honestly united

I know the Irish and SA teams willl pick up over the next few weeks, but Glasgow going top while still missing a good number of players, and not playing at their best is a good sign for the season

I had heard some rumours that he was fond of an away fixture while at Glasgow, but that's shockingly bad. Wonder how that will effect his TV work, although given some other presenting probably not at all

To be fair I think the new stand looks better than I thought it would. For some reason when I saw the initial design I thought it was only going to be roofed for abouyt half the length of that side so to see it being the full length is way above my expectations

Does Ryan Wilson just have the one set of clothes, he was wearing the same trackie trouser / jumper combo last week

Its strange as Im sure there was plans to bring Flair to AEW a few years ago but that got ditched due to the backlash from the plane ride from hell thing

It was clear by watching Rose's highlight reel when we signed him he was never a like for like replacement for Akinyemi or even a target man number 9. Livi had him in on trial before we signed him so they must have seen something in him to ask him up. However BGM insisted on playing Rose as a target man / 9 at the start of the season which just didnt work. I would like to see him in a run of games playing with Dowds playing as a support striker or poacher type to see how he gets on in what is should be his best position. Although at the moment I think I would prefer Amartey getting a run with Dowds first.

So next Lions tour, the cream of the teams ranked 2, 5, 6 & 8 will join together to take on the team ranked 9

I think Jordan is fine as a pro club level, afterall he was Glasgows standoff for most of last season and we did pretty well, but he is definetely not international class. I would still have Thompson as first choice and Jordan as back up, with Weir as 3rd choice. Im assuming Townsend will slot in somewhere when he comes back from Australia, but i've not seen anything in the U20's or Super six to suggest he will get anywhere close to the levels of his old man. Im really suprised that Miotti was not replaced over the summer when he left unexepectedly, (probably no one of a decent level available for the budget available) but I would expect someone to come in after Christmas to cover 6 nations as Thompson will probably be in wider squad.

The Lions is waste of time and reason the Northern Hemipshere is so far behind, because we put the south on a pedestal and adds to the belief that we can only beat one of them if we band together as one team. the next tour is going to be a laughing stock, picking all the best players to go and face an Australia team that the Scottish A team would have no problem beating. Gatland will get the head coach gig and we will squeak a 2-1 series win playing utterly dreadful rugby. We will have Sky trying to talk up Eddie Jones and his team, that lost to Fiji and were hammered by the worst Wales side in years as some sort of rugby powerhouse.

I was hoping we were going to get a third moaning faced C**t of a stand off sent home but it wasnt too be. 2 absolutely fantastic quarters which would have graced any final, and the other 2 although not as high quality equally engrossing. I can see both semi's next week being a rout, and a NZ v SA final. Again disappointing showing from the NH when it counted with England the last man standing. From a Scotland perspective I would have fancied our chances more vs France and NZ than Ireland and SA as we just dont play well vs stuffy, defensive minded teams, and we would have got more chances against France and NZ to play. We are definitely above Wales and England at the moment, and hopefully we can have a good 6N's to bounce back

Our player development is shocking, and sticking the U20's in the super 6 is not helping anything. The SRU should be investing heavily now in youth development or risk never catching back up but they wont. Instead we will probably plow money into scouring the English leagues for anyone with a scottish relation, and signing 5 or 6 NZ / SA players at 21 /22 and hoping they stay the 5 years until they are qualified through residence

Im torn, on the one hand I want an Ireland vs SA final so at least we can say its the best 2 teams that beat us in the group. On the other Ireland and SA are my 2 least favourite teams, I properly detest both of them and their fans, I would much rather one of the diddy teams like Wales or England win it than either of those, France is probably the best call.

Scotland just struggle vs the top teams. We look really good vs the minows like Samoa, Tonga, Wales and England, but when we are up against the best we just look devoid of idea's. We had full control of the game yesterday after the 1st try until about 25 minutes, but never really looked like scoring. Ireland & SA have got the knack of getting to the breakdown first, first man on the ground either sealing off or hand on opposition ball while off feet but get away with it. Ireland also are really clinical. They keep the ball tight then have a knack of going wide at the right time. We need to mix the game more so we keep it tight longer then spin wide once we hve sucked in more defence. All in its annoying that if we had had any other group as 3rd seeds we would have been through, but we just cant beat Ire & SA

TMO desperate to chalk it off

It also didnt help that the home nations had a hissy fit and left the European u20 tournament when Scotland were due to get relegated from the top flight. Alot of these continental tournaments already exist. Japan already play in the Asian 5 nations, and there are 3 levels below. In Africa there is already a continent wide tournament but SA dont play in it, they occasional will send an U23 or amateur team. There are a couple of American touraments, Consur for SAm and also antoher involving US and Canada, Argentina usually sends their a team for these. There is a Pacific Nations cup with the Islanders and Japan (US and Canada have plaed in in in the past). In Europe there is a whole league system with the REC at the top which Georgia have won every year for the last decade. Italy played in it before joining 6 Nations, its been running since the 1930's. France were still playing in it up to the 80's. Whats not joined up is the Tier 1 teams who are sat doing their own thing and not letting anyone else join in.

The issue is that in a normal year Scotland play approx 11 or 12 internationals, Fiji, Samoa, Tonga etc play about the same number inbetween world cups. Look at their players and they are lucky if they finish a career with 25 / 30 caps yet someone like Kinghorn is at 50 already for Scotland. Inbetween World Cups Uruguay had 1 game vs Tier 1 opposition and that was against Italy. These teams are never going to progress unless they get the same time together as the Tier 1's and get constant game time vs top opposition. If you have a team like Scotland who have been together for probably 10/12 weeks over the 6 Nations, 5/6 weeks summer tour and 5/6 weeks for Autumn internationals, vs a team thrown together for a 4/5 days before a game beacuse their clubs wont release them your already on the back foot, before you add in your not used to playing at that level to know exactly what to expect. Spain, USA, Canada, Russia, Kenya is much of a muchness with Portugal, Chile, Uruguay etc so adding them in doesnt change much. If someone like Algeria or Poland for example got their act together / had financial backing they would be pushing Fiji, Tonga etc for the best of Teir 2, but again like Fiji etc getting players to commit / time off from clubs is the issue.

To be fair its the same number of weeks either way you are just giving 4 teams an extra week off

6 pools of 4 then a last 16 is actually a week less than the current 4 pools of 5. 2 groups of 12 may be OK assuming you have 4 seed bands, with 3 teams in each you either have a situation where the games are unequal as you are picking from 4 games and obviously the top seeds get an easier run of games the seed 2 or you do a cross pool and you play 1 team from seed band in the opposite pool but there is a lot more luck of the draw to qualifying. You could end up with something like this based on current rankings. Pool A Pool B Seed 1 Ireland France South Africa New Zealand Scotland England Seed 2 Wales Fiji Argentina Australia Italy Japan Seed 3 Georgia Samoa Tonga Portugal Uruguay USA Seed 4 Romania Spain Namibia Chile Canada Hong Kong Your still a week less for the group stages for 4 games than now, your probably still looking at needing to win 3 games to qualify, but its obviously a lot more confusing for the casual fan. It would mean still having to beat a 2nd, 3rd and 4th seeds to progress but again you could end up with lopsided or unfair groups. If you go to 6 groups of 4 teams are off home after 3 weeks and you have an awkward 4 best 3rd places. 4 groups of 6 may work but its the same length of tournament, just removes rest weeks. I know they have went to weekends only to maximise weekend TV time, but you could maybe look at doing 5 day or 6 day turn arounds for everyone to shorten things a bit.

I see Sexton could be in trouble due to taking what looks like some sort of energy gel during the SA game on the pitch which is against the current rules (which is water only i beleive) - cue 1 week ban rather than 1 game and him being available for our game

if SA only got no or 1 bp in losing to Tonga a draw would see both us and Ireland through (assuming we get a bp win vs Romania). Ireland would already be through so we would only need to win if SA picked up 2 bp in their lose. In fact depending on how many bp's SA picked up in losing we would just need to better their bp's if possible if we picked up the BP win this weekend although SA losing is not something I would be pinning my hopes on.

My take is that points difference only counts if all 3 are tied on 15 points, with the team with the highest points going through first, then 2nd place goes on head to head (ie whoever beat who in the pool matches). The permutations are a clusterf*ck but its a mute point if we dont beat Ireland. If SA beat Tonga with a try bp, we need a win with or without a try bonus, and no bp for Ireland and we are through (Both us and SA on 15, Ire 14, SA top group on head to head or SA15, us and Ireland on 14, we go through on head to head against Ire). If Ireland get 2 BP's in a high scoring shoot out then we are also out which would be the most Scottish thing ever so look out for a 40-37 win for Scotland. If we get a BP win and Ireland get a losing bp so we are all on 15 points, and Ireland have the best points difference we are out (SA get 2nd on head to head). So us or SA having a better points difference than Ireland, is the best outcome, if we beat Ireland. SA winning by 30/40 over Tonga would see them top Ireland if we win and at the moment we need 109 point turn around vs Ireland. The best probable out come is SA topping group on points diff with a big win. or we hope for a Tonga win over SA which is another set of permutations!

Harris making a mess of that

To be fair if we had been 3rd seeds in England or Wales group we would be over the moon as it would have been near enough (as the highest ranked team) guarenteed semi final

Potential for an upset here if the Italians arent properly switched on

FTFY