ETC 6 Nations & Fixture list.

Its almost Easter weekend, there's no big sporting events on (Cork should win the football and City should beat Salthill), the courts are closed Friday and Monday and I have a 40k tournament coming up that is preparing me for the ETC proper in Switzerland. A 5-day weekend? God I love the law sometimes.

I finally have an excuse to start drinking at 9am in my underwear and stuff my face full of chocolate all day without getting strange looks from people. Apart from the Pinball Wizard and Dave C. Because they both look strange already.

For those not in the know, the 6 Nations (not to be confused with the rugby)/Home Nations/pre-ETC piss-up is a (hopefully permanent) annual tradition where the teams from across Ireland and Britain gather to run a practice session and test army lists for the main event in August. A bit like the rugby actually but the Frogs aren't invited. They haven't been the most popular people round here since Henry's handball in Paris. Well, not the handball itself but the antics afterward. That and Sarkozy trying to put the boot in about the corporate tax rate in return for the bailout but we aren't going to give that one up because we're not cheese-eating surrender monkeys.

That's enough ethnic slander for now though. Last year it was held in Wales (Firestorm Games in Cardiff IIRC) and instead of risking innocent tourists wandering down its streets looking for Claewyndddnilgnegnalewggicdhgehlwhehichgefid on a street sign or a shop sign we've dragged the other teams over here to Cork for the weekend because our street signs and maps are in Irish and English. And because Team Ireland won the title last year. And Cork is cheaper than Dublin. And better too - its not full of junkies for starters and its not €5.50 a pint for seconds. (That's about £4.50 or $7 at the moment).

Aside from local munchies and a mini-pub crawl, some of us will end up in the Abbot's Ale House at some point because they have Leffe Blonde on tap. Then its off to the Franciscan Well for local brew and Burgers. No Jackeen-Liffey-Pisswater-Guinness down here. Its Murphy's and Beamish you should be asking for in most places. I'll probably be drinking tonnes of Tanora too.

Aside from the social shenanigans that will occur, there'll be plenty of ETC style games taking place over the weekend from 8.30am Saturday (seriously) amongst 6 teams with 5 modified rulebook missions (details to follow) and the insane ETC bidding system. There's Ireland, Northern Ireland, England, Scotland, Wales and a Gallowglasses team (or Barbarians or Mercenaries or something) made up from a few players from each country taking part to decide the winner.

Fixtures:

Will we see shenanigans like this occuring?

Day 1 - Round 1
Wales v England, Northern Ireland v Republic of Ireland, Barbarians v Scotland

Day 1 - Round 2
England v Northern Ireland , Scotland v Wales, Republic of Ireland v Barbarians

Day 1 - Round 3
Northern Ireland v Wales, England v Barbarians, Scotland v Republic of Ireland

Day 2 - Round 4
Northern Ireland v Barbarians, Wales v Republic of Ireland, England v Scotland

Day 2 - Round 5
Scotland v Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland v England, Barbarians v Wales

There are other sites that will better explain how the whole process works but I'm wondering if anyone would want updates on how the games are going after each round or if I can take piccies and add them up after the entire event is finished?