honestly united

My UmiSuper is with Yodel so hopefully delivered today, cant wait to try it out tonight!

Im surprised he has never had more game time. He has looked ok on the limit times I've seen him play (or more accurately big and quick) but I would have put him on a par with Lee Jones at least. Has he just been away with the 7's or has he been stuck playing club rugby?

The re-caps have been quite lengthy, I am assuming they are trying to reduce matches as a way of reducing the costs by having less wrestlers at each taping. Although I think since Billy Corigan came in the production values (I wouldnt quite say improved) but definately changed and the whole show is a much better watch. To be fair its just focusing on 5 or 6 storylines that are intertwined with what seems to be a much reduced roster, Im just hoping they can get a new TV deal in the UK / dont get shut down.

Will be interesting to see the team this week against Argentina, which is really a must win if we want to make the to 8 in the rankings. (I would have taken 2 wins and a close game vs Australia before we started the AI's) I would assume we will have Strauss in at 8, if Wilson isn't fit, unless he brings de preez straight into the team. Only other change I can see is Seymour in for Visser, not sure why Seymour didn't play last week, just heard personal reasons. On the Australian game we just didn't get our hands on the ball during that last 10 minutes, and it seemed to be numerous things, kicks either down their throats, not long enough, giving away silly penalties, or being to conservative in defence and not going for turnovers. Even at the try if Visser is watching the tackle rather than the big Australian overlap, isn't of running back to cover he had the chance to stop Kuridrani stretching over. To be fair it would be hard to say he has done the wrong thing, but its the small things that have done us.

Balls

Need to get it down in Australia s half 6 points and 25 minutes to go is to long if they are camped in our half

I have to say (and being a few weeks behind on Impact tapings) but TNA has been pretty decent recently. Which is a shame if they do end up being wound up soon / dont get picked up by a new station in the UK. Delete as appropriate) Obviously you have Broken Matt who has went from being totally meh, to the greatest character in wrestling EVAH, the world title shouldn't be on eddie edwards (or should he be near it) but it looks like it could be interesting to see how Lashley gets it back with EC3, Moose and Eli Drake in the mix Cody turning up adds something to the mix, Hopefully it goes better than Sandow / Rex who has been totally dull so far. Add in Drew and Grado for a bit of scottish interest and they can put on a decent show. As an aside, does anyone know whats happened with Magnus and Bram lately? Edit to add just read spolier above so thats have of my question answered

I've only seen him play in the summer tests vs Japan, and he didn't look anything special but to be fair, no one came out of those games with much credit. I assume we are writing off this game and targetting wins against Argentina and Georgia, as the only way we are going to beat Australia is hammering them up front, and we have picked Ford and two props, one making his debut and the other his 2nd cap. With Nel missing you would have thought Dickinson would have to start.

First time trying Gearbest so if this package turns up soon and everything is ok will probably buy more with their 11/11 deals

I always get hit with them when I've bought stuff previously, although it does tend to depend on who delivers. In my experience TNT are the worst for having custom charges - every time you get charged, and they usually add on an admin fee as an added bonus, if its Parcel Force or Royal Mail who deliver you hardly ever get them.

I order the Umi Super earlier this week as it was marked down along with some other bits and bobs for Christmas presents, will be gutted if any of it is even cheaper this week

The scarlets lost their internationals for last weekend which is why they are unchanged. They had the disadvantage last week due to Wales playing an extra international

Am I the only one who thought King Ezekiel had stolen the Broken Matt Hardy shtick? Thought he was going to try feeding carol some green beans at one point

True that huge mismatches don't help anyone, but we already have a 6 nations b, and nobody will give them a game to see how big a gap is. Georgia have been excellent for about 10 years and it's only now they are getting games against tier one sides. You look at the challenge cup and there are only 2 qualifiers from rest of the European leagues, this year Einsey and Timisoara. Now there is a 3rd European competition and the top 2 in that play off against Einsey and Timisoara for next years spot, however they have just said that if Einsey get into the quarters they automatically get back in and the two best teams play off for the right to play Timisoara. No mention of maybe the worst English or French team missing out

Cyprus' record was from when they joined World Rugby (or the IRB as it was) so started in the lowest level and worked their way up. They had a decent team with some ex pats compared to the countries they were playing against. Its not like football were world cup qualifying has groups of teams from each pot, its very much set up so the best teams dont have to play any minnows, ever. Teams tend not to play anyone with more than 10 places between them in the rankings. Think Scotland are about 10th and would never play anyone outside the top 20 in the world, which is one of the reason that other countries never get any better. That and if they have any decent players they move to play in a top league and dont get / want to be released to play internationals.

So 2 weeks, or a rest, save on the air fair out to the US and back ready for Irelands home autumn internationals

6NA has been binned as not everyone runs a team anymore, think it is only us, England and Ireland that still had a team, but our last games were in 2014. The SRU have taken all reference to the A fixtures & results off their website so looks like we aren't running one anymore.

we still do play A internationals every year (although not as many as we used to), we have turned England over the last few years

Also why is every other position listed alphabetically, except for hooker where f'n Ford gets listed before Brown?

I think the big difference with Glasgow is that there are not real standout players, in that you could take out any starter and there is a replacement who is more or less just as good. This is great in the league as you can rest players, and it doesn't affect the standard the team is playing at, however when it comes to Europe, the Irish and Welsh teams bring in their internationals ans suddenly they are much better teams. Its the argument the English and French were making when they revised the cup as if you are not worried about a league position you just have your best players playing in Europe. Now Niko and Nakarawa have gone, we dont really have any big game players left in the middle of the park. We have Seymour, Sarto, Hogg and Bennett out in the wider channels but we dont seem to have anyone in the forwards with any spark. Grey is very good at doing the donkey work and the hard yards (as are a lot of the forwards) but we are lacking a big ball carrier in the back row that can break tackles and make something happen. It used to be Strauss but he has really gone off the boil since he made his Scotland debut, Harley does do it at a Pro12 level, but dont think he is good enough for the level above. As soon as we start to get dominated up front it all becomes a bit predictable and safe which gives the opposition defence a chance to drop players out to cover our backs

Does anyone have any experience with the MIUI OS? I am being severely tempted by the Xiaomi Mi5 which seemed to be the best spec / battery life for the 5" screen i've seen but comes with the MIUI 7 rather than android OS which has put me off slightly.

There is only really Lashley, Galloway and EC3 that I could see interesting WWE, as they have already signed up everyone else over the last year in Aries, Rude, Joe etc It would be epic to see Broken Matt Hardy and Senior Benjamin delete people in the WWE as it is the best thing in wrestling at the moment, but you cant see them giving them free reign in the creative aspects.

I think Italy were favourites as well prior to pulling out. They have plenty of other stadiums they could have used in Rome, and all the rest of the stadiums are in place already so not as if much money would have been involved, it is more ensuring the use of them during the football season. I think its more a case of they dont want to be seen to be bidding on a global event when they have pulled out of the running for the olympics

Depends who's hayfever's been the worst recently

I would say Edinburgh have improved slightly but not much. They have gone from having a very attack minded team trying to outscore the opposition but usually failing, to a very tight team trying to concede less than the opposition and usually failing. Hopefully hodge can get the balance right