The Silver Fern

Wayne Barnes is a disaster for Ireland. I think he's refereed something like 14 Ireland games of which Ireland have lost about 10!

Ben Duckett now dropped for throwing a drink at James Anderson in a bar in Perth (the same one the Bairstow head-butt happened in apparently). These guys seem to be out all the time!

I was talking to my brother today and we agreed that it's still an 80/20 chance for Australia to win. It looks like the bookmakers give England a marginally better chance than that but still have Aus warm favs. I hope England get up though - it would be nice to still be watching a live series over Christmas.

Funny enough I was at the Ireland v Fiji game last week and happened to be sitting beside some Dutchmen. They explained that every November they pick a city and go and watch rugby and party a bit too. It was the first time I'd met Dutch rugby supporters and they seemed like a nice gang.

Conference A and Conference B, eh? Very inspiring!
I read somewhere that this move basically solves a problem for SARU re what to do with the two franchises tipped overboard from Super Rugby and also gets a bit of Saffer cash into the Pro12 TV deal, thus helping the Celts to try and keep their better players away from English and French clubs. They need to be careful though: Super Rugby has shown us that if you dick around with competitions too much, eventually the public might start to lose interest. Which might mean less rather than more in the TV deal.

Quite an exciting finish to it. Warriors down by 6 with time almost up and put up a bomb after five tackles. They seemed to have recovered possession and were close to the Cowboys' line, but a pass was picked off and the Cowboys wing, Bowen, ran the length of the pitch to score. I went from thinking, "this is actually on" to "oh sh!t" in about a second!

"CONNACHT AND THE IRFU have today announced the signing of Jarrad Butler from the Brumbies."

Steve O'Rourke  /  Jul 11, 2017

Connacht announce Jarrad Butler signing

The former Brumbies player has 70 Super Rugby appearances to his name.

I tuned into France v Wales with 5 minutes left. It was a bit surreal as another twenty-five minutes and what felt like about twenty scrums unfolded after that.

In the end it was the home advantage championship. Barring games involving Italy, I think only England managed to win an away match.

Slightly off topic but also concerning plans to expand rugby in North America, I see a team from Toronto are to enter the third tier of English Rugby League this year. It sounds a bit bizarre to be honest - a team flying transatlantic to participate in unglamorous fixtures against Barrow and York.

http://www.bbc.com/sport/rugby-league/36149660

Will be interesting to see how Ireland front up against Australia this weekend. This week kind of feels like that period last year when Ireland played France and then Argentina back-to-back in the World Cup. Once again several key players are shorn through injury and you'd imagine those fit to go will be a bit drained from last week's encounter. Can they raise it to match Aus? I'm going so I hope for a good game!

<p>^{Interesting point about the odds being loaded against the punter so, statistically, you would be doing very well just to break even. I've heard stories about betting companies closing the accounts of successful punters. Does anyone know if this is true or just a myth?}</p>
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<p>^{Also agree with Barbarian that restraint is needed. I've betted a bit for fun in pretty small amounts it must be said. But the problem I encountered several times was that after I'd win, I'd want to bet again to keep the buzz going and normally then lose.}</p>
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<p>^{And as Mariner says, there is too much of it about. It's a bit depressing watching English Premier League games when both teams are sponsored by betting companies and the advertising hoardings in the stadium are flickering with even more betting companie}</p>
<p>^s...</p>

<p>Just watched the Ireland Under-20 v Scotland Under-20 fixture. Good to see a Hastings back in Scotland colours - Adam.</p>
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<p>Scotland were rather unfortunate in that the clock in the ground was showing that the 40 minutes of the first half were up, so Hastings blimped the ball into touch. But it transpired that the clock was wrong so Scotland found themselves defending an attacking line-out, which Ireland duly scored from!</p>
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<p>Also, good to see the referee wearing a Wales shirt. This used to be a nice tradition in the old Five Nations, that the referee would wear his country's shirt.</p>

<p>Interesting to see Namibia doing relatively well.</p>
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<p>Good to hear the West Indies have some good 'uns coming through too.</p>