[Only an Excuse?]

I had always thought Roper was in it for a lot longer, maybe its because I only remember it being good when he was in it?

 

[Rugby Union]

I was unsure on MCGuigan as he wasn't great at Glasgow, but put in a performance yesterday.

For me Barclay has been the player of the series, followed closely by most of the rest of the team. I was worried about the front row, and yes they were under pressure at time, but not the beasting I was expecting. Marfo looks solid, Bhatti is really good round the park, McInally has really taken his chance as well.

You would feel bad dropping anyone after that but with the likes of Nel, Dickinson, Dell, R Grey, Laidlaw, Taylor, Bennett etc still to come back in things are looking promising for the 6N's but England and Ireland both looking strong as well.

 

[Rugby Union]

Scotland were absolutely fantastic, I dont think I have ever seen such a win against one of the big teams.

With all the players missing as well its safe to say we have now arrived as one of the major nations again, after years of being also rans. Just a pity the world cup is not next year as we would be serious contenders.

[Rugby Union]

2 hours ago, John Lambies Doos said:

 

Is Duncan Taylor injured?

 

As far as I am aware he is still injured (he was when the squad was originally announced), and to be fair there is only Harris, Grigg and Burleigh in the squad who are centre's and I would rather have Horne that either of those 3. Horne is a very different player to Dunbar but as Dunbar has been on the HIA protocols all week (as was Fagerson) im sure they have been working with Horne in mind all week.

I think the only other option would have been moving Jones inside, where he has been playing in the currie cup most weeks, but i think that would have weakend us even futher

[The Walking Dead]

3 hours ago, 8MileBU said:

 

Prior to this weeks episode, when did we first see the helicopter?

 

Im sure back at the time of the Govenor there was something with a Helicopter, and some us army guys as well

[Rugby Union]

20 hours ago, GAD said:

See to be fair, there isn't really much difference for forwards whether you start or are in the bench these days I reckon. I wonder if these guys even get upset about not starting anymore?

Shite for Jones though. I thought he'd been excellent. Not sure why McGuigan gets the bench ahead of him unless he's injured.

Yeah if you are on the bench your pretty much guaranteed half an hour at least, although with the amount of injuries Scotland players get there's a good chance of being on in the first half

[Rugby Union]

Feel sorry for Lee Jones dropping out the squad completely, thought he had a good game vs NZ. 

Berghan, Gilchrist and Wilson coming in for Fagerson, Toolis and Du Preez is much of a muchness, although Toolis and Du Preez can probably feel abit more agreeved

[Rugby Union]

For Glasgow I'm surprised that Thompson hasn't had more game time this season as I thought he looked good while on loan last year at least on a par with what I've seen of Hastings this year.

On a Scotland front I've been very impressed with Marco so far. Had never seen him play prior to Samoa game but has been really solid.

Also feel a bit sorry for Turner. As a rugby player he is very good, he is just nowhere near being ready to play hooker at international level

[Rugby Union]

For me it's not self belief it is more not being used to playing at that standard every game / week. This was a huge improvement on the Samoa game and if we played like that we could beat anyone, and when you are constantly at that level you make the correct decisions and get the rub of the green.

I know people will say same old Scotland, gallant losers etc, the difference was, this wasn't the usual backs to the wall defensive effort this was bossing the game and NZ get some good scores against the run of play

[Rugby Union]

9 minutes ago, same_ol_g35 said:

I see Maitland is playing for Sarries tonight. Has he been injured and is just coming back from it?

He was injured when the squad was initially announced, wouldnt be suprised if he was called up for the Aus game if he goes well for Sarries

[Rugby Union]

To be fair the NZ reserves played on Tuesday so wouldn't play unless there were injuries.

I think we are doing the Americas in the summer, us, Canada and Argentina

[Rugby Union]

45 minutes ago, ajwffc said:

Edinburgh have signed Jaco van der Walt from the Lions and he will join them before they head to South Africa 

They are also seemingly signing a centre from Bristol for next season, who's name escapes me at the moment

[Rugby Union]

Just now, John Lambies Doos said:

 

Nah. We will beat Oz

 

I think we will either win or at least run them close. 

A lot of it is down to the style we play. In the same way we struggle against PI teams, Aus struggle against us as we all play a similar style of quick, unstructured rugby.  

[Rugby Union]

Scotland team vs All Blacks

Scotland: Stuart Hogg; Tommy Seymour, Huw Jones, Alex Dunbar, Lee Jones; Finn Russell, Ali Price; Darryl Marfo, Stuart McInally, Zander Fagerson, Ben Toolis, Jonny Gray, John Barclay (captain), Hamish Watson, Cornell du Preez.

Replacements: George Turner, Jamie Bhatti, Simon Berghan, Grant Gilchrist, Luke Hamilton, Henry Pyrgos, Pete Horne, Byron McGuigan.

Pretty much as expected, although first caps likely off  the bench for Hamilton and McGuigan. Off those that came on last week du Preez was the stand out for me, and the starting 15 looks good, the bench not so much.

Had forgotten until that NZ had beaten Samoa 78-0 this summer until reading a preview earlier today.

[Rugby Union]

I know one of the things the Irish weren't happy about was being marked down for not being "stadium ready", even though the tourney is 6 years away and plenty of other successful bids have been in a similar situation when the venue was picked.

Think one problem with the Irish bid isn't so much the provincial venues, but whether these places can provide the back up infrastructure like hotel space.

France got marked down on hotel accommodation for one of the city's, even though France is the most visited country in the world

[Rugby Union]

The independent report needs to be sensible the though, the French were marked down for having drugs tests as it would be bad if players get caught and also having officials from the T2 nations at matches

[Rugby Union]

Ooft need to start saving now!!
Awaiting the seethe from SA after being ranked first

[Rugby Union]

1 minute ago, John Lambies Doos said:

 

Think it's full test status though

 

wouldn't surprise me if it was, probably to justify adding a few extra €'s to the ticket prices

[Rugby Union]

This is also billed as French Barbarians - i think only Trinc-Duh played in the first test for France, so very much not a full strength team, more a traditional tour mid week team, not seen who is playing for NZ

[Rugby Union]

On 11/12/2017 at 10:29, Mark Connolly said:

I love overreaction from rugby fans, especially in victory!

We were good in attack, poor in defense, and we won in front of a sold-out MF against a team we always struggle to put away. I'd far rather we had issues in yesterday's game and had real stuff to work on before the next 2 than we had an easy run-out. Samoa, despite their ranking, are no mugs. It was closer than it should have been, but we got the job done.

Taylor will get ripped into them for their defence, Toony will have a few tricks up his sleeve, and we'll have a right go against NZ and Oz.

I dont think its over reaction, its just stating opinions. In the 2nd half every time we scored, Samoa replied within a couple of minutes. On pretty much every try. Basically we were scoring, getting the ball back from kick off, handing it over to Samoa then letting them score. Its not just the defence, its the inability to hold onto the ball for any length of time. As much as the all out attack is brilliant to watch, against the very best teams we need to be able to hold on to the ball for a decent length of time, as much as to give our players a bit of a breather so we are ready to launch the attacks.

This is the weakest Samoa squad in memory, they have dropped from 8th in the world at the last WC seading (they were 2nd seeds in our group last world cup) down to 16th in 4 or 5 years. Yes they have just got a new coaching team in, but we had set of forwards in the 2nd half that, if it was Glasgow we would all be sitting knowing we would do well in the loose, but will get hammered in the scrum, yet didn't look under any pressure at any time in the scrum.

Granted 1 try was never grounded, and Williams scored another as Harris was over eager to impress and flew out the line, but we should be putting down a marker in these games, not hanging on for victories. I dont want to come across as thinking Samoa are a walk in the park, we still need to turn up and play well, and after the Fiji game know all to well we can come unstuck against teams. However last year we ran up a good score via Georgia, who have convincingly beat Samoa home and away in the last year. I think its more an attitude thing, that we need to be at our best every game, not just doing enough to win

[Rugby Union]

Even before we emptied the bench the defense was terrible round the fringes. I don't know if it was a strategy to have more players out wide but we were leaving huge gaps and if so the same Vs Oz and NZ we will get hammered.
Although it was a different story in attack which was amazing.
As had been said this is the worst samoan side in many a year, the are bottom of the table in the PI WC qualifiers and lost last year to Georgia.

[Rugby Union]

To be fair the only suprises in the starting 15 selection are Marfo instead of Fagerson, and Toolis ahead of Swinson

In terms of the bench, Bhatti and Turner I wouldn't want to be starting for Glasgow, nevermind in a Scotland squad, rest of bench is much of a muchness, Horne and Harris should be able to cover all the backs positions, makes a change from having a 10 and a back 3 player.

[Rugby Union]

I get the impression someone at the SRU has decided that having a semi-pro set up under the Pro teams was a good idea, and has decided that they should create a new league and new teams....

....without realising there are already a semi-pro clubs, playing in a league set up below the pro teams

[Junior football, what is the future?]

From what I can gather from this thread is that the West Junior teams dont want to join the pyramid as their is no WoS senior league, which is the SFA's fault that one hasn't been set up, and if there was a WoS league they would have something to consider.

The fact their are no senior teams in the WoS outwith the LL (with the exception of Bonnyton who have just joined the SoS league,  Girvan were but are now junior) to have a WoS is hardly the SFA's fault.

The ideal situation would be for the West Juniors to come across en masse as a bolt on under the LL as a WoS league, or if they could get 7 or 8 interested clubs to start a new WoS league if there is an objection.  I mean it can be run any worse than the west juniors are at present.

[Rugby Union]

I think the generating the fans is the biggest problem a 3rd team would have.  As has been seen everywhere (except for the Wasps move which has been done exccellently) when you create a new franchise you never get the backing you think you will, and it takes years to develop. Look at the state of the pro teams in wales for example, as compared to the Irish. Irish went with the 4 pre-existing provicinces as a pro model and it has gone very well for them, the Welsh had a strong club set up, but went with districts and the fans were never that interested and many stuck with their clubs in the welsh league.

I think Scotland defiately has the players and coaches to fill a 3rd team, i think the issue is more having the money to finance them. If Glasgow and Edinburgh were a bit more self sufficent (I think Glasgow could be with a larger ground) then it would be a possibility.

Im not convinced by the 6 team semi pro league at all. The idea that there is a good quality semi-pro set up below the Pro Game is a sound idea, what they are putting in place isn't. I would maybe have gone with the best 8 current clubs and shared the money out between them each year, had promotion and relegation etc would have been a much better idea.