waider

Well, that was controversial: Italy's winning try was scored by a player who should arguably have been sent off for deliberately punching an opponent in the face while tackling him, and then Wales were denied their final move of the game through a disagreement on the amount of time left between the television official and the referee. Still, Italy deserved the win.

Rugby: Italy 18, Wales 18. Italy actually deserved to win this, I think. Ireland 15, Scotland 9 in a hard-fought game at a wet and windy Lansdowne road; both teams missed plenty opportunities to score but the commentators said it was a spectacular game under the conditions, so I guess I can't fault that. And in case anyone cares, there's a new F1 season, with new rules, new teams, and new drivers. I watched some of the new qualifying format and it's certainly an improvement over the single-lap qualifying, but it remains to be seen whether or not the race is worth any attention.

Final scores for the weekend: France v Ireland, 43 - 31
Italy v England, 1e6 - 2 (consolation points)[1]
Wales v Scotland, some inept scoring - less scoring, but also inept

[1] Needlessly unfair. The Italians did a superb job in the first half, which they finished trailing by a mere point, before England did something or other I didn't see which involved scoring and converting a lot. I caught the end of the game; in the 82nd minute, the Italians (who had pulled back a try and conversion so they weren't trailing by quite so much) got a penalty at their own five-metre line; they chose, rather stupidly I thought, to run it instead of kicking it into the stands, the ball was intercepted by the opposition, and they went down another 7 points. Shame.

Irish TV commentator on the first half of Wales v. Scotland: "I hope the viewers won't use the Trade Descriptions Act against us because we promised them a rugby match."

First match of the weekend; Wales came away with a decisive 44-10 win over Italy, showing in the process that their near miss with England wasn't a fluke. Some fabulous play, although they appeared to slack off a little towards the end. I guess when you've got a 34-point lead you can afford to take a break.