I used to try and hit the catcher just as they landed,more chance of them smacking their head on the ground that way.The whole catcher being up in the air for evry catch is a fairly new thing anyway,even as recent as Gav Hasting used to plant themselves and then bounce you right off them (which was v.humiliating)

Just to follow up on this, I was flicking over to the Millenium Magic coverage in between games on the weekend. There didn’t seem to be anyone in the stadium. The entire upper tier was empty, and I’m guessing that the lower tiers were only about a quarter full. This may have been very different for the games I didn’t catch, of course.

But, the RFL are claiming a decent attendance:
The return to the Millennium Stadium drew an aggregate attendance of 60,214 for the seven Engage Super League round-one games over two days, an increase of 8,171 on last year’s fixtures in Edinburgh and the second highest in the event’s five-year history.

Still quite a bit short of the Millenium Stadium’s capacity.

What exactly is the point of playing every game outside the heartland of RL?

DD too funny..

I didn’t IJ, sadly. I had a mate’s wedding the same weekend. I know where I’d rather have been 🙄

That may explain why the stadium looked empty – most of the seats were booked for the whippets.

😆 A big game? I think so.

Lievremont is right though – the rest of us don’t like the English! 😉

What twickenham needs is a west country v midlands double header. 25K glos fans and 25k tigers fans for starters.

Yeah selective quoting by AA if ever I’ve seen it this is what Palmer said (source Guardian so it must be true)

If you look at the final and bronze final of each of the 6 RWC tournaments wales appears once as a bronze finalist in the very first tournament, and England appears 4 times, three of those were as finalists (including winning it ) and once as a bronze finalist. In recent years as the rest of the world has raised its game, wales has slipped steadily down the rankings. England came 2nd in the last tournament and one the previous one.

If you look at just the finals, Englands three appearances are only bested by Australia who also appeared three times, but have Won twice, NZ appeared twice (won once), France twice (never won), and SA twice (won twice).

I wonder who the big boys around here are?

Doesn’t take much imagination to work out why the Argies might have a teensy bit of a problem with the British, and by extension the English.

Looking forward to Eng/Fra – the “Big Boys” 😉

Hopefully Lievremont will carry on picking that big, useless, lunk Damien Traille – maybe at Fly-Half or Full Back but even if he’s at centre he still keeps out Jauzion. With that other big, useless, lunk Huget on the wing it certainly helps England.

How hard is it to pick a back three for France?

Medard, Malzieu and Clerc.

Oh, it wasn’t hard at all.

Thanks Mr Winner, (you edify yourself by quoting him) indeed I am, and a pre follower, took and interest in the 70’s which really took hold since I started playing in 1982.

I have been deliberately avoiding that. I think the big brother might have been a bit tired in the last 10 years although just because you have won 2 grand slams it doesn’t negate the fact that you have only one it twice and we have on it 3 times. (france have 3 gs and 5 wins)

Monkeys with typewriters… Was bound to get something right eventually.
Still Chabal in for Bonnaire is a strange one.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-12534540

Jamie in a bit of biff 😯

I’ve never heard Ronan o’Gara called that before.

That’ll be a 53% rate of success for the French against 48% for england, how that maths work then and who the big boy now?

Bloomin’ potential Grand Slam decider game and i’m gonna miss it!

MsD’s 40th birthday so i’ve booked a weekend in a lovely little pub up in Eskdale. Gonna miss the game but at least we’ll be riding our bikes at Whinlatter!