where Ireland have to come higher than Wales, Wales have to come higher than England, but also England have to come higher than Ireland.
I can see the point of the bonus points, as it gives some extra interest to the games themselves, and otherwise you would end up with it being points difference only. However, I can agree with the 3 points for a grand slam too, as it would seem a little strange for a team that won 4, but gained 6 bonus points (5x4 tries, plus 1 for losing by less than 7) could come out 2 points above the team that beat them if that team collected no bonus points at all.
A late epilogue to all this discussion; this month's email from my local ball-game league contained this news item:
6) Over 70’s Tournament:
.... Tim advised that the event only had 6 entries from the 18 eligible. On the day there was one drop out so the 5 played a ‘round robin’ tournament. Arthur Chilvers won all his 4 matches so became Champion for the second time. There were 3 players each with 2 wins and Tim was declared the runner up as the best of the three
(My bold) There you go - that's the way to handle these things!