The Dew Drop Inn Virtual Rugby Pub

First topic message reminder :

Welcome to the virtual rugby pub - a place where you can come in for a sly beverage and discuss whatever's on your mind, or just eavesdrop on the regulars if you fancy a break from all the rugby chat.

The only rule in this pub is one of mutual respect for everyone in it, oh and no defacing the David Pocock photo on the bar. That's a banning offence

So pull up a chair....what'll it be?

Am off until Monday looking after the wife after her operation, so it is going to be a rugbytastic weekend, oh yeah.

Morning all

Raining cats and dogs here. Day of getting the house work and DIY jobs done while the kids are at school/nursery, make sure the wife's got no reason to get me doing anything once the weekend starts.

Good thinking, Pete!

Mr Gatland's up to his old tricks:

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/sport/rugby/world-cup/muller-stands-up-for-springboks-16045681.html

When will he learn?

Dull and damp here - story of the whole 'summer'. Going to pull up all tomato plants today, total waste of time they were this year. Mr Puma's birthday today but he's at his work, not home until tomorrow . Going to do special birthday dinner - should I make a cake?

FFS waiting for this RWC to kick off is like chinese water torture .

Can't get my freeview + box to pick up any channels other than RTE which I can't view, so I can't record any of the games.

I'm presuming that ITV will repeat the games in the evening or they will be on the website?

They'll be showing highlights every evening, Rodders.

Puma, it depends how good you are at baking!

Don't have a sweet tooth, Luckless, so I don't bake cakes etc that often. Thing is, Mr Puma isn't that cake mad either - think my world famous (hem, hem) lemon meringue pie might go down better.

Lemon meringue, good choice

Can you box not pick up ITV 4 Rodders? It should be able too. All the matches are live on ITV 1 or 4 si?

Lemon meringue pie and key lime pie, both delicious.

WillyGilly wrote:Can you box not pick up ITV 4 Rodders? It should be able too. All the matches are live on ITV 1 or 4 si?

Willy I've lost all the channels on my Freeview+ box. It seem so be set to RTENL as the provider and I can't seem to change it, so the channel scan only picks up RTE.

I can't understand it because my TV uses the same external arial and picks up all the freeview channels but its not freeview + so I can't record. It seems to be a recent problem but don't know when it started because I don't use the + box much.

Typical for this to happen just before the WC .....

Interesting piece on the WC ball in this morning's telegraph.

Did you know the ball has 80,000 star-shaped pimples 1mm in height to provide increased surface area contact with the hands and thus assist passing control.

The ball is 300mm in length, 620 in circumference and weights 450 grams.

I bet we still make oodles of knock ons Willy.

BTW last night was an amazing spectacle. Match I was Assistant Ref for. SEVEN scrums won against the head. They actually scrummed as were meant to.

Really restored my faith in scrum

red_stag wrote:SEVEN scrums won against the head.

Tony Buckley wasn't playing TH by any chance....

I hope we see more of the same after the World Cup, Stag. On that subject, I hope someone produces statistics showing what percentage of all World Cup matches were taken up by resetting scrums.

Good idea lucky get on it.

Stag I reckon you could coat a ball with Flubber and an Irish team would still contrive to knock it on.

Oh wait balls Flubber would have the opposite effect wouldn't it?

Morning all. Apparently the RWC ball takes some getting used to, especially when kicked from hand. It does not 'travel' through the air as kickers expect it to and is prone to dip.

I wonder how long NZ have had access to it...

Rodders to be fair the tight head for Blue was APALLING!! They only had a loosehead on the bench (who came on and did just as badly).

But it was a real scrum battle and the bad team even took right attitude. Let them win the ball and concentrate on firstly not giving away a penalty and secondly being ready to smash back the Number 8 who ALWAYS picked from base of scrum.

I'll tell you what annoys me (even though no one's asked): how often referees blow up for a knock on when the ball's dropped, even though it hasn't gone forward. Dropping the ball in itself isn't an offence.

What level of rugby was this stag AIL?

2nd XV though there were about 8 AIL players playing. Quite high skill level for such an early fixture. Last 10 minutes the losing team got all ratty and ended up with a yellow card. 5-5 at half time. 22-5 at final whistle. Game of two halves.

Hound, if that means teams are going to have to rely on scoring tries to win matches, it's no bad thing!

That'll stop South Africa Any team with Steyn-de Villers has zero creativity. Although more than an O'Gara-Darcy combo

Interesting Stag so there's not much front row talent in the AIL either?

Saw this yesterday and found it quite worrying to be honest. I hope this doesn't set a precendent for our game where on-field punch ups end up in court:

https://www.606v2.com/t13201-fair-cop#440134

What do other people think?

T'will surely scupper any attempt by a certain Mr J Wilkinson to drop for goal...

Hound_of_Harrow wrote:Morning all. Apparently the RWC ball takes some getting used to, especially when kicked from hand. It does not 'travel' through the air as kickers expect it to and is prone to dip.

I wonder how long NZ have had access to it...

Is it made by Adidas or Gilbert? If it's Adidas they'll have had it for ages ...

The Highlanders have picked start-of-RWC week to quietly
demote that awful green strip to "away" status for next season, and they're keeping blue gold and maroon. Let's hope the Dunedin locals respond by actually turning up to a few games - the local council is utterly skint after paying for the fancy new RWC stadium too.

Further to my previous, the Highlanders have found enough spare change to entice Hosea Gear south from Wellington, so he's putting off that lucrative move up North.

And the Crusaders look set to play all their home games next season at Christchurch's Rugby League Park, initially upgrading the turf and building a couple of quick-and-dirty stands to seat 25,000.

Rodders - they certainly will. Plenty of rugby related legal cases. Rougerie sued another player for an injury caused in a match. There's been now two rugby referees sued in the UK for allowing injuries to happen and I know for a fact an amatuer soccer player was jailed for a tackle which broke an opposition players leg.

roddersm wrote:Interesting Stag so there's not much front row talent in the AIL either?

Well, there's the loosehead who detroyed both the tightheads he came up against fairly solidly.

Looks like I'll miss the opening ceremony now. That's a shame. I'll tape it though and as long as I'm back for Sunday, I can't grumble too much.

How's everyone? Awful day today with regards to the weather.

red_stag wrote:Rodders - they certainly will. Plenty of rugby related legal cases. Rougerie sued another player for an injury caused in a match. There's been now two rugby referees sued in the UK for allowing injuries to happen and I know for a fact an amatuer soccer player was jailed for a tackle which broke an opposition players leg.

Down under ex-Kiwi league player Jarrod McCracken successfully sued now Stephen Kearney (who's now NZ RL coach), Marcus Bai and the Melbourne Storm after a spear tackle ended his career.


Miserable day here too Rev, and I'm playing a netball final tonight. We're starting the game on -5 points too as one of our shooters is on holiday (the season was extended by a week as the venue closed during the riots so we can't really criticise her timing) too, but touch wood.

Watching England v Ireland 2006, Six Nations at work today. We were actually very lucky to win it IMO. 1st try shouldn't have stood and O'Callaghan should have had 10 minutes in the bin.

red_stag wrote:

roddersm wrote:Interesting Stag so there's not much front row talent in the AIL either?

Well, there's the loosehead who detroyed both the tightheads he came up against fairly solidly.

Great another LH and no THs!!

And to dress it up even more the Yellow tight head held his own throughout. However I'd be certain that the grizzly veteran who was playing there won't be representing Ireland any time soon.

Stag is that the match were Horgan scored with his go-go gadget arm at the end or the one were he scored after kicking ahead when the ball looked to have (possibly) grazed the touchline?

To be fair we had a few lucky wins over the years but you make your own luck I suppose.

I agree on the try scoring sentiment lucky

And Gilbert are the ball suppliers for the tourny.

Stag - Rougerie sued Phil Greening over an injury to his throat he suffered when Greening handed him off in a game in 2002.

roddersm wrote:Stag is that the match were Horgan scored with his go-go gadget arm at the end or the one were he scored after kicking ahead when the ball looked to have (possibly) grazed the touchline?

To be fair we had a few lucky wins over the years but you make your own luck I suppose.

Ah you do yes. Both of those were in the same game. For me the ball was definitely in touch for the second one you refer to.

must be going senile, for some reason I thought they were too different games, so thats the one?

That try at the end was incredible, sorry Stag noway that ball was in touch...

Horgan was and still is a phenomenal player, maybe the best winger in Ireland this season. I can't help thinking that he might make a big difference to our side now with his size and offloading ability. The way the game is played now is perfect for him.

Really good night out last night. Good way to finish it off with the Turks. Going to miss them on nights out.

Teams being named now. It's getting exciting.

MBTGOG wrote:Really good night out last night. Good way to finish it off with the Turks. Going to miss them on nights out.

Teams being named now. It's getting exciting.

Glad you had a good night.

I have a funny feeling I'm going to be messed about with these delays. I just want to get this job done and watch some rugby.

Are they leaving Munsty?

Anyone else think wales will beat the boks on Sunday?

They are Stag. Tomorrow and Thursday.

Rodders,

It's building towards it.

I'd love Wales to beat SA - really not a fan of the Boks.

I'm not sure about 'will' beat them, Rodders. We could beat them, but we could just as easily get beaten quite convincingly. To win, we'll need our forwards to stand up to theirs and our set piece to hold together. I have real concerns about our lineout. Our scrum should be okay.

roddersm wrote:Anyone else think wales will beat the boks on Sunday?

At 6 to 1 on it's actually worth a putting a couple of quid on. Just.

I think Wales have really got there preperation spot on, they look very fit and confident. I have a feeling there's an upset on the cards here.

I'm not sure the boks really see Wales as a serious threat and some of them are already talking about winning the trophy. Wales have only just come up short against the boks in recent times and with their improved fitness might just have the edge here.

Going to do my sportguru picks now for the wc, I reckon there is money to be made on accumulaters during the pools

The funny thing is that Gatland doesn't seem any more popular amongst the Wales fans.

I like him more now that we've seen a bit more wit and attacking intent with ball in hand in the warm-ups, Stag. Also, I wasn't sure about his decision to take the squad to that place in Poland but it looks like it was exactly what we needed.

I wish he'd take lessons from Declan Kidney when it comes to talking about the opposition, though.