pull up the drawbridge

I am very surprised to learn that Ben Flower - the Wigan forward who has been banned for six months for his attack on Lance Hohaia during Saturday's Rugby League Grand Final defeat to St Helens - was born and bred in Cardiff. The general rule there - as I recall - was to attack your opponent from behind and then kick them on the floor; squaring up to someone and restricting yourself to punches once they went down tended to be frowned upon as a rather lackadaisical approach.

In other oval ball developments, the Bomber is playing up a year tomorrow afternoon against King's College School (KCS), Wimbledon tomorrow in the third round of the NatWest Cup. According to the Schools Rugby website KCS' previous fixture was against Eton College. Very posh.

On Sunday the club has a friendly against Reeds Weybridge RFC. They battered us 39-19, running in seven tries to our three, last season so this will be a good test of progress since then.