honestly united

I installed the real debrid thing, comes up with loads of links in exodus, yet none of them play. All links say they are Real Debrid so thinking I may have an issue with that. However, I also got the Terrarium app which I have to say has been brilliant so far - I prefer it as you can see the file size before starting to watch something gives you the option to choose the smallest file size if you internet isnt the best (or your kids are using all the bandwith watching youtube video's while your trying to watch the tele!!)

Kings lost pretty much their whole team after super rugby and basically signed anyone they could to put a team out

They have to play the ball, either pass or run but you can't set up a maul without the opposition

On the second point it's not a maul if no one from the opposition is bound on hence fagerson could break it up. You can't just set up a maul like that , you have to have a tackle first then move the ball back. Much better from Glasgow going through a few phases meant we had more space to go wide, so we looked more expansive from keeping it a bit tighter. Still think Ashe would be better at wing forward, again last night he lost the ball at the back of the scrum

Bhatti will have started 6 on the trott including the preseason friendlies which is tough going. I'm assuming it's as much to do with kebble being injured but doesn't say as much for the other props, bar fagerson

Im the same, I think Bhatti has struggled, but the scrum in general has been poor so far, although I have been impressed by Turner who was 4th choice at Edinburgh, but Townsend rated him highly enough to take him with Scotland over the summer. Whats happened to Kebble, he came on vs Connaught in the pouring rain for his debut, did he decide he doesn't fancy it or something? Would much rather have had Dunbar in there as well, but decent side apart from that, and given the players missing bodes well for the rest of the season.

Are those tennis courts on the roof?

It died a death last time due to lack of support, and dont think it would be any different if tired again, although others may know better than me. From what I remember the main issue was that they picked one town / stadium (was it Melrose?) to host all the games, and it was then seen as their team and not a borders wide team. If they were going to resurrect it, they would need to manage that aspect, and maybe rotate games between Gala, Hawick, Melrose, Selkirk, Kelso, Jedburgh etc, although as the population is only about 115k its hardly going to pull in big crowds, even if they produce the majority of the best scottish talent.

Just caught up on the Glasgow game, was expecting an easy win after watching the Embra cardif game, but Cardiff much improved and Glasgow still not firing on all cylanders Scrums still an issue for Glasgow, getting shunted backwards to often, and we still seems quite disjointed in open play, but still 3 wins from 3. Once it does click we are going to give someone a hiding!! Only saw the highlights of the Embra game on the BBC website, so its hard to tell whats gone wrong but the early tries seem well work, and they look dominate. Not sure if its a case of taking the foot of the pedal, or just generally poor play, but as Cockerill has had a go at the players and not the ref, it sounds like the players will get a grilling this week, which is probably what they need.

Some interesting developments over the last few days. The announcement that the US team is a pretty much a done deal, was the worst kept secret, but I think team 16 will be interesting. You would think Canada would be the obvious choice, but they are struggling for a venue, as realistically it needs to be covered / indoor to play in winter. Canada would make sense as you could have teams double up on away trips etc. If its not Canada then performance wise the obvious choice would be Einesy the russia team who have played in the Challenge cup the last few years, the problem is that they (along with Krasny Yar who are in the Challenge cup as well this year) are both from Krasnoyarsk. They are actually further away from Moscow than Glasgow is from Moscow. The other issue is you cant play outside from the end of October through to March, but I believe they are building an indoor arena as they are hosting the world youth witner olympics or somethign similar next year. A merger would be ideal (although that maybe wouldnt go down so well, or splitting games with either Moscow or somewhere in the west of Russia may be an option) After that that I would have the spanish in (although the spanish union turned down the offer) just because of this It is my next purchase if a rugby top, and VRAC being the best team in Spain, and the actually share a ground with the other top team Silverstorm, so again a merger as one Valladolid club may be an option. They had 25,000 turn up for a Spanish cup final so there is definitely an audience there. The other obvious 2 (notwithstanding a 3rd Scottish team) are Georgia and Germany. Georgia have the players, decent set up etc, but probably wont be able to bring the cash to the table that the Pro14 want. In terms of bringing a competitive team, having the players available etc this would be the obvious choice, but they dont have the sponsorship, the TV money etc that the Pro14 want. A German team backed by Wilde would have the money to set up a German team, you would expect it to be in Helderberg where the majority of the current German squad are, and you would likely get a decent crowd, but you would think it would go to a big city. Germany dont have the players ready for the Pro14 yet, so you would think it would require an influx of SH players, a few Germans and probably a few others from round Europe. They may have a case if the open the team up to players from the rest of Europe. Romania already have a fairly decent pro league, and a team in Bucarest may be an option, not as far away as Georgia, and probably at the same sort of level as Georgia and again may be able to entice a few players back from France. Also read this morning regarding the new AUstralia / Pacific league. Looks like he is trying to replace the NRC in austrailia with his new league, which may be what the ARU are after as it is losing them money. You would think 6 australian teams, fiji, HK, a chinese team and another team from Japan may be a goer as a starter. Would probably sit as a level under Super Rugby (which is on shaky ground at the moment with 2020 tv deal looming) but talk of bring approx 120 players back from Europe and Japan it could be a really good standard.

Kettering Town isn't it

Interesting that it is only Froome, Niballi, Contador and Zakarin who have top 10 finishes in 2 of the grand tours this years. Barguil could have been top 10 in the Vuelta, I thought Quintana would have done better on the tour but struggled after the Giro, as did Aru and Bardet on the Vuelta. Niballi preformed well at the Vuelta but missed most of the Tour, which i think shows as how much of a feat winning 2 in a row is for Froome

Really hope Froome goes for the Giro next year, so he holds all 3 at the one time. I think it would be a struggle to do the Giro / Tour double but if anyone / team can pull it off its Sky and Froome as they have the strength in depth of domestiques to give him the right backing in both

I'm heading down to Cardiff this time with a few mates, they are hoping to get tickets through their club. Hotel prices shot up as soon as the fixtures were announced, but they seemed to get snapped up quickly, we've managed to get a 8 person room in a hostel somewhere in the city centre but it wasn't cheap.

Looks like embra have a good balance at the moment, a decent bit of grunt up front but some good back play also

Froome 1 min 58 ahead of Nibali now, 2,40 infront of Kelderman, 3,07 back for Zacharin then 4,58 back to Contador who moves up to 5th

Thought Ashe was poor, he needs to control the ball better at the back of the scrums as Price was struggling to get it out. Hastings needs to put more zip on his passes most seemed to be floated, although he was maybe being sympathetic due to the weather which was dreadful. Kebble must have wondered what he signed up for in his first game. All in we could have been a lot smarter but will take me away win

Very pleased with the Redmi 4X so far. Was a bit concerned by what the Miui OS would be like, but its not noticeably different to Android. Battery life is great, would say probably better than the Umi Super, even though the battery is smaller. Really suprised at how thin the phone is given that it is a 4000mah battery, its about half the thickness of the Umi. Had a call go silent half way through, but dont know if that was the phone or the connection. But all in very pleased indeed, but haven't had a chance to have a proper test of it yet though Have ordered the misses an Oukitel C3 (she was whinging she couldn't get face filters on instagram as hers was so old!!) at less than £50 for 16gb memory, 1.3Ghz processor and Android 7 it looks a bargin!

Would love to have Niko back, just as long as it doesn't interfere with Price and Horne getting game time - would push Pyrgos back to 4th choice!

we realy need to be picking up about 5 points per year if we are targeting 15 - even 18 (next jump in entries) you need 22 or 23 points

Just noticed while checking out the European fixtures that the draw for the draw for the Continental Shield has been made also. This gives 2 clubs from Europe the chance to gain entry to the Challenge Cup, Four representatives from the Italian Eccellenza - Pataro Rugby Calvisano, Femi-CZ Rugby Rovigo, Rugby Petrarca and Rugby Viadana - will be joined by Romania's Timisoara Saracens, RC Batumi from Georgia, Heidelberger RK of Germany and Portugal's Centro Desportivo Universitario de Lisboa (CDUL Rugby) competing in two pools of four. The Spanish champions declined the invite due to costs and it disrupting their domestic challenge As you will remember from last year Einesi and Krasny Yar the 2 clubs from Krasnoyarsk in Siberia competed in the final last season on the back pitch at Murrayfield (yes after the 2 teams travelled 3000 odd miles they put the final on the back pitch at Murrayfield on the morning before the Champions Cup final - hopefully Bilboa treat the final better) and are taking part in the Challenge Cup this year. (2 finalist have already qualified, trophy is just an added bonus) Probably the furthest away from home any derby game has probably been played. No matter how well they do this year in the Challenge cup, one of them misses out next year, as the rules have been changed. Last year the 2 Challenge Cup teams played the 2 pool winners of the shield for qualification to the Challenge Cup. This year it has changed, so the 2 challenge cup teams play each other for 1 spot and the pool winners for the other. On the one hand you can see that you dont want the same clubs each year, but surely you want the best teams to qualify?

Im hoping they have just gone with Wilson as Gray is injured and going to miss the start of the season, and not anything else.

So the table is currently as follows (only included those above we could reasonably catch this year, and those below that could catch us) 20 Cyprus 2.750 3.300 3.000 5.500 4.375 18.925 3/ 4 21 Romania 6.875 5.125 2.250 3.300 1.100 18.650 2/ 5 22 Scotland 3.250 4.000 3.000 4.375 3.000 17.625 1/ 4 23 Azerbaijan 2.500 3.625 4.375 4.250 2.875 17.625 1/ 4 24 Belarus 1.750 5.500 5.125 3.000 2.000 17.375 1/ 4 25 Bulgaria 5.625 4.250 1.000 4.250 2.125 17.250 1/ 4 26 Sweden 3.200 3.900 4.750 2.750 2.625 17.225 1/ 4 27 Norway 2.600 2.200 7.250 1.375 2.750 16.175 1/ 4 28 Kazakhstan 3.125 3.375 4.625 2.750 2.250 16.125 1/ 4 Cyrus still have Apoel Nicosia (won 2-0 at home vs Slavia Prague) in the CL and AEK Larnaca (lost 3-1 away at Viktoia Plzen), and Apollon Limassol (won 3-2 at home vs Midtjylland) in the Europa League Romania still have Steaua Bucurest in the CL (drew 0-0 away vs Sporting Lisbon) and Viitorul Constanta in the EL (lost 3-1 at home vs Red Bull Salzburg) Azerbijian have Garabag Agdam in the CL (beat Copenhagen 1-0 at home in first leg) Belarus have BATE Borisov (drew 1-1 at home vs FC Oleksandria) in the EL Bulgaria have Ludogorets Razgrad in the EL (won 2-0 at hom vs Suduva) Sweden have Osterunds in the EL (lost 3-1 away at PAOK Salonika) Norway have Rosenberg in the EL (won 1-0 away at Ajax) Kazakhstan have Astana in the EL I would say we are not now going to catch Cyprus this year, but if the 2 EL teams got put out now would help for future years. For Steau and Garabag what is the best situation for us, them getting into the CL groups and losing all 6 or losing tonight but having a decent run the in EL? We really could do with Borisov, Razgrad and Osterunds getting papped out tomorrow

Cracked the screen on my UMI Super on Friday night, and its a complete write off, cant do anything as I took the fingerprint recognition off and have draw pattern to unlock only. Can only use a tiny portion of the top of the screen, anywhere there is a crack is a no go. I was distraught as it was an amazing phone (best I've had so far)... as I needed a replacement quick, and didn't see anything much in the EU warehouses on Gearbest, I've gone for a Xiaomi Redmi 4 off of ebay, which ordered Saturday lunch time, and has turned up today - will report back tomorrow on first impressions

Just noticed there is no mention of Strauss at all, is he being dropped completely?