Rugby World Cup 2023/ Crochet & Knitting chit chat

I did. I forgot Tom Oā€™ Toole and big Stu. Realistically Ian Henderson was the only one in the top 23 though.

I had high hopes Balacoune would have been lighting things up ahead of the world cup. Seems to have regressed

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I see no sign of it here either. Harder to field adult teams at club level, number of underage players from here making Irish squads appallingly low and often now the province with fewest representatives, attendances up a small bit last year at Ravenhill but nowhere near what they were 8-10 years ago. Half the pack being fellas who werenā€™t good enough for Leinster and were sent north doesnā€™t help matters at all.

I believe youā€™re correct. This was more to do with his resource-management skillset from his stint with Ulster, Gloucester and some rumblings about the English association cricket organisation. Spends very big with little regard for best-allocation of said resources.

I thought porter was outstanding, but itā€™s hard to know. They need to get rid of scrum penalties unless itā€™s exceptional, and the clock should be stopped as soon as the scrum is called until the ball goes in. As soon as the ref calls for a reset, same again. Itā€™s stop.myriad time wasting and if it went back to a free kick instead of a penalty, itā€™s stop a lot of the cheating and diving that goes on. Leave it so a penalty try can be awarded for scrum infringement close to the line, and otherwise, if the ball is coming out, leave it out.

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Really? Appears the GGA is failing even amongst the chippy northern nationalist community according to yourself with rugby taking pride of place.

I suspect you missed the nuance there.

According to Halfpipe in his more candid moments the engagement is outstripping the GGA up there.

The nuance that at the height of the GGA Championship there were tvs getting switched over to rugby?

What was it, Ireland v Japan? :rofl:

Iā€™m sure @Halfpipe will clarify in due course. As I said, I suspect you missed the nuance, he can confirm if you did.

Iā€™d like to see micro sin bins for infringements near the line.

Jump offside defending in your own 22 and its 3 mins in the bin.

None of those multiple infringements before a card lark.

The nuance being his audience and his guard being down.

Its only fair that the poster in question be allowed time to clarify, but I suspect there was more going on in that post that simply a link to it suggests.

The statement is pretty clear there. At the height of the GGA Championship nobody cared in Ulster and they switched over to rugby Test matches (ones regularly lampooned on here).

That kind of engagement will pay off in time. Those with a partitionist mindset will say having only a couple of Ulster players involved is an issue but it really isnā€™t.

Its only fair @Halfpipe explain it to you himself rather than having you try to dissect it further as Iā€™m not sure from what youā€™re saying that you really are getting to the nuts of the nuance.

They are too often too marginal for me to do that.

Great to see you keeping up with events in the Ulster championship @Tim_Riggins, just shows the reach of the competition! While my own anecdotes certainly do carry substantial weight and I can understand why you place such value on them, probably best not to assess the strength of various sports up here solely on the tv setting in a pub in a unionist town 2 years ago.

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I donā€™t know where this narrative is coming from but itā€™s nonsense . Barnes basically said sorry I didnā€™t see the replay but from where I was it was a foul . That now seems to have turned into Barnes apologising for giving the penalty which he never did .

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Myself and @Little_Lord_Fauntleroy keep abreast of all tv developments regarding sports in Ireland and also the GGA. Naturally this caught my eye.

The last line is cute- come back again here reloaded before trying this craic again.

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3 mins is nothing. Itā€™s basically one more run of play.

Iā€™d also look at varying the reward for a drop goal vs. a penalty.