This is a little bit crap from Lancs. Another terrible start. Nothing like batting for a best case scenario draw before lunch on day one. AGAIN.

Well quite. Rumours jared payne may get the nod. He's another antipodean. We may have more than the all blacks. Gave up watching the live stream of the squad announcement on sky sports app. Christ they do some faffing about. All it needs is one bloke to walk out at 12 o'clock on the dot and read out 40 names.

It's still a very strong squad mainly due to strength in depth of English rugby. But I really struggle to understand how can justify having so many Welsh players in there, especially Roberts, given they finished fifth in the six nations and he was on the bench for every game. Even Halfpenny after his 6 nations probably wouldn't be in if he wasn't Welsh. That's said I am defo biased towards the lads playing for England. But in balancing it out it reminds me of Woodward in 2005 where I think they went for too many English lads considering some of the world cup lads weren't at their best, Andy Robinson was England's head coach at the time and Wales won the grand slam that year.

Papers seem to be thinking this is the "likely" squad: Hookers: Best, Owens, George Props: Marler, Vunipola, McGrath, Furlong, Sinkler, Cole 2nd rows: Itoje, Kruis, Lawes, Wyn Jones, Ryan, Henderson Flankers: O'brien, O'Mahoney, Stander, Warburton, Tipuric No8s: Vinipola, Faletau Scrum halves: Murray, Youngs, Webb Fly halves: Sexton, Farrell, Biggar Centres: Daly, Henshaw, Te'o, Davis, Roberts Wings/full backs: Hogg, Halfpenny, North, Nowell, Watson, Williams, Earls Will be interesting to see how close that is. In which the case no Joseph, no Launchbury, no Hartley, no Ford, no Brown, no Haskell.

Just seen on ssn ahead of tomorrow's lions squad announcement Jamie Roberts is likely to get the nod and Launchbury, Ford, Joseph and brown miss out Terrible if true. Launchbury got 3 man of the matches and perhaps should have won man of the tournament over Hogg. Madness he might not be in the squad although second row is a strong area across the board. It'd be a joke if Roberts gets selected, especially ahead of JJ. He can't get into the Wales team and struggles to get in the Quinns team so how can he get in the Lions squad. Shows Gatland's lack of invention. Shame Eddie Jones isn't in charge.

I'm sure 'Arry will bankrupt them long term but in the short term that's them out of it all.

Made Surrey follow on. Wouldn't have put money on that at 67/5. Will probably be a draw. But if nothing else it's a shot across surrey's bow. They think they're the best side in league and on paper they possibly are once international have gone from likes of Yarkshite.

Great fight back. For Clark to come in the position Lancs found themselves in and to hit the ball out of the ground for his maiden century is impressive. Assuming this is a draw it'll be no wins in 13 matches after this one (LDDDLDDLDDLDD). So if we don't beat Somerset next week we will have to beat Yorkshire next month to avoid a 12 month winless streak in the county championship.

Essex out for 159 shared the wickets around which is nice not to rely on on performer. 160 behind so would like see follow on but these days it seems fashionable not to enforce it.

So it's the start of the county championship today. Big game for lancs first up. If just looking to stay up or whether we have more lofty ambitions we need to be beating the likes of Essex. They've lost Napier and masters who took over 100 wickets between them last year. Plus a few others like mickleburgh. No cook. They should be there for the taking...

Not a great few days from most teams/sporting events I've been touting for. England messed up the grand slam/record. Rovers dropped points very late and most rivals picked up points. Cheltenham was rubbish. Clitheroe lost a semi final. After a winter of hoping Lancs will come good we still look the usual bag of @#/? getting a lesson off UAE. Even the north got smashed by the south in the inaugural North vs South cricket match. Scraping the barrel at the end and still struggling for any positives.

Well bitterly disappointing to lose out on the grand slam and record wins. But at least they're champions.

This tickled me "The 2nd best scouser vs one leg fight behind the Paul McCartney vs heather mills divorce battle."

No excuses from Haye. Fair play. Especially when he was clearly injured.

Brave from Haye. No doubt they'll be best mates now having wanted to rip each other's head off at every opportunity for the past few months.

I'd love Haye to win from here with a random swipe having fought on one leg for half the fight.

Foot/toe

Knee

End of Haye with excuses galore. Achilles?

Wow

Just been catching up with Haye vs Bellew build up. It's like the WWF I half expect rick flair to appear whooping and challenge both to a cage match at the same time. I'm not even sure boxers hatred is genuine anymore. It seems all recent British affairs have to be sold on both men hating each other bellew v cleverley, Haye v chisora, chisora vs whyte, whyte v Joshua, Froch v groves. That said I will defo watch it and looking at the state of the two men presumably not for long once Haye lands his first big shot.

Someone sent me a screenshot of a twitter message which made me laugh: Replacing Owen Coyle with Tony Mowbray is like replacing your brown 1988 Ford Sierra with a blue 1988 Ford Sierra.

I think I know how they pick managers at rovers. They put some really crap names into a hat. Throw that hat away and think of some even worse names. Let the first 10 reject you then settle on the 11th

I think I know how they pick managers at rovers. They put some really crap names into a hat. Throw that hat away and think of some even worse names. Let the first 10 reject you then settle on the 11th

I'm more of an armchair rugby league fan and soft spot for Wigan from the mid 90s era. So for the real fans does the world club championship rank compared to grand final and challenge cup? Is it right up there or a distant 3rd in the eyes of a fan. I watched the first half before fa cup such fine lines for the tmo's. Looking to see if the Wigan lads little finger touched the line before grounded the ball then whether the Australian bloke grounded the ball on the line or not and millimetres in it. Fortunately all went Wigans way. More of a cricket man myself but I find it necessary these days to have other sporting interests by way of a welcome distraction/replacement for rovers.