honestly united

All tickets are being refunded, and you would need to purchase a new one for London - there is a statement on the WRU website Edit to add - we were the same, would rather watch it in a pub in Cardiff than go to london

Arms park is also being used as part of the hospital, so would likely be one of the other 3 regions grounds if no crowds. If London the WRU will just go with where they can make the most money ie balance of how much it will cost to rent vs number of tickets they can sell between Wembley, Twickenham and Totenham i think

The cancelled Wales Scotland 6 nations game will definately not be played at the Principality in the Autumn after its use as an emergency hospital was extended. Where and when it will be played still to be decided. Not sure how I feel about a trip to London if they are moving it there

You would assume Harvie is away if we are signing another left back, and have Ecrepoint as well

For me SA would be better looking at the rest of southern africa to create a league. Kenya and Uganda have made great strides in the 7's and with a bit of coaching could have a decent 15's team, Namibia are Zimbabwe have a lot of history in the game and Botswana, Madagascar and Zambia are all improving. With a bit of investment you could easily have a 10 team league (6 SA and one per country elsewhere) and there would be enough local players in these countries and you could bolster with the currie cup SA players who are not getting a game in the SA teams. The South American super league was due to kick off this year but was halted by Covid, which was a fully proffesional league https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Súper_Liga_Americana_de_Rugby starting out with 6 teams but this would be a level way below the jaguares, I would say they could split up the jaguares and create another 3 or 4 teams for this league, but I dont think they have the money to do that

I wouldn't really rule it out completely as Huw Jones was picked (if i remember correctly) while playing in SA. However the issue is more around the schedule of Super Rugby. THe season starts in mid Feb, which clashes with the Six Nations so in reality he would be having a break after the AI's then starting preseason in January to be ready for the Six Nations, then missing the first 6 or 7 of the 18 rounds of Super Rugby - would a team offer him a new contract in NZ (after his current one expires) knowing he is going to miss that much of the season?

I know this isn't going to be a normal season, but normally league cup starts mid july and league games start of August, this year its start of October (maybe) for league cup and mid October for the league so 10 or 11 weeks delay. So if everyone could please get into the mindset of its only actually the last week of April when thinking about signings that would be great.

Cant believe Swinson has come out of retirement to sign for Sarries

That includes the rescheduled Scotland game also. I think its calling the bluff of the Welsh authorities as it will be millions lost to the welsh economy if the games are moved to London, so hoping the look at relaxing hte rules / letting crowds back in before end of October

I cant believe someone was moaning about Glasgows 2nd row options

Glasgow squad getting even thinner with Davidson off to Edinburgh https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/53150678 We are getting pretty short in the 2nd row, with Gray away, Swinson re-tiring, i think it only leaves Cummins and Gray coming in, with Harley as back up

300k would give us (on a shortened season) approx £7500 a week in wages which is a big chunk of the squad covered.Even if it is only 50k it probably covers 2 players wages. If it does happen it would be before our season starts so should give us a chance to boost the squad, tbf any money coming in is a bonus this season

The problem we have is that we only had a playing at it lockdown, and not a proper lockdown, which is why we have had probably the worst death rate in the world, only Brazil and USA have more deaths and they are 5 or 6 times the size of the UK. If we had done it properly like NZ as an island we could have been in a position to restart all sport in front of crowds now.

One of Edinburgh's signings for next season refused work permit extension after 2 years at Worcester, which I find a bit odd. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/52503431

Van der Merwe looks brilliant ball in hand, but I haven't seen enough of Edinburgh to know whether he is international class defensively or not. No point in having someone scoring tries for fun,but also leaking them at the same rate. Kebble and Schoeman are welcome additions but I dont think they are the game changers up front that people were hoping for when they originally signed. Definately add depth though which is always good. Also Van der walt will be a useful 3rd choice at 10 also

I think its August or September - im sure the thinking was he would be available for AI's?

It shows how badly handled things have been here (ie the kid on lockdown, that wasn't actually a lockdown) when were not back until October, yet if you take New Zealand for example, they are done and dusted and are back playing sport in front of full stadiums form this weekend

Only watched the Stadium Stampede match but fantastic spot fest, and very entertaining once everything broke into smaller groups. Still gutted the horse didnt run over Sami!

I think doing a hybrid of reduced capacity in grounds / social distancing mixed with paid live streaming would be an option. it gives clubs an income, albeit reduced gates, while also letting those who dont feel comfortable going to the grounds the option of purchasing the live stream to still watch the game, and would also tap into the overseas / not local support who may want to purchase the odd game to watch. You could have say 1,000 to 2000 fans in the ground with another say 500 purchasing the live stream would probably be a decent revenue for us, although obviously down on this year, but you would be hoping this would be for 2 to 4 months max at the start of the season, and should be enough to see us tick over.

Robbo may be able to answer this, but if all the club staff are furloughed, who would be available / still at work to offer players new contracts? I know it would be really pedantic but could clubs get in trouble for someone working when they are supposed to be furloughed if they are handing out contract extensions?

Im not overly fussed he is leaving, Rennie rates him highly but I always thought he was a bit of a show pony who shied away from the hard work. Was never going to get a game for Scotland so would rather his (probably hefty in comparison to some others) wages are spent on elsewhere.

I remember seeing a documentary on a Yeti hunt in Nepal where they did similar and actually had an un-identified result, which was fairly close to human DNA baut not an exact match. This obviously got the team excited however it was pointed out that the local indigenious population are that cut of in the himalyas that there DNA may be different enough to cause the testing to through up a close but no match result. They did however find evidence from hair that proved there was a population of large wild sheep that had previously never been documented in that location (i believe they were in Bhutan) or altitude. Im not saying the Yeti is real but if it is then its more likely to be in these location than anywhere else https://sciencediscoveries.degruyter.com/reclassification-suggested-tibetan-wild-sheep-nepal/

To be fair our lockdown has been far lighter than the likes of Italy and Spain. When both of these countries started to lift restrictions it was to a level that we are at currently. Most countries weren't allowed out at all (except to work if you were a key worker) except to get food. There was no hour of excercise etc so will be worth keeping an eye out of the rates of infection etc start to rise again. To be fair I get the impression now that there is a large chunk of people who have given up on the lockdown and social distancing already

Thats all summer tours officially cancelled, everyone knew it was coming but world rugby have confirmed

Tayside would be much better starting their own league, on a par with the North juniors feeding into the HFL. give it a few years and once promotion relegation starts to kick in the HFL will become very Aberdeen centric to start with and over time East coast centric (ie Aberdeen / Dundee / Angus)