The Silver Fern

On a lighter note......

Hopefully Scotland centre Joe Ansbro is doing ok after this vicious attack from his own teammate celebrating a glorious victory over Australia

@Crazy-Horse said in Stuart Macgill Arrested -300k Cocaine Plot:

@chimoaus said in Stuart Macgill Arrested -300k Cocaine Plot:

I thought there was more to his kidnapping, appears he has quite the cocaine habit. Funny how many ex-sportsmen end up with cocaine issues.

https://www.news.com.au/sport/cricket/aussie-cricket-great-stuart-macgill-charged-over-300k-cocaine-plot/news-story/8fb423b36e20bf72ea2fa4362e6d7143

There was always going to be more to that story. Things usually happen for a reason.

News never came across the ditch on that one, at least not that I remembered anyway.

But yes, Drug Cartels generally don’t just kidnap and assault any old Tom, Dick or Harry.

@Stargazer said in RWC: Records:

@frugby said in RWC: Records:

Perhaps getting giddy, but with Narawa's injury, Will Jordan will start v France, Namibia (15) and Italy, and potentially even Uruguay, as him and Telea are the only recognised right wing options, and I'd suggest it is likely he places through. On this basis could he score 9 tries for the record in a single tournament? If he plays vs all three latter teams, don't think it would be unreasonable, especially as he has 23 tries in 25 tests, so if the ABs can make the final, you can probably budget him scoring in the other games.

Nah, against minnows like Uruguay they'll play a few players out of position. Didn't they chuck Jordie at 10 in one game, last time? Easiest is to just move Clarke or Fainga'anuku to the right wing to give them both a start.

On the assumption Narawa is replaced by a loose forward, this is my rough thought:

v France:
Telea, Jordan, B Barrett

v Namibia
Clarke/Fainga'anuku, Telea, Jordan

v Italy
Telea, Jordan, B Barrett

v Uruguay
Clarke/Fainga'anuku, Jordan, B Barrett

I expect that as there are week-long breaks (two weeks between Namibia and Italy) they won't overly rotate in the backs. I think it is entirely possible Narawa was pencilled in for the Uruguay game only, so it is whether they go for Telea or Jordan I reckon, and I expect it will be Jordan. Fainga'anuku could get a trot at 13 in that game potentially...

@Machpants said in Law Innovations Trial QLD:

@voodoo said in Law Innovations Trial QLD:

@Crucial said in Law Innovations Trial QLD:

@voodoo said in Law Innovations Trial QLD:

I like pretty much all of those. On the advantage rule, if the ref is clear and the attacking team awake, they'll just need to make a call after the 2nd phase as to whether to have a crack on the 3rd or to take the penalty (by knocking on or whatever). Might not be perfect, but I detest unlimited and unclear advantage for 12 phases before being called back,

Can players just ask for the penalty to apply? Surely that is better than making them deliberately knock on? Call it like a mark. Often I think players keep on playing because they are unsure what the ref is thinking and the ref thinks he should keep advantage going because the players are continuing to play.

Oh absolutely, zero issue with that

I'm sure they can ask

I have heard the ref ask sometimes and occasionally the players but it isn’t common. I think it is worth a trial to make it clearly an option to see if it is used.

@Bones said in Fern Support Group:

@Kiwiwomble make her a canes fan, get her some skin in the game! Bonesetta is a canes fan and I nominated the rest of her family with other super teams, makes it a bit more fun. Of course her mum is the sith.

You cruel and unusual bastard.

Edit: sorry, read that as you'd encouraged her to become one.

@catogrande said in Jumping Castle Tragedy:

I saw this happen at a kids day at my rugby club years ago. No one on it at the time but a freak twister came out of nowhere and it took off. Never allowed my kids near one since.

Had a scarry incident a couple of years ago too at an event with a bouncy castle. Wind got up out of no where. Fortunately no one badly hurt, but enough to freak me out. Not allowed my kids on an outdoor one since.

My condolences to everyone in Tasmania. Terrible news.

@nostrildamus said in Pleasure and Pain Balance:

I'm afraid games are typically designed to fed addictive and compulsive behaviours. I have a doctor friend overseas who said he himself has an addictive/obsessive personality and the only solution for him is to avoid them entirely.
Me as well, but luckily I get bored quickly.

They do say if you have addicts in your family you have a far greater risk of becoming an addict also. I can vouch for this personally.

@booboo saw your comment in the US politic thread

yes, too be clear, we train for our pods to still be an option, deep enough to pass too, the second line being even deeper. If the pod forms and theyre not marked up against they will call for the ball

agreed drifting up ahead of where they can be passed too is shit, at least off dead ball...us fat guys do need a short cut to the next break down sometimes

@antipodean The epitome of ZIRP.

What continues to surprise me in regard to road trauma is peoples inflated belief about their own abilities. 94% of crashes occur because a human made a mistake. If we make a mistake at high speed, we kill ourselves, our mates and other road users.

The death messages I delivered after people hit trees, power poles etc still haunts me today and the scenes I attended will never leave me. If many of those drivers had been going slower it could have prevented a lot of trauma, including mine.

@hooroo said in Great wages for little effort:

Favourite so far! I can picture where that was if at Whenuapai??

Had the same thought and know where it was.

@gt12 yes, I've put some long term money with then recently and it's held up very well given the market volatility. Just pick the right fund for your time horizon / risk tolerance, and seek some professional advice on that if you need it.

@canefan said in Christmas 2020:

@booboo I loved Port Douglas and the Daintree when I went. Beautiful

Didn't quite make it there.

Got as far north as Hartley's Croc farm.

The Capn Cook Highway north from Palm Cove was awesome.

@MajorRage said in Fighting Obesity - Thoughts?:

Tropical fruit is a proper marmite thing. Pineapples, mangoes, melons, lychees etc are the absolute nuts. Super sweet. Yet, you then get dragonfruit (fucking cardboard), durian (gas leak anywhere) and jackfruit (known as a duck substitute).

funnily enough i am not a massive fan of tropical fruit

Cold mango is amazing, pineapple is fucking great, the rest can fuck off. I have two high producing Paw Paw trees in my yard, but i can't stand the stuff. Too sweet, don't like the texture. I just give it all away.

What i have noticed as i have got older (or changed diet, not sure which) is my tolerance for deep fried foods has fallen right away. Too much of it and i feel like shit straight away.

@Godder said in No kids, any regrets?:

We had an accident 15 years ago, but unfortunately he was stillborn. We were still young and poor, so figured we'd stick with the plan to build a life (house, careers etc) and continued with contraception.

We stopped the contraception after we bought our house in 2013, but no luck since. We're both 40 now, so the odds are pretty low at this stage. Haven't really discussed adoption, but our lives are pretty good without kids and we have plenty of nieces and nephews...

Sad to hear bro.

My kids have a pretty special bond with a couple of their aunties and uncles that don’t have any children of their own. They are amazing and I will forever be grateful for the time they invest in my kids.

@Bones said in Grumpy Old Man:

@Victor-Meldrew said in Grumpy Old Man:

@Bones said in Grumpy Old Man:

Why the fuck is this super yacht incident such big news (at least in the UK)? I don't get it.

Mike Lynch - tech billionaire - owned it and he and his family died in it.

Became a bit of a poster-boy after being acquitted in US courts for allegedly defrauding HP when they bought his company

Thanks. I still think it's utterly bizarre how much airtime and detail and "specialists" it's getting on telly.

Wasn't that about a year ago? So yeah - odd that it's rearing its head again.
Quick google search - suggests UK investigation finally complete... "it was windy" ? That's 9 months of work.
Talking with a UK-based colleague back when it happened - I got the impression there was suspicions of a conspiracy theory - but never outright said so in media, which seems strangely refrained from UK media.

I don't answer my phone unless I recognise the number. Leave a message fuckers or it just ain't that important

@RoninWC said in Christmas Gifts:

@voodoo said in Christmas Gifts:

@RoninWC said in Christmas Gifts:

For those interested, I've been putting all of our Court experiences down based on emails and diary notes sent at the time into a single document which I will copy to the Off Topic area soon. Keep an eye out for that. It is my plan to finish writing that story over the holiday break.

So now that you're presumably working from home to ride out this global depression, howzabout you get on with this then???

Been doing that but also work is crazy busy. I work for NSW Health and as you can imagine, we are kinda busy 😉

But yes, I've been putting this all together for some time now and I'll get it out soon.

Thanks for the prompt @voodoo , it does help to get a good prodding every now and then.

Always an excuse with you government folk....😉

😀

@reprobate said in Peyper Stats Vs AB:

tries under advantage - we scored 38 and conceded 5 in the rugby

Yeah, I'm sure a few of those were under advantage. I doubt if there was a global referring conspiracy against New Zealand, that New Zealand would have scored 38 tries and conceded only 5 in the Rugby Championship.

@Bones said in Peyper Stats Vs AB:

Suspicious of penalty count comparisons.....but then I'll just go ahead and say NZ give away more penalties. Riiiiight.

NZ do give away more penalties, no matter what way you dice it.

I'm suspicious of the value to be attached to such a metric, and what is to be read from it.

I'd love to see someone do in the stats the amount of times that advantage is signaled in a match. My suspicion is that New Zealand, being the best team in the world, in particular being the best attacking team in the world, are the best able to score from situations like that - thereby making these stats look skewed.