In the early pre-season, Mole Towers got a glimpse online of one of rugby’s most outrageous sights, but what with all the hubbub and clamour of the World Cup, followed by a typically enthralling Heineken Cup group stage, we forgot all about it. Continue reading
Wodger Wilson Weturns
Roger Wilson is on his way back to Ulster. He’ll return home from Nortampton at the end of this season on a three year deal that’ll see him up to his 33rd birthday, and probably his retirement from the game. Continue reading
Harlequins’ away win in Toulouse proves yet again what a great tournament the HEC is and puts in place some interesting pool arithmetic, with one of the Irish provinces centrally involved in the unfolding tale in Pool 6. Continue reading
Lady Luck! She wears green! She hates Connacht! The irony.
Almost with a sense of perversity, it must be pointed out that the Irish run cannot continue forever. Perhaps Ulster have not yet had the proverbial “rub of the green” in the Heineken Cup this season – and Connacht certainly haven’t – but neither Munster nor Leinster can claim that to be the case. Continue reading
Subtle.
The Ulster game against Aironi is pretty hard to get excited about. Aironi are a fairly brutal team, pinned to the bottom of the Pro 12 table; it’s all so different from last year, when they were pinned to the bottom of the Magners League table. Continue reading
IT’S THE GROUP OF DEATH! It’s scarcely credible that this phrase has taken hold in rugby and managed to survive in commentary. It doesn’t have any notable lineage [for example, it’s not old naval slang or public school code], it’s an enormous overstatement – nobody calls failure to qualify from another group a death, so why should this be a ‘group’ of death? – and it’s really quite crass.
It’s the sort of modern over-statement that doesn’t sit well with rugby, where the method of scoring is still called a ‘try’, and you still have positions like tighthead prop and second five-eighth. If rugby were to adopt the sort of language from which GROUP OF DEATH! has managed to cross over, we’d have Right Scrum Masters, Megaboot Generals and VICTORY TOUCHDOWNS! Continue reading
Digging Like a Demented Mole 