Latest news with #Mee
Wales Online
3 days ago
- Sport
- Wales Online
Wales stars combine for superb length-of-field try as match on knife-edge
Wales stars combine for superb length-of-field try as match on knife-edge Not even Jordie Barrett could catch Blair Murray as the Scarlets man raced away to score at the Aviva Stadium This was the moment Ellis Mee launched Scarlets' attack. (Image: BBC ) Wales internationals Ellis Mee and Blair Murray combined for a superb length-of-the-field try against Leinster, using remarkable footballing skill and speed to score. The Scarlets duo were lining up against the Dublin province in the quarter-finals of the United Rugby Championship, with the match being held at the Aviva Stadium. And despite being huge underdogs against the league-topping Irish heavyweights, Scarlets matched their opponents in the first half, going into the sheds at half-time just one point behind them. The try that closed the gap for Scarlets came just shy of the whistle, with Leinster initially deep inside Welsh territory. Sign up to Inside Welsh rugby on Substack to get exclusive news stories and insight from behind the scenes in Welsh rugby. Deciding to spread it wide, Leinster fluffed their lines, with a bouncing ball the result of their error. Winger Mee spotted the danger and thumped the ball towards up field. Four players surged after the ball - Mee, Murray, Jordie Barrett and Sam Prendergast. Another kick forward from Mee into empty territory saw Murray stick on the afterburners and squeeze to the front of the pack. With Barrett at his heels, Murray used exemplary footballing skill to touch the ball twice towards the try line, and dotting down to complete a superb score. You can watch the clip below. Content cannot be displayed without consent The drama wasn't over just yet, with the TMO wanting to check the grounding of the ball even after Sam Costelow's conversion was taken. Luckily for the Scarlets, the try was good. You can follow live updates here. Leinster named a star-studded side to face the west Walians, with the likes of Barrett and RG Snyman in the matchday 23. A total of 12 Leinster players have been selected to face Australia for the British and Irish Lions this summer, and Scarlets were going up against many of these stars, but held their own in the opening 40 minutes. Try-scorer Murray had been tipped as a potential Lions bolter, and had he done so, he would have been the only Scarlet in the touring squad. Article continues below While he may have missed his chance for now, injuries happen on tour and he may be called upon later down the line. The New Zealand-born back three player has been a breath of fresh air in a bleak period for Welsh rugby, with some solid performances in the Six Nations.
Wales Online
4 days ago
- Sport
- Wales Online
The Welsh rugby agent uncovering hidden gems around the world including new Wales star
The Welsh rugby agent uncovering hidden gems around the world including new Wales star The former hooker thinks outside the box to find diamonds in the rough across the globe Mee (right) went from the second tier of English rugby to making his Wales debut in less than a year (Image: Chris Fairweather/Huw Evans Agency ) A Welsh rugby agent who has uncovered hidden gems from right across the globe has opened up about his "different" approach to player recruitment Richard Emms - a former hooker for the likes of Pontypridd, Cross Keys and Swansea - moved into representation when his playing career came to an end, and he now represents around 70 players from right around the world. Admitting that he "won't just take anybody", he specialises in thinking outside the box and using non-traditional means to find diamonds in the rough. The talented players he has discovered in recent years include Saracens star Theo McFarland, who he spotted playing in a now-defunct competition in Samoa and is now captain of his country. Emms, who does most of his scouting work from his home in Pontyclun, also discovered Bristol Bears centre Kalaveti Ravouvou while he was playing sevens alongside working in a Fijian prison, as well as Stade Francais' "X-factor" speedster Peniasi Dakuwaqa, who he spotted playing in the Cook Islands. He also has Wales hooker Dewi Lake on his books, while he played a big role in discovering one of Welsh rugby's recent bright sparks in Scarlets wing Ellis Mee. Sign up to Inside Welsh rugby on Substack to get exclusive news stories and insight from behind the scenes in Welsh rugby. The 21-year-old, who moved to Parc y Scarlets last summer, delivered a hugely impressive performance when he made his Wales debut against Ireland during the Six Nations earlier this year, asking many fans to ask where he had come from. Less than a year earlier, he had been playing for Nottingham in the second tier of English rugby and while his discovery was credited to Scarlets legend James 'Cubby' Davies, who is now recruitment and operations officer at the region, it was Emms who flagged Mee to the Welsh side, reports MailOnline. "I like players with a point of difference. I don't want to give my trade secrets away, but there are certain things I look for in a player," he told the publication. "I like to manage the players myself. "I'm quite fussy about the players I'll take on. I won't just take anybody. I look for qualities in terms of rugby ability, but also characteristics off the field. I like my players to have a good work ethic. "I always try to be a bit different," he added. "That's not necessarily for the sake of being different, but any agent can turn up and watch an academy game because the players there have already been identified. Then you have to go head-to-head with other agents. "I back myself to find the players I think can become stars. That excites me more than any financial return. "It's finding the diamonds in the rough, like Kalaveti, because when they do kick on and start to make an impression, it gives you a lot of pleasure." Emms, who is also fully trained as a financial adviser, added that he has plenty more promising talents on his books, with his clients including Fijian prop Bill Drodrolagi Nairau and English lock Will Ramply, who have signed for Saracens and Bristol respectively ahead of next season. While rugby's transfer market remains traditional, he believes that more clubs could think differently to land new talents and gain a competitive edge. "I think there is still a degree of unwillingness at some teams to look outside the box when it comes to recruitment," he said. Article continues below "The preferred option is still to go for the tried and tested,' he said. 'It doesn't bother me what country a player is from. I have no pre-conceptions. "If I see it, I see it. I like to think there's a different way of doing things and there's something better out there. Lots of clubs have tight budgets now and I understand that, but if you can find a hidden gem who goes on to become a big player, that can be priceless."
Hans India
18-05-2025
- Sport
- Hans India
Ben Mee to leave Brentford at the end of season
Defender Ben Mee will leave Brentford once his contract expires at the end of the season on June 30, the Premier League announced on Sunday. He has made 67 appearances and scored five goals since joining the Bees on a free transfer in July 2022. 'Sunday will be my last game at the Gtech. I'd like to thank the Bees fans for the amazing support you've given me during these last three years - it's really meant a lot,' said Mee in a statement. 'This is a unique club full of fantastic people and I'm really proud and grateful to have had the pleasure to play here. I still have a lot more to give on the pitch and I'll certainly be looking to do that somewhere next season and beyond. For now, let's hope we can have a strong finish to the season," he added. Following Burnley's relegation to the Championship, Mee ended his 10-year stay in Lancashire with a move to Brentford in July 2022. The centre-back marked his home debut with a goal as Thomas Frank's side beat Manchester United 4-0 in an unforgettable game at Gtech Community Stadium. Mee missed just one game as the Bees ended the Premier League season in ninth. He was named Brentford Supporters' 2023/23 Player of the Year in recognition of his impressive performances. The Manchester City Academy graduate made 18 appearances last term and scored in victories over Luton Town and Nottingham Forest. He has made a further 11 outings this campaign, starting in each round of the Carabao Cup. Brentford lost 3-1 to eventual winners Newcastle United at the quarter-final stage. 'Ben has been fantastic for us. His first season was outstanding; he was a big part of us finishing ninth in the Premier League. He has not had as many minutes in the two seasons since then, but he has always performed when called upon and been invaluable off the pitch," head coach Thomas Frank said. "He has helped us build a strong culture and shared his knowledge with the younger players about how to be a top defender. Ben is a top pro and a top person - he will be missed. We wish him all the best for the future," he added.
Sharjah 24
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Sharjah 24
Varun Duggirala takes children on a ride of emotions at SCRF
The Chief Creative Officer of a media and product company helping young children build essential life skills through stories, play, and experiences, Duggirala showed them videos of three fictional characters E, Mo and Mee as they played together and occasionally fought with each other, to illustrate EQ or emotional quotient. 'Practice regulating your emotions and count to 10 if something makes you angry,' Duggirala advised, and demonstrated and practised breathing techniques with the youngsters. He pointed out that they could have moments of high or the Yay moments and points of low or the Meh moments in their life, and the young crowd answered that the session had taught them how to be patient and kind or helpful and forgive, and so on. The children were quick to ask questions in the Q&A session that followed. The 42-year-old told them his favourite book is My Best Friend isn't my Friend Anymore: A Story Exploring the Sadness of Changing Relationships , which he wrote to help his seven-year-old daughter cope with sadness. He revealed that the character E in his cartoons was based on his daughter and Mee on his son. Duggirala, who has also written a book for adults called Everything is Out of Syllabus: An Instruction Manual for Life & Work, told the children how he overcame his writing block and now makes it a point to write for an hour every day. 'Follow your passion and be curious about everything,' he asserted, revealing that he kept aside his phone and always 'looked around and looked at people'. Just as at the start of the session, the charismatic influencer got the children to 'wiggle, shake their hands and clap for themselves' to mark their happiness and fun session at SCRF. Taking place until May 4 at Expo Centre Sharjah, the 16th edition of SCRF promises an immersive experience under the theme 'Dive into Books'. Organised by the Sharjah Book Authority (SBA), this year's agenda features 133 guests from 70 countries, and 122 Arab and international publishing houses from 22 nations.
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Rural New Hampshire hospitals brace for potential Medicaid cuts
U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen speaks with Matt Foster, Valley Regional Hospital CEO, in front of an MRI machine at the hospital last week. Rural hospital leaders have been telling Shaheen and the rest of New Hampshire's congressional delegation about the impact cuts to Medicaid would have on their operations. (Photo by William Skipworth/New Hampshire Bulletin) At 16 beds, Colebrook's Upper Connecticut Valley Hospital is the smallest licensed hospital in New Hampshire. 'We call it 'frontier medicine,'' Tom Mee, CEO of the hospital's parent company, North Country Health, said. 'It's the lifeblood of health care for that community.' Situated in rural northern Coös County near the U.S.-Canada border, Upper Connecticut Valley Hospital is the only hospital nearby, which makes it vital to the health and well-being of area residents. 'When an urban hospital closes or cuts back programs, you just go to the other hospital that's five miles away,' Mee said. 'In our community, you're driving hours.' That's why Mee and other rural health providers are so afraid of Republican proposals in Washington, D.C., to gut Medicaid, the country's public health care program for those with low incomes and unique needs. They argue this move would further destabilize an already challenging rural health system. In early April, Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives voted to approve a resolution outlining the federal budget, an early step in the lengthy federal budgeting process. That outline called for $1.5 trillion in spending cuts to renew President Donald Trump's 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act — which his opponents and many economists decry as a tax break for the richest Americans. The resolution tasks several legislative committees with cutting different areas of the budget. The House Energy and Commerce Committee has been instructed to cut its portion by about $880 billion over 10 years. While it doesn't explicitly specify these cuts come from Medicaid, the program comprises about $8.2 trillion of the almost $9 trillion the committee can cut from. This means, experts say, it would be impossible to do so without reducing Medicaid or Medicare. Some Republicans have proposed shrinking Medicaid by about a third over 10 years. If that cut went into effect, an estimated 24 million people receiving Medicaid would lose their health care coverage; 10 million of those would be children. In New Hampshire, that's 60,000 people and 30,000 children. One in 7 New Hampshire residents in total receive Medicaid, and 17.1% of all New Hampshire Medicaid recipients live in Coös County, despite the county comprising roughly 2% of the state's population. Mee said the country must 'get past this notion that getting people off Medicaid saves money.' 'There is no model where, from a taxpayer perspective, taking somebody off the Medicaid rolls is a net positive for the taxpayer,' Mee said. 'In the short term, yeah, it sounds good that we've got somebody off the Medicaid roll or that they're working, but the flip side of that is that these patients then become uninsured, they don't get preventative health visits in general, and they show up in our ERs months later, sicker than they ever were before.' Hospitals cannot turn away patients who are unable to pay like most businesses can. They are legally required — through a 1986 law called the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act — to provide emergency treatment to all patients who need it regardless of ability to pay. Without Medicaid, more people will be unable to pay. Hospitals are forced to absorb that cost. Mee called it 'a long-term drain on the system.' Coös County is the state's largest county by area (about 1,800 square miles) and its smallest by population (about 32,000 residents). The county has three hospitals — Upper Connecticut Valley Hospital, Androscoggin Valley Hospital, and Weeks Medical Center — all operated by North Country Health. All three are designated as critical access hospitals by the federal government, meaning they're far enough from any other hospital that the government believes they're essential to ensure that an area has access to care. 'On a perfect day, we can drive about 90 minutes between sites,' he said. 'But on a snowy day, you're talking about real life and death at that point if we have to start cutting back on services.' Mee said that if these Medicaid cuts go into effect, North Country Health would have to consider doing so. About 15% of North Country Health's patients are on Medicaid, he explained. 'I don't lie awake at night worrying about our hospitals closing,' he said. 'But I do worry about whether or not we're going to continue to offer the full scope of services that we do today.' He said the first services they'd have to consider eliminating are in women's health, including OB-GYNs and baby deliveries, and behavioral health, including psychiatry and substance use disorder. He said the results would be disastrous. 'If we're not able to deliver babies in Coös County, pregnant women and neonates will die,' he said. 'It's a fact.' Mee said the health system has already eliminated every non-essential cost. 'We've already picked all the low-hanging fruit,' he said. 'So if Medicaid reductions, or however it looks, force us to look at it again, then we're going to have to look at something a bit more draconian than what we've done in the past.' U.S. Rep. Maggie Goodlander, who represents the North Country — as well as Nashua, Concord, and the western half of New Hampshire — said she's worried about the viability of rural hospitals like those in the North Country and other rural parts of New Hampshire should these cuts be enacted. 'What I'm hearing from so many rural hospitals in our state is just how fragile they are,' Goodlander said. 'I mean, they're operating on the slimmest of margins.' The congresswoman visited Monadnock Community Hospital in Peterborough, another rural critical access hospital, last week to hear from some of those health care leaders. 'We are really concerned about what's going to happen with Medicaid,' Richard Scheinblum, executive vice president and CFO at Monadnock Community Hospital, said. In New Hampshire, the fear of federal Medicaid cuts is twofold. Medicaid is funded jointly by the federal government and states. New Hampshire has a trigger law on the books mandating that if federal funding for the expanded Medicaid program falls below 90%, the state government will revoke its portion of the funding for about 60,000 of New Hampshire's recipients who receive coverage through the 2014 expansion. 'If expanded Medicaid blows up, that's between a $1 to $2 million loss to us,' Scheinblum said. This figure is per year, he said, and he calculated it by examining figures from before expansion was enacted, factoring in recent market developments and updated variables. Goodlander said she's spoken with state lawmakers who don't seem to understand what the impact of this trigger law being activated would be. Cynthia McGuire, president and CEO at Monadnock Community Hospital, said the hospital isn't sure they'd be able to continue employing the entirety of their current staff with Medicaid cuts. The hospital is one of the largest employers in Peterborough. Additionally, Upper Connecticut Valley Hospital, Androscoggin Valley Hospital, and Weeks Medical Center are the largest employers in their respective towns. Scheinblum and McGuire said if these cuts went into effect, like North Country Health, they'd also have to look carefully at downsizing their operations. 'What I'd hope we could do is look at some alternative revenue sources or some other areas to scale back,' Scheinblum said, listing philanthropic grants and donations and partnerships with other hospitals as examples. 'Everything would be on the table.' They noted that due to their community's financial support they're really well positioned compared to other hospitals. 'There are a lot of hospitals in our state that will not survive,' Goodlander noted. The hospital leaders emphasized the importance of critical access hospitals. 'We're the last stop,' McGuire added. 'We can't shut our door and say we're not going to take care of any more people today. That's what we are here for.' Matt Foster, president and CEO of Valley Regional Hospital, a critical access hospital in Claremont, said this moment feels like 'December to January 2020 pre-COVID when something's coming but you're really not sure how to plan.' He said the hospital has 'started to think about' a contingency plan should these cuts be enacted. 'This has come on so quickly we're kind of in the reactive phase,' he said. 'It's like Mike Tyson said, which is, 'Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.'' Foster noted the challenges their community faces: Roughly 15% of the population lives below the poverty line, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. About one-third of Claremont's population is on Medicaid. 'Finances are like oxygen,' he said. 'They're not why we're here but they're necessary for life.' Foster, too, explained that Medicaid would force their hospital to make tough decisions about services, specifically on their payroll. 'We're about as efficient as we can be,' he said. 'There's only so many things you can do that don't rely on (employees).' Officials at Valley Regional Hospital, which is operated by Dartmouth Health, explained that cutting Medicaid keeps people from obtaining preventative care and forces them to go to the emergency department for things that should be handled by a primary care physician. Jocelyn Caple, interim CEO of Valley Regional Hospital, likened it to 'taking a water balloon, going and squeezing it.' 'It ends up somewhere else, which is not the most efficient or effective place to pay for it,' she said. U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen spoke with Foster, Caple, and other Valley Regional Hospital officials during a visit to Claremont last week. 'You talk about uncertainty, and one of the challenges that we've had in Washington is also uncertainty,' Shaheen said. Shaheen said she's also concerned about rural New Hampshire hospitals' ability to remain solvent amid these cuts. Asked what recourse New Hampshire Medicaid proponents have in the event that the trigger law is enacted, Shaheen, who is a former New Hampshire governor, deflected, noting it is a state-level decision, not within her jurisdiction as a federal lawmaker. Still, she encouraged constituents to 'call your legislator, call the governor, call everybody you can think of, and let them know that that's not acceptable.' At the same time as federal lawmakers weigh trimming Medicaid, state lawmakers are also proposing changes to the program in New Hampshire. The state Senate passed a bill — Senate Bill 134 — in March requiring people to work in order to receive Medicaid in New Hampshire, and the House approved a plan to charge certain Medicaid recipients premiums and increase the share of prescription costs recipients are responsible for in the budget they passed in April. Gov. Kelly Ayotte's office, which originally proposed the premium and prescription cost plan, and would have to sign off on work requirements for them to be enacted, did not respond to the Bulletin's requests for comment about state or federal proposals.
