Wait'll you hear what somebody told me in Fergburger last night ...
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Gossip From The Mart: The Fergburger Chronicles
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Author Archives: dementedmole
Joe Schmidt: He Used To Be A Teacher
You can expect a good few more of these ...
One To Watch: Conor Murray [Ireland]
All the potential to be the best Irish scrum-half of the last thirty years
Separated At Birth #7
One of the Mole's favourites. Picking Skrela over Beauxis is like picking David Gray over Beethoven, M. Lievremont.
One To Watch: Manu Tuilagi [England]
Whaddaya mean 'one-dimensional'? I can do happy AND sad.
Manu Tuilagi – arnchajusickovim? The Rosbif press have a habit of hyping their players out of the stratosphere at the first sign of international accomplishment. Maybe all national rugby correspondents are guilty of it, and we just pick on poor old Angleterre; certainly the Irish rugby media have never been slow to sing the praises of Keith Earls or Luke Fitzgerald. However, I think it’s fair to say that no Northern Hemisphere rugby press is quicker to acclaim or to damn than the hacks of Fleet Street and Wapping. Continue reading
Gorgodzilla vs Tekori Kong
Check out how small the ball looks!
Two of the Mole’s “One to Watch” candidates come face to face in the Top 14, Mamuka Gorgodze [Montpellier] and Joe Tekori [Castres Olympique]. If you have a rugby ball to hand, look at the size of it … now look at what it looks like in Tekori’s hand. What a pair of monsters.
Crystal Ball Gazing #1
Pool A: NZ, France, Tonga, Japan, Canada
Pool A hosts the opening game of the World Cup so look forward to discussion about the merits of warm up games ending and the real stuff beginning.
The first Rugby World Cup opened with New Zealand annihilating Italy and winning by massive margins in the pool stages has become a New Zealand tradition. New Zealand and France will qualify from this pool, in that order. None of the other teams really have a chance of upsetting the top two, who could pick any selection from their squads and win the three games required. Of more interest will be the composition of Henry and Lievremont’s first choice XVs. Who will Graham Henry allow into his prefect’s club? His rotation of the starting halfbacks could be the rock upon which this World Cup tilt perishes. There’s a nagging suspicion that Lievremont picks his team blindfolded, after a few glasses of red wine. France have the personnel to go far in the competition but rarely set the pool stages alight and often make heavy work of less talented opposition. Continue reading
Separated At Birth #6
Poor old Tobes: what, did you really think you were going to play in a World Cup when Johnno could pick le Jonny?
While there are an awful lot of things to like about this photo, Butch James’ kid-in-a-candy-shop expression is the winner for me. He’s not really going to punch him, Butchie!
One To Watch: Pat McCabe [Australia]
What does this guy actually do?
In considering who to look out for in the Aussie team, it’s tempting to look beyond the obvious and think about Pat McCabe in the No12 jersey, the Warwick Taylor-esque straightman to the glittering talents that surround him. Continue reading
Digging Like a Demented Mole 