In a move sure to shock European rugby , the French “Top 14” clubs are boycotting next year’s Heineken Cup competition. This is a disaster for European’s most popular club competition.As reported here, the French have domestic problems. League Nationale de Rugby president Serge Blanco stated:
We are convinced that if we did not do this our domestic championship will be dead in 2009.
It’s unfortunate that their only solution is to throw their toys out of the pram.
Ireland have announced a 35 man squad for rugby ‘s 2007 RBS 6 Nations Championship which begins for Ireland with an away trip to Wales in the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff on February 4th.
This is almost a full-strength squad and with Munster and Leinster going strong in the Heineken Cup , and Ulster leading the Magners League , Ireland will enter the competition as deserved favourites. Up first is a testing away trip to one of the Ireland’s strongest Six Nations opponents at Cardiff.
Coach Eddie O’Sullivan elaborates on his decisions:
The championship is a long and hard tournament that will always test your resources, so I felt we needed to increase our squad to 35 to give us some extra cover.
We have a good injury profile at the moment and with the return of players from injury, such as Tommy Bowe and Jerry Flannery as well as the other additions to the squad, it will push up the competition levels.
An away trip to play Wales is one of the toughest openings you could get at this moment. We are focusing on is trying to get the right performance.
More from BBC Sport.
Forwards: Neil Best, Rory Best, Simon Best, Simon Easterby, Jerry Flannery, Keith Gleeson, John Hayes, Jamie Heaslip, Trevor Hogan, Marcus Horan, Denis Leamy, Donncha O’Callaghan, Paul O’Connell, Mick O’Driscoll, Malcolm O’Kelly, Frankie Sheahan, David Wallace, Bryan Young.
Backs: Isaac Boss, Tommy Bowe, Girvan Dempsey, Gordon D’Arcy, Luke Fitzgerald, Shane Horgan, Denis Hickie, Robert Kearney, John Kelly, Barry Murphy, Geordan Murphy, Brian O’Driscoll, Ronan O’Gara, Eoin Reddan, Peter Stringer, Andrew Trimble, Paddy Wallace.
Blondie had an idea about posting rugby results that got me thinking about applying Microformats to sports results . She was talking about posting the results in a format like this:
This kind of thing looks ideal for Microformats if you don’t want to go down the database route. I jumped on the Microformats IRC channel to find out if such a beast already exists, here’s what the guys had to say.
[23:02] * Now talking in #microformats
hi y’all
I am looking for a MF for describing sports results
do you have such a thing?
like a news update?
or is that like an event?
it’s an event I guess
that’s kind of like the results of an event
an event result
box scores?
e.g. sport=rugby homeTeam=x awayTeam=Y homeScore=45 awayScore=22 etc
well, you could start by making them hCalendar events
yeah, but that’s only the last bit of it, right?
hmmm…. what about ordered results (e.g. sprinting)? Use event mf within a result mf?
the most important thing is where and when it took place, correct?
I was thinking about that
and diving etc
that part is easy
ordered list
the most important thing… that’s debatable
sportcrazy, the important thing is to re-use what is already there and only extend when needed after looking at how other ppl have marked this sort of thing up
I suggest you start experimenting with the who what when where of a sporting event
sure
and then try adding on top of that with scores and stuff
perhaps with XOXO
with some small pieces to describe the game, resulting scores and other information
XOXO?
so so… my first thought was to use hCalander for when, hCard for where
sportcrazy, marking up lists
k, thanks for your help guys, I’ll go explore what’s available
hCard is good for marking up hCalendar locations: link
Sounds interesting – I’m going sign up to their mailing list and have a look into creating a suitable Microformat, I think it’s needed at this point. It’d have to be fairly flexible to support the many various results types. Anyone else out there working on similar ideas?
France and America in same headline shocker!
Happy Martin Luther King (Jnr) Day to any Americans reading this! I’m disappointed to see that the Big G didn’t change their logo…
On to cycling – exciting news – the route of this year’s TDF has been released! “Running from Saturday July 7th to Sunday July 29th 2007, the 94th Tour de France will be made up of a prologue and 20 stages and will cover a total distance of 3,550 kilometres.”
We already knew that this year’s Tour is starting in dear old Blighty and now we have the details. The 8km prologue (a short time trial) will be around the streets of London starting in Whitehall. It will pass pass the Houses of Parliament en route to finishing on The Mall. The next stage also starts in London with a 200km trip to Canterbury.
On to France , the Tour will have a series of long flat stages before it enters the Alps and the major test starts. The riders will have a brief respite along the southern coastline before hitting the Pyrenees. Read more on the official TDF website.
Adrian Fitch highlights a refreshingly intelligent article which criticises the urban cyclist for actual wrongs, unlike the steaming pile of manure from Erin Baker last year. It’s great to see a journalist putting even a modicum of thought into an anti-cycling rant.
Brian Hennigan had a wonderful rant against what he described as antisocial cyclist s in Tuesday’s Edinburgh Evening News.
He targeted:
- Pavement cycling: “If you don’t have stabilisers on, the road is the only place we should find you whizzing alongâ€Â.
- Running red lights: “Apart from anything else, your invisibility to other road-users might just be proven in a way you did not envisageâ€Â.
- Those who cycle where it is prohibited: “one day someone is going to get fed-up with your selfish behaviour and you will be amazed how far you can travel without a bicycle when someone jams a stick in your rear-wheelâ€Â.
- Stealth ninja cyclists: “Cycling without lights at night is not some environmentally courageous way of showing how you and the owls are as one; it’s a way of being on a bicycle that says: “I don’t care about anyone else other than myselfâ€Â.
- And of course, helmets: “Anyone who thinks pedalling au naturale is fine deserves whatever non-indicating delivery van might lie in their futureâ€Â.
It is a decently written rant. I’d agree with Brian on almost every point excepting the helmets issue. I think it’s not a simple argument, and I so believe it’s up to people to decide for themselves whether wearing £25 worth of potentially life-saving plastic is really that much bother. For me, there’s no question 🙂
At least my home insurance company thinks so – they believe only a professional cyclist would spend 1,600 eur on a bike . They’re refusing to insure it until they get an independent valuation.
