Back from my corporate jolly to game...some thoughts having not seen any replays or TV. Long-ish post. (Skip to he last 2 paras for the incisive bit)

Twickenham a pain to get to...and into. Ticket entry barriers weren't working, RFU needs to get its act together - pretty crap really. The crowd was far more respectful to the opposition and the kickers. First time I'd been to Twickenham for a test in about 10 years, so credit to the RFU. Atmosphere was great.

Pom tactics and decision making were excellent in the first 30 minutes - crap after that. Thought Farrell had a poor game - zero variation in his game. Underhill was astonishingly good for England and was my MoM.

AB backline was poor until Crotty came on and he seemed to give a lot of solidity. Thought SBW was poor and you wonder how long he'll be in the team. England targeted DMac with the high ball but he did OK and as well as anyone else - he certainly doesn't lack guts, thats for sure. On attack he was probably the most dangerous AB back. Thought our kicking game (inc. DMac) was shite. We looked way more dangerous when keeping the ball in hand.

Retallick & Savea were immense. BBBR utterly owned the Pom lineout, ruck, maul and, well, the whole pitch. Ardie seemed to be everywhere.

Ben Kay and Ugo Monye hosted a post match analysis for the corporate clients which was excellent. No argument that Lawes was offside from them. We then had a Q&A with Itoje and Danny Care.

Itoje & Care seemed good blokes but I was surprised by the complacency in their attitude. They thought that as they had only lost by 1 point they had scored a famous victory. Astonishing attitude in many ways. Hope I never hear an AB talk like that.

All in all, a mistake-strewn game. But we dogged a win - which I sense Hansen will be happy with

It's a childish, unfair thing to say but it's a pity Sexton wasn't playing.

Would have loved to seen his face at the final whistle

Good to see Krusty keepin his powder dry...

Fitzy's reaction is impressive...

@Crucial said in Bledisoe #1:

Mate, here at the fern we have memories like elephants and not much imagination.

I blame Deans.

@kiwimurph said in England vs All Blacks:

This will be a proper test of how DMac handles 15.

Yes, Ironically. All those games at 15 he played against Sth Africa, Wales, the Wobbles, Argentina. France and Scotland were a walk in the park....

@Bones

My only fond memory of 2007 was walking back to the car thru Cardiff and seeing a drunk twat in an England shirt, taunting any Kiwi he could find, getting decked by a Saffa fan.

@junior said in RWC: All Blacks v Ireland (QF2):

Whitelock and Retallick and Read also at the peak of their powers

Cane is the unsung hero for me.

We don't play so well when he isn't there.

After a nights sleep...

I really think we could have pinched that game - and I'm not taking anything away from England. There were times when we started to come good and then buggered things up by forgetting the basics. E.g.:

• BBBR took the wrong decision on the breakout. Had he passed we should have scored. 7-7 and we'd have been back in it.

• We had a line-out throw 5m from the English line - and blew it. How that happened with our lineout options is beyond me,

• When Cole made the break up-field there was very little support. Opportiunity was wasted.

• Whitelock's penalty. Again, if we'd kicked that it would have been game on

Read at times had a strange look in his eyes - like a rabbit facing a car. Think he epitomized the almost total lack of leadership from the senior players in the game. He really isn't good under pressure.

@bones

He's telling the press he's loving the pressure from losing. Told them last week he learns more from losing than winning.

England rugby supporters are worried that by Christmas he'll be the happiest, most knowledgeable coach in world rugby....

@No-Quarter said in British Politics:

Fun fact - from what I understand, according to Gender Theory if you are a man and you don't identify with all of the stereotypical masculine traits, that makes you non-binary. And as being non-binary is a subset of trans, it makes you trans as well.

I like the story of a local Labour Party selecting a woman-only short-list one Wednesday

One bloke applied saying that, in line with Labour policy, he was eligible as he identified as female - but only on Wednesdays...

@Crucial said in British Politics:

What the licence (or forced subscription) service does bring to broadcasting is a range and type of programme that would not be made otherwise whether that is quality drama or ground breaking comedy.

Or a management who think they are fire-proof and can turn out dross.

I've lost count of the number of BBC shows we've starting watching and stopped halfway thru the episode as they were utter crap. I used to be a ardent listener to R4's Today programme. Tuned in last last year after a year or two's absence and was struck by how poor it was. Really saddened me.

Hopefully, the fear of having change forced on them might shock them out their complacent "we're world class" world-view and get the Beeb back on track. Hope so.

@Crucial said in British Politics:

TV broadcasting in the UK is primarily DTT (Digital Terrestrial Transmission) through an aerial. That would require distribution of an encoded transmission and a decoder box to every subscriber.

That's built into the network, though not used much, and many, if not most, TV's have a subscription card slot for Pay TV channels. My new Panasonic has one.

Possibly not needed as viewing is increasingly done online and broadband speeds increase. DTT has difficulty delivering UHD which could become the norm in the next few years same way as HD did.

The Beeb does need a shake up and cull though and some of the salaries paid to 'stars' is stupid.

Yep. The BBC has become far too complacent and backward in its thinking - iPlayer was years ahead of Netflix, Sky Now etc, yet they only recently discovered box-sets..... I can see the BBC becoming a bare-bones service with a lot of its content on a subscription model.

At the end of the day, its business model is jailing people who don't pay for their service - even if they don't want it. That's pretty untenable when people are increasingly not watching any of your output

Watched Agatha Christie's "The Pale Horse" on BBC (Rufus Sewell).

The other BBC Christie adaptations have been great but this was bloody awful - confusing, hammy and actually quite dull.

@Crucial said in Things that annoy you about rugby...:

@Victor-Meldrew said in Things that annoy you about rugby...:

Dickhead coaches and managers who keep telling us, pre-match, how they're going to smash the opposition and physically annihilate them.

Do your talking on the pitch.

Eddie Jones would have been quicker to type

Not just Jones, Crucial, though he's the loudest current exponent.

This this sort of fluffybunny-ness has been getting worse for a decade or more

Watched Color Out Of Space with Nicolas Cage & Joely Richardson.

One of these days someone's gonna make a great film from one of H P Lovecraft's books.

Sadly, this aint it. 5/10

Dickhead coaches and managers who keep telling us, pre-match, how they're going to smash the opposition and physically annihilate them.

Do your talking on the pitch.

@Rembrandt

The judge was excoriating (well, for a judge), telling the police their actions were like that of the Cheka, Stasi or Gestapo.

@Catogrande

I think his point was that if Corbyn hadn't been elected Labour leader with appalling ratings, May would never have called an election in '17

Think I've just found a new hero....

“Don’t buy a motorcycle because will get you killed.” Really? Our guy wouldn’t agree to this stupidity. He’s turning 100 this year, update: he just turned 100 and he might still be able to ride. We just talked to the guys at the Bordertown Biker Bash, a motorcycle rally in Amherst Nova Scotia held in July, and they confirmed that Wymann Betts could lead the motorcycle parade again. It would be just a month before he turns 101.

However, there are some concerns about his ability to ride a motorcycle. There is talk about him either riding in a sidecar or antique car. However, he's proably the oldest guy in America to be able to ride. The secret: “not thinking too far ahead”, he says.

“Bun,” as his friends call him, has been riding motorcycles for more than 50 years. He started his life on two wheels riding a scooter - it was easier for him to commute to a nearby sawmill. He traded a lot of bikes, and the last one he bought is a 2003 Honda Gold Wing he’s still riding. "When it's moving about 15 km/h … everything goes fine, but it's heavy," Wyman "Bun" Betts told CBC's Information Morning a couple of years ago.

“I’ve just never grown up,” he also says - which seems to be a great strategy when fighting with age.

https://riders.drivemag.com/news/still-riding-at-100-i-ve-just-never-grown-up?fbclid=IwAR0Fp2y_vDqAvi-uXrM1440sQnlkuQVYS1jmRpB_VToWr9L55SsOxTu7cCQ