Many pubs in Prague have a sports theme, but none has quite the same schtick as Třetí poločas, or Third Half. Decorated with jerseys, scarves, cleats and posters of international stars like the New Zealand All Blacks, Třetí poločas is a sports pub for people who love rugby. Normally, that would mean the place is just another Old Town bar angling for attention from Antipodean, Irish and British tourists. But Třetí poločas is located far from the tourist crowds, way out in deep Palmovka. In other words, it's a sports bar for locals who love rugby.

Czechs + rugby = beer, of course, and Třetí poločas serves great draft Budvar, as well as some distinguished wines from its own vinotéka. The wine shop was closed when I visited, but the available Moravian chardonnay was several steps above the average house plonk: 1.5 deciliters of semi-dry white wine with pleasant wood notes due to the use of French barriques, nicely priced at 40 Kč ($1.70).

Fortunately, there's good bar food to pair with your pivo or víno. Among starters, the peperoni repieni is an interesting Czecho-Italian-Maghreb combo: half a yellow bell pepper, stuffed with creamy, risottolike couscous, covered with cheese and broiled until the whole thing becomes an unctuous, savory mess. It's so good carnivores might not even notice there's no meat.

Also good is the Czech pub classic, chicken livers in red wine. Třetí poločas serves a version said to be made with fresh rosemary, though the attenuated flavors suggest otherwise. It's still a nice plate of slightly metallic, tender chicken livers stewed in a gravylike sauce, improved with a slice of the bar's great bread.

The latter demands description: thick slices of dense, moist farmhouse bread with a pleasantly tough crust. I don't know if they make it in-house or buy it from a local baker, but it is excellent and fresh, the kind of bread you see quite rarely nowadays. The first bite commands that eaters begin to reminisce wistfully about times past and curse modernization and its attendant evils: despots in the place of democracy, an encroaching avian flu pandemic and the continued use of voicemail. The only thing that could make it better would be if it came with butter.

Main courses follow the pub-food lead of the livers with grilled pork, beef, and fish, in this case only three salmon plates, all of which are steaks. The salmon steak with spinach is well-peppered on the outside, juicy inside, served atop a pile of overcooked, dark-green leaf spinach. It's not great cooking, but for pub food, it's definitely worth the 135 Kč.

Another good main is the pork tenderloin in Parmesan batter, accompanied by a creamy, blue-cheese dipping sauce. The batter is salty and thick, something like the outside shell on an order of deep-fried fish and chips, though moister and less crisp, keeping the pork inside juicy and dynamically thermo-insulated. Have plenty of beer ready, as you will burn your tongue.

On that note, it's worth noting that though the pub-style service is good, the Budvar half-liters were not being poured at a full measure when I visited. If that's an issue to you, keep in mind that the price is low, just 24 Kč for the 10°. Otherwise, the commercial inspection office's Web site is www.coi.cz