The Crooked Feed is G&GR’s column of rugby tidbits and trivia, compiled by Lee Grant. It’s based on the “Non-set pieces” thread in the Rugby Discussion Forum — a repository for things seen, heard, overheard and otherwise soon-forgotten, gathered at the grounds, online and over the airwaves.

Players (Toulon edition)

• Fotu Auelua, who is heading for the Brumbies next year by way of Japan, came on for Toulon towards the end of a recent match against Toulouse. They lifted him for a lineout take and then later, as the ball came back from the middle of the field, he made a half-break at goodish speed and dished out the ball to his fullback, Rory Lamont. Aulea picked himself up, ran forward and was in perfect position to go over for a try but the pass was a tad too high and behind him. He’ll be handy if he can lose some weight. He’s principally a No. 8 but Toulon have played him at 12 and 13 this year also.

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  Gavin Henson, ex-Ospreys and ex-“Dancing With the Stars”, was given a gig by Sarries this season but it didn’t work out and he ended up in Toulon in his bid to be considered for the Wales RWC squad. He played OK in this game but after the match he was suspended for breaching the club’s Code of Good Conduct. Goodbye RWC for Gav, methinks.

• Jonny Wilkinson kicked a 51-metre field goal for Toulon. He’s still got it.

Referees

• Aviva Premiership referee JP Doyle marches the tune of a different whistle. In a recent Sale v. London Irish match he used teenager talk to gnarled forwards who were getting stroppy. “Chillax”, he said. This is a combination of “chill out” and ”relax”. A few seconds later he called pale-faced Exiles scrummie Paul Hodgson “Bro”. Later still, when Mapusua was discussing a point with Doyle and he wouldn’t go away, he told the skipper: “Shut up, go away please”. It was done it friendly way, believe it or not, but he could get into hot water from the reffing mandarins all the same.

• Dave Pearson, recently appointed to the RWC panel, is not shy to issue a yellow card. In his first Premiership game he binned Martin Johnson.

• Jonathon White and Vinnie Munro must have different views on whether the ball can be slapped out of a scrummie’s hands at a ruck. White could not have missed Alby Mathewson, of the Blues, slapping the ball (not forward) out of the scrummie’s hands against the Rebels, as there seemed to be nobody in his line of sight. But Munro, who saw James Horwill of the Reds doing the same thing against the Lions, dished out a yellow card (see the previous installment of The Crooked Feed).

Commentators

• Tony Johnson is one of the few Super commentators who knows how to pronounce Daniel Halangahu’s name correctly: Har-lar-NGAR-hu.

• Maybe some Saffers can confirm that Bakkies and Gary’s surname is not pronounced BOY-tar and tell Greg Clark, if so.

• Mark Robson may not have been absolutely correct when he said a while back: “Waqaseduadua is the best player in the world with 11 vowels in his name”, but it was a good line.

Trivia

• Neilson family: Between 1891 and 1900, four brothers, William, George, Walter and Robert Neilson, all played for Scotland — though not more than two played in the same Test match. George and William (who was still at high school at the time) made their debuts in the 1891 game against Wales. All but Walter became Presidents of the Scottish Rugby Union.

• Dai Young, coach of the Cardiff Blues, has a claim to fame. He is the only player who played for the British and Irish Lions three times over three different decades. He also played for Northern Suburbs in Sydney as a youngster in 1987 and, being in the area, was called into the Wales squad for the RWC when somebody was crocked in the tournament. He also captained Wales in a rugby league world cup. But wait, there’s more. He was the butt of a classic threat. When he was a young prop playing for Wales against England and causing mischief in the scrummage, as you do, England prop Gareth Chilcott told Dai Young: “If you don’t calm down you’ll live up to your name.” Not a bad sledge that, Gareth.

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Tables Notes

Tables can be corrupted when browser zoom is too large.

At the time of writing using align=”center” in table parameters at start seems to fit everything in.

Table style quotation marks – only one at beginning after table style= and one at the end before <etc

Ditto for rows after t d style etc etc and before end of style instructions (before text and/or text codes).

Note: table width size as a 90% percentage especially if there aren’t too many columns and you don’t want column widths too wide.

Note: placing of 5px padding on left of left-hand (first) column.

Note coding for equal width percentage for column width of entire table and where it is placed

Refer to WordPress bookmarks if, say, first column has to be larger – https://wpbtips.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/table-coding-for-wordpress-com-users/

Colours – note how they are inserted for rows – can also be inserted for columns – see WP tutorial in Computer toolbar

Super Rugby Statistics Table Exercise

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Super Rugby Statistics Table Exercise

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