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Another airline has enraged rugby fans with a Autumn Nations Cup Twitter blunder

James Ryan /PA

Fresh after British Airways infuriated Wales fans by wishing England ‘good luck’, another airline has followed suit with a rugby-related Twitter blunder. Yesterday British Airways – an England Rugby sponsor – was forced to apologise after wishing Eddie Jones’ men good luck against Wales in the Autumn Nations Cup. Plenty of Welsh fans took exception, many of whom pointed out that as BA is the UK’s national carrier and also represents Wales.

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That Tweet was taken down and a spokesperson for British Airways said that they had ‘unintentionally strayed offside’.

Now Virgin Atlantic have put their foot in it, by insinuating that Ireland is ‘British’. However, they appear to be sticking to their guns on Tweet. The airline Tweeted: “Good luck to England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales in the rugby this weekend. Nothing beats a bit of healthy competition. #British ”

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      Which Welsh players will make the Lions tour to SA?

      Apart from the fact Scotland aren’t playing this weekend, many Irish fans were quick to point out that Ireland isn’t British.

      https://twitter.com/conorgriffin11/status/1332649995732971521

      Their upset at the Tweet then kicked off a debate around whether the term ‘British’ is a geographic rather than a strictly political designation. Others pointed out that Northern Ireland, which is part of Ireland in rugby terms, but separate from the Republic of Ireland in political terms, is politically British.

      “For those that keep saying Ireland isn’t British, it is. Ireland is not part of the United Kingdom, which isn’t what Atlantic said and Ireland is not apart of Great Britain which Atlantic also didn’t say. Britain is incorrectly used as a political term, it is purely geographical.”

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      The Virgin Atlantic tweet was meant as a witty repost to the British Airways social media fumble, but it seems they managed to side-step straight into their own political quagmire. While they are standing by the Tweet, it’s not entirely clear if the use of the term Ireland and British together was deliberately to troll rugby fans, as opposed to just British Airways. It seems unlikely.

      Who knew wishing rugby fans good luck was such a tricky business?

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      Soliloquin 43 minutes ago
      Competing interests and rotated squads: What the 'player welfare summer' is really telling us

      I don’t know the financial story behind the changes that were implemented, but I guess clubs started to lose money, Mourad Boudjellal won it all with Toulon, got tired and wanted to invest in football , the French national team was at its lowest with the QF humiliation in 2015 and the FFR needed to transform the model where no French talent could thrive. Interestingly enough, the JIFF rule came in during the 2009/2010 season, so before the Toulon dynasty, but it was only 40% of the players that to be from trained in French academies. But the crops came a few years later, when they passed it at the current level of 70%.

      Again, I’m not a huge fan of under 18 players being scouted and signed. I’d rather have French clubs create sub-academies in French territories like Wallis and Futuna, New Caledonia and other places that are culturally closer to RU and geographically closer to rugby lands. Mauvaka, Moefana, Taofifenua bros, Tolofua bros, Falatea - they all came to mainland after starting their rugby adventure back home.

      They’re French, they come from economically struggling areas, and rugby can help locally, instead of lumping foreign talents.

      And even though many national teams benefit from their players training and playing in France, there are cases where they could avoid trying to get them in the French national team (Tatafu).

      In other cases, I feel less shame when the country doesn’t believe in the player like in Meafou’s case.

      And there are players that never consider switching to the French national team like Niniashvili, Merckler or even Capuozzo, who is French and doesn’t really speak Italian.

      We’ll see with Jacques Willis 🥲


      But hey, it’s nothing new to Australia and NZ with PI!

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