stevegrant

A pleasant surprise, that. Good effort Should ensure the draw, can't complain with that return given the injuries and opposition we've faced so far.

True story

Didn't have anything to do with the result, it was their attitude. The officials we had in the first game fully bought into the spirit of the event, but for the second lot it was all about them. One player on the opposition was a mate of the ref's, so was allowed to get away with a two-footed lunge that - it later transpired - broke my foot (I stupidly played on, mainly on the basis that I'd paid a good amount of money to do so). Said referee then threatened me with abandoning the game when I dared to ask how the **** he hadn't seen it despite being stood five yards away.

I've never been heavier than 12st 5lb

The problem with that, though, is that you could get endless breaks in play for reviews, and even then the outcome is potentially unclear - take that Leicester v West Ham game, nearly all of the big decisions that Jon Moss made have been argued heavily from both sides, I think Vardy's first yellow card is the only one where there's been a unanimous "he got that one wrong" viewpoint from observers, and even that's after about 400 replays from every different possible angle. For me, they absolutely should be using technology as much as possible for factual decisions, i.e. did the ball cross the line for a goal (already working superbly well, there's never a single debate about those tight decisions anymore, the possibility of human error has been removed completely), did the ball go out of play before a goal was scored or a penalty awarded, did an incident of foul play take place inside or outside the penalty area, etc. For subjective decisions like "was it a foul, and if so, against who?", I think it's a massive waste of time.

You're always going to have inconsistency between different referees unless they introduce robots to officiate. Literally no point wasting your energy getting wound up by that. What CAN be looked at and worked on is inconsistency within a single game - if a referee applies the same criteria to every single decision from first whistle to last, then the only complaints will be around whether a referee's got a decision right or wrong, rather than the even application of the laws.

Bet you're not

The first one was infinitely better than the second one, IMO. The officials were a bunch of absolute dickheads in the second one, tried to make the whole thing all about them, when in actual fact if we'd not paid to make it happen, they'd have been at home none the wiser and wouldn't have got the opportunity to officiate at St Mary's.

We've teamed up with playwithalegend.com to bring a potentially once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to SaintsWeb members to grace the hallowed turf at St Mary's alongside four Saints legends. Brett Ormerod, Jason Dodd, Francis Benali and Matt Le Tissier will be the player-managers on the night of Thursday 2nd June of the four teams that will participate in a round-robin tournament. Each of the 4 teams plays 3 30-minute matches (full pitch, 11-a-side). Personalised kit is provided, as are refreshments. All you'll need is boots and shinpads, and what little talent you possess Places are available at a specially-discounted rate through our page on the playwithalegend website, (password for the page is "saintsweb"). THE COMPETITION PART! In addition to this deal, we are offering ONE SaintsWeb member the chance to win a place at the event. All you have to do is guess the official attendance at Saints' away match at Aston Villa on Saturday 23rd April and post it in a reply to this thread only. The closest guess wins. It really is that easy. Small print: only one entry per person; if there are any duplicate entries (i.e. two people guess the same attendance), the earliest guess stands; any entries which are subsequently edited will be declared void; if two entries are closest to and equidistant from the correct attendance, the "Bruce's Price is Right" principle will apply, so the lower of the two guesses will win; prize is a 45-minute slot, winner's chosen position subject to availability; deadline for competition entries is 15:00 BST on Saturday 23rd April 2016. playwithalegend have also confirmed that if you buy a place but then subsequently win the prize, your money will be refunded in full.

Fixed

Squad of 16 on each side, 6 on each get 90 minutes, the rest get 45. Obviously those playing 90 minutes pay more for the privilege.

http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/showthread.php?56325-City-game

Haven't looked at what they're offering these days, but it was £4k + VAT when we did it before, which didn't include the kit - I negotiated with the club separately for that. Not going to do anything like that this summer, it's too short-notice now, but might look at it for next year.

Man City play on Tuesday 26th April and (most importantly) Wednesday 4th May. That should mean our game remains as currently scheduled, on Sunday 1st May.

Yeah, consider that retracted

Batting bonus points on offer, relatively rare at this early stage of the season so best to make the most of them, I guess. I doubt they genuinely believed there was a chance of a result at 10:30 this morning.

Would expect so, although possible he might bat if absolutely necessary. 360 all out in the end, Bell getting 174 of them - his record at the Rose Bowl is ridiculous

Difficult to imagine any sort of result now, bit of a race for bonus points. In other non-Hampshire news, James Taylor's had to retire with a serious heart condition

Presumably you'd struggle to get an Uber to start a journey out there, though?

Decent recovery yesterday, especially considering most of the runs were scored with either Topley (at 9 with a first-class average of 3, really?!?! ) or Tomlinson at the wicket. Sounds like Topley's managed to pick up a broken hand while batting, though - hopefully his right hand...

I think it's more the increased pace. Tomlinson really struggled last season because as wily a bowler he's been over the years in second division cricket, he's just not fast enough to trouble first division batsmen. Carberry Alsop Vince Smith Dawson Ervine Wheater McLaren Wood Edwards Topley is a long batting lineup, down to 9 and you could probably argue that Edwards should score more runs than he does. Topley, Edwards and McLaren are going to be under a fair bit of pressure with the ball, and they'll need Wood and Ervine to not get hammered to give them enough of a rest. Can't imagine there's going to be much in it for Dawson or Smith this early in the season.

The app tells you how long it'll take for them to arrive before you book. Radio Taxis' app does the same.

13-man squad: Carberry, Alsop, Smith, Vince ©, Dawson, Ervine, Wheater, McLaren, Wood, Tomlinson, Topley, Crane, Edwards. From that, I imagine it'll be Tomlinson and Crane who don't play. Surprised that Wood's still in mind for 4-day cricket, I was under the impression his knee was knackered.

Only uberX initially.

I've always found the data to be wildly inconsistent, often listing pubs that either don't exist anymore or don't have Sky/BT anymore, or not listing pubs that do have Sky/BT. Strange, as you'd think they wouldn't want to advertise pubs that don't offer their channels.