honestly united

That team should have more than enough to run up a big score against a Canada side who have just lost to US & Uruguay in RWC qualifying, and are on the worst run of results in their history, and without DTH would be even further outside the top 20 than they are already. WIth the exception of Ritchie, the 2 centres, SHC, Carmicheal and McCallum I would expect all of those selected to be in the world cup squad (or there abouts)

details of the seeding and how the draw works here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018–19_European_Rugby_Champions_Cup We will be 2nd Tier, and Embra 3rd Teams in Tier 1, 2 & 3 must be from a different league (ie one English, one french and one Pro14) so we can only get Cardiff or Ulster from our league. Worst draw would be Sarries, Toulouse and Toulon, best would be Exeter, Lyon and Cardiff.

We need a ch, GK and lb before the season starts, plus a replacement for Crawford if he leaves

You would have to think anyone waiting till next season will be Tier 7 at best, maybe 8, you would be a risking a lot leaving it till next year. All the best players in the east will want to be at Tier 6 minimum so clubs in 19/20 will struggle unless paying over the odds

I dont think there should be a rush to get rid of Rennie, and obviously deserves more time, and a chance to build his own squad as obviously inheriting someone else's squad is never easy. However, although we topped our conference I dont think we ever looked like dominating any team at any point. Yes earlier in hte season there were games when i think we scored tries every time we had the ball, but for large chunks of games, we either couldnt keep the ball for more than 2 or 3 phases, or couldn't get the ball off the opposition for large chunks of the game. We were good in that any break we made we scored. We just didn;t have any sort of control, but going unbeaten for umpteen games papered over the cracks to a large extent and we've been found out at the business end of the season.

We really struggle up front, and tbh I have been really disappointed with gribbens. He has a few good runs but defense is poor. I remember a few weeks ago we were facing a 5m scrum and he let there scrum half pick up and waltz over the line. Gray apart we have far to many forwards wanting to get the ball in hand and look flash without doing the hard work

at about 1:45 - Dunfermilne paying £35k for a centre half!

Granted it would be hard to leave out Kellock or Gray, but you have to have Nakarawa in there

Yes but we didn't lose out on qualifying for a world cup, and for Belgium are now facing a relegation play off in the REC Vs Portugal, rather than Germany, who instead of facing relegation Vs Portugal are facing them in a WC playoff. Considering how many games Hilton played we got off lightly

I read the WR report, and seemingly Faka'osilea told the Romania's he hadn't played for Tonga! The belgiums I think there was a number of players of who had Great Grandparents from Belgium. Spain I think knew the 2 players, although qualified for Spain, were tied to France. I think we and Wales got off lightly when we got caught out

So Romania, Belgium and Spain all chucked out for fielding ineligble players! ooft

Dissapointed Switzerland, Azerbijan, Lithuania and Armenia are out, but again nothing that great this year. Thought Macedonia was ok when I heard it at first, but was dreadful on the show

If the juniors are insisting on keeping their local leagues for local people, and not to encroach on the leagues already part of the senior pyramid, a bit of clever renaming and setting up of boundaries and you could have the following set up for Tier 6. Obviously you could have a bit of blurring at the edges and swapping leagues to keep a balance depending on promotions and relegations EoS - Sticks to Borders, Edinburgh, East, Mid and West Lothian, Falkirk, Clackmannanshire and Fife plus clubs in Perth and Kinross below the cut off SoS - D&G, South and East Ayrshire and South Lanarkshire Central League - North Ayrshire, East Renfrewshire, Refrewshire, Inverclyde, North Lanarkshire, Glasgow, East & West Dunbartonshire, Stirling and the southern part of Argyll and Bute That way the Ayrshire teams could keep up their local rivalaries and the junior teams in west lothian could remain with their junior friends. You would then have a North east - covering Dundee, Aberdeen (and shire), Perth, Moray and Angus NCL - Highlands & Islands & Argyll and Bute Feeding into the Highland league. Its hardly complicated, we just need someone to take cherge

So the english equivalent of SPFL 2 will split england in 4, or cover an approx population of 13/14 million people? So twice the population that the SPFL2 will cover? So in essence the SPFL2 whould actually cover an area twice the size / population it does currently to compare with england? Not actually less

interesting article with Toonie on the BBC, talking about getting youngesters tied into Scotland earlier. Hadn't realised Brian Redpath had let his son play for England at age grades, would be good to get him in Blue. Also notice Tom Heathcote has been released by Worcester, had injury problems but not sure if he would be worth a punt at Glasgow

Hadn't noticed those 2 missing, Seymour definitely needs the rest as he has looked really out of sorts this season Surprised that Marfo missing out, unless he is another thats going under the knife.

Scotland squad for summer tour announced, https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/44037250 Sensibly a lot of senior players who have been ever present the last few years given the summer off to be fresh for the world cup. Russell, J Gray, Laidlaw, Barclay and Wilson rested as nailed on for WC squad, and add in Hardie, Watson, Jones and Nel missing through injury, this suprising thing is that you look at the squad, and apart from some of the new additions only really Harris, and maybe McGuigan that you would question if they were good enough to be in a Scotland squad. Really good strength in depth at the moment, and will be interesting to see how some of the youngsters get on. Reid, Welsh, Ford, Du Preez, Harley and Strauss not being picked you would think that is it for them in Scotland shirt Scotland squad Forwards: Simon Berghan, Jamie Bhatti, Magnus Bradbury, Fraser Brown, Lewis Carmichael, Allan Dell, David Denton, Matt Fagerson, Zander Fagerson, Grant Gilchrist, Richie Gray, Luke Hamilton, Murray McCallum, Stuart McInally (c), Jamie Ritchie, Tim Swinson, George Turner, Ben Toolis Backs: Nick Grigg, Chris Harris, Adam Hastings, Sam Hidalgo-Clyne, Alex Dunbar, Stuart Hogg, George Horne, Pete Horne, Ruaridh Jackson, Lee Jones, Blair Kinghorn, James Lang, Byron McGuigan, Ali Price, Duncan Taylor Unavailable through injury: Luke Crosbie (knee), John Hardie (back), Huw Jones (wrist surgery scheduled), Willem Nel (knee assessment/rehabilitation), Hamish Watson (shoulder)

Hardly had a look in the last year or so, and I think has realised he is isn't it Townsends plans going forward, so probably getting this in now rather than maybe spending his summer on tour if others pull out, only to be dropped again for autumn and 6 Nations.

Im suprised there was no Glasgow team, and also that Dundee didnt get one either. 3 in Edinburgh doesn't seem to make any sense, your pooling half the players in one city along with half the Pro players. Also thought another borders team would be included, but again 6 teams was probably not enough

I thought so as well, and I thought there would have been a better spread of clubs given that its pretty much just central teams

To be fair the majority of juniors wouldnt be at Tier 6, the minority would be, at best, dependant on the outcome of the various discussions. The majority would be at either Tier 7 or 8 you would have thought, given there should be more teams the lower down you get. A best there will be 72 clubs at Tier 6 - the existing EoS Div 1, SoS, assumption of a WoS and NoS sitting under LL & HL. Although potentially he NoS could be split in 2 to cover a south east section covering dundee / perth / aberdeen and a north west covering inverness and he NCL clubs. Then the majority of the Junior clubs (as they do in the current junior pyramid) would sit below that, although to be fair TJ is only really interested in a few big junior teams and making sure they are ok

Im really suprised that there hasnt been more going on in the west. I would have thought a few of the clubs would have gotten together already to set up there own WoS league rather than wait for TJ to organise something. Clubs in the East have stolen a march on them are there will be a few ex Junior teams in the LL before the west even has a league

I read it earlier - its sounds pretty much like a 2nd team league so that the reserves youngsters get a game as it says its copying the reserve league in the England. I think it would be better served opening up a tier 2 to applicants across europe as well as development teams from the current members with the possibility of promotion relegation. you could add 2 welsh, irish, sa teams - another from scotland, im sure the SA and Italian clbs would be interested, add would Gerogian Russian etc

Finished it this week as well, thought it was better than the defenders, but also no where near as good as the first season

Thats backline looks awesome, as long as we get some ball they will rip Ulster apart