England beat Australia in the Rugby World Cup quarter final:
When England get into a World Cup semifinal but you know nothing about rugby… pic.twitter.com/MuVJftofce
— Joe Crann (@YesWeCrann) October 19, 2019
I mean… it’s great. Well done, boys and all that, but… that’s about all.
I will be happy with two more wins in the competition, but my Alan Partridge shrug will remain.
It was one of those stellar games of football in which everyone in our team just clicked. Like a sweetly purring machine. Like a well-lubricated steam engine. Like a carefully made jigsaw puzzle. Like a… [that’s enough dreadful analogies now – Ed.] Anyway, we made our opposition look a lot worse than they were as we put them to the sword 9-2: I even got a goal!
Home then for a shower and some of the incredible Spurs 2-7 Bayern game (not quite a 9-2, but never mind), while following four others which I’d chucked a cheeky twenty bucks on, and which all eventually came through.
Yes. Even Kaizer Chiefs. Incroyables et Merveilleuses.
I don’t dabble too much into the betting arena, but when I do, it’s with care and forethought, and I’m actually often rather successful.
It’s almost making me as much beer money as publishing posts telling people to try it.
Yesterday was a pretty good day. Bit of lie in, a drive out to the winelands up North, some lovely wine in a really unusual setting – themed ‘caves’ set in old reinforced concrete wine tanks – at Klein Roosboom, then onto Nitida next door for more wine and a rather decent lunch. I only took the new 50mm lens out to force me to be a bit less lazy, and some of the shots were quite good, but we weren’t really there for the photography, to be fair. (We were there for the wine.)
This one is of the Rouge Lounge, where the walls have been stained red through years of wine fermentation, and glisten with tartaric acid crystals.
We only got back home at quarter to four and then I watched Sheffield United beat Everton at Goodison Park before lighting the braai for a bit of late steak. With some more wine. Because why not?
There was some top trolling from the traveling Sheffield United fans at Goodison Park yesterday. 😀
For the record, despite all that wine, I still managed a reasonable 5km run this morning. A reasonable one, not a particularly fast one.
And now? More football, more wine, I guess.
Well, someone’s got to do it.
Yeah, some footballers might dive a bit (something I hate, by the way) but if you think all footballers dive a bit, and we’re going to be going down the road of tarring entire sporting codes with the same messy brush, then… wow… this:
Cage rattlage via this guy.
But hey. Obviously, not everyone’s at it, and these figures are for the UK. But with one case of doping and one case of alleged ‘Roid Rage just ahead of the Springbok World Cup squad announcement (no, I’m not providing links, you do the legwork), I don’t think it’s an exclusively UK thing.
So next time Suarez flings himself over the outstretched leg of a defender absolutely nothing, just be mindful that while he’s a complete twat, his latest urine sample was clearly unsullied by illegal substances.
Just saying.
The Rugby World Cup (2019 version) begins later this week, and anyone who’s anyone has published a crossword about it. Rugby is a big deal in South Africa and the country is ablaze with xenophobia and violence excitement about the upcoming tournament.
I’m less excited about rugby than your average local might be. I enjoy most sports, but I enjoy some more than others and rugby doesn’t tend to be one of them. I thought that I was going to enter a prediction league, but then I didn’t (which actually shows just how poor I am at predicting things).
And I’m still not going to enter it, but I thought I’d mention the format on here, because I quite liked it. Back in the day, this is the sort of thing that would usually have been jotted down on the back of a fag packet or beer mat in a dark corner of a pub, but now we have Excel, so it was jotted down on the back of a spreadsheet instead.
You have to pick four teams that are going to score you more points (using the scoring system on the right hand side) than any of the other four teams that anyone else has chosen. And just before you dive in with Ireland, New Zealand, England and South Africa, there’s a twist. The World Rankings of your chosen teams must add up to a total of at least 30. I’ve been doing some rudimentary calculations, and those four above add up to 10.
Sorry for you.
As I see it, you have two options here. And I don’t think one of them works.
The one that doesn’t work is to pick an average of 4 x 8½. But the chances of the likes of France or Fiji getting into the semi’s or beyond (which is where all the points are) is not great. And if you’re going to stick a Big 4 team in there, you’re going to have to supplement it with the likes of a Samoa or a Uruguay. And they’re getting you an absolute maximum of 2 (possibly 4 if Kami smiles down upon Samoa). For the record, if I was going with this system (I’m not, because I’m not going with any system), I would have gone for South Africa, Australia, France and Georgia.
Georgia are, apparently ranked higher than Argentina. Who knew?
But that plan won’t get us anywhere. Probably.
So my idea was the take the obvious hit on a rank outsider, and make hay with some big names. With that in mind, step forward Canada, South Africa, England and New Zealand.
22+4+3+2 = 31. Street legal.
Canada won’t set the world (cup) alight, but they will beat Namibia* and so will score 2 points – just like Uruguay would have done. But then you have some big names up top who are going to do the business. Of course, Wales or Ireland might also do the business, but to my mind, the top 5 (or even 6?) are all capable of beating anyone else on any given day. And so you have to take three from six, bearing in mind that it still has to add up to 30, and knowing that no-one can pick four big names, because the competition rules don’t allow it.
I’ll revisit this post during and after the Rugby World Cup (the final is on 2nd November) and let’s see just how well I would have done.
All while remembering, of course, that I can’t even predict how I’m going to end this po-
* T&Cs apply