A New Home for a Wayward Wallaby?



O'Connor: looking for a new club.
Or a recruiting boy band.

The emergence that James O'Connor's discussions with the Western Force have broken down has ended any remaining possibility that rugby's least edgy 'bad boy' would remain in Australia for the coming season to fight for his place. 

O'Connor has stated that he is in final discussions with 'several European clubs' about a short term contract in an attempt to resurrect his career.  With no insider knowledge whatsoever, I thought it might be fun to propose a couple of best-fit clubs for O'Connor:

Leicester Tigers

O'Connor would fit right in to the East Midlands, and could form a devastating centre partnership with Manu Tuilagi.  Like O'Connor, who was so scared of flying he turned up to an airport smashed Tuilagi also gets nervous about the thought of taking mass transport, famously getting so anxious about a ferry ride at the 2011 World Cup he had to prematurely abandon ship. 

On a slightly more serious note, Leicester have form for reigning in more 'individual' personalities and getting the best out of them on the pitch - Fellow former Wallaby Lote Tiqiri could vouch for that.

Leicester's famously good Curry scene could also offer O'Connor the opportunity to indulge his other passion - late night takeway runs.

Sale Sharks

Alternatively James could look a bit further North and land with the Sharks, who historically are not scared to offer big money signings ample opportunity to explode in their faces.

Manchester offers a vibrant night life that would obviously appeal to a man of O'Connor's nocturnal persuasions.  The Shark's trump card could however be offering him the opportunity to step onto the field with Danny Cipriani and further the Backline/Boy Band hybrid that the O'Connor, Beale, Cooper et all have been working so hard on down under in recent years.

Leinster

Ahh, Dublin.  The home of the world famous Guinness brewery... On Second thoughts, maybe Ireland might not be the best fit for O'Connor.

But, for a man who professes to be coming to Europe in order to resurrect his career and show the ARU what they're missing, he could do worse than looking at joining a team who compete in the Heineken most years.  They also play in the Rabo - if he can't look good against Zebre and the Dragons, then he really is in trouble.

The final incentive would be the opportunity to talk at length with Brian O'Driscoll about their negative experiences of the recent Lions tour.

Newcastle Falcons

If he gets a chance to have a word with Retired Wallaby legend Matt Burke, O'Connor could wind his way to the northernmost outpost of the Aviva Premiership - Burke thrived here after he left the southern hemisphere.  A chance to get back to playing week in, week out rugby under the watchful eye of noted disciplinarian and cynical cheat Dean Richards could be just what the doctor ordered.

The kicker to this deal could be the opportunity for a walk on part on Geordie Shore - the preening, drunken, orange idiots would help remind him of his Aussie team mates and assuage any feelings of home sickness.



Lets be right though, he's obviously going to go and count his Euros in France.  He's far too young to tempt Toulon, so my money is on Toulouse or Montpellier - I reckon he'll want to cling to the sunshine.  Watch this space.  

New Rugby Podcast

Well I couldn't manage it, but some others out there have also decided that there is a need to create a decent Rugby Podcast, and by God they've only bloody gone and done it!

Check out the Egg Chasers Podcast - it's relatively new (Episode 6 this week) and takes a good humoured, fans - eye view of some main talking points from around the game.

you can find them on Twitter @rugbypodcast and they've also got their own website, www.eggchasers.com where you'll find all the information you will need to download and give it a listen.

Enjoy!

Odd Shaped Balls 2.0

Well hello there,

Welcome to OSB 2.0 - 'The Reboot'.  As you may well be aware a little while back I came up with the idea of starting a rugby podcast, an idea borne of good intentions and a frustration at the lack of any good ones existing.  It quickly became apparent that for a variety of reasons (chief amongst them being my absolute lack of knowledge on the subject of audio production) that a podcast was never really going to work.

In the interim whilst I still tinkered away and deluded myself that I could somehow magic a podcast out of thin air I created the Odd Shaped Balls Blog, almost as an afterthought in order to channel some of that excess of Rugby passion I so wanted to share.  Once again, after setting off at good pace, knocking out some articles, including 5/12 of a Premiership team by team review and some bits and bobs on the Lions tour, reality kicked in and having to pretend to do work to earn a living annoyingly ate in to my post writing time, leading to a lull in production.

Well now, my promise to you is this: My days of pretending to work are over - and now, completely focused on blogging rather than Podcast pipe dreams, I present to you the (not in any way) new, (not particularly) improved Odd Shaped Balls Podcast!

for more instant debate/opinion, we are of course on Facebook at www.facebook.com/OSBblog and on Twitter you will find us at www.twitter.com/OSBblog - get involved and let me know what you think we, as rugby lovers, should be talking about and for my end of the bargain, whenever I can, I will bang out my best possible attempt at a well written, interesting article over here on the blog!

I, for one, am very aroused...