Recent content by Highlander35

In more general news, that leaves two slots for six teams right? Samoa and Chile play off for one, the loser joins Namibia, Belgium and the winner of the Paraguay/Brazil playoff Exciting that we're so close to pool draw.

Take the 20k from the bonus test in the June window vs Scotland brings the figure very broadly in line with the other two years you host a 3rd bled. 2012 - 303.6k 2010 - 307.1k 2008 - 304.7k

They have 40+ fully professional teams playing a minimum of 26 games each, and that's if you're playing Nationale 1: Top14 and ProD2 have minimum 30 games each. I'm not the world's biggest fan of the french system, but to call it shameful is just absurdly small minded.

I'm pretty sure the NSD is already viewed as a bit of a mess by the football fan establishment as it's not a quote unquote "real" second division but rather halfway between a second division and an extended NPL playoffs. I'd imagine players playing across multiple levels concurrently is a...

FIFA has about 6 international windows each representing about 9 days each. These windows are used for for friendlies, qualification games, and a mix of other games, particularly in Europe with the Nations League. There are also quadrennial release windows for the continental cups and world...

To attach further depth to the philosophy: I think on a fundamental level, once you reach a non-petty level of crime, I feel the ethics of rehabilitation should entitle you to an ordinary life without significant levels of judgement or harassment: if he decided to go be a chippy and turned out...

It will probably make having Stan a much more attractive prospect for any Pubs/Sports Bars that don't already have it on their books too, gets more casual eyes on the game hopefully (if we presume they're not running dodgy firesticks)

Welsh regions in the English Prem without WRU support feels like it would be disastrous. Maybe now that the 9->5 Calamity from two decades ago might be solved by two new entities, there would be room for some of the Welsh Clubs move into the English Pyramid, maybe at Nat 1 or Champ level: I'm...

there's a gap between earning a living playing rugby and getting test level opportunities: if some Japanese, MLR or French teams wants him on their roster I'll think less of them but don't think it should be banned. But seeing him in the test arena still feels pretty despicable and I can't...

Generally speaking I want the USA to do well but I hope they lose every single game that Rufus McLean is in the squad for.

Disregard I just read 9.34

They do, but that's not inclusive of rest weeks, they'd be entitled to his services for the weeks of 25/08 and 15/09, which is where negotiations or hardlining would come in to try and prevent him from spending 30 hours in transit twice in a week, with a game inbetween.

France is France. You have 30 teams playing professional seasons in excess of 30 games, plus at least another half a dozen in the Nationale with ambitions of professionalism with 25+ games. Shit needs so many players.

1 extra fixture is not worth the lucky loser nonsense

I wasn't tracking every minute between the drinking and the miserable weather, but per the phone timeline the old man and I left the ground pretty leisurely at about quarter to 11, joined the queue 5-10 minutes later, and didn't get on the train until midnight, with what I'd guess was at least...