h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yay! Loved this from the very start, great to see it get Editor's Pick! Well Done!

MJ

From a former prop

Just watch it mate



Actually I would dispute your IQ comment. The tight-head (number 3) is far less intelligent than the loose-head (number 1) you have to be stupid to play tight-head because it just automatically hurts.


In fact, I loved this very well presented and humourous article

Some explanation of after match practices would have been nice too but hey ho

*whisper*
You missed the drop-goal
*/whisper*

Well, I'll admit to being a former prop, but long out of the game. I found the constant swiping at the pack rather tedious. You should just make you're point once and have done - even if it is a poorly thought out one like "They are generally responsible for the majority of penalties".

To balance this somewhat, you should have talked about the importance of haircare products to the backs as there's nothing more satisfying than well-groomed hair flowing in the breeze when running the ball. Anything less well-grooomed should obviously be held in place by lashings of gel or hairspray.

BTW, the second row are NOT the wing forwards. They are the locks. The flankers are the wing forwards. Also, you have two descriptions of the positions in the pack, which are not completely consistent.

You could have talked about how the structure of a scrum is an incredibly efficient way of channelling power, but I suppose that would have been too boring.

The forwards give away the most penalies because they are the ones who actually do all the work.
On the odd occasion when I stood in in the backs I found it desperately dull as you spent most of your time standing around doing nothing.

This was when I realised that backs who annoy forwards by doing cross kicks all the across the diagonal of the pitch don't actually realise what the forwards do.

Yes some how thats slipped through on the sub-edit it originally said the second row were called locks in a footnote just like it does in the footnote after the flankers...! They should have followed this formula through into the backs as well because it now reads like you can have a players called a scrum-half or a player called a inside-half when in fact they are the same player.

Also as a blindside I've got to agree with manolan's comments about the backs need for hair care products and how thats been woefully missed from the entry!

Still it doesn't really matter, I've loved this entry since I first saw it months ago...congratulations fraggle it took a long time getting here but now we've finally now got something decent about the game in the guide at long last!

"You could have talked about how the structure of a scrum is an incredibly efficient way of channelling power, but I suppose that would have been too boring".

As a Welsh person living in the north of england, may I be boring and point out that my residence here has given me ample opportunity to check out the other kind of rugby (it gets TV time in the north)and compare how League matches up to Union?

It's kind of interesting that Rugby League (while a faster-moving game)reduces the size of the scrum to six men: looking at a Rugby League scrum, which very quickly degenerates into a total shambles, you realise just how nwecessary those two extra men are (flankers) for holding it all together and direcitng the power efficiently. Eight is the optimum size for a scum: goodness knows what the League boys were thinking, apart from wanting to reduce the wages bill, when they thuoght they could get by on six!

I meant a SCRUM, of course. Now a "SCUM" of forwards might be a collective noun for a particularly dirty New Zealand or South African team, but out of place here...

...on a related theme, it used to be the five Nations until Italy were judged good enough to be a part of the European top flight.

Does anyone think that other European nations might manage it in the near future? The Rumanians, for instance, were good enough in the Seventies to fight Wales to a couple of near- victories. If they're still bubbling under, what price the Seven Nations?

I don't think a Union scrum would fall apart with only six players. The League players jsut make absolutely no attempt to bind properly. This being reasonable as there is no need really since you are allowed to feed in the put in.

Frankly I don't know why they bother. If people bound like that in a Union scrum, necks would get broken.

At last the beauty of this entry is it gives a location to have some decent rugby conversations!

I must agree with Orcus that league scrums are a waste of time, they may as well not have them. Actually whilst there about it they may as well remove any reference to forwards and backs in league as they do more or less exactly the same jobs in league...you may have guessed I don't like the game!


As for a seventh european nation I don't have a problem with it as Italy are obviously getting better this 6 nations so a 7th will help that team improve as well. The obvious choice would be Romania as they are the next side below Italy in the IRB world rankings. It can only mean good things for european rugby.

Once european rugby is at a real high standard what I'd like to see then would be a 4 yearly continental cup. This would be in sync with the world cup so you'd get a 2007 world cup and then a 2009 continental cup. It'll never happen as I can't see the powers getting organised enough but can you imagine how good a tournament it would be. Europe, Africa, South America, North America, Asia and Oceania all competing in a league like the 6 nations!

Delighted to see this on the front page

Well done Fraggle

*tiptoes in past all the scary big men*
Thanks Fraggle for demystifying this mystifying game I have tried in vain to understand for years - ever since spending thirteen floors in a London hotel lift with the full complement of All Blacks at the tender age of thirteen, in fact
*self composure*
*prints off copies for tonight's bedtime reading*

W

Kelli, is that a = or a = ??
*whimper* (just in case)

Hmmm, let me see...

Post 10 is from me.

Post 11 begins with this:
"*tiptoes in past all the scary big men*"

but you're not a big scary man, so I technically strode past you

Shouldn't we be talking about funny-shaped balls?

Or thighs. Lots of discussion about thighs. Because I assume they are, after all, the whole point of professional rugby

yeah, I seem to remember being about thigh high to most of the All Blacks in that lift It's a wonder I didn't faint! Marked me fer life, it did

ahem
*nudges Kelli*

The big scary men are about to start snarling, Kell

Thanks for the comments - to the forwards amongnst you, sorry, but I was a #4 until stopped growing (i.e. 13) and then moved to #11 (think an adolescent Shane Williams with curly hair and a tendency to trip opponents up), which I loved. I really enjoyed writing this, and I hope it all makes sense. There do seem to be some glitches, but I hope this conversation will flag them up and they'll get sorted out.
Now the 6 Nations is over I can honestly say that I have never been less proud to be Welsh. The players did the best they could - most of the time - but one of the cancers in rugby is stupid people running the game. Viva la revolution!
Cymry am byth, diolch yn fawr,

Frag

Cymru. Dammit for trying to type fast..

League scrums are a waste of time, it's just a way of restarting the game after the ball has gone dead, I guess they're a leftover from the common roots of league and union rugby. The Aussie coach did mumble something about how scrums were on their way out, and how they were boring, which is probably why the Australian pack got shunted all over the pitch in their Autumn internationals. For gawd's sake, even WE beat them (Wales), and most of that came from up front.
Scrums are important, and all my jokes about the pack are meant in a "friendly banter" kind of way, such as you would find in any club bar. When my Dad used to play for a local club in the 70s, he was a number 8, and the pack he played in was made up of coppers x3 including Dad, a couple of lawyers, a doctor and the local butcher or something. I know that international packs before the game went pro were bursting with lawyers and coppers (my Dad used to work with Wade Dooley, I think), unless it was Wales, in which case they'd all be back down the pit or down the pub come Monday morning.
Seven Nations? Hmmm... Give it a couple of years. It would be good to have a new team come in when they could properly compete, not just come in so Italy can stop winning the wooden spoon. One rumour I have heard flying around is a European cup a bit like in footbal, maybe in between World Cups, where national teams from around Europe play each other in pools and then quarter- semi- and a final.
Only problem is the sheer number of matches played in a season, as well of off-season tours etc. Wales' injury list screwed any chance of us even retaining the triple crown this year (along with a bunch of idiots - they wouldn't let me put in the "W" word - running the game at the WRU). Another tournament could well result in players becoming more and more injured - league games, the Heineken Cup, Powergen, Celtic League, European Challenge, Six Nations, the list for a player from somewhere like Neath (who could play for the Ospreys as well) could be endless. It would require either bigger squads (ie more rugby players full stop - not a bad thing) or a longer season and maybe rule changes, which goes into non-contested scrum or even tag rugby territory.
Webb Ellis would be spinning in his grave.

(Phew, that's quite an entry! Sorry!)