Squidge Rugby

Justin Marshall has called all three of Hawkins, Llewellyn and Tompkins "Dan Edwards"

He also says that the Ospreys are being cut at the end of this season which is a pretty devastating way to find out.

I'm watching the Wales NZ game back with Kiwi commentary and literally every time Harri Deaves is on screen, Tony Johnson calls him "The captain, Dewi Lake", and whenever Lake gets the ball he says "The debutant, Harri Deaves".

Not all Ospreys look the same guys.

This Tom Curry controversy is the least interested I've been in something since the last Tom Curry controversy

Without boxkicking, every team would play 14-man defensive lines a la 2019 and the space would dry up. Look at the number of tries this week alone that came from regathering boxkicks- It’s the quickest way to disorganise a defence and cause chaos. Without them, the game would become too structured.

Ban the box kick and the game would become endlessly more boring as a result. Even if you don't enjoy contestables, they're a necessary evil.

For Wales? *Enormous* numbers of positives. They were in a proper game against the All Blacks after an hour. Italy and Japan both had them beat before then. Collapsing in the final quarter is very, very different to being totally outplayed the entire game.

This is the most even and competitive it's ever been with more tries being scored & higher ball in play, but because the number one team achieve the same dominance as historic All Black sides with power instead of pace and there's more cards than a decade ago, we get endless discourse about nothing.

International rugby is so good right now is the thing

And with that, all that remains of test rugby in 2025 is one 40-minute half and an afternoon's live stream from an abattoir

If someone knocked on Healey's door and told him he'd won the lottery, his first reaction would be to question the calibration of the machine and state that he didn't like the jacket on the bloke that came to tell him.

Injury record bad, quality of play still very good

Honestly, despite everything, a pretty positive half for Tonga. Huge, huge effort.

Mid-match coach interviews are usually pretty pointless except for when Jamie Lyall is doing them, when they’re often so good you want to listen to them instead of resuming the game.

Would you mind following me or etc so I can DM you? You can unfollow me after, but whatever's going on here I'd rather we resolved it privately. I've got no interest in a public spat, which I fear this is about to turn in to.

Exactly, well put

You can tag me you know

He tripped over and got MOTM on debut

Better points per 22 entry than NZ, SA, Ireland or France this weekend.

Beard is not a good carrier at any level of rugby. He is, however, good at cleaning out rucks and a weirdly great distributor. An effective, well-thought out attack would make sure he's only playing those roles and the other 14 players in the team are the ones actually carrying the ball.

Wales' lineout with Adam Beard post-RWC2023: 91%

Wales' lineout without Adam Beard in that time: 73%

Throw in the fact that he made as many tackles as the NZ starting locks combined and Wales have modded their defence to be led by him and I'd say that's worth a spot in the team.

Boring post

...

Did Matt Carley just give a rugby values penalty

I'm in on it, didn't you hear?

Also Scarlets released Ryan Conbeer and he was starting work on the bricks when we offered him a contract.

Aled Davies was in 2018 and Ryan Conbeer doesn't have caps.

A truly bizarre game

I think they're probably definitely the second best team we've ever seen at this point

Sacha made that look very easy, and the for once I actually think it was

God reading ref chat is so boring