honestly united

2 interesting stories in the news at the moment, Georgia in talks over getting a Pro 14 team https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/47388295 and the welsh regions being in dissary and talks of merging or moving teams https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/47368262 If the SRU are serious about Scotland challenging for the 6N's we need more players playing as first choice for their clubs and we need more strength in depth to give us options when the inevitable injuries happen. Given there are changes afoot the SRU need to be pushing for 3rd club side. Leaving aside the arguments of where to put it, we need more players playing at a decent level. You just look at the current Scotland team, you have Russell and Hogg out injured, and apart from Kinghorn and Hastings you dont have any other options playing regularly (with the exception of Jackson and Weir who are out of favour - good clubs players but probably not top international class) Its the same all through the team - 2nd and 3rd choice scrum halfs are sharing game time at Glasgow. 2nd and 3rd choice hookers are sharing game time at Glasgow. Dell is a first choice prop but is 2nd choice at Edinburgh behind Schoeman, Bergham and Nel are sharing the jersey at Edinburgh (or Bergham gets a game when Nel is injured which is quite a bit). In the centres You have Jones, Johnson, Grigg and Horne all at Glasgow (add Dunbar until recently and McDowall was also in the training squad and at Edinburgh it was Bennett and Scott, and Dean and Johnstone only got game time as they were injured - and both are now in the Scotland Squad. Both Glasgow and Edinburgh are running with huge squads as they lose so many players in the international windows. This could be reduced with a 3rd team sharing the internationals. Given the welsh budget (£19m a year between the 4 regions) you are probably looking at least and extra £4m a year to run an additional team.

Maybe I missed it but did they ever mention what happened to Haynes' wife? I have a recollection they said she was dead but cant remember if they did. I was the same I assumed the son would look into the address further.

Matthew McConaughey was the other Edit to add as has been pointed out already!!

Was in Cardiff last year and the majority of the welsh fans were fine and we had a good laugh with them on the Friday and Saturday before and after the game, the majority, like most fans are just there to see a good game, have a good day out and if there team win all the better. . To be fair there were only a few w*nk*rs all weekend, one was Irish, there were 2 scottish lads falling about on the dance floor in the pub, and about 7-8 prawn sandwich types from Bristol that were sat behind us at the game (just there for the atmosphere, dont you know....). Dont find them anywhere near as bad as the Irish, but I think the price of tickets is stopping the average fan going, and your getting more of these nonces turning up as it seen as trendy to go along as its a big occasion Onto Scotland and apart from Hastings and Price I wouldn't give anyone pass marks. We should have started Hardie rather than Bradbury as we had no openside to get to the breakdown first, the slow ball makes Laidlaw look even more ponderous, making Horne's job even more dificult. It really reminded me of England 2 years ago, and Wales last year where there are so many off days your never going to win. Given we were missing Hogg, Russell and Jones, we need a big performance from the forwards and none stood up. I dont like singling out Grey and McInally, but they were really quiet and as 2 of our best forwards we struggled without big games from them. I thought Strauss was ok, Dell and Bergman average, and Graham at least added something when he came on, which Toolis didn't. In the backs it was much as expected, Kinghorn looks like the really rally quick lad that you always just shove on the wing, who when he has got the ball looks amazing, but in defence he somehow slows down so much the props get back quicker. Obvious he doesn't want to be putting in tackles. The 10, 12 &13 should have been better as they have played together for 3 plus years at Glasgow, but the ball was so slow they never got a chance. No suprise that we started to carve out breaks when price came on. Plenty of work to be done over the next 2 weeks before Wales, at the moment I am just glad we have already played and beaten Italy as at the moment I wouln't be confident of taking anything from a game against them.

Good to see the other Fagerson back as well

Pretty much as expected, only question mark was at 10 and Hastings isn't getting a game for Glasgow at the moment

I've thought the interviewer is the kidnapped girl, trying to find out why no one found her before she escaped

This is who we will be picking from for the French game Scotland squad Forwards: Alex Allan (Glasgow Warriors), Adam Ashe (Glasgow Warriors), Simon Berghan (Edinburgh), Jamie Bhatti (Glasgow Warriors), Magnus Bradbury (Edinburgh), Fraser Brown (Glasgow Warriors); Luke Crosbie (Edinburgh), Allan Dell (Edinburgh), Zander Fagerson (Glasgow Warriors), Grant Gilchrist (Edinburgh), Gary Graham (Newcastle Falcons), Jonny Gray (Glasgow Warriors), John Hardie (Newcastle Falcons), Rob Harley (Glasgow Warriors), Stuart McInally (Edinburgh), Willem Nel (Edinburgh), D'Arcy Rae (Glasgow Warriors), Jamie Ritchie (Edinburgh), Josh Strauss (Sale Sharks), Tim Swinson (Glasgow Warriors), Ben Toolis (Edinburgh), George Turner (Glasgow Warriors), Ryan Wilson (Glasgow Warriors). Backs: Chris Dean (Edinburgh), Dougie Fife (Edinburgh), Darcy Graham (Edinburgh), Nick Grigg (Glasgow Warriors), Rory Hughes (Glasgow Warriors), Sam Johnson (Glasgow Warriors), Chris Harris (Newcastle Falcons), Adam Hastings (Glasgow Warriors), Stuart Hogg (Glasgow Warriors), Pete Horne (Glasgow Warriors), James Johnstone (Edinburgh), Lee Jones (Glasgow Warriors), Blair Kinghorn (Edinburgh), Greig Laidlaw (Clermont Auvergne), Sean Maitland (Saracens), Ali Price (Glasgow Warriors), Henry Pyrgos (Edinburgh), Tommy Seymour (Glasgow Warriors), Duncan Weir (Worcester Warriors).

Russell being out may be a huge loss. Or it may actually be to our advantage that we are forced to play a more forward oriented game. French backs look dangerous, their forwards less so.

Ntamack Jr moved from centre, to the bench to fly half. Seems strange releasing the team this early

Its not a case for staying, its just a general question are players / clubs happy that they will be at the same tier, with all other rules being the same, yet WRJFA and ERJFA will be fining players to pay for TJ et al, whereas the rest of the leagues in the pyramid dont fine players

Another question I had just thought of is currently there is the Alex Jack cup played for by non-licencsed clubs in the south for a chance to get in the Scottish Cup. Is this going to be opened up to Junior clubs to give them a shot at the Scottish Cup? You could argue the Junior scottish cup is similar, but you have licenced clubs taking part in that who already get access. Also not sure if there are any junior players reading, but what is there take on the fact that from next season you could all now be on a par with senior leagues, same disciplinary procedures etc, except if you get sent of in for example a ERJFA game you could get fined, yet if you moved and played EoS you wouldn't. So in theory you would be worse off ERJFA?

You have to hope Russell is back soon as there is no one close in the squad at the moment. Hastings is still learning and prone to mistakes, Horne is struggling to be international class centre nevermind fly half, Weir is seemingly playing well at Worcester but is not even in the squad. The forwards are boosted by Fagerson and Turner coming back, for me front 5 stays as is, but the back row is still a concern. Harley being sent to play for Glasgow you would assume he isn't in contention to start (given he has played pretty much every week for Glasgow this year). It looks like either Hardie or Graham come in at open side and Ritchie moved to blind, or Ashe comes in at blind side. Rennie was bigging him and Grigg up after the Cardiff game. You would assume Johnson and Grigg will be the starting centres (fingers crossed its not Harris - i still dont know what Townsend see's in him as I think he brings nothing to the team) and Kinghorn slotting in at full back. Although Townsend was talking Maitland up at 15 so you never know.

Has there been any discussion on what happens if a west club (ie EK / BSC / Edusport) is relegated. Are the West Juniors going to accept them in there top tier (i remember this being a sticking point before), and will the clubs be happy for the players now to be fined for disciplinay matters?

It probably is only a yellow, but you could bet if the shoe was on the other foot the Irish would have had the Scottish player cited, and banned by now.

What's the point tbh We've had players cited and banned on much less evidence after games - we need to start doing the same and stand up for ourselves - we seem to get the rough end of the stick a lot of times in disciplinary matters, and it appears we just sit back to much and take it. If we did we might start getting away with more like the Irish and Welsh do. On another note, the proposed world league concept (were the top 10, then teams 11-20 etc) would play each other once a year, and there would be a single TV deal / pool to maximise income looks to be scrapped as the 6N countries have gone against the agreement signed last month and will be agreeing their own TV deal to cover 6N's, Summer Tours and AI's. Really sticking a massive 2 fingers up to the SH countries and all the Tier 2 countries that had hopes of getting a slice of the pie.

Was Thom (or was it his brother Max) not also pro golfer?

I'm hoping its not just wishful thinking from Toonie. I dont know why we haven't put in an official complaint yet on the Irish player as of yet, surely its a pretty clear case

Dont know where to start on Saturday's game. First hald had a lot of positives. Ireland created nothing, and our defence was outstanding. First try, Hogg gets taken out late and it doesn't get looked at all by TMO, Irish player infront of the kicker, then dreadfull pass by Seymour. If Hogg wasn't down having treatment there is another body back to defend. 2nd try was the only good bit of play by Ireland all game, but its one of there stock plays and we should have defended better, and would have helped if Kinghorn hadn't been running in treacle at the time, it looks like he loses about 20 yards of Stockdale who goes past him before Kinghorn even moves. At that point with Sexton going off injured you would maybe take losing a try to get him off the pitch. At 12-10 before half time we really needed to score as if we are winning at we are in with a shout. After 5 minutes camped in their 22 we come away with nothing, slow ball and just crashing up the side of rucks only works if you have really explosive ball carriers to hammer over, but we dont really have any. We need quick ball to suck in defenders and create space to spin wide. The Irish were lapping it up as they had loads of time to set up there defence for each phase. I was quite hopeful at half time, that we could turn things and get the win. We had been playing well, creating chances, and Ireland had only been in our 22 twice. Then (and I am now fully blaming Innverdale for losing us hte match), Innverdale pipes up with his interesting "fact" that Scotland have failed to score a try in the 2nd half of 8 of there last 12 matches - and so it was to be again. For me this was a case of next score - we score and all the pressure is on Ireland, they would have had to come out and attack, we could have kept them camped in their own half and picked off the errors, Ireland score and we are then chasing the game leaving us open to errors. As is always the case with Scotland we get unlucky, both Harley and Dell tackle Carberry and knock each other off the tackle letting Carberry through, who passes forward to Earls to score (if I hear "well his hand go backwards" when there is a forward passes I may top someone). As everyone know from there on in, it was one error after the other from Scotland, not helped by the Irish cheating. At one point the commentary team discuss the fact that there has been no jackling at all in the game, which is true as when the first Irish player to get to the tackle flops (illegally) on top of hte ball your not going to win it. So off to France, batter and bruised, but still in with a chance of winning the tournament, however slim. Questions are rightly going to be asked over selection, but I wouldn't want to be making them. Do you drop Laidlaw for Price or Horne, but if you do who captains the team as there are no obvious candidates. In the backrow the main options in hte squad at present are Hardie or Graham both opensides. Ritchie is naturally a blind side but doesn't really have the size or prescence of an international blindside although our game plan works better with 2 opensides. If we could I would bench Jones as he has looked jaded since the last 6 Nations. I would probably go Johnson and Dunbar at centre but that may stunt our creativity. Also in Glasgow related news DTH is out injured for the rest of the season with a shoulder injury.

It's a chicken and egg situation - the LL would need to know there is enough clubs interested in a west league prior to setting one up (you'd look pretty stupid saying your setting up a league an no one applied...), but the Junior clubs in the west are not going to break rank and ask to join a league that doesn't exist while the SJFA are supposedly discussing the WRJFA moving over en-masse to the senior pyramid. I can see it happening if there is a breakdown in talks between SJFA and the PWG, but would take a core of Super League clubs to instigate.

2 was a huge let down after the first one. This series has been excellent so far due to it going back to the same formula as the first

I think its hard to tell unless you know exactly the direction of the wind, and inside Murrayfield im sure it swirls about so is even harder to predict, but would suggest if its really windy it would suit Scotland as you would then have to play up the park rather than kick (risk of kicking dead etc, not going where you want, rick of counter attack if to long etc). Ireland kick a lot, but its usually controlled with a good kick chase, if the ball isn't going where they want they could struggle. It may though play into Irelands hands as they are better up front, and have big ball carriers, but dont have the backs to match Scotlands.

team as expected, hadn't realised Hardie, Horne jr and Lee Jones were all ruled out due to injury. Graham being replaced by Harley is also a strange shout given we have no opensides in the team at all, looks like we just capped him vs Italy, then dropped him just to spite Eddie Jones

Up to recently I would have had England way out in front then all the rest much of a muchness (we were all celtic cousins afterall etc etc) however now its definitely Ireland way out in front, followed by Wales (and really only due to Gatland and the welsh media types, except Warbuton who I have gone from totally despising as being Gatlands puppet, to thinking hes a decent bloke and actually really unbiassed in his commentary) then England then abit back to France and Italy

Think it was more a precaution they took him off, seemingly a calf strain, but Murray McCallum has been called up as a precaution. Brown back in the squad as he starts training again today. Noticed the 7's team went from finishing 5th to finish 2nd last equal this week, not winning a game. On Laidlaw I think he is a cracking scrum half, but his service could be a lot quicker. At the moment as the backrow are not the most mobile (compared to what we had) Laidlaw suits a bit better, but when we had Barclay at 8, Watson and Hardie as wing forwards I thought Horne (at the time Price as well, but he's really gone off the boil) was a better option as he could really speed the pace of the game up.