The Bard

Bought my son Raging Bull for his birthday and watched it with him last week. Forgotten how good it was. Staggering piece of cinema. I couldn't get my head around how bad it made him look but that he was a consultant on the film and spent a year training De Niro. He sums up the conflict inherent in boxing. Bravery in the ring is rarely reflected outside of it.

I went to this - took my son and nephew. First time I've seen boxing live. Tyson Fury is massively overweight. Would love to see him fight Anthony Joshua, or failing that Dubois who would knock him out in about 30 seconds. Highlights of the evening included watching Peter Fury breaking up a fight between Billy-Jo Saunders' son (the one who punched Monroe) and some other kid. But the main event for me was watching Dubois. The fear in AJ Carter's eyes at the beginning of the fight was so clear. He knew he'd get sparked out and he was. DDD is going to be something special. Carter just collapsed. I wanted Yarde to lose, but he is a good fighter. BJS v Monroe was a tame fight made worse by the referee constantly stepping in when there was no need. People began leaving with 3 rounds left. One disappointing thing was too many of the match ups weren't match ups if you know what I mean.

Spot on. He just sums up the phrase 'self serving'. He's clearly got some vested interest in the new 20/20 debacle, going on about how great it is.

He didn't last 90 minutes in a stroll against Plymouth on Tuesday. No brainer not to start him.

The signs are that they have learned the lessons from the last promotion. Plan ahead. Also, this is bound to help season ticket sales. Really hope we go for it good and proper when we return to the Premiership. No point mucking about. If we start challenging the crowds will be massive.

There's a difference between precedent and caselaw though I think?

Mawlan, Ballance , Westley. I'd pick him and Buttler for the Ashes..

Anyone got a spare ticket for tonight?

I'd play Hales. He is a little erratic but with him there is the prospect of him going big every now and then and grabbing control of the game early. Also need to get Root in at 3 to change the succession of early left handers. 2 of them can't cope with either Morkel or Philander not to mention Rabada returning for the next game. South Africa will be stronger in all 3 departments in the next test. That Olivier looks like he was dragged out the pub, has borrowed some whites and is basking in a bit of reflective glory...

Anyone seen Pat Lam's interview with everyone's favourite Bristol Sport employee.. He really does sound like he knows what he's doing. http://www.bristolrugby.co.uk/news/video-lam-talks-exclusively-to-bristol-rugby-tv/

They lost 78-0 ..... That's 12-0 in tries...

Rugby is laughable in this respect. Samoans playing for the All Blacks, Kiwis playing for Samoa. Italians called Luke McLean and Dries Van Schalwyk. South African Irishmen, Kiwi England captains.

No Hegeler came into the team after doing well as sub at Brentford...

No offence it's not weird, just wrong on a lot of levels.:- If we win we'll have 50 points, if we draw we'll have 48. 50 is more so that's better. If we win Blackburn will have 43 points, if it's a draw that will be 44. 43 is less so that's better for us. If we win, we'd have to get 2 points to be mathematically safe and Blackburn would have to win all 3. Get a draw today and the gap is 4 with 3 games left, which is no guarantee. Get 3 points and in all likelihood we'll finish above at least 2 of Forest, Brum, Burton and Blackburn. Get a draw and we could be caught by all of them. If we win we are 98% safe. Draw it's more like 80%. Lose 60% safe. I made them up off the top of my head. So they must be right.

Worcester's win has changed things massively. We were rubbish. Conceding points so early in both halves killed us. Worcester is a must win to give ourselves even a sniff and we have to win 2 out of Gloucester, Bath and Newcastle.....

I disagree. He's actually playing better but the goals have dried up. His reaction to missing the one on one was outstanding. No sulking, he just got straight back into the game. This has exposed the problem that apart from Tomlin and Reid, no one else looks remotely like scoring a goal. Too reliant on one player just like we were last season. Mind you, I can remember some saying Kodjia wasn't good enough and should be dropped for Agard...

Heard it was more to do with him getting away from certain influences in his hometown..

It's 4 very good players, but it lacks balance. Not sure how it will work. Korey Smith as an inside left is an interesting idea..

The game tonight against Saracens was a bit of a lesson. That Itoje is an absolute beast. Stole 3 line outs from us not to mention playing like a number 6 in spite of being a 2nd row. Tusi Pisi needs to be dropped. His kicking is atrocious. Saracens regularly had 4 players back and he found one of them every time. Despite the negatives, we actually defended a lot better in the first half than the previous 3 games. I saw the Saracens - Worcester game before the Quins - Bristol game at Twickenham and it was virtually identical. Saracens wore them down first half and then took them to the cleaners 2nd half. On the positive side, there is little difference between Bristol and Worcester to be honest. We're not doomed. Test is going to be how we fare against Newcastle, Worcester, Sale, Gloucester.

I have few worries in this division if we play well. It's our ability to gain points when not playing well that worries me. We won a lot of games last year despite poor performances. Difference in this division is these performances will result in defeats like today's. We definitely need more in central midfield if we're to continue with 3 5 2. Today showed how good our wing backs were last season. The new lads need to time to get used to the way we play evidently. We will get there though - there is enough talent and the means to buy more players who will improve us. Our manager knows what he's doing.

We're not playing well. You get the sense we are trying some things that worked at a lower level but we won't get away with at this level. We need to step up our game or we 'll get beat.

We seem to be a little bit wary today. Fredericks doesn't look like he wants to use his pace - Burns just showed what could be done by getting at them. They need a bit of a push at half time. If we step up here we can win this game - Sheff Wed don't look anything special.

I was led to believe by someone itk that UWE were gifting the land to the sags in exchange for stadium naming rights in perpetuity. The money from the memorial stadium is needed to finance the build.

We simply have to go up automatically. The idea of play offs against Sheff U, Preston and possibly Bradford is not a welcome one. They have all shown they are good at winning one off games. We have shown that we can accumulate points over the season so hopefully this will carry us up. Should we get up, I can see that SC will change his approach as we won't be able to dominate sides as we have done this season. We'll need to be less open.

That Ballance should go in at number 24.. The one day side is as big a mess as the test side. There is wishful thinking everywhere and we are still thinking along the lines of plodding along at 4.5 an over and not losing wickets before having a thrash at the end. We need to have someone up top who will get on with it. The Aussies have Warner, India have Dharwan, even the Kiwis have Jessie Ryder. They all take the game to the bowlers. We've got Cook and Bell who just play test innings but maybe a little quicker. I don't get why Buttler is preferred over Kieswetter. He would be my choice to open the batting. I'd drop Cook as he is shot and needs to concentrate on test cricket. I'd put Carberry in (he's a good one day opener) and a very good fielder. Gooch tried to coach his shot playing out of him in Australia. They also need to stop messing Stokes about. He is having far too much responsibility shoved his way because he was the only one to impress in the ashes. He is still learning and could do with having a more defined role - number 7 or 8 and bowling at a particular time in the innings. Why he was bowling at the death the other day is beyond me. Too much too young. I like that Jordan - he has a bit of attitude about him. Decent fielder and he can swing his bat too - good enough for the no. 10 position. Bresnan is the James Milner of the England cricket team reliable and stoic but is he going to win us games? Like Milner a good squad player. My side for the world cup would be Kieswetter (wk) Carberry Bell Pietersen Morgan © Root Bopara Stokes Broad Jordan Anderson If a pitch meant we had to have a specialist spinner then fine drop Jordan for this 'sepecialist'. However, it's becoming apparent how good Graeme Swann was. No point playing a sub standard spinner for the sake of it. Especially in Australia and New Zealand. 4 front line quicks, the 5th bowling duties shared by Root and Bopara - some good fielders (with the exception of Bell and Pietersen) and plenty of batting. Add Bresnan, a spinner and either Buttler or Bairstow in as batting and keeping cover and you have your world cup squad.