The Dew Drop Inn Virtual Rugby Pub, Ballycastle Bar, Hong Kong.

First topic message reminder :

Hello and 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 pub has made its way to Hong Kong, host city for the British & Irish Lions first Tour match before their arrival in Australia - land of the Giant Budgie Smuggler.

So grab a beer, cider, whiskey or wine.... or a warm beverage and sit back and enjoy the rugby.

                     

The only rule in this pub is one of mutual respect for everyone in it, oh and no tampering with the pictures of Rory Best, Sam Warburton, the Limavady Luge Team, Papa Rodders, Mrs Rodders and our newest & sweetest member, Katelyn.    

last Pawb: https://www.606v2.com/t43001p1000-the-dew-drop-inn-virtual-rugby-pub-pyongyang

Which one, Jen?
Coca Cola Bdg in North Sydney or 388 George St?

The Ark..... Actually that IS the Coca Cola building isn't it?

Yeah, The Ark is the Coca Cola bdg.

I won't be crossing over to the 'dark side' on the way to the hotel that night (or maybe just a quick loop?) but certainly I'd like to take her, Hound and Stag on a drive up the Northern beaches to 'Summer Bay' (Palm Beach) via the Ku-ring-gai National Park ('former' home of Skippy) then back down the coast to Manly, Nth Head and over the Spit and along Military Rd (Mosman, Bradley's Head, Taronga Zoo, etc) depending on the schedule (we can drive by the Ark then). Would take about 2 hours; 3 with a stop for a bite somewhere. It's much nicer on the northern side rather than the eastern... and Bondi Beach is too snobby, over-crowded and overrated (imo) but of course I can understand every tourist wants to go there. It's very nice up around Vaucluse, Watson's Bay, Rose Bay (east) though... some stunning views of the harbour, bridge and islands.

Only time I was there was January 08. And only for a few days. Expensive to get to (Especially with 5 people) and these days expensive to be there too.

It's a very expensive city. I think it's in the top 10 these days. However, the quality of life is superb. It was very good value for money 25-30 years ago... then there was an explosion of wealth creation... property prices went through the roof and just keep going up. It's almost impossible to get a foot in these days (about 40% rent which was unheard of 30 years ago) but if you go further out or even to places outside the metro area you can get some great house/land deals. Land is still relatively cheap in the real country areas or in the regional centres.

Very impressed with Sydney, it is bloody expensive though. Melbourne was so Baltic I've caught a cold... on my summers holidays... not cool... On the plus side though I've just returned to my hostel room to find 1 French and 2 German birds have moved in. Swings and roundabouts!

Linebreaker wrote:It's a very expensive city. I think it's in the top 10 these days. However, the quality of life is superb. It was very good value for money 25-30 years ago... then there was an explosion of wealth creation... property prices went through the roof and just keep going up. It's almost impossible to get a foot in these days (about 40% rent which was unheard of 30 years ago) but if you go further out or even to places outside the metro area you can get some great house/land deals. Land is still relatively cheap in the real country areas or in the regional centres.

Sounds like Ireland about 6 years ago.......... May end in similar (property) tears. Not as bad perhaps, but watch this space. (And don't buy any property outside of what you want to live in)

WillyGilly wrote:Very impressed with Sydney, it is bloody expensive though. Melbourne was so Baltic I've caught a cold... on my summers holidays... not cool... On the plus side though I've just returned to my hostel room to find 1 French and 2 German birds have moved in. Swings and roundabouts!

You're here!  watch out peoples - hide yer daughters!!  

Are you in Victoria St, Kings Cross perchance... or in a quieter, less rowdy area?

It was quite nice outside today. I've been felling trees... feeling slightly kissed by the winter sun.  

I can feel a Japanese (dinner) coming on...

I've never had Japanese food. I'm pretty sure I'd love it.

It's so easy to eat, Lucky.

Just got a 'Dinner Box'  - 6 tuna/salmon sushi, chicken teriyaki, boiled rice, tempura (veggies fried in light batter... a single bean!, a prawn, a slice of pumpkin and the Japanese equivalent of a potato scallop) and the bit I eat first - takoyaki (squid balls.. no, not those bits but it's like a fish croquette with this really nice sauce (mayo?) and very light onion shavings which make a slight hissing sound when they serve it to you in Osaka. It's actually street food. Heavenly aroma!

I knew a girl once with a Japanese box...

Was her name Pandora?

If only. I've always wanted to use that joke on a second date...

Nevermind

Good morning.

I've just been woken up by the garbage truck taking all my 'garden waste' away. Music to my ears.

To be honest, I was waiting for a knock on the door from a Council worker and a "Do you realise, mate... you can't..........."
Silence is Golden.

Dreamer must nearly be over the Horn of India. You are such a kind boss, Glas.  
You should packed up the office have come on over too! Oh well, maybe The Ashes?

My mate and his family lives in Perth. He's been out there 12 years now. I've been saying that I will visit him for a decade and I haven't been yet!

Just do it mate. Set the date and book the tickets. It's worth the plunge.

Is it end of financial year with you now?
I can imagine you have to be there for that (if so) but can you hand over the reigns (temporarily) to another director if you have urgent matters to attend to for a couple of weeks in Oz this summer?

Mornin LB. That dinner box sounds a bit posh ( if not delictable) sausage rolls and pasties up here.. Sailed into Sydney in 2000 (coutresy of the Royal Navy) and had a great few days there. Had a heavy night in kings cross with VB giving me the worst hangover ever. Ppl really friendly and some great banter/grief from the blokes about England being crap at every sport, which I think we were back then..if not still lol.

G'day Breadvan.

I think Willy had one of those nights last night!

The dinner box thing is for your average man... sort of like pasty or pie with sauce for us but better presented as the Japanese do. You can pick up the 'Lunch Box' on the bullet trains too - but if you are short for time - they have these smartly dressed girls (wearing 60s style 'airline' caps) with trolleys coming down the aisles. They bow to the passengers as they enter through the doors... and again when they go into the next carriage. Very polite.

Evening all - g'day in Aus. I made the Skyrail (cable car) trip to

Kuranda yesterday and the scenic railway ride back. I had a flu like virus and a mean headache to go with it. Gawd, I was shattered when we got back (mainly because of walk thru the rainforest and back to the village) at about 16.30 and went straight to bed.

It seems to have worked as the aches and shivers have gone and only a mild headache remains.

We are trying to book a trip to Port Douglas and Mossman Gorge today. Couldn't book a reef trip yesterday as I didn't know if I would be fit enough.

LB you should have warned what sort of an area kings cross was! My mother would be in fits if she knew where I was. Staying in bounce opposite central station, very nice place. Climbing the bridge today and possibly blue mountains some other day though we're not sure what there is to do up there... All I'll say is this, we bought a 7 day pass for like 70 odd dollars and have already got more than our money's worth for it. Great transport system lets hope it holds up on Saturday!

BOD dropped... I'm speechless. Genuinely dumbfounded...

I love Gatland's fearlessness to make those big calls. Thats what I want from a coach. It might be a wrong call, it might be a right call but he didn't care about reputation, stature, the fact its the fairy tale ending to the Lions or that we are playing without our other captain figures (Warburton and O'Connell).

He just decided "Whats the best chance of a win on Saturday?" and went from there.

A lesser coach would have been too afraid of a fan/media backlash.

Exactly right, Stag. He hasn't selected on sentiment. And on the issue of leadership, it could be that he expected more / better from O'Driscoll and to a lesser extent Heaslip in the second Test.

Dreamer over Swan Hill... better get cracking!  

http://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/mh141/

Most of the opinion I have heard from a few on the tour is more disbelief that JD2 is retained.

Still, whatever happens you can bet that there will be crowing or retribution from the usual suspects on the main board.

Irish people can't view BOD without any degree of bias.

Should we lose the series, Gatland will carry the can for his failure to go beyond the template he's developed with Wales. He's looking increasingly like a one trick coach and his one trick hasn't worked well against the Aussies in the past.

It's frustrating watching because the Lions haven't had a better opportunity to win a series in years and probably won't in years either. If he's blown this, he deserves all the criticism he'll get.

No question Notch, I'm far from his biggest fan. To be honest I'm surprised he has managed to win in the Northern Hemisphere for so long because he really shouldn't have, their gameplan is so basic I don't know how it hasn't been stopped.

It was always going to happen when he was coach I don't get why people are so surprised to be honest. There is a small faction of Welsh fans who hate him too.

It's not as if the gameplan's a secret. It's based on intense physicality and it often works. But it relies on the opposition not being able to withstand that physicality. When they can, we're in trouble.

Like stag says you have to admire the coach who goes with his instinct no matter the consequences. I think it's a poor call, I think he's panicked. But he's laid his whole reputation on the line.

I can't decide if Gatland is a fool or if he has a cunning plan. Maybe he knows that Roberts is not fit and there will be an 11th hour change which will throw the Aussies completely off their game and reveal an attacking game plan which will send them running for the hills.

No, I don't really believe it either.

 

I know these things have been around for a while but this one is GOOD!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Deg1bQt1rzQ

Luckless Pedestrian wrote:It's not as if the gameplan's a secret. It's based on intense physicality and it often works. But it relies on the opposition not being able to withstand that physicality. When they can, we're in trouble.

In a sense, win or lose on Saturday this tour has been a failure. A failure to take players from four nations and gel them together as one team. We've reached the end of the tour and the Head Coach has come to the conclusion that the only way for us to win is to throw in as many Welshmen as possible and play exactly like Wales.

I still believe it's going to be 50/50 on the day but this team selection is a fairly damning indictment of how Gatland has failed to live up to the ideals of the Lions. Hopefully he's not allowed anywhere near the 2017 tour and I won't be changing my mind if we win the series- the Lions, like the Barbarians, is about more than just winning anyway possible.

Why not throw in Cuthbert, Tipuric and Evans too. What a nonsense.

  

Are you okay Penfro?

MrsP wrote:Are you okay Penfro?

Just heartily sick of all the bitching, whingeing, bickering ..etc  

Ah ha.

Surely it is acceptable to discuss the selection, no?

Maybe we should all just cheer the selection no matter what?

Penfro, one for you on the wall.

I don't know why you Welsh guys are getting upset.

It's the Kiwi we are all mad at!

In other news, Andy Murray's two sets down and missing some sitters.

 

MrsP wrote:Ah ha.

Surely it is acceptable to discuss the selection, no?

Maybe we should all just cheer the selection no matter what?

Discussion ? Haven't seen a lot of that All I've seen is stuff like (and these are not verbatim) -
"BOD's had a muppet alongside him"
"the worse Lions captain in living memory",
"If the Lions lose, he leaves Wales in bits which is what you lot want"
"I don't want to see the Lions win this game",
"Lions are now leaderless and rudderless with AWJ",
"he's boosted his own notoriety as the man who dropped BOD",
"a dingbat captain",
"Gatland can get his own back on the IRFU"
"Gatland didn't want BOD upstaging him"
"Selection of a WUM team"

Anyway, that's me away. Can't be doing with all this sh!te

So, so long as we don't criticise Gatland or any of his selection we're good?

Oakey Doakey!

Or are we allowed to discuss the non-Welsh selections?

Just asking like.

 

So.....what about the tennis then?

Oh, forgot, can't say anything about Murray incase I upset the Scots. And they are upset enough already about the Lio.....OoooopS!

Forgot! We can't discuss that!

 

So.....

How's the weather near you then? Are we allowed to discuss the weather in Wales? Only it's been quite a nice day here and I wouldn't want to be seen to be criticising the Welsh weather if it wasn't as good as the weather in other parts just now. Although we could just blame Gatland for that too I suppose!

 

Gatland is the man to blame for making this tour a farce, no-one else. If the Lions are meant to bring everyone together and the coach is meant to bring the Lions together, the evidence of how good a job he's done is written all over this forum and his teamsheet.

He may win a series but he's failed to remind us why we're meant to care. This is not four nations coming together, it's three being used to augment the strengths of one. Over the course of this tour I've gone from Lions fan to Lions skeptic and this farcial selection is the last straw.

Evening All.  

I agree with Staggy's earlier comment (can't be arrsed with the quoting thingy on here...) When Gatland reintroduced Shane Williams to the international scene I said it would be a stroke of genius or a ridiculous mistake. Now that turned out to be neither really in the grand scheme of things. Not picking BOD is a big call and admittedly a surprising one, but no coach picks their team on sentiment do they? Lions fans shouldn't really start moaning about it until the game is over on Saturday. Then we can go through the post mortem...

How's you Cari?

Whatever about the Lions it's certainly not something worth falling out with folks about!

So, you're off to watch the final test in some drinking den then?

Very true MrsP...

I'm good, although I seem to have burnt the skin underneath my eyes - I'm not sure if I've had an allergic reaction to something or if it's hayfever or something like that. It's stinging like mad, but only looks a bit red. I've got some antihistamine cream so I might put some of that on it.

I'm going to go to O'Neills I think to watch the game. They're open from 9am and are doing a full brekkie for a fiver. As long as I find a top seat near the telly I don't mind. There's only one man I'lll be keeping an eye on...

Did you see the pics of said gent on the UR FB page?

MrsP wrote:Did you see the pics of said gent on the UR FB page?

ooh yes MrsP  I always keep an eye on his...progress on FB...he very kindly replied to a message I'd sent when he got injured too which made me feel warm and fuzzy.