The weekend is almost here. The weather looks set to disrupt proceedings unfortunately but let’s work on the basis we in the South East miss the very worst of the storms. On that basis there are some cracking ties in Kent 1. CRFC v Charlton Park for instance. The other games are Beccs v D&B, Cranbrook v Park House, Anchorians v Oaks II, The Greenies v Ashford and Old Elthamians v Dover. Still very early days but we might get a feel for how the league will progress. Who is in the running for promotion, and who might be heading south.

The game of the day is found in Surrey/Sussex 1 where Eastbourne host Hove. Both have made excellent starts. Haywards Heath host Weybridge Vandals.

Sussex 2 start their campaign on Saturday and after a ‘heated’ contest in the cup last weekend you have to pick out Crawley v Lewes as the pick of that league. Seaford v East Grinstead is another tasty clash.

In Hampshire 1 Bognor in third travel to Andover who are top, both unbeaten thus far. Chichester jet off to face Guernsey II.

The journey of the day is Brighton down to Canterbury II. The other game of note in Regional 2 is Horsham hosting Bromley. I’ll be interested to see how these two games pan out. Last season they were two leagues apart.

Up one more and we find Tunbridge Wells hosting London Scottish Lions and Worthing hosting Wimbledon.

Finally in National League 2 Sevenoaks host Bury St Edmunds. In Nat 1 TJs host Birmingham Moseley.

Plenty of top flight rugby too including the final round of the Rugby Championship, more Premiership rugby including Bath v Sale tomorrow evening, the URC, and the English Championship finally kicks off. Worcester host Coventry in this one.

Talking of Coventry, it seems the pedantry of the RFU, with the uncertainty about promotion to, and relegation from the Premiership, has seen a very lucrative sponsorship deal with the House of Luxury fall through. HoL recently tied up a deal with Scarlets.

The headline in the rugby pages is the dismissal of Steve Diamond from Newcastle. The new owners haven’t wasted any time in stamping their authority on proceedings. Diamond is an abrasive, despotic figure and it would seem that doesn’t fit in with the new regimes plans. The surprise comes in that Gregor Townsend has been announced as a ‘consultant’ at the club with Neil McIlroy soon to arrive as Rugby General Manager with Alan Dickens taking on the role of Head Coach. The energy drink company are wasting no time in shaking things up at Kingston Park. The BBC Sport website for more detail.

The Fail exclusively reported yesterday that the R360 project is set to launch in 2026 as planned. WalesOnline adds more detail, stating Mike Tindall confirmed to the authorities that the funding was secure and player recruitment was on track with many top flight international having already signed agreements to join. It is suggested that players could receive £740k per season, which for many is a very lucrative deal. I still can’t see it working, but then again I am pessimism and misery personified.

As the curtain came down on the Women’s World Cup so the hype ahead of the men’s version starts. WalesOnline brings you news that the new six pool, 52 match tournament with the added jeopardy of a round of 16 knockout stage is pretty much ready to go. Due to the seedings and the format countries need to be in the top 12 places when the draw is made otherwise reaching the knockout stage is pretty much impossible….. I think.

That’s about it for today except to say it was good to read that a very short stretch of road improving links between Hastings and Bexhill opened this week after 16 years in the making. This compared with the Chinese opening the tallest bridge in the world crossing a huge ravine took just three and half years.

To frame expectations, especially for you mum, due to personal commitments this drivel is likely to be intermittent, or maybe non existent over the next few weeks. ‘Hoorah’ I hear you shout!!!!

Wednesday 1st Oct: 09:45

Good morning. The World Cup is over, we now head toward the Autumn Internationals, and sadly the depths of winter, not that winter has been that deep of late. Climate change and all that. Not a great deal to get stuck into today but I do bring you news that Steel Cross will be busy, busy, busy on Saturday.

Not only are the 1st at home v Charlton Park k.o. 15:00. Book your place for lunch. We also have the 2s at home v Burgess Hill k.o. 14:00, AND we have the 3s, yes we are getting a 3rd XV out, and they play Ditchling 2s k.o. 14:45. Three good reasons to get off the sofa and get to Steel Cross. Sadly I can’t make it.

It wasn’t so long ago that we were struggling to get a 1st XV out. Now we are getting a 3rd XV a game. It is excellent news and is a result of tireless work by Graysey, Geering, the coaches and all who do stacks of stuff in the background to make it a great place to play.

I’ll look at the other league fixtures tomorrow.

A couple of snippets that you might have missed. Aussie prop, and most capped Australian James Slipper is to hang up his international boots after this Saturday’s Australia v New Zealand clash. A great servant to the game indeed.

Following on from Mark McCall leading the charge with his comments about players not being ready for action due to mandatory rest periods, which it appears aren’t mandatory at all, two things have come to light. The finger has been pointed at Bath for finding ways around the rules by using Premiership Cup games as games missed when in truth the players would have missed them any way. It is the same ruse clubs use at discipline hearings when they find games that a player could have played in when he, or she, were never ever going to be selected for. The Garry Ringrose saga. Remember that!! Bath also, it seems, managed to get full-on contests against Worcester and others deemed as not ‘competitive’ thus allowing stars to play in them thus enhancing their season readiness. The Daily Fail for the full article.

Linking to this the All Black great Conrad Smith is leading the way to further reduce the game time played by the top players. Despite the games efforts the concussion rates are not reducing, even at grassroots level where the tackle height has been lowered. Smith argues that the number of head contacts during games and during training remains way too high, and the only way to reduce it is to limit contact time by mandatory rest periods in set blocks. In essence he is asking for a 5 week off-season, a 30 game maximum, and built-in recovery blocks. I can understand the rationale as this is where the NFL have got to. The conflict between club and country will be an issue I’m sure. This from The Torygraph.

The Daily Fail brings us news that the breakaway R360 league is ready to go next season. I think it will kill the game and make a few players, and a few organisers, very rich, but do little else. It will however tick the box of reducing players exposure to regular heavy duty head contact. I can’t tell you more as it is a pay-to-read article and I’m not giving the Fail a single penny of my money.

Going back to the comment about little reduction in concussion rates even at grassroots level, this is worthy of exploration. I haven’t looked at the stats but can understand why that might be the case. At grassroots level players are also hitting the tackle bags hard on a regular basis, I’m not convinced the referees are as diligent as they were when the law was introduced. That is based on watching some early season games. I am sure that as the tackler reduces his height so the ball carrier is going into contact much lower. Finally, and I am dealing with a case right now, where the tackler is low, and ball carrier is upright, knees are hitting heads harder than heads were hitting heads.

The Torygraph have done a fun piece on where to watch Premiership Rugby and where to avoid. Avoid the Stone-X and get to the Rec. It is a fun article with venues ranked on capacity, location, history, local facilities, atmosphere and then given an overall ranking. Go Steel Cross!! Ticking a lot of those matrix, or is it metrics!?

That’ll do for now except to say Leicester City 1 Wrexham 1 was a difficult watch last night.

It’s the Labour Conference this week. My take out is what a fantastic job the odious and unpleasant Nigel Farage is doing. Instead of bringing us details of what the government is going to do to turn things around, it was a PR campaign of some magnitude for Reform. It also highlights the class envy embedded in the Labour party without any recognition of the contribution most of the wealth creators do for the country. It also reinforced my opinion that working hard to have a comfortable life is hardly worth the effort. You get taxed every which way, and on money you have already paid tax on, and the bone idle wastrels keep getting more and more handouts for sitting on their backsides doing jack all.

Have a nice day!