Genuine Hibs Fan

What a wee, wee guy

Fair play, how often does that actually work? I feel like usually you keep going for those penalty scrums and eventually one of your front row slips and you lose the pen

Our attack has no structure at all at the moment

I'm off with the flu and watched this this morning and, I'll be honest, I'm maybe showing my bias/painkiller intake here, and I'm sure there's information missing, but I found the French husband/father and journalist's basic theory pretty feasible. I'd be more tempted to believe there was an accident during major military exercises and a cover up than "super secret technology being sent to the Chinese on board". I certainly find something in that wheelhouse far more likely than either the Kazakhstan suicide hijackers theory and the suicidal pilot theory. I found pretty much every American interviewed pretty loathsome - from the blogger with the Kazakhstan theory, to Miss I saw a face on the satellite picture, to the dodgy as f**k adventurer fella, to the sort of proto-OSINT guy who just wanted to feel important. There was a moment he was getting interviewed and was saying something "the real problem here is that the data isn't being shared so it can be verified by the public", as if his podgy wee fingers would get to the bottom of it. I think it's another reason I give more credence to the French, he may not be dispassionate but I never got the feeling that he, or an extremely highly credentialed journalist, were horrible wee attention seekers like pretty much everyone else (non next of kin of course) who spoke with them. Passed the time but pretty poor overall imo.

This is some of the worst spooky, nefarious USSR content I've seen since Tim Snyder blamed Nazi shootings and reprisals in Eastern Europe on Soviet Partisan ambush and sabotage operations making them do it

Couldn't have put it better That's not the point though is it? If you suggest that the safeguard to ensure the safety of others in especially high risk scenarios, and the appropriate placement of prisoners, is that there will be a risk assessment, you cannot override that, before it has even happened, on a whim because an ex-screw is mouthing off in the press and you keep getting asked about it. You either show that you have robust policies to deal with outlying cases, based around expert judgement and established parameters, or you show you have a policy which is made of vapour.

I mean you can't argue with his performance on Sunday but there are parts of his (and Lowe's) games which are really not great. But then we saw the same with Duhan this weekend, there's very few Josh Adams/Mapimpi type all round excellent wingers at the moment. All have some issues in their games.

This picture will be stuck in my head for a while. Lowe is out of shot in line with Turner, Ringrose is coming that way and regardless would be starting the next phase from the 15; Keenan is on the floor; Hansen is about to make the tackle; 2/3 of the Irish back row is also in this picture. An attack to the far side would be facing Murray, Sexton, Aki, POM and the Irish tight 5. Cummings takes the ball in and Schoeman, VdM and Turner are in a perfect place to clear out, White should be able to get that out of the ruck very quickly. Meanwhile we have both centres, Finn and Steyn out of shot, as well as our entire back row. It's as good a place to be attacking edge to edge as you can really get. In reality though... ETA: Composure has gone back to being a problem the last two after the insanely clinical first two games, I think just the monumental nature of the challenges getting to us a bit. Another example was Hogg getting bundled into touch just before our try. Obviously worked out for the best but he goes for the big bosh on Sexton when he can really try and step the shoulder, sweep under him. Wanted ot put in a marker though. We also saw at least one of the classic (always against Ireland) Finn giving a far too telegraphed wide ball to Hogg for a bracing shot to the ribs from the same.

Watched most of the first half back on my lunch today (can't face the second yet). Games like that, or the NZ game in the Autumn, always leads me to look for these sliding doors moments which is probably not all that helpful, but I can't help fixating on that final passage of play (should have been a penalty against Aki for his "tackle" on Tuipulotu just to wind certain people up). I don't want to have a go at someone who's barely played recently and was in a position on the pitch he wouldn't usually be, but WHY does Cummings play that pass. Absolute nothing pass to Turner who can't really do anything but get tackled into touch, if Cummings just carries into contact we can recycle and reset. A try there and I think the Irish mood, with all those injuries piling up, is very different. They defended really well in the first half but they looked very worried at times, and going in behind is very different to going in scrathing your head at "not sure how we're winning this one lads but we'll take it!" Not that it would have made much difference to our second front row utterly shitting the bed I suppose but it probably means we're not spending 25 minutes hopelessly chasing everything, an worse case are in the same position as we were with 20 to go against France, in touching difference. But those are the margins that international rugby is fought on - a second row with a nosebleed who hasn't been playing panics, a butterfly flutters its wings etc.

Yeah I think the front row is our only area where we don't have at least decent depth at this point. Turner and Ashman the hookers with Cherry the 3rd for me, but with Sutherland not up to speed we really struggle at both props. Nel was largely fine against England but I guess the argument is mobility/ability to last even as a replacement. He's still probably recovering from that shift now. On the injuries, with the way things have gone I'd say you have to put Kinghorn at 15, and there isn't much point calling Healy up if you won't play him at home to Italy, but I wouldn't discount GT seeing Kinghorn's performances at FB this year and thinking "he's the perfect man for that 10 spot"

Think there was one in the France game as well that T.E references in his article. I couldn't remember it off the top of my head though

I largely agree with this, I think important to note while it's unlikely all of them will make it, there's no reason to doubt that the vast majority of those players out there yesterday can still be playing for Scotland at the next World Cup, so while I have found the last two games depressing it's not as if this whole group is done forever. Potentially new coaching team, keep bringing in new players and youngsters, and we can maintain this level I'd suspect. Good piece imo by Tom English today Six Nations 2023: Scotland v Ireland analysis - BBC Sport. On the fundamentals he's right, we're very good but we just don't have the experience of winning in this team. Even France winning their first in ages last year has a team full of guys who have won European titles, as well as a simply ludicrous player base. We're still paying the price for the balls up we made of professionalism, continued poor development by the SRU, the years when our playing pool was genuinely awful, and a failure by Townsend to get his team up for a couple of eminently winnable championships mid WC cycle (2021 particularly stands out). What depresses me is I don't see any sign that this equation really changes any time in the short to medium term. As an aside I was shouting for Richie for captain as much as anyone, but getting marched back twice in two games for mouthing off as captain just isn't nearly good enough.

Yeah no idea why Brown is considered a suitable hooker at this stage. Absolute momentum killer with his poor throwing, and a penalty machine to boot. Agree with the second part of your post, but disagree on the first. I think other than the odd decision Townsend has been spot on this year, the players have shown a lack of personality in two very winnable games the last two. Funnily enough, had Townsend not fannied around in 2021 and we had that winning experience under our belt I think we'd have won at least one of those games

Paragraph 1 - You literally used the word cheated Paragraph 2 - you can watch the game without engaging with this thread if it winds you up so much. Why does it matter to anyone if the rugby thread of a Scottish football forum is negative about the referee. To whom does it "come across poorly?" Paragraph 3 - so what? Who cares? It's far less disruptive to the thread than boring wankers who don't even know the laws of the game going "you guys sure like talking about referees!" as it at least has some substance

Who said anything about cheated? It's perfectly possible to think you've had a hard time from a referee and been beaten by a better team. Again, if you understood the sport you're pontificating on you would understand that this is an important facet of the game. As mentioned earlier here l, Ireland fans were complaining about the referee on twitter earlier as well. It's really not that difficult to understand

Two things can be true though can't they. Scotland have been desperately poor in the second half; but unfortunately rugby is, more than any other sport I can think of, one where the laws are so complex that the referee has a decisive impact. There is not a single team who have been recognised as the best in world since I have been watching the sport who haven't also been the most effective players of the referee, or cheats if you like. That it's people who never seem to watch or post about rugby outside of the 6 nations who have this bee in their bonnet about people discussing refereeing is very telling imo.

It's not even that pearce is calling us poorly, he's just not reffing Ireland at all

Also you can even be honest about what the Tories are doing and still get your fix. It's not just that they are governing by culture war but the cruelty is the only point, it's not like this is something which is possibly going to work or addresses any of the myriad live, worthwhile of discussion issues of immigration in the UK. You can point out that this is a disgusting way for a failing government to behave alongside a rigorous attack on their record (and even feel sympathetic to Linekar personally if you want) without getting bogged down in this bollocks. You almost have to laugh when you see how transparent it is. I clicked on the Times' "my daughter went from finding out Santa isn't real to learning about anal sex" article this morning and burst out laughing when I saw the child in question was 12, a full year older than my primary school class who learned about these things in 2005.

Maybe Andor just spoiled me but I thought the first episode of this season, as well as the half season of BoBF I had to put matchsticks in my eyes to make me watch, was awful drek. Is the second episode in any way interesting or fun?

I wonder what it is about a Labour party run by absolute ghouls who will do anything to get a positive reaction from the country's psychopathic media, with Yvette fucking Cooper as Shadow HS, that makes people not trust their "Small Boats" policy is about preventing people trafficking rather than something far far more sinister.

Will agree with this. After I came back to the UK was stuck working in a call centre, not able to get interviews for stuff I wanted and applied for a grad scheme at a big 4 because "it would look good in the CV" or whatever. Spent two utterly miserable years there and now do more or less the same job in house elsewhere and it is 100x better because you're not surrounded by them. You've got the absolute psychopaths who buy into it all and then the miserable ones who won't leave because every time they get an interview elsewhere some partner will make some promise about better treatment which never comes to pass.

I live in the town and a quick Google just told me it's 1hr 29mins to the stadium so if anything you were going too slowly

Yeah I think the Eye is quite grating as well, some good investigative work but really petty insider gossipy stuff in the main.l when I've bought it recently.

Some of the free speech fellas having a bit of a tricky time being consistent with the Scott Adams stuff. Particularly good to know that acceptable racial discourse was defined at the exact moment Conor became sentient

The last try was what got me really deflated yesterday. Would still have needed things to go our way but would have made our next game less of a daunting task. We definitely chased too hard early on but I think we were terrified of the game being in our half having only got three points out of it as France looked like scoring whenever they had it in the first half. How France managed to avoid at least one yellow card either side of half time is infuriating me as well. Strange game for the forwards as Gilchrist's sending off, some of the first half defending and that last lineout were really poor (the red mainly as we lost Watson) but some of the carrying and handling was excellent, the lineout and maul was otherwise superb and except when there was some very obvious cheating we were pretty even in the scrum. Backline dangerous as ever and think we'll be able to take the game to Ireland in similar ways. We tightened up from first two but not quite enough. Grabbing at straws but I'd say overall actually our best performance of the tournament and best in defeat if the Townsend era. Other years, like last, we would have been washed away by a french team playing that well.