Jimmy_D

Did what we needed to do to keep momentum going but bigger challenges ahead. We’re more than a match for any team in the tournament though.

Cracking goal!

But unlucky for NI there but can see the difference in confidence breaking the deadlock has made

Oooh, nice finish!

Difficult to read too much into a dead rubber group game against a team making themselves difficult to break down, but we certainly don’t look anywhere near as ruthless so far.

Indeed, not sure the handball itself would have been overturned but the earlier handball made it easy.

Oof, that seems harsh… think that’ll be overturned?

Really cool to see Rafferty in the starting line up for tonight’s game. She gets to play at St Marys for her country in a major tournament, and against England as well.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russias-parliament-passes-sweeping-wartime-economic-controls-2022-07-06/ Seems obvious this is an attempt to reduce the effect of some of the sanctions that have been affecting Russia. It might help them in some areas, for a while at least, but obviously won’t help where Russia simply doesn’t have access to resources and components they need. Taking their time off away from people is only going to lead to resentment, poor morale, and and poor quality work if it carries on for any length of time. Depends on the exact specifics of which companies will be affected, but I can see another wave of companies being triggered to pull out of Russia rather than risk being dragged into directly supporting Russia’s war effort.

That was a nice story, although I can’t help but despair a bit that we’re living in times where a kid raising money for the military is a feel good story. Three more ammo stores went up in Kherson last night apparently, two to artillery, and a third to an aircraft airstrike. While it’s nowhere near as visible as the ammo stores when they’re hit, anti-air emplacements are obviously being targeted by HIMARS as well, which brings not only aircraft back into it, but other artillery that Russia’s AA systems had been more effective against. Being up against a weapon with no defence against it has to be a soldier’s worst nightmare, it’s like the old wunderwaffe stories come true, except tried and tested and in mass production. Knowing Ukraine are about to receive more of them as well... morale must be dropping to the point that they may well stop being effective.

Yeah, feels like they've just given Putin something in the hope that something is given back. Under the circumstances it's colossally stupid. On the topic of stupid things, Russia trying to claim the ammo dump was saltpetre. As we saw in the Beirut explosion, saltpetre would have gone up in one go, while the ammo dump is still now cooking off ammo and exploding. That really was a big hit that'll severely dent Russia's capability in the area.

Seems it's yet another Russian ammo store going up in Russian occupied territory. Looks like the S400 anti-air can't intercept HIMARS, despite originally being bought by Russia on the basis it was advertised as being able to, and as a result any static Russian target in range is essentially defenceless. There have been a LOT of Russian targets being hit way behind the front lines over the past few days, I'm not sure there's much Russia can do beyond send aircraft on missions to try and find them, but with the number of light anti-air missiles Ukraine have, they've effectively been able to enforce a no-fly zone of their own over territory they control for about 10 weeks now. With the range and mobility HIMARS has, any mission like that would be a long shot, and successful or not, would likely be one-way. Even then, it's only a matter of time until Ukraine receives more HIMARS.

Amazing. There aren't many teams in the tournament that will be able to even begin coping against us if we keep playing like that.

Beth Mead playing ridiculously well

Yep! They're actually a decent team too. This scoreline is more than slightly ridiculous.

Reminds me of the England - Holland game in Euro 96

Starting to look like it might be a rout here!

Russia has an extremely deep supply of shells, they're using them faster than they can make them, but they've been stockpiling for decades. Ukraine won't be able to stop Russia firing completely, but there are already reported reduced rates of fire, which once again comes down to logisitics. One effect of the sanctions is that Russia doesn't have access to ball bearings now, either through their own production, or through any supplier. Without them, the inability to maintain vehicles and trains is already starting to bite and reduce their options to transport supplies.

Indeed, it appears that Russia never considered Ukraine might gain access to weapons that could reach as far and as accurately as HIMARS. Building ammo stores to be more resistant to enemy fire is relatively simple. (thick walls, weak roofs, directs the force of any cook off of ammo upwards and prevents the entire thing going up.) Too late for that now though, over the next few weeks, we'll likely see Russia start to encounter the same logistics problems that they suffered at the start when they over extended as logistics lines will need to be longer to keep them out of reach of Ukraine. Ammo stores are just the most visible results as well. Russian command and control centers are being hit as well, with a combination of local resistance in occupied areas and western intelligence provided, it's extremely difficult for Russia to keep the location of potential targets secret. Russia are digging even further into old reserves now, sounds like they're bringing 1950s troop transports out of storage.

I believe the issue there is that Germany want it to be grants, rather than loans. Obviously the delay isn't ideal, but the level of support isn't in question.

Always felt like he gave 100% for the club, and because of that one of my favourite players for Saints. That goal in the semi final against Liverpool will forever be one of my favourite moments watching Saints, I’ve never before or since let loose so completely with a celebration. Not to mention the fastest Premier League goal in a time that’s unlikely to ever be beaten.

I think you might be on your own with that one this time around.

The vast majority will experience mild symptoms, partly as a result of the vaccine, but the cause of the spike in cases that’s beginning is a new sub-variant of Omicron that’s largely escaped the vaccine in terms of transmission. It’s still dangerous to a small percentage of those it infects, and is likely going to cause an extremely high number of infections. Once again the combination of relatively low risk to an individual and high transmissibility is going to lead to a big impact on the NHS.

With how easily the new dominant variant of Omicron is spreading, even thought it's still a mild form of Covid, it can still be serious for a small percentage of people, and unfortuantely that small percentage looks likely to end up still being a large number of people. If nothing else that'll put a further strain on the NHS that it really doesn't need right now. We're all painfully aware of the steps that can be taken to reduce risk. Wash hands, wear masks, take Covid tests, avoid crowded spaces, reduce unnecessary travel on public transport, etc. etc. It'll be down to everyone's own situation and conscience as to the level of risk they're comfortable with, so all I'll say is don't just completely ignore the risk. It's back to a level where you should take some time to think about it and consider. I guess by reading this you've already done that!

This one doing the rounds again? Ok, so, what view of yours do you think that this actually supports?