Eloise's Thoughts and Fancies

Last year, in case you’ve forgotten, England and France were streets ahead of the rest and England beat France in a match that was abandoned due to a power cut. Wales got stomped on by everyone. This year Wales have announced full time contracts for 12 players, additional part time contracts for a further 16. France and England are still professional outfits, no one else is. It’s probably too early this year for that to have made a huge difference to the Welsh players, but next year it should. In addition, the Irish team missed out on this year’s RWC, but the others made it into the competition, so the Irish are already looking to the next cycle, the others are building their squad for this October in New Zealand. Scotland v England While there were moments of this match that were great from a Scottish perspective if you were to watch pretty much any five minute period you might ask who let these teams play each other. England have a fully professional squad and while the Scottish w...

I need to start this review with a potential trigger warning . It’s not long and it might not hit everyone but there are two scenes where Batman is observing someone. One made me feel a little uncomfortable but was tolerable. One went over the edge into voyuerism for me. I know everyone involved is consenting in the film, which is quite different to the real situation, but it still made me feel really uncomfortable. On to the review itself. Every clip you’ve seen where it’s really dark and moody is generally right. There is an opening quote “they look for me in the shadows but I am shadow.” The cinematographer seems to have taken that to heart, hardly any scenes are shot during daylight and when they are it’s heavily overcast. Given Batman and Catwoman dress in black, there’s a lot black-clad characters in the dark. However, eyes are wonderful things and I could follow the action comfortably enough. For any Batman movie, or TV show, you really have two things you have to pull off. H...

The rules of this have existed for a long time. I don’t pick individuals, I pick units, so a front row, locks, etc. and I pick groups that have been together for as long as possible. When there’s a grand slam winner, I need excellent reasons NOT to pick a group from that winning team. This time I’m going to add a bit of commentary in some places though. Front Row : France - Baille, Marchand, Antonio . No one really troubled these three, their replacements are not as dominant and need to get better before the RWC. The Irish front row was the only other one in contention. Second Row : France - Woki and Willemse . The Irish ( Beirne and Henderson ) and Welsh (yes the Welsh, Beard and Rowlands ) locks made this pair wobble at lineout time. Itoje was his cheating self and had one really poor game, one mediocre game but three really quite decent ones. But for all round performance as a unit, this pair really had it all. Back Row : France - Cros, Jelonch, Aldritt . If the Welsh backro...

Wales v Italy It’s fair to say that not many people expected Italy to win this. Even though they’ve been improving all through the championship, so have Wales, and Wales are in a better place than Italy aren’t they? Italy’s defence looked much sharper than we’d seen before. Was that the case or was it Welsh attacking frailties making it look good? The Italian kick and chase game looked much sharper too, without hours of analysis it’s hard to be sure exactly why. Was it that the chase was better? Were the kicks better directed? Or a better distance? Was there better communication so the chasers just knew where to go and arrived in better order? Some combination of two or more of these? The second half made it look as if it might have been improved Italian defence cramping the Welsh attack, as Wales racked up two tries and if not for a call of “on-field no try” would have got a fourth. But they could never pull away and as much as it pains me to say it, Wales' last kick from hand ...

At the very end of 2019 Boris Johnson won a general election. Because of the weirdness of the British electoral system compared to many others, he won a large parliamentary majority (80 seats) with “only” 43.6% of the popular vote. I say only in quotes, because this is the biggest share for decades, since before I was eligible to vote in fact. We can argue, forever, about the factors that won Johnson the vote and such a big margin. The message of “getting Brexit done” almost certainly had something to do with it. The Labour Party in disarray under a leader who had become isolated and successfully attacked as an anti-Semite (I think it’s complicated but not entirely untrue) almost certainly helped as well. But BoJo is also, in my opinion correctly, labelled as part of the right-wing populist movement that swept the electoral system in the late 20-teens. Trump, Boris and others of that ilk came to power, while Erdowan strengthened his grip. LePen ran off against Macron, the best the fa...

This weekend started early, with a semi-traditional Friday night game between Wales and France, then two on the Saturday. Because France are chasing the Grand Slam, it probably started with the biggest match. Ireland might disagree, depending on results this week and next. Wales v Ireland Who says rugby needs to be high scoring to be exciting? One try and five penalties, France running out 13-9 winners and it was a match where both the Welsh and French fans were watching avidly throughout. Any smart neutrals should have been too. For Wales to transition from the side that got stuffed by Ireland to the side that, so far, has held France to by far their lowest score and only one try is impressive. To make a side that smashed the All Blacks, has run in tries for fun against everyone, bonus points in their first three 6N matches, including against Ireland, look ordinary and confused is awe inspiring. On attack things are not as rosy. But the Welsh were good enough to make chances and th...

The midpoint where we sort out those who still have a chance and those that don’t. Scotland v France This was an odd match. At no point were France actually behind but from about minutes 15 to 35 Scotland were moving the ball so fast that the French defence missed tackles or made the tackles all single rather than gang tackles from a set line. Shortly before half time it felt like Scotland were in the lead. Then France scored a try with some lovely offloads that will have the Scottish defence coach tearing his hair out to remind us of the actual score. In the second half, France just kept easing away. If Jaminet had had his kicking boots on, the score should have been somewhere in the 50’s, if not 60’s. In fairness, if you look at the kicks he did score it’s clear the wind is pretty unpredictable. There are two from almost the same place, one flies straight and straight through, one looks like he’s doing frisbee tricks as it curves and bends several times but still goes through… Fr...