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Post by Danno on Jul 9, 2022 16:22:00 GMT
Should have had a red card. That elbow to the neck was horrible in the first half. A lucky win in the end that. Are you referring to the Genge forearm incident? That was classic rugby shit housery/psychology: make a dominant tackle, help yourself up by pushing your opponent into the mud, it's taught in schoolboy rugby. It's not nice, it's not admirable but even using the forearm it's also not a red. Certainly a penalty and if he'd had a yellow he couldn't have had too many complaints, but it wasn't serious foul play. I didn't think it was a good England performance again (the first 30mins were decent but then lost their way). Nice to win, and on balance it was earnt rather than lucky, but England still feel less than the sum of their parts. Feels like continuing with Jones is wasting everyone's time by continuing. We need a new era. That match will be just enough to keep him in post. The problem is, even if he was pushed I've no idea who we'd replace him with. Other options either havent been an international head coach or are with squads preparing for France. You can't go the Quins route of letting the players decide because they aren't together week in week out. The one hope is that this is a repeat of 2018, where we were dogshit, but then the warm matches and three months in camp turned us into a 2019 WC final side. |
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Post by elstoof on Jul 9, 2022 19:41:14 GMT
Give it Giggsy
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Post by elstoof on Jul 9, 2022 19:46:54 GMT
Pretty wild that england, wales and Ireland have all won in the Southern Hemisphere today
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Post by Danno on Jul 9, 2022 19:59:34 GMT
Scotland looking better as well, could be 4-0 last week, 0-4 this week
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zephro
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Post by zephro on Jul 9, 2022 20:57:00 GMT
Well that went better.
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Post by Danno on Jul 9, 2022 21:49:32 GMT
Get in. That's a good setup for next week. Lang may yer lum reek!
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Post by muddyfunster on Jul 16, 2022 8:58:33 GMT
Ireland have been sensational. Totally deserved. Well done.
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Post by elstoof on Jul 16, 2022 9:09:12 GMT
Massive achievement
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Post by GigaChad Sigma. on Jul 16, 2022 10:04:06 GMT
Wow credit to Ireland. Awesome.
All Black's making silly errors. Kicking the ball away in the first half as well. Poor game plan.
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Post by muddyfunster on Jul 16, 2022 11:54:56 GMT
Watching Aus Vs Eng the standard is noticeably lower (Genge and Lawes aside who've both been superb).
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Post by Danno on Jul 16, 2022 12:04:25 GMT
A tour win away is nice but god we're awful
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 16, 2022 15:58:38 GMT
Filthy game this.
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Ulythium
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Post by Ulythium on Jul 16, 2022 20:41:14 GMT
Great result for Ireland; England's win will add another layer of paper to a crack the size of the Grand Canyon; hard luck for Wales; and Scotland are going down to the wire!
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zephro
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Post by zephro on Jul 16, 2022 21:01:08 GMT
Well that was the most Scottish rugby thing I've ever seen. Blowing a 15 point lead with 20 minutes to go.
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Ulythium
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Post by Ulythium on Jul 16, 2022 21:08:06 GMT
I was following the BBC Sport live feed, and my heart sank when I read:
What a bummer.
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Post by Trowel 🏴 on Jul 16, 2022 21:48:10 GMT
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zephro
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Post by zephro on Jul 17, 2022 11:22:36 GMT
I was following the BBC Sport live feed, and my heart sank when I read:
What a bummer.
Ali Price is a great scrum-half but he played the B&I Lions matches, a whole season at Glasgow, the Autumn Internationals, the 6N. Honestly they should have subbed him at 50-60 minutes as he looked knackered. |
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X201
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Post by X201 on Jul 30, 2022 19:27:21 GMT
Live rugby 7s on BBC1 now if anyone is interested
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Ulythium
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Post by Ulythium on Jul 31, 2022 22:17:05 GMT
My knowledge and understanding of financial affairs is limited at best - are there any of my fellow Font Geek rugby fans who know more about this stuff than I, and can tell me how fucked (or otherwise) Wasps are regarding the bond situation? The bondholders who post at this site seem less than pleased with what's going on, but they probably constitute a small sample of their overall number; the Coventry City fans at Sky Blues Talk are excitedly throwing around words like "bankrupt" and "insolvent", but they have a sizeable axe to grind anyway; and the Wasps fans at Once a Wasp are largely blase about it all, but they're not exactly impartial either.
This is the latest update, from the Coventry Telegraph's own Bobby Bridge (who gets paid to cover Wasps on the reg, so once again, I don't know to what extent he's accurately reporting the facts of the case vs. parroting the Club's official line). |
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Post by Danno on Aug 1, 2022 7:06:44 GMT
Ulythium Yes. 16? Years in insolvency now. I'll have a look. Do you know the name of the ultimate parent company?
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Ulythium
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Post by Ulythium on Aug 1, 2022 7:23:50 GMT
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Post by Danno on Aug 1, 2022 7:25:47 GMT
The auditor wasn't happy. They say in the accounts to June 21 that there is a good chance of them going under because of the bond obligations, and that the whole house of cards is relying on a combination of a successful refinance with HSBC and Richardson's generosity. Not good.
If HSBC say no, they're fucked and whoever is in a position to do so (be it the directors or a fixed/floating charge holder) is going to whack it into a prepack administration asap. If I end up getting it I'll let you know*
*Not wholly unlikely, I'm the bond investigations guy!
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Ulythium
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Post by Ulythium on Aug 1, 2022 8:08:50 GMT
Thanks for looking into it for me, Danno - much appreciated. I've seen the latest update framed as "HSBC have said no", but it doesn't seem as though that's actually the case (yet); then again, HSBC is in no hurry to say yes, and Wasps now admit that they're "pursuing different refinancing options", so presumably they're not all that confident. In your experience, what's the sort of time frame in which you'd expect something significant to happen, one way or the other? |
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Post by Danno on Aug 1, 2022 8:19:04 GMT
Not a clue, it would depend on what pressure they are under from their bank/chargeholders and whether the bondholders decide to act. If one of them serves a statutory demand it might spook the bank sufficiently to force the issue.
If nothing happens and they're free to look for a refinance at their relative leisure then they probably have another 6 months, but if HSBC have already kiboshed the idea then they'll be looking at much more expensive terms than a mainstream lender.
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Ulythium
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Post by Ulythium on Aug 1, 2022 11:40:35 GMT
What a bloody mess.
WARNING: LENGTHY DIATRIBE AHEAD. PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. (SERIOUSLY. I'M NOT KIDDING.)
Wasps left London eight years ago - ironically enough, because they were on the verge of bankruptcy at the time - and moved to Coventry, a city that a) is located 100 miles from its traditional base of support, and b) already had a professional rugby union club, who weren't best pleased at this flagrant invasion of their turf. They've been losing money hand over fist for years on end, only propped up by a wealthy sugar daddy (who seems to have grown tired of pumping millions of pounds into the Club for no return), and yet they're still trying to blame most/all of their current financial woes on Covid. The history of the bond scheme makes for uncomfortable reading (unless you happen to be a fan of Coventry City F.C. or Coventry R.F.C., in which case you're probably amused and/or delighted): www.wasps.co.uk/your-club/wasps-bonds/
Bondholders should have been repaid in May this year, but Wasps pushed the repayment date back until the end of June; then, on June 30, they kicked the can down the road until mid-August, with an update promised in late July. Per said July update, the bond repayment has now been postponed indefinitely, so the mooted August date is almost certainly null and void already.
In addition to the financial issues outlined above, there are multiple rugby-related concerns that make being a Wasps fan more depressing than being a Rishi Sunak supporter (zing!). A small sample follows.
The Ricoh is a massive, soulless arena that's almost never full for a rugby game. It has little to no atmosphere compared to literally any other ground I've visited over the years, and it generally reeks of corporate b.s. to a far greater extent than, say, Kingston Park.
Wasps seem to be moving gradually away from the free-flowing, fast-paced rugby for which the club is known, in the direction of a forwards-dominated shove-a-thon that's more Exeter Chiefs than Harlequins.
Lee Blackett appears to have taken a leaf out of Eddie Jones' book when it comes to playing people out of position (e.g. Francois Hougaard, a scrum-half, on the wing, and Jacob Umaga, a fly-half, at full-back); he has also adopted a Jones-esque strategy of sticking with underperforming players despite alternatives being readily available (e.g. Dan Robson and the aforementioned Jacob Umaga), while sticking with Joe Launchbury as Club captain when Brad Shields would be a far better choice. (Launch is a fantastic player but a poor captain.)
I could go on, but only Danno has bothered to read this far (and even he's falling asleep, poor guy).
TL;DR Waaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
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Post by Danno on Aug 1, 2022 11:53:09 GMT
That penultimate sentence was fairly prescient
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Ulythium
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Post by Ulythium on Aug 1, 2022 12:13:48 GMT
Some of the bondholders are plotting in a private Facebook group - I don't know how easy or hard it is to serve a statutory demand, but maybe one of them will go nuclear and put me out of my misery.
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Post by Danno on Aug 1, 2022 12:21:41 GMT
Looked further at things and they have security so they won't go the stat demand route (they can in law, but it wouldn't make sense to as they would have to forfeit said security in the proceedings).
More likely they will try to get a cabal together and force the bonds' security trustee to call administrators in. The threshold for that depends on what is certified in the bond/trust deed but it is usually 25 or 50% in value from the ones I've dealt with and assuming it is a single scheme, rather than a bunch of interlinked schemes
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sport✅
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Post by sport✅ on Aug 1, 2022 12:45:26 GMT
Are Danno and Uly planning a corporate takeover?
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Post by Danno on Aug 1, 2022 13:01:47 GMT
Let me check down the back of the sofa real quick
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