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Good interview with one of the people behind the investigation

was the mother of the 16yo driving her to brands house why would a mother drive a 16yo to a man in his 30s house  thats what i have seen on some forums and comments.

Load of shite that there he got a car to take her, it was in the doc.. On the BBC news victim says "a BBC car would take her from school to Brand's house when she was 16 and he was 30"

On BBC today she said her Mum was against them meeting but Brand had told her what to say to get out of school etc. Sounds like grooming to me.

There was more than one encounter. In the full article it's detailed about the mother driving her round.

You can question the ma's wisdom but that has no bearing on whether or not Brand is a sc**bag.

I get hindsight is great and this was probaly part or his silly comedy radio show but even still how were alarm bells not going off, this clip is from 2007.

https://twitter.com/oliviamike1994/status/1703672864228995562

France made 12 changes to the side who beat New Zealand, its like a Premier league side playing a minnow in the League cup in that they make wholesale changes knowing they will win anyway. You will see it if you look back on previous Wold Cup winners where they rotate and win with a poor performance. I would read nothing into it, France still favourites as it stands for me.

Bournemouth, Vallacano and Swansea all pay better than the FAI. And there's also no chance the FAI have the cash to buy anyone out of an existing contract.

International jobs are a hard sell to any manager on the up. They're even harder to sell when the international team is a bit shit. And harder again when the shit international team has no money.

Kenny's replacement will not be someone with a red hot, recent track record. It'll be some dinosaur who did things in the 90s but can't get a look in at a club gig anymore, or Kenny 2.0 in the shape of Duff or Keith Andrews.

Ok if they have no money and a poor squad Im not sure why they should get rid of Kenny at all. He has them playing decent football even against World cup finalists. If the answer is just get rid of Kenny and throw some darts at some random former players with little or no coaching record then things could get much worse.

I'm not sure how oblivious some are to the financial realities of the situation, but it is beyond mental to suggest that the FAI could compete with top tier English, Italian or Spanish clubs for the services of successful, up-and-coming managers. And it's even more absurd to think such managers would want to sidetrack their careers with a stint in charge of a mid-to-lower tier international team.

Someone like Carsley is the best we can hope for, and it's very doubtful that he'd even be interested. He's not getting the senior England job - they'll go big on that when they ditch Southgate. But a Championship club will take a punt on him eventually, which would probably be a better career move than the Ireland job.

The alternatives to Kenny are depressing - auld fellas so far behind the times that the club scene has forgotten about them. Or another LOI graduate like Damien Duff.

I mentioned Andoni Iraola and Graham Potter. Brighton picked Potter from Swansea who had got him from Östersund in the Swedish league. Iraola was with midtable Rayo Vallacano in La Liga and is now manager of those giants of football Bournemouth. The point Im making is the type of manager could be out there with a bit of scouting but we look at ex players who have done very little.

Jesus neither of those are whats needed. Kenny has not got the results and does not have the best of squads at his disposal (one of the main reasons he got the job if we are honest) but to give him his due he is trying to get us to play a certain brand of football.

I think the FAI should go looking for a similar coach to continue this but someone who has done it at a higher level, i.e Seria A, La Liga, Premier League or even the Championship. So someone who had to work with a limited player base and got them to play these style of football but got results. For example Graham Potter took over from Hughton at Brighton who were long ball merchants and changed them into proper passing/possession side on a limited budget very quickly. Im not saying we would be able to get Potter (although he is currently out of work) but someone like that. For example Bournemouth got a new manager called Iraola who earned a good reputation for the job he did at Rayo Vallacano with a limited bunch on a small budget but again got them playing attacking football and even beat some of the big boys.

We should at least try and get managers who have some modicum of success behind them at playing this way, then you could put Kenny in charge of the underage set up to try and ensure we have a conveyor belt of players coming through who are used to this style.

After the first round of games, and I know maybe it doesn't mean anything , but so far so good for Ireland. France and SA have work to do and NZ look disorganised.

Ireland played nobody and while get an easy start to the competition, their two by far hardest games are their last two.

France are OK, neutered a hotly fancied NZ, who do have a lot to do but will still qualify.

SA have a win under their belts against a banana skin opponent, so even if they do get beat by Ireland they should be OK.

Romania doesn't matter. What counts is what Ireland learnt since 2019. S&C, discipline, quality of subs etc. So far there is no outstanding team.
NZ are probably focused on the knockout stage.
If Ireland do get beaten in the qf it will be because the other team was clearly better. Not because Ireland didn't learn anything.
If you are beaten like that you can't argue. But if you do the learnings you have a higher chance of winning.

Surely France are the outstanding team, I get it was not knockout but they came back twice against All Blacks and by the end were totally dominant of the Southern Hemisphere champions. That was best match so far with Wales v Fiji a close second. South Africa did what they do best and ground out a result which would have been easier if their kicker could do his job.

Obviously a long way to go but France are the big winners so far, they can rotate comfortably and still top the group and prepare for runners up in our group.

Argentina very poor tonight.

After beating strong teams this year, they were very disappointing.  Especially as England went a man down after 2 mins.

Every competitive game against decent opposition that the Argies play, they are underdogs. They were going into this game as even money, slight favs with some. After 3 mins they became hot favs. They knew they had to win, but forced everything.  Couldn't handle the expectation. Countlesss errors.

People use 'bottled' too often when it just happens the opposition are better on the day. But this was 100% a bottle job. All England did was keep it simple and take points when available. And that was enough against a team that was shooting themselves in the foot continuously.

As for Ireland, it was job done. Sexton very impressive. Bundee great. And plenty to improve on. Earls can't start any more though, hopefully that's the last we see of the great man.

100%.
Given the games against South Africa and Australia in particular this summer, I genuinely thought Argentina could do something special this tournament given the side of the draw they were on. But as you say they are use to playing with freedom as they are always underdogs. It was like they forgot how to play rugby against England.
Im not sure on the stats but I believe the average points conceded when you have a player in sin bin (10 mins) is something like 7 points, Argentina played almost 70 mins with and extra player and scored 3 points. They could not string 3 passes together and gave away penalty after penalty, it was shocking. I get England played well but if they go down a man for that long against a France or NZ it would be a cricket score.

Surely Ireland need to look for a club manager who had some success with improving players who were good to average players and have a system of play to brings some success.

I'm not saying they could get him but a person like Graham Potter springs to mind (insert wizard/magic joke/pun here). He took over a Brighton team who played a very defensive style due to the limited players they had, Potter came in a turned them into a passing team who could compete with so called better teams. He would also be an ideal continuation and improvement on the work Kenny has been trying to do. After his experience with Chelsea he might like an international job.

Whether you like rugby or not, that's a tasty opener coming up, and if we get out of our group we meet one of them.

I'm looking forward to watching it. But does the result really matter?

Id imagine both will want to lay down a marker but agree there could be a bit of shadow boxing also given it would not be much of a shock if they end up meeting in the final. It should help Ireland that NZ play France (so should know potential quarter final opponents depending on group position if they qualify) and South Africa play Scotland before Irelands first real test against the South Africans.

I think France will be very hard to beat on home turf but given the draw I could see Argentina doing very well.

Has form been a good predictor in any previous world cups?

It certainly has not been a good predictor when it comes to Ireland, you could probably argue we have been the most underperforming side in World cups, hopefully this year we buck the trend and at least get to a semi final.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/66656941

https://twitter.com/mufcMPB/status/1699053022209249409?t=PT8pb8P_soUksRvq8y3-yw&s=19

Liverpool would have taken hand and all if they had someone else lined up, a bit late in the day now to get a replacement in.

How's Argentinas form heading into this tournament?  They've got a great draw and if they can heat England could be facing a quarter final against Wales or fiji

They have every chance of reaching a semi final, in fact they would be the best of the so called outsiders to win it if you fancied a punt.

They are in Group D with England, Samoa, Japan and Chile, all of whom they are more than capable of beating.

Top that group and they play 2nd place in in Group C which contains Australia, Wales & Fiji in the quarter finals. Again more than capable of beating all 3.

If they reach the semi finals they will face one of the big hitters of South Africa/All Blacks/France/Ireland, whoever it is will have just had serious matches to get through and might have taken a bit out of them and a similar story if they were to reach the final.

Lets remember they are used to playing the big hitters. Just back in July the beat Australia in Sydney and only lost by 1 point to South Africa in Johannesburg so on that form its seems odd that they would be bigger odds than a struggling England side.