Eloise's Thoughts and Fancies

The Fall of the House of Usher is a Mike Flanagan horror, in the tradition of Hill House , Bly House and so on. As you might guess from the title it’s inspired by the works of Edgar Allan Poe. If you’re the right sort of nerd you can have fun spotting the references to Poe works, some are huge and smack you in the face, some are smaller or come from his life rather than his writing. I’ve seen reviews that absolutely hate this, or say they make the story incoherent. Personally I found them delightful and well judged. I'm pretty sure I missed some of them but the big, obvious references are held for the right moments - there’s an episode called The Pit and the Pendulum , and the pendulum does its job in a satisfying way. But the smaller moments, the ones that would be spoilers, if I missed them they’re not presented in neon lights and jerking the story out of shape, but if you do catch them, they add an extra little layer of pleasure in the way that all the best easter eggs do. If...

Amateur psephology time again. In, actually all of the U.K., we have local council elections every year normally, but only for about a quarter at a time. There are some weird wrinkles, England does a quarter of its seats each year but all of London is in one year (not this one). Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are all nationwide in a single year and so on. So, the seats this year were last up for election in 2019. Teresa May (remember her) was still PM although basically at the bottom of her popularity as even her own MPs thwarted her at every turn (BoJo replaced her a bit later on, then called an election just before Christmas). Jeremy Corbyn was the Labour leader and whatever you think of him, he was also at the bottom of his popularity. So there’s an argument that, for both big parties, the only way is up. Contrariwise, the Greens and LibDems, who both do well at local elections, had basically done extra well in 2019 - someone has to win each election after all. In terms of t...

This weekend really played out with he matches in reverse order of significance, which was a bit of a shame. Without any more fuss, let’s dive in. Match Reports England v France Let’s start with something other than the game. Twickenham had 58,498 people, a new record attendance for a women's rugby match. We’re going to have these records broken fairly regularly for a while, until the big games are selling out the big stadia routinely. We’re not there yet, but it wasn’t that long ago that this match was played after the men's game in front of about 2,000 people that stayed behind out of curiosity more than anything. Now it’s a huge, stand-alone event, shown on the BBC main channels (the other matches this weekend were on the red button but are there too) and attracting over 58k people just for this game. To subvert the old cliché, this was a game of three parts. In the first 15-20 minutes England barely got out of their own 22 with the ball, except to kick it out on the ful...

We’ve really got the tone of this year's championship sorted out. Ireland are woeful, Wales, Scotland and Italy (probably in that order, but still tbd) are clearly improved from last year but 12+ months of professionalism is not enough to catch up with 5+ years. France and England (order also tbd but that’s my guess) are still the dominant forces in the NH. Really, before they started, only one match this weekend mattered, Scotland v Italy, but France v Wales will also show a bit more about Welsh progress and resilience - how will they bounce back after the disappointment of the last 60 minutes of last week? Match Reports Ireland v England When England scored after two minutes I was amusing myself working out what the projected final score was if they kept that rate up (135-0 if you’re interested). Obviously that’s unreasonable, but 27-0 at halftime was based off a pretty poor England performance. Conversions were one from five. Penalty kicks for touch were missed - that s on ki...

Wales v England This was not a battle between equals. This was the world number 1 vs the world number 8, and while the points difference on the rankings is of questionable utility and you really can’t compare across the men’s and women’s, if you did that, England's women would be 3 points clear of Ireland and Wales women would be in 14th place… that might be a better indicator of the gulf between them at the moment than first v eighth. So, when for the first 20 minutes Wales dominated England in every aspect of the game, even leading on the scoreboard, that was notable. Wales continued to be competitive at the scrum and breakdown essentially throughout the game, and patches where the asserted their game plan in other areas too, although they were never really for long enough. The difference between the two was mostly the backs, where England have a load of really experienced players, Wales have a few. However, over time, the extra years of professional experience all round showe...

Having set the scene last week, straight into the match reports. Ireland v France This was another game where the weather, the wind to be precise, played a huge part. So did the dominance of the French over the Irish. So did the ref. Hang on, so far this is sounding the same as last week’s write-up involving Ireland! Well some of that is deliberate of course, and while those are the talking points, they’re phrased a bit misleadingly to emphasise the similarities. The wind was probably similar in strength, and really seemed to mess up the French goal kicking at first (I think it was actually just a bad day with the boot for Bourdon), but it had less impact on France overall than Wales because they didn’t rely on their set piece as much as Wales, running the ball from anywhere (more on that later). Overall, certainly in the loose, the French ran riot. It wasn’t only the backs, although they got most of the tries; the French forwards were enjoying running around too. At times, in the...

This year I’d the first year we’ve got every nation with some level of professionalism. Even sides like Wales, which could be fully professional, are going through a transition stage, with some of their players not willing or able to swap to the professional contracts, so it will probably be a number of years until we’ve got a fully professional elite women's game, but we’re definitely moving that way. We’re also seeing a lot of teams in transition as players retire after last years RWC, coaching teams are changed too, and there are the inevitable injuries, perhaps made somewhat worse than usual by the RWC - several teams were missing players from injuries sustained in New Zealand. On to the games. Wales v Ireland This was a game characterised by three things really. Physically the Welsh, particularly the forwards, but honestly all over the pitch were just bigger and stronger than their opponents. The first scrum went back like they’d packed against a scrum machine but there w...

As usual, I’m going to pick my team of the tournament with a few simple guidelines I pick by units, not individuals. It will be the whole Welsh front row (ha, not this year) for example, rather than a French tighthead, an Italian hooker and a Scottish loosehead. I pick players who have played the vast majority of the games, at least four, and while I might bend the rules in the front row, played really means started them. (Because front row players are often subbed so close to half time I’m happier about bending the rules there.) This year, we have a Grand Slam winner, so I will default to picking them, if they satisfy rules one and two, unless there’s a compelling reason not to. Whoever they faced, head to head, they did enough for their team to be better on the day. However, picking Irish players in all the positions has a problem. Ireland rotated a load of players for their game against Italy. Then their game against Scotland looked more like a battlefield than a rugby match -...

So, the final round of games and we have to see if Scotland have strength in depth, if Wales have improved over the championship in a really tough test and whether France or Ireland will win the title this year. Scotland v Italy This was world number 5 against the world number 14. On paper, it’s no contest. But Scotland were missing their first choices locks, both of them, and their first choice 10 and 15. That’s a lot of experience and playmaking to be missing. Despite that, Scotland ran out what the scoreboard will tell you is comfortable winners. A 26-14 bonus point win is comfortable, right? Yes, except Scotland nicked the ball with the clock in the red and Italy about 3m from their try line, then ran the length of the pitch to stretch it out to a 12-point margin of victory and score the fourth try. If that hadn’t happened, if Italy had scored instead as they were threatening to do, this would be a very different write up. As a neutral I’m not sure that Italy winning would have...

Match Thoughts A weekend with so many promising looking matches in advance. How would it actually play out? Italy v Wales While this match was for the wooden spoon, we had Wales looking for revenge after last year, looking for signs that their new plans were working and looking for their first win of the second Gatland era. On the other side we had an Italian side who were the favourites, deservedly so, for the first time ever in a 6N match, and having pushed both the Irish and French - that’s the top two sides in the world rankings remember - really close and looking to continue their progress. As a Welsh fan what happened was a great result. This is not the final, polished, article. But, in most aspects of the game, Wales have clearly progressed. Their defence, which has been getting better throughout the tournament, took another step up and really harried the Italians. When it broke, it scrambled back and resisted well if there was space. Not a huge tick, but a step forward stil...