honestly united

Add McDowall and Chamberlain to that as well.

For me that was the worst of it today, the majority of the players didnt look interested. We would have been better off starting with 9 and leaving CHalmers and Walsh in the stand

Would rather have Jones at 13 and Smith at 15 and Grigg on the bench but otherwise looks fairly solid. Although looking at the Montpellier side, that must be close to full strength from them, always gives me the fear when I recognise more that half the players in a French team

36 doesn't seem a lot given there are 2 midweek games - you would assume then 2 for each position plus extra scrum half, front row and fly half? so they are not having to play every game

Im pretty sure last time the squad was something like 49 players, 3 players for every position plus additional hooker, SH, FH and another welsh player to make up the difference so we really should be looking at 10-12 players. I think Hogg, Russell, Watson and DVM are on the plane, Fagerson, Sutherland, Price, Gray, and Maitland are all with a shout and guys like Brown, Skinner, Redpath, and Harris would be outside bets. I also wouldn't rule out Ritchie, Johnson or Jones There has been quite a bit of chat about Brown still having a chance of making it as none of the other hookers are up to much - on the recent lions poll, scots and irish fans picked George as hooker, the English though picked Cowan- Dickie shows what the fans think that no one is preforming. Redpath if he wasn't injured and had kept the performance levels as per England game would be a shoe in, still think he has time if he comes back quickly enough. If Exeter go well and Skinner plays hes got an outside chance also.

To be fair his tackling leaves a lot to be desired - see first French try, for someone his size he should have been putting him in the stand never mind letting him score, but the other wingers are hardly great, ie Johnny May getting roasted by Earls for the try off the lineout. But from memory the SA are all fairly small, so you can see them being more worried about VDM, than use worrying about them. its this sort of talk is another reason why I dont like the Lions as it feeds into our NH mindset that the SH are so much better than us. Scotland alone have beaten SA and Oz in recent years and came within a score of NZ- we alone should be going into games against them looking to win. We should be able to draw lots from the starting teams of each country and be beating SA, but being able to pick the best players from 4 of the top 10 countries in the world there is something seriously wrong if people are worried that a winger might miss a tackle. You could pick a team form the tier 2 nations and with a proper coaching team and the 2 months training and 4 or 5 warm up games before the first test beat SA

To be fair I actually like Shane Williams on commentary always seems quite balanced unlike some others

ICT doing us a favour!

too be fair we went from 6 years of only finishing once outside the bottom 2, to only finishing once in the bottom 2 in the last 6 which has to be an improvement

ooft

When was the last time we one at twickenham and Paris in the same year?

bugger

More to the point, Carley is touch judge

looks like wereahead in the scrums

good try

Rainbow Cup games announced (well 3 weeks worth) Glasgow vs Trevisio and Edinbugh v Zebre followed by 2 weeks of Glasgow v Edinburgh games while the SA teams play amongst each other. Round 4 from the 29th May sees the SA teams come over to Europe for games - I am assuming the fixtures aren't being announced as they still dont know if they can travel. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/56534637 Edit to add its 6 games in total, with top 2 in the table facing each other in the final if Glasgow manage to win the 2 games v Edinburgh it depends on who they get in the 3 games after that you would think its only going to be one game vs a SA team, get 2 welsh teams and we could be in with a decent finish

We had Netflix and Prime apps on our telly, and got Disney after Christmas only to find the app wasnt there and we couldn't add. Ended up getting a firestick which would highly recommend

I think it was only Bhatti that would have been on the bench if we didn't have to stick to 5, along with Maitland - maybe Lang, but Jones has been in fine form though

Or they are not going to look at the UK as an alternative when it's finally postponed / cancelled next month

Georgia have lost 1 game in 10 years in the REC is as much an issue as Italy having only won 5 games in that time in the 6 Nations. For me you should have promotion / relegation on a 2 year cycle so you have played everyone home and away, then have a play off match ie last in 6 Nations vs Top REC so if Georgia beat Italy they deserve their place in the 6 Nations. When Italy joined the 6 nations they were getting regular games against the tier 1 sides so obviously were going to get better results (and rugby was a much different game back then). Romania in the 80's had much better results than Italy in the 90's yet never got admitted. With this young Italy side, playing 2 years in the REC actually winning games would do them some good and build confidence, rather than getting hammered in hte 6 Nations, and they would still be playing Summer / Autumn Internationals against Tier 1, and it would also benefit Georgia getting 2 years of solid experience against Tier 1 sides - and would the 6 Nations be any worse now if you did swap them. If you look at the countires in the REC now Georgia, Russia, Spain and Romania all have professional top leagues (with half the players playing in France) and if there was a chance of getting into the 6 Nations I think you would see an improvement and investment in these countries which would make a drop into the REC a better proposition. I know it could impact on Scotland but having another 4-5 countries at a decent level in europe helps make rugby a better game - at the moment you only have the 20 countries that qualified for the last world cup and a few others like Brazil, HK, Kenya plus the other REC teams as playing at any sort of standard. In football you have more than that just in europe that you would say are top sides. To be fair as good as 6 Nations weekends are in Cardiff and Dublin, Im thinking Madrid, Amsterdam, Munich and Bucharest could be just as good!

Cummings and Grey as first choice are fine - Bain, Bean and McDonald dont really excite so hopefully we can add one or two there. I love Harley, but he just hasn't kept up with the recent rule changes and is a bit of a liability now. Backrow is where we need more bodies. Apart from Matt Fagerson, no one else is close to Scotland quality. Darge has potential so will be interesting to see him play, and Dempsey looks quality but other than that backrow is an issue. Edit to add - I know people were happy with Weir signing, but I think he is going to be 3rd choice now, with Miotti signing and Thompson being a top prospect. Also with Cancillere signing, we have loads of wingers now. We have just signed Forbes, McKay coming in, McLean looks a nailed on Scotland start maybe even from next year, and Jones back in form / actually fit, you assume Seymour will be gone this summer, along with Nairn and probably Matawalu and who knows with Steyn. I would punt Tagive, but he will probably be back in the Scotland squad soon!

If Wilson had started playing the kids a few months earlier, and not stuck with the older squad players and loanee's I think we would have qualified for the Champions cup. Dobie, Thompson and McLean have probably been our 3 best players this season, although thats more to do with the Scotland players have hardly played, and n one else looks interested. As bad as this season has been im looking forward to next as I think the squad is looking good with the new additions.

bonus point in less than 30 minutes is good going

All we have to do is be solid in defence for the first 20 minutes and we will win. If we get any ball at all we will rip them to shreds, and giving Hogg a chance of game time at 10 is no bad thing if it allows different options on the bench. ie normally we would have a 2nd 10 on the bench to cover then a centre / wing to cover everywhere else, but if you have Hogg that can step in gives more scope for options of the bench. If its not going to plan Jaco is more than capable off the bench. Against anyone else I would be saying van der walt should be starting, and going forward we have Russell, Hastings that should be ahead of him, and Thompson and Chamberlain will hopefully be vying for that 3 spot shortly so probably wont have any other opportunities to start.

I thought this was better than last week, but they've been off screen for 6 months, then come back with 3 episodes first introduces new characters, then we get 2 fillers is fairly frustrating - im at the stage where I would appreciate them wrapping things up quickly