Rugby League 101

As it is Rugby League World Cup time again, I felt it might be an idea to briefly cover the basics of the game for any new fans watching.  The information is taken from here and here.

Somewhat worryingly, both of the rules pages start with the information that you're trying to score more points than the other team, but I'm going to assume that you can guess that.

The very basic rules of the game are that each team is given six chances to score.  Each chance ends with a tackle (a tackle is a tackle when the referee calls "held").  If, after six tackles, the team have not scored, the ball is handed over to the other team who then get the chance to score with their six tackles.

There are 4 ways of scoring:

1 - A Try - A try is worth 4 points.  It is similar to a touchdown in American football, except you actually have to touch the ball down with control and downward pressure.  I've highlighted those last words because if you don't do them, the try will not be awarded to your team.

2 - A Conversion - A conversion is worth 2 points.  They can be scored only after the team has scored a try.  The kick is taken from a position perpendicular to the goal line where the try was scored.  The ball must pass between the goalposts and over the crossbar.  If the team scores a conversion after a try, it is referred to as a converted try.

3 - A Penalty Kick - Also worth 2 points.  Often just referred to as a penalty, this is one of the two options a team captain can take when the referee awards his team a penalty.  The other option is to receive another set of 6 tackles with which to try to score.

4 - A Drop Goal - worth 1 point.  This is scored when the ball is kicked between the goalposts and over the cross bar in open play.

A match lasts 80 minutes, split up into 2 halves of 40 minutes.  The time is kept by a separate time keeper who sounds a hooter to signal the end of each half.  If you're really unlucky and playing at one of the French stadiums, it sounds like an air-raid siren.

Both teams will have 13 players on the pitch at any one time.  As in ice hockey, there are rolling substitutions with no need for a stoppage in play.  There is a limit on the number of these interchanges, with a maximum of 12 per team per game.

When passing the ball, it must go level or backwards.  If the ball goes forwards, this is called a forward pass and the referee will award the other team a scrum and give them the ball.  The team is said to have been "given head and feed at the scrum".  A rugby league scrum is formed of 6 players from each team.  The scrum half puts the ball into the scrum, and the hooker from his team hooks the ball backwards to gain possession of the ball for his team.

Scrums are also awarded for knock-ons.  A knock-on is when the ball is dropped forwards by a player and hits the ground or another player.

A 40/20 kick is one where a player standing on or behind their 40-metre line gains ground by kicking the ball into their opponent's 20-metre area.  As long as the ball has bounced inside the field of play before going out to touch (out of bounds) in the 20 metre area, the kicking team are awarded head and feed at the scrum.  Therefore they will probably six more tackles to try to score.  It is very rare that the team that gets the ball to put into the scrum don't have possession after the scrum.

If the ball goes out behind the posts after a 40/20 rather than going out in the 20 metre area, the non-kicking team are given 7 tackles to try to score a try.

Don't worry if you're not sure what's happened.  The referees wear microphones and have a set of hand signals that they use to indicate what is going on.  These have been handily summarised here.

The offside rule does nothing but cause everyone headaches but basically, the defending team have to be 10 meters away from the attacking team when they play the ball after the tackle, and the person on the attacking team receiving the ball from the play the ball must be directly behind their team-mate.

Obstruction is when one of the attacking team runs across the line of a defender trying to tackle their team-mate.

Tackles are not allowed to be above shoulder height.  Above that it is a high tackle.

For something like that, or other foul play that is deserving of more than a penalty to the opposition, a referee can give one of 3 punishments:

1 - A yellow card - the offender has to spend 10 minutes in the sin bin.  Their team has to play the 10 minutes with 12 players.

2 - A red card - the offender is sent off and cannot play for the rest of the match.  Their team has to play the rest of the match with 12 players.

3 - The player is put on report - while better for the team in the short run because the player gets to stay on the pitch and carry on playing, it means the disciplinary panel will look at the offence and decide what punishment is appropriate.  This can be anything from nothing to a 4 match ban.

I think that covers the important things.

This year, the women's rugby league World Cup is taking place at the same time, so please show the ladies some love.

While I am cheering for the Lionesses, please enjoy this photo of Sarina Fiso (NZ captain) and Ruan Sims (Australia captain).

Blade Runner 2049

A lot of the points I am going to mention cover the same ground as Selenak does here.  She explains what I liked and disliked better than I can, in fewer words, so I recommend reading her take on the film, and then coming back to read this for the couple of points where we disagree, and a few more specifically-me points.

• I maintain my feeling of unease about a film about 30 years in the future of what people 40 years ago thought now would look like. Where are the films about what people now think 40 years in the future will look like?
• Denis Villeneuve is a stonkingly good director.  He keeps a lot of the visual language from the original, but imbues it with his own feel which is a lot softer than Ridley Scott’s.
• The BBFC rating includes a warning for sexualised nudity.  Anyone who finds any of the nudity in this film arousing has issues.  I think it was very well done, and thematically works but yes, the director deliberately went for “the commodification of sex and bodies is bad” and it worked.
• The film works best when deals with the flipside of Blade Runner’s “what does it mean to be human”.  2049 asks “what does it mean to not be human?”

Everything below this is a spoiler.

Because the “what is it to be non-human” bits do work, I am more than a little bit miffed that the film’s main answer to the question is reproduction makes you human.  

My miffed is four-fold.  

1) I like to believe that I am not any less human than my friends who have reproduced.  

2) Of all the facets of humanity to choose, the film choose the one we share with animals.  Birds do, bees do it, even educated bacteria do it and so on.  

3) I am sorry to put this quite so bluntly, but in terms of the replicants wanting their freedom, I’ve never known the ability of their slaves to reproduce ever stopping slavemasters keeping their slaves enslaved.  

4)  It goes against the message of the first film, where being human is what you do, not what you are.  The replicants were more human than the humans, quite literally.  Leon and Pris’s willingness to risk what lifespan they had for Zhora and Roy Batty, Pris and Roy Batty’s love for each other and Roy Batty letting Dekker live are all more human than any act of the humans in Blade Runner.

I’m not sure some of the background of the story works with the information from Blade Runner.  Do you believe that a technology that had already been banned from Earth after several previous rebellions would suddenly become legalised just because someone said the technology was now safe?  I don’t either.

I presume that they let the replicants live out amongst humans to try to tie them in closer to humanity so that they’re less likely to rebel.  That’s also reflected in the words that Joe is expected to repeat in his check-ups.

I’m pleased that they decided that Joe wasn’t a human, mostly because you know, Ryan Gosling only has the one facial expression.  It also meant that something I thought was a plot hole wasn’t.  (I’ve gone with calling him Joe because I am terrible at remembering alphanumerics.)

I guessed that the child was actually the girl because the quickest way of hiding someone is saying that they’re dead.  I should have guessed who the child was because such an extreme immunodeficiency suddenly cropping up at 8 is … unlikely.  But I didn’t.  The DNA section threw up another plot hole though because if Joe has the DNA sequence of the child, it should be easy enough to compare it with his own, and, depending on what DNA segment is recorded, he should have been able to check if the female identity or the male one was the real one.

Joi is probably the most human of the characters, in one of the bits where the film decides humanity is the ghost in the machine.  Which is interesting, given that she’s the only unembodied/disembodied character.  She's the one who makes decisions about herself and chooses danger rather than being forced to betray Joe.  She's so lovely. And also opens up a whole vista of philosophical questions. Like is she any less human because she's disembodied? Why does Joe choose her over another replicant (presuming, of course, that as a Replicant he’s not allowed to date humans - did I mention whole vistas?)?  Does Joi choose Joe as a name because it’s the name she’s been programmed to use it as a name or because she likes it?  How much of Joi is Joi and how much is the programming, and is that any different for Joe?

My favourite scene is the one where Joe is going back to Los Angeles and sees the advert for Joi.  He looks at her and it’s so full of love and sadness, because he knows that a new Joi would not be his Joi, and the ghost is in the electrons.  (Okay, so Gosling actually has three expressions, but he’d be more effective if he used the other two in more than one scene each.)

The odd thing is that the weakest scenes in Blade Runner 2049 are the ones that tie it into Blade Runner.

I feel bad about saying that because Harrison Ford is exceptional in his scenes.  The silhouette of Rachel was possibly the most terrifying unseen person since Joyce in “Forever” (Buffy, episode 17 season 5).  And yet, they slow an already slow film down and add nothing, because trust me, I already hated Wallace.  It feels like there were two scripts, one a direct sequel to Blade Runner, and one a more general sci-fi “what measure is a human” one, that they smushed together.

I am not sure what they were trying to do with Wallace, who was so much just Tyrell that D and I just called him not-Tyrell when we were talking about the film.  He’s just so unnecessarily horrible that I was hoping that dear, unstable Luv was going to gut him.  I am most sad that no-one gutted him.

My uncertainty with Wallace begins with his casting.  Given that he’s surrounded by faux-Japanese cultural motifs, why they didn’t just cast a Japanese actor is beyond me.  That was one of the things that did strike me, the film had much less of an Asian influence than the first one (even if I do understand the complaints that for all the Asian set dressing, there were no Asian characters in Blade Runner), and much more of a Soviet one.  It felt odd since I don’t think the Soviets were mentioned even once in Blade Runner, possibly to avoid dating the film.  I suspect this is partly a hangover from filming in Hungary.

On to some more general points:

I know why film-makers have characters use axe kicks in films.  They look cool.  I am willing to go with “rule of cool”, even if I don’t like axe kicks.  What I don’t get is why the characters being attacked by axe kicks never use the “proper” defence against them, even if that character is supposed to have fight training.  Axe kicks are so easy to defend against, why does nobody ever do it?!

I say this about every film he’s in, but when did Dave Batista get so good?  He’s a foot taller than me and about two of me in weight, and yet, when Sapper Morton put his glasses on I wanted to protect him.  That’s a neat trick.

I really like Hans Zimmer’s work.  If you need a film composer who can ape someone else’s style and rework it into something new, he’s the best choice.  The problem isn’t him, the problem is when the soundsystem of the cinema you are in can’t take all those tones at once, and you get massive reverb even when the soundtrack doesn’t want it.  Also, I’m reasonably sure that chunks of the soundtrack could be used for soundboarding people.  I know it’s deliberate but some of that really messed with my brain.

~~~~

In short (too late, I know), Blade Runner 2049 is a good film.  It’s not as good as Blade Runner.  It may or may not be a good sequel to Blade Runner.

Adieu Rob Burrow

Saturday evening will see Rob Burrow's last rugby game. 

He's my favourite active rugby player. And, as per usual, I will be hoping his team lose. Because that's what happens when your faourite player doesn't play for your favourite team. Not that Castleford are my favourite team, but I'd really rather than them win than Leeds again. I have seen Burrow tear Saints apart one time too often (even the mention of the 2011 Grand Final remains painful).

I will be honest here, the reason Burrow is my favourite *is* because he's the littlest. In a time when rugby players seem to be ever larger behemoths, that he's 5 foot 5 and made it with hella hard work and talent is inspiring.

 I believe some Youtube videos are required.

 The Leeds Rhino's official video - Tributes to Rob Burrow -

 Grand Final Golden Moments: Rob Burrow's Solo Try, 2011 - (Also refered to as that bloody try by me)

 Epalahame Lauaki Fights agiants Rob Burrow -

 Rob Burrow 500 game tribute - Rob Burrow 500 game tribute -

He's fast, sneaky, clever and brave, the littlest and the best. Why did he have to play for Leeds?

Book Review - As Good As It Gets - The Story of St Helens' Grand Slam Class of 2006

This book is about the glorious, all-conquering Saints team that won every trophy 🏆 available to them in 2006.

It’s written by Mike Critchley who works as the sports editor for one of the local papers, the St Helens Star.  He sets the team’s year in context, not just of rugby league, but also the team’s importance to the town.

It’s wonderfully one-sided.  It’s also written in authentic Northern gibberish in parts, to the point that I feel like asking my London correspondent if it makes any sense to someone not from my neck of the woods.

The pro-Saints angle actually quite nice, because it’s so common that Saints don’t get the credit they deserve.  It does occasionally leave me wanting more information or analysis than the book gives.  But that’s understandable because it is quite clearly designed to be an happy overview of that glorious season, not an in-depth rugby analysis book.

The book is also rather obviously pro-Daniel Anderson.  Which makes sense.  It was a season of success that was partly down to his tactical choices and player rotation.  It should actually have been his second title.  Saints would have won the title the year before if Sean Long hadn’t had his face broken in a match against Wigan. No part of that last sentence is an exaggeration.  But the book chooses to do this not just by bigging up Daniel Anderson, which is reasonable, but by putting down Ian Millward at any opportunity.  I have no idea what Mr. Millward did to the author but it must have been something.  (It's Ian Millward and the author is a journalist so I presume Millward swore at him.)

That, and a couple of “I do not think it means what you think it means” word usage issues, are the only problems I found.

It was interesting to get an insight into how a successful team works, and how it really is all the little things and building things up step by step.  The Ade Gardener section, and indeed Gardener’s own analysis of both season and how wing-play works in rugby league, was probably the most interesting part, but there were lots of interesting tidbits.

As for an actual number of stars, this is 5/5 for a Saints fan, 4/5 for rugby league fans and probably 3/5 for other sport fans.

Alvarez vs Golovkin

Since I’ve written about the freakshow and turned out to be mostly right, I feel I ought to write about an actual boxing match.  And Alvarez vs Golovkin could be a damn good boxing match.

I always feel I don't give Canelo the respect he deserves.  Because he's good, he lets his boxing do the talking and he doesn't duck fights.  He's a model professional in a time when that's a rare commodity.

But he’s fighting Golovkin and I <3 Gennady Golovkin.

I first became aware of Golovkin sometime around the time he moved to the US.  Mostly I noticed the number of boxers trying to avoid him.  It annoyed me because I was worried that he’d never get to make his name because he wouldn’t have strong opposition.

I am so pleased he proved me wrong.

I like tidy boxers, which he is.  I like no-nonsense boxers, which he is.  Also, you know baby-faced Kazakh destroyer :D

His technique is not perfect; I wish he’d use his feet more to get out of range because he takes way too many punches.  It’s all well and good being an iron jaw (and an iron face in general) but, as someone said about Carl Froch, all that means is people keep hitting you in the face.

I look forward to this fight (and the BBC’s excellent radio commentary).  It should be a good match-up between two stand-up boxers with solid technique.  It’s exactly what I want from boxing.

Atomic Blonde

Atomic Blonde is a great soundtrack in search of a film.

I think my anger with the film is because of its wasted potential. It could, and should, have been so much better.

The acting is solid, as is the directing and the technical stuff. The make-up department deserve an Oscar nomination. No, seriously. A character goes into shock and they made the character up to the right shade of pale.

The problem is the plot.

It makes no sense. No, seriously.

Without the last two "twists" (neither of which is a twist if you'd paid any attention during the film), it just about makes sense, because of some serious legwork by the actors, mostly Charlize Theron.

SPOILERS BEGIN HERE

With the penultimate twist, it becomes a solid entry in the gay spy drama category.

Think about it, young British agent, commits a lesbian indiscretion and is blackmailed by the Soviets, becoming Satchel. In protecting herself, she loses yet another chance at happiness and gets Delphine, who is very much the girl she was, killed. But she's got to see it through to get her freedom. It's all very bleak and actually works with the story.

Unfortunately, that's when they throw in the last twist. Which isn't really a twist and ruins all that has gone before. I'm not joking about it not being a twist. If you've ever heard John Goodman's voice before, you'll get it about halfway through the film.

With the last twist, a CIA op has killed 3 Allied agents, and one defector, mostly because of a lack of communication by the CIA. And we're supposed to be happy about this and think it was a successful operation.

Also, MI6 is so incompetent that it didn't notice a CIA mole, who was pretending to be a Russian mole, for about 10 years.

You've got poor Spyglass, killed trying to do the right thing.

Then poor David Percival, who is a see you next Tuesday, don't get me wrong, and in the throws of the traditional British spy middle-life crisis, who finds out that a friend of his was killed by the Russians to protect someone who has betrayed Percival's government, and therefore goes all dark side. We're supposed to be happy she kills him, and that he gets blamed for the whole thing, even though she's the mole and there isn't a mole, she's actually triple-agent but the CIA didn't bother to tell anyone. And I'm like ... no.

In short, when your most sympathetic character is a Stasi agent, there is something wrong with the film! 

I'm not even going to go into the really weird thing where there is only 1 German actor, who gets no lines in German. All the other Germans and Russians are played by Scandinavians. Now the amassed Vikings all do a damn good job (no, seriously, all my love for Roland Møller and Bill Skarsgård) but if you're actually filming in Germany, which this was, it's a bloody odd casting choice.

Mo Money, No Problems - Or Mayweather is going to win Mayweather vs McGregor

Mayweather will win Mayweather vs McGregor. He was always going to. He won it the minute it was announced as a boxing match, not that he would have agreed to an MMA match (nor should he have been expected to). Mayweather is very proud of the 0 in his defeats column and, at this stage of his career, he’s not going to risk it. If he thought there was a chance of losing, Mayweather wouldn’t have agreed to the fight.

People keep saying that it just takes one punch to knock someone out, and that that’s the beauty of boxing. But Mayweather’s style of boxing has always been to avoid getting hit and he has faced far better boxers than McGregor. Mayweather’s counter-punching style is also going to frustrate the heck out of McGregor, making a wild haymaker from McGregor more likely, which opens him up to a body-shot from Mayweather. And Mayweather body-shots are a thing of vicious beauty.

McGregor went into this knowing all of that, and is making no bones about being in this for the money, so I don’t think even he thinks he’ll win. He’ll still try, bless him, but he’s not going to win.
McGregor has one chance - he can win if Mayweather turns up too old. There’s no way of telling when that will happen to an athlete (Bernard Hopkins was fine till he hit 50, other people are too old at 30.). I think this is unlikely to happen to Mayweather for 2 reasons.

1 - Mayweather keeps himself quite near to game shape in between fights. I suspect this causes less wear and tear and keeps him fresher than if he kept having to do big weight cuts before each bout.

2 - Like I said before, Mayweather is really proud of that 0. If he thinks he’s lost a step, he’s going to call the fight off.

I can see the match going a couple of rounds, because, weird match against Ortiz notwithstanding, Mayweather hasn’t gone less than 10 rounds since 2006. I don’t think it will reach 10 rounds, mind you, because I really do think McGregor’s going to go for a haymaker and get body-shot before then. I can see it going 4 rounds. That’s long enough that people are going to think they’ve got their money’s worth and won’t complain too much. Although, in the UK, I do not understand why you’d pay to watch this freakshow (let us call it what it is) when you could listen to it on the radio for free.

Film Locations

An update of this post. Includes films watched up to the 15th February 2015. First things first, I really do like the new pie chart layout from google docs. It's much neater and easier to read. The number of films set in the US is the section that's increased in size the most. As before, there's a much greater spread of locations than in the books I read. Are completely skewed towards England. At least the outer space set films still haven't overtaken French-based films.

Halos, Shields and Fighter Jet Canopys, Oh My!

The FIA have pre-empted this post by going with the halo design but I was going to write something about the plans for increasing cockpit safety anyway.

Your fears are formed by what you see.

The two most recent serious F1 accidents have featured something hitting the driver's head while they're seated in their vehicle.  Understandably, this has led to calls for fully enclosed cockpits to be used in F1.  The first F1 accident I remember was Gerhard Berger's 1989 crash at Imola.  Which I swear is where my fear of burning to death comes from.  Now, that ended happily, or at least only with minor injuries, but the main reason I don't like the idea of having fighter jet-style canopies is what happens if they fail to release.

The other problem with a full canopy is how it would be cleaned as it got dirty.  If the driver is fully sealed, he can't just rip off a tear-off strip the way you can with helmets.  Sure, the mechanics could do it during a pit stop.  But what if it got dirty in-between times, or if the car in front sprayed oil all over the canopy because of a mechanical failure?

I suspect these problems, or something similar, are the reason why the FIA and the teams haven't even tried anything like a full, sealed canopy.

With a "shield", there aren't the same problems.  The driver can get out, and I presume tear-offs can be made for them.  On the other hand, objects can still bounce off and in, and something could go over and in to the cockpit.  I don't think that you're ever going to be able to make any motorsport 100% safe, but I think the shield is probably the best option.  It mixes increasing safety without introducing different risks or just leaving things as is of the solutions so far put forward.

I don't get what the halo is supposed to do.  I'm sure I'm missing something, and I'm sure someone with more engineering know-how can explain it to me.  It seems to offer very little extra protection while reducing the driver's field of vision.  I don't think the central column visibility issues will be as bad as it looks (see also how quickly you can get used to seeing through mesh in a fencing mask).  However, I've no idea how it's supposed to prevent objects entering the cockpit.  It seems to only be capable of preventing things if they're on a trajectory that crosses over the halo pillars and bars.

The FIA have gone with the halo over the shield.  I'm sure they have their reasons.  I'm sure they are good reasons.  It would be nice to know what those reasons are because from the outside, it looks like a ridiculous decision.

Mama Do - Why motherhood doesn't have to be the end of Serena Williams's career

The minute Serena Williams announced that she was pregnant, various journalists dusted down their "is this the end of (famous sportswoman)'s career" articles.

This is annoying for a variety of reasons.

The first is that it really is always the same article, with just the name of the sportswoman and the sport changed.

The second is that, if Serena chooses to come back, it's not the end of her career.  Sportswomen can, do and have achieved after having children.  For instance, <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/olympics/rio-2016-jessica-ennis-hill-takes-silver-in-thrilling-conclusion-to-womens-heptathlon-a7189731.html">Olympic silver</a> in the heptathlon, generally regarded as the most physically demanding of the athletics disciplines.  Or you know, being <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanny_Blankers-Koen">the Flying Housewife</a>.

But I suppose they don't play tennis.  Like oh, Kim Clijsters, who won the US Open after giving birth, and she's not the physical force that Serena is.

Those are sport or related reasons.  The remainder of the reasons are more society based.
The social construct of "the perfect mother" appears to exist only to make all mothers feel bad.  (Any mothers reading this, you are amazing.)  The perfect mother, she does not and cannot exist.

More than that, the extreme self-sacrifice that this ridiculous construct demands, that a mother no longer has her own life outside that of the identity of mother isn't safe or healthy for the mother, her children or any attendant partners.

Reporters and journalists are intelligent people and shouldn't be buying into it or propagating it.

There's also this weird idea that Serena (or any other woman) will be so overcome by the awesomeness of having a child that she will not be interested in pursuing her career.  I don't have children, but my mother would like to tell you that this is nonsense.  I have her permission to quote her.

The interesting double standard is that it's assumed that no man would be so distracted by having children that he'd want to stop his career.  There's no "will Murray stop playing tennis now that there's a second mini Murray on the way?" articles.  If kids are so all-consumingly awesome, you'd think both parents would be affected.

Every woman's choice is different, and it is her choice.

I realise journalists have to fill up the column inches so how to earn their pay.  Maybe next time though write about a British (change nationality as applicable) junior that's doing good rather than digging out the old "is this the end of (famous sportswoman)'s career" article again.