honestly united

15-17 the champions get 3 bites at the cherry, Lose in CL round 2 you go to EL round 3, then lose that your into confernece round 4

ALthough the BBC are showing a Super 6 games live today, they dont even have the scores of yesterdays matches on their website. They do have all the other Scottish Premiership games, but Super 6 is missing - you would have thought they would have done more to promote it if they are showing games

Did well to make it respectable tbh, they were 13-0 down at half time. KIngs were much worse last week than Zebre this - Ospreays must be really poor.

One too many last night meant Hurst, teale and walker

to be fair we are on a par now with the the Tarannt Teale Walker team which is as close to the top league we have been in my life time

From what I can gather there is nothing illegal about it, or any wider tax implications - this is just someone investing in someone else's company, and from that sense it is all above board. I think Sarries have been quite open about the fact they were doing it as they saw it as above board, and it wasn't the club per se, but the Chairman acting of his own accord to invest in companies for his own return. However the RFU have taken the view that as there are set salary caps in place for all clubs, the fact that the owner of the club is investing in players companies, that have only just been set up is akin to additional payments ie it looks like the players are only signing as they know they will get additional income to help set up a business away from the rugby that will be a nest egg for when they retire

I remember when these reared its head that it was a bit of a grey area. Im sure it was that the owner of Saracens was investing money to get a part ownership in companies that were being set up by the players (ie providing the capital) but still getting a return on this so in theory not directly paying the players. Im sure he gave examples of personal training, gyms, bars etc at the time that were run / owned by the players. I believe the RFU investigated and decided these companies were just a front to pay the players more

Gibbens is a never was, Harley and Swinson are solid pro's as back up to Fagerson, Ashe, Wilson hardly a big hole, just missing an out and out openside as again Fusaro is getting on, and Smith is still a bit raw. The wingers are fine when you add Steyn to the mix as he is more winger than centre

Depth is definetly there, the team that lost to dragons were all** capped to at least under 20 level, Glasgows problems are much bigger than just depth of squad. We do have a shortage of Stand offs but other than that we have enough players for a third team, although granted they would probably be lower end of the Pro14 ** at most 1 or 2 maybe weren't capped at u20, haven't checked the team but there were at least 10 full scottish internationals, Kebble & Thompson both u20 for SA.

Technically we do now hve more pro teams, as well as the Super 6's, we have some sort of part ownership in Nice in France (think Federale level in France at the moment), and DC Old Glory in the MLS where we are sending players for development, but not in great numbers. Pity the tie up with London Scottish didn't work out as that could have been a good stepping stone to the pro teams, or even better if the made the premiership. The Super 6 teams seem loaded with age grade internationals so hopefully helps giving them game time, but a 3rd Pro team in the Pro14 should be the goal whenever there is another expansion

Talk now if NZ being interested in Rennie taking over there from Hansen, probably as they dont want to sit and watch Warrenball.

Would be good to be able to bring a few players in to freshen things up. We've been playing the same 11/12 players for a good run of matches without a break as we have had no one else fit / on form to come in. Giving Moore & McGuffie a start vs Morton, maybe going 4-4-2 with Doolan starting also would freshen things up a bit and rest a few legs also

I thought that was plan a

England absolutely bossed NZ and unfortunately totally deserved their place in the final. I actually thought the played some fantastic rugby, keeping the ball alive and stretching NZ side to side in the first half, definetly the best half of rugby any team has played to date. On Glasgow, that was atrocious. You could tell in the first 10 minutes, the ball was slippery and the obvious tactic was to hoof the ball into the opponents 22 and play off mistakes, not try and run and pass from your own 22 with. Maybe the wind puts you off doing that in the 1st half, but you could grubber in behind etc. I've defended Thompson in the past as he is capable, but that was shocking yesterday. The whole team are completely off the pace. Only bright spots were Bryce af fb who looked fairly ok, Fagerson who is sticks out like a sore thumb (its like when a club 1st player drops down the the 3rds for a game), and Grigg was solid. Edit to add, Clancy was dreadfull as well - made no difference to the result, just generally dreadful

In a normal season the Pro14 would be finished and give him plenty of time before the Rugby Championship kicks of in August. This year though the final is Jun 20th which would give him about 6 weeks (once he got moved over) to work on the team. If Wilson is the front runner would they maybe let Rennie go after the 6N's with Wilson taking over to see out the season? The could obviously have him in now to help out / get to know the set up etc in preparation

Totally forgot about Cummings tbh. I think last year was a strange one, I dont think Glasgow played well, although obviously better than most in the Pro14 - but i think that said that majority or teams were utter dross last year I think my point is we have lost a lot of really good players, but not really replaced them with anyone you would get excited about. We have a few young players coming through like McDowall, the young SH etc but we dont seem to have the conveyor belt of talent we need

I think the issue is more that the team peaked with the Pro12 win, and seems to have got no where near the level of the 14/15 team. I just looked back at the team to see who we had lost since then, and the team has changed completely form the one from the final FB15 Stuart Hogg 62'RW14 Tommy SeymourOC13 Richie VernonIC12 Peter HorneLW11 D. T. H. van der Merwe 70'FH10 Finn Russell 66'SH9 Henry PyrgosN88 Josh Strauss (c)OF7 Ryan WilsonBF6 Rob Harley 60'RL5 Jonny GrayLL4 Leone Nakarawa 66'TP3 Rossouw de Klerk 52'HK2 Dougie Hall 62'LP1 Gordon Reid 77'Replacements:HK16 Fraser Brown 62'PR17 Jerry Yanuyanutawa 77'PR18 Jon Welsh 52'LK19 Alastair Kellock 66'FL20 Chris Fusaro 60'SH21 Nikola Matawalu 70'FH22 Duncan Weir 66'WG23 Sean Lamont 62'Coach: Gregor Townsend Hoggs just gone, Vernon left after the final, DTH went and came back, Russells gone, Pyrgos, gone, Strauss went, Nakarawa went (porbably the biggest miss), dont remember de Klerk, Hall retired, Reid left, Big jerry might still be here, Welsh gone, Kellock retired, matawala left and came back, Weir's gone, and Lamont retired thats 15 of the 23 in 5 years We've also lost Dunbar, Bennett, Eddie, Murchie, McArthur, which is 20 good players (ive not included any of the dross that would have been in the squad at that point. We just have struggled to replace any of these guys Hogg leaves - no replacement but one of hte 7's team gets a run for a few games until he dissapears back to the 7's Nakarawa has never been replaced - Swinson would be first choice with Gray now for 2nd row, but he was 4th choice behind Kellock back then

The problem with Rennie is we have stood still while he has been in charge. None of his signings have been above meh levels, (not counting Jones and Hastings as Im putting that down to Glasgow being told they were having him.) I cant name anyone that has joined in the last 3 years that has made any sort of impact. The style of play doesn't seemed to have changed from Toonies time either, apart from running more from deep. It looks much less balanced now

looked like it was setting up for some carnage, then petered out with more mehness, then ends with the hope that next week something might actually happen

If Rennie got the Australia job (and would they want someone from NZ coaching them?) it could through up some interesting questions. The RC doesn't start until July, but would assume they would want him in for summer tests but probably not really needed before May - could he stay at Glasgow until the end of the 6N's, then either Toony or one if his assistants (Redpath?) take over until the end of the year. In terms of taking over full time I dont really see any scottish coach holding their hand up, but would rather that than someone from the SH.

Exactly this, Ben Ryan said that in his interview the other week. Although a visit from a Tier 1 country is always welcome, it's not a money spinner because they can only charge a few quid for a ticket. Charge any more then the place would be empty. Unless the visiting team is willing to pay for the trip themselves then they probably do lose money. I think the only way to change it is to have a) proper qualifiers for the world cup so more Tier 2 and Tier 3 get a chance of a game against one of the Tier 1 nations, and they wont be paying out huge sums they are now for friendlies as they have to go and play b) Having a proper continental cup every 4 years between world cups. It would probably mean the end of the Lions but in this day and age its fairly meaningless (well for us anyway as about 2 token scots get picked each time!)

How is it possible that Samoa lost money from that game, genuine question Even if it sold out I would imagine the ticket prices would be around the £5 / 10 mark to be afordable to the majority of the population of Samoa, so they would have taken approx £250k, but have to pay for NZ to travel over (and probably a few for them to play), training facilities, hotels etc, flying players over from Europe etc. Its like Georgia (who have a similar GDP to the pacific nations) fill the main stadium in Tblisi but only charge €5/10 for each game. Edit to add Also having just checked NZ have played Samoa 7 times - Scotland (11), Wales (10) and England (8) have all played them more times Game was played on a wednesday, only 8000 fans apparenetly.

A - 2 B - 3 C - 8 D - 17 E - 8

Thats NZ that have still to send a full international team to play any of the Pacific Islanders at home as there is no money in it for them? If Aus / NZ would actually go and play games there, or let a PI team in Super Rugby then that would go a lot further to helping them, than letting some 30 somethings that are deemed surplas to requirements for NZ or Aus to turn out for them. IN fact the Islanders are more likely to not play and try their hand at a bigger nation first if they know they can go back if it doesn't work out

To be fair in the eyes of Tier 2 fans we have been the villians for years. And to be fair the fact we are in the 6N's every year means we pocket loads of cash, which we have used to buy in imports from NZ / SA / Aus is the only reason we have stayed ahead of Fiji / Samoa / Tonga etc in the 90's. If they had the same income as us they could afford to have all their best players playing in all their internationals (rather than staying at their clubs in France - or retiring from internationals early), or the likes of Georgia / Romania / Spain having the money to have high level pro teams in the Pro14 (or similar) would have them above us also. Our continued playing top Tier nations helps keep us ahead of the Tier 2's, as did our recent voting down of any changes to the 6N's, and voting against the Nations league confirmed we are definetly in the bad guys camp. More reasons to be worried in that Japan are starting a new pro league (figures i have seen would make all 12 clubs the richest in world rugby) from 2021 and also there is a new South American pro league (clubs from Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil and Chile form the start) copying the MLR set up we could soon be further behind the big guns than we are alrady