More Changes To The Interconnectivity Diagram

Lots of teams seem to be waiting till the last possible moment before swapping players out, which makes sense for them but does mean that there's lots of posts from me with very minor changes.  This is another one.

Samoa and Montpelier continue to be the central teams.

Second Set of Changes After The Second Round of Group Stage Games

From which the take home message is 'don't be Wales, and don't play Wales'.  Because they've had to swap yet more players.

Samoa and Montpelier continue to be the central teams.

First Set of Changes After The Second Round of Group Games

I suspect there will be more, probably from Wales after that match, but this includes the changes Fiji and South Africa have been forced to make.

Samoa are still the national team closest to the centre, but Montpelier are now the closest club team.  This is possibly because the Fijian replacement, Timoci Nagusa, plays for them.

In Which I Am Definitely Blaming Canada (Another Update to the Rugby Diagram)

Canada left it late to replace Liam Underwood, injured in the game against Ireland, with James Pritchard.  I presume this was in the hope that Underwood might recover.

Samoa is still the nation closest to the centre, with Aurilliac being the club team closest (or one of the unattacheds).

Late Breaking Changes to the Interconnectivity Diagram

I deliberately left the last update as late as I could so that no changes would fall through the cracks.  So, of course, after I post it, I find out that Italy have had to replace Andrea Masi with Michele Visentin.

The diagram now looks like this

Samoa are still the national team closest to the centre, but the club team closest to the centre is now either Agen or Aurillac.  It's probably Aurillac but it's very close.

Italy have now had to replace three of their players, making them the second most affected team at the World Cup.

Rugby Union World Cup Interconnectivity Diagram After The First Round of Group Games

I've swapped out the poor, unfortunate Yoann Huget and Cory Allen for their replacements.  It doesn't do much to the overall shape of the diagram, with Samoa still the country nearest the middle and either Toulon or Agen the club sides nearest the middle.

Wales are definitely the most injury prone side in this competition so far, with Tyler Morgan the fourth player they have had to call up.

4 Things From The First Round of Rugby World Cup Matches

1 - These Minnows Aren't As Minnowy As Expected

This is not a complaint.  With the exception of Canada (sorry my Canadian friends), all of the smaller teams turned up and made themselves known.

2 - World Rugby Might Be Useful For Something

I don't like being nice about the IRB as was, but the improvement in the Tier 2 nations suggests that their plan to improve them might have been a good thing.

3 - I Don't Think That South African Result Was A Fluke, In Either Direction

Japan have always been a good team, that have lost because of lack of size not lack of skill.  Possibly the new scrum rules are enabling them to use that skill in a way they couldn't before.  If they can fully recover in time for the Scotland match, that could be interesting.

On the other side, I don't think that was a South African side playing below their abilities.  Especially when you consider the results in this year's Four Nations (I am calling it The Rugby Championship over my cold dead body).  Could it be that this South African team have just turned up too old to this World Cup?

4 - South Africa Were Not The Only "Big" Nation To Look A Little Creaky

Sure, they remembered they were the might All Blacks and went on to win, but New Zealand looked very rocky in patches against Argentina.  South Africa had amassed 851 caps before the game, but this is dwarfed by the 1,013 caps the New Zealand starting XV had.  In a sport as physically draining as rugby union, all those games are going to start to tell eventually, even if you're as deeply professional as New Zealand are about pre- and post-match conditioning and recovery.

Singapore Grand Prix

It's undoubtedly going to lead to losing money on this, but well done Daniil!

Fastest Friday  Practice	Price	Fastest Saturday Practice	Price	Fastest Qualifying	Price
Daniil Kvyat	12/1	Sebastian Vettel	8/15	Sebastian Vettel	8/15
Amount won/lost on a £1 bet	-£1	Amount won/lost on a £1 bet	£1.53	Amount won/lost on a £1 bet	£1.53
Amount won/lost on a £10 bet	-£10	Amount won/lost on a £10 bet	£15.33	Amount won/lost on a £10 bet	£15.33
Season Total £1 bets	-£3.61	Season Total £1 bets	£7.19	Season Total £1 bets	£9.05
Season Total £10 bets	-£36.03	Season Total £10 bets	£69.88	Season Total £10 bets	£97.67

Rugby Union World Cup Interconnectivity Diagram

Which I making at least partly as part 2 of @TiberiusJolly's birthday present, so I hope it amuses him. Although I did learn one thing making this, which is that Maurie Fa'asavalu is playing for Samoa.  So I'm sorry, I'm cheering for them.

The teams are as correct as Wikipedia can make them and are taken from here.  Now, there is some debate for some of the teams the players are listed under due to the rugby union seasons in different countries not quite matching up, plus you get strange things like Paul O'Connell being listed as a Toulon player before he's touched a ball for them because the Irish season has finished.  For the New Zealand players, I have listed them under their franchise not their province.  All unattached players are listed as being separately unattached.

The club teams with the most players represented is UAR, which is the Argentine Super Rugby franchise, and Glasgow Warriors, both with 21.

The national team closest to the centre are Samoa, while the closest teams to the centre are Agen and Toulon.

Of interest is how far away Ireland are from everyone else.  This is because all their players (except Paul O'Connell (ish)) play in Ireland and very few foreign players play in Ireland.  Uruguay are similarly out to one side, although more of their players play abroad, and it is more that those players play for teams that have few other players represented at the World Cup.

I plan on following the changes in the diagram as teams get knocked out, as usual, but I'll also produce on showing all the players that have been called up, because the turnover is much higher in rugby union than in football.  So far, Wales are winning/losing that one, having had to call up three new players into the squad.  Following a match between them and Samoa, who have also had to call up two players.  Which suggests that one take home message from this is not to face either Wales or Samoa in your warm-up matches because they damage your players.

Restaurant Review - Rub, Birmingham

Location: 4, Regency Wharf, Broad St, Birmingham B1 1DS

Menu: here

Style of food: Describes itself a US-style BBQ.  No idea if this is accurate or not.

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The food was fantastically tasty.  I went for the 'Chicken N Waffles', and the salt of the chicken and sweetness of the maple syrup combined most excellently.  The chicken meat itself was soft and delicious.

Annoyingly, although I checked the menu for miscellaneous sauces and none was mentioned for 'Chicken N Waffles', it came with a liberal covering of what I suspect was chipotle sauce.  Although I can't be sure, because it wasn't mentioned on the menu.  Now this isn't a huge problem for me, my problem's that I'm fussy, but it does make you worry a bit about what else might be in recipes that they don't bother to mention (guess who knows a lot of people with nut allergies).

I went with a Mississippi mud shake (which they since seem to have taken off the menu), which again was glorious.  Thick without being gloopy and remarkable thirst-quenching given that it was a milkshake.  They'd run out of their iced tea, which would have been my first choice, but given how rammed the restaurant was, it's not surprising, plus it was the only thing that wasn't available.  I definitely recommend making a reservation before going.

The 'Chicken N Waffles' came with your choice of sides and I went with the skin on fries.  Which I think were an excellent choice.  Not too thin and again, well flavoured.

The only complaint I could have about the food was there was too much of it.  I struggled to eat all my 'Chicken N Waffles' and had to pass a fair few of the fries down the line.  I think more-than-you-can-eat cuisine comes from a different culture than mine, where wasting food is a mortal sin.

While I am what L describes as an accidental hipster, and therefore things like jam-jars for drinks and tin crockery don't bother me.  What does bother me is seats made out of faux-shipping pallets that are so uncomfortable that I'm still sore two days later.  Now I am well-padded of posterior so I have no idea how uncomfortable some of the skinny minis I was with found it, but what I do know is that they all complained about how uncomfortable it was.

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Would I go again: Sure, but I'd try to make sure we were on the proper seats not the benches.

On Kimi Raikkonen's New Contract

The whole thing on the BBC (and possibly elsewhere in the UK press but I get most of my sports news from the BBC) about Raikkonen possibly leaving Ferrari struck me as complete nonsense at the time.  And that's not hindsight talking, I have witnesses whose ears I bent decrying the unspeakable stupidity of the BBC correspondent for going with this line.

Now, I'm not an insider, and have nothing like the same access to information, so why did the story not pass the sniff test for me:

1 - Ferrari as a team suffers from inertia.  They stick with ideas, plans, team members for far longer than anyone else would.  It's a failing, one that Ferrari himself would hate.  They most certainly wouldn't have publicly announced Raikkonen's departure before they'd completed sorted his replacement.

The only time recently that Ferrari have moved quickly was in replacing Marco Mattiacci with Maurizio Arrivabene.

Which leads to

2 - Signore Arrivabene appears to actually like Kimi.  If the drivers that are on the market are all much of a muchness, that sort of thing is going to count in Kimi's favour.

3 - The drivers on the market are much of a muchness.  There are 3 drivers that stand out, and Ferrari have said arrivederci to one of them, have one of them and can't afford the third, nor do I think that Hamilton wants to drive for the Red Menace.  Of the rest, Bottas either said 'no, thank you,' or was never asked, Danny Ricciardo is under contract to Red Bull and Nico Hulkenberg is too tall.  I would love for any of those three to drive for Ferrari, but I couldn't see it happening before 2017, and if it does ever happen, I don't think it'll be Hulkenberg that becomes Ferrari #2.

Before anyone says Max Verstappen, along with not making quick changes Ferrari seem to be allergic to young drivers and Mighty Max needs more seasoning.  That's not me being mean, both Verstappens agree with me.

4 - Vettel seems to like Kimi.  I don't know if that's because he knows he can beat him or because they do actually get on.  Either way, since Vettel is one of the big three, it's worth keeping Raikkonen to keep him happy.

Like I said, I have no inside information but the story as it was told made no sense given what we know of Ferrari and I have no idea why, other than a BBC F1 columnist trying to justify his job and it being silly season, this non-story got so much column space.

Italian Grand Prix

Fastest Friday  Practice	Price	Fastest Saturday Practice	Price	Fastest Qualifying	Price
Lewis Hamilton	4/11	Lews Hamilton	1/3	Lewis Hamilton	1/3
Amount won/lost on a £1 bet	£1.36	Amount won/lost on a £1 bet	£1.33	Amount won/lost on a £1 bet	£.133
Amount won/lost on a £10 bet	£13.64	Amount won/lost on a £10 bet	£13.33	Amount won/lost on a £10 bet	£13.33
Season Total £1 bets	-£2.61	Season Total £1 bets	£5.66	Season Total £1 bets	£7.52
Season Total £10 bets	-£26.03	Season Total £10 bets	£54.55	Season Total £10 bets	£82.34