chrissmith921

A little light relief for which growing up in Wales is not a mandatory requirement - but it helps. Two 90 year old men, Mike and Joe, have been friends all of their lives. When it's clear that Joe is dying, Mike visits him every day. One day Mike says, 'Joe, we both loved rugby all our lives, and we played rugby on Saturdays together for so many years. Please do me one favour, when you get to Heaven, somehow you must let me know if there's rugby there.' Joe looks up at Mike from his death bed,' Mike, you've been my best friend for many years. If it's at all possible, I'll do this favour for you. Shortly after that, Joe passes on. At midnight a couple of nights later, Mike is awakened from a sound sleep by a blinding flash of white light and a voice calling out to him, 'Mike--Mike.' 'Who is it? asks Mike sitting up suddenly. 'Who is it?' 'Mike--it's me, Joe.' 'You're not Joe. Joe just died.' 'I'm telling you, it's me, Joe,' insists the voice.' 'Joe! Where are you?' 'In heaven', replies Joe. 'I have some really good news and a little bad news.' 'Tell me the good news first,' says Mike. The good news,' Joe says,' is that there's rugby in heaven. Better yet, all of our old friends who died before us are here, too. Better than that, we're all young again. Better still, it's always spring time and it never rains or snows. And best of all, we can play rugby all we want, and we never get tired, or injured.' 'That's fantastic,' says Mike. 'It's beyond my wildest dreams! So what's the bad news?' 'You're in the team for Tuesday.

Brilliant!

Old ones are always the best It was Scotland/Wales 'International' weekend in Edinburgh, and as the crowds made their way down Princess Street towards Murrayfield, a Rottweiler suddenly lunged towards an eight year old Scottish lass, with its jaws wide open ready to attack. The crowd nearby gasped in horror but, quick as a flash, a man jumped out of the crowd, grabbed the dog by the throat and throttled it. As the dead dog lay there, and the crowd cheered in admiration, a journalist from the Glasgow Herald who had witnessed the heroic deed, went up to the man and said, 'That was brilliant, I can see the headline now.' 'Welsh Rugby Fan Saves Young Girl From Certain Death.' The man replied, ' No you've got it wrong. I'm not here for the rugby!' 'Don't worry' said the journalist, 'I can see the headline now.' 'Welshman Saves Girl From Jaws Of Rottweiler' The man replied, 'No you're wrong again. I'm not Welsh; I'm from Berkshire.. ' The journalist said, 'Don't worry; I can see the headline now' 'English Bastard Strangles Family Pet!!!!'

HE? He = Babayaro. If you've ever seen him play, you'll agree that Babayaro doesnt know hes a footballer

Because the other nine were **** awful? (to be fair, Neville Southall was pretty good as was Kevin Ratcliffe. So it was only the other seven that were **** awful.) I take your second point though. We would be awesome. Hughes is still the best target man ive ever seen. Rush was a goal machine. Southall was class, Radcliffe was very good. Giggs wasnt even on the scene until late in the Rush/Hughes years. We also had Saunders, who was very good for us. However, we also had Paul **** Bodin. That tosser.... is the ONLY reason we did not go to USA 94. Do not try putting your penalty in the top corner when qualification depends on it, just **** make sure. Still makes me angry.

He'd send you off then though if you ran away too long! EA Sports team was the shit Not on the Megadrive. He couldnt send you off if he wasnt close enough to do his little red card animation, so you could just keep running and running and running and running. He would never stop chasing you of course, so you had to take the card sooner or later. But there was no place where the game cut in and took control of your character. the megadrive version was the one i meant - what i meant was, if you ran away for a long time, then decided you'd had enough and let him give you the card, you'd be sent off he never booked me when id ran away for a fair few seconds

Stevo985 watches X-factor Actually, Smarty Pants, it was X-Tra factor, so in your face! I dunno - my mrs was watching it, decided to tell me the same fact. Anyway, as you've said, its b*llocks

Stevo985 watches X-factor

He'd send you off then though if you ran away too long! EA Sports team was the shit

Depends on how seriously we take it, most, if not all, of the stronger U21 players (Evans, Vokes, Hennessey, Gunter, Bale) will be involved with the first team, they may play the first leg of the U21 tie as we have Litchenstein at home, but we travel to Germany when the U21 second leg is played, so unlikely to have too many of them playing in that. I'd imagine it'll be 2-0 to England in England, and say 2-1 in Wales, so 4-1 on aggregate. Considering we went 11 years at U21 level without a victory, our performance at these qualifiers has been exceptional, and can be directly linked to the 4v4 freedom to play football introduced to our u7-u11 age groups about 8 years ago.

Wales U21 have drawn England U21 in the playoff for the Euro 2009 U21 tournament.

I dont view them as a country

Chinese Taipei

I never cared anyway

Honey Monster was interviewed today

I agree it would be very difficult. Given though they have 4 sports to all that population, and we have 3 for ours - you can definately argue they could squeeze one more in. Its just a case of timing and money - if they took a Rugby World Cup out there I think it would be a big step forward.

Honestly, I'll believe it when the Rugby World Cup is shown on a channel that's in more than a couple of hundred thousand homes (most recently on Setanta). Even the '90 World Cup was at least on ESPN. Pro rugby would be lucky to get a few thousand a game in attendance. 7s at least can be more appetizing to the casual fan flipping through channels, and the shorter game periods make for natural advert breaks. I'd structure a USA-style 7s match as a series of 4 or 5 7s games (with halves probably extended to 12 minutes) between the sides, with the 5th game played if nobody's won 3 of the first 4. 1 point in the standings awarded for each win, with a bonus point for winning the aggregate score in the match. That gets most matches into the 2-3 hour range that is the standard American sports broadcast window. I know of a few boys who've been offered very big money to play in the US following University. These boys are probably just shy of our pro standard. Someone has some cash there....

Rugby does have some elements that I believe would appeal to the US audience, espeically with the new ELVs. I cant imagine theyd put up with a good old defensive, forward battle in the mud but a sling-the-ball event on decent parks, almost a certain winner - big hits, high scores - what else do the US audiences want??

If Sevens doesn't make it, the NFL via FIAF will probably end up paying the right people enough to get eight-a-side gridiron into the games... I'll vote for 7s though, especially since I think that something based on 7s is the only real hope for professional rugby in the States. Professional rugby is heading for the states, if people with ears close to the ground are to be believed....

Likelyhood of getting a serious, career threatening injury when playing a non contact sport is considerably less than that when playing a full contact one.

Thats what I mean, yes. I cant envisage professional players, at the beginning of their seasons, being willing to play for free in a sport where injury is common. It would either mean a completely upside-down tournament where weaker nations enter their best players (semi pros) and are met against amateurs from top nations - meaning nobody would want to watch? It would never attract the top players in a professional era.

Rugby 7s would be a good inclusion, but would the professional players be willing to risk injury etc - in the same way that footballers dont? The Olympics needs to be the pinnacle of the sport's individual calendar - and I dont think it would take precedence over the 7s series or, on a larger scale, the world cup, tri nations or even 6 nations, which is a shame.

that one where the horse walks around and the rider is in top hat and tails etc. completely and utterly pointless.

Good stuff - I'm a big fan of the Fiver. Was it one of the in-depth maths answers, or the piss-taking 'I can't beleive how geeky some of these reponses are" ones? Just remembered I had a letter published in the Guardian Weekend magazine - a response to some Alexander Chancellor pomposity. You know the discussion about 18 (I think) sided dice the other week? I was the pedant who pointed out the picture wasn't a dice, as it didn't have any numbers on it. I had another one last week too but I can't remember what that one was. It wouldnt be a dice either - because 'dice' is plural.

Kerry Katona - Size 16 There is a reason alone to NOT vote for anything 12-16. I have a complete hatred of her