honestly united

Probably Romania and whoever finishes last out of Samoa and Tonga

From what i've read it looks like Washington is confirmed team for the Pro12/14/15 starting in 2018, sharing the new stadium with DC united. NY was the preferred location from the Pro12 but seemingly a suitable ground couldn't be sourced, Houston had a bid in as seemingly that is a big market for rugby in the US, but was deemed to be too far travel wise so Washington in the choice.

Thomson is mainly a fly half, but can play full back as well

Im sure Thomson is eligible for Scotland already, although has played for SA at U20. Good signing and looked good while on loan at Glasgow last year. Im sure the pro12 clubs will be happy with the additional £500 - 800k a year in TV money if the SA teams join up. I have read people talking about poor crowds for the 2 SA teams in Super Rugby, but 7-8 thousand a game is fairly decent by Pro12 standards, and may improve given they are not competing with any other rugby. I wouldn't be suprised if the reached some agreement to loan some of the fringe sprinboks to give them some added experience.

It wold have to be equal conferences, although they might wait until the US/Canadian teams enter before going down that route - so normal league this season. Although they have also offered places / been in discussions with Spain, Germany and Georgia about expanding their so things could look a look different in a few years time

I think they will just cease to exist with the players being moved to the other franchises to strengthen them. The Australians dont have the strength in depth that NZ have hence why they have struggled in Super Rugby so getting rid of a team player wise was never really an issue that it is in SA. Australia have just started a new domestic league as they dont have the equivalent of a Currie Cup or Mitre 10 / Air New Zealand which is the step from club players up to professional. Will be interesting with the SA franchises whether they are kept at a level comparable to the Super Rugby teams or sit at a level between Super Rugby and the Currie Cup ie a stepping stone from players in the Currie Cup before Super Rugby. It will surely not be ideal from the national team in SA to have players joining up for hte rugby Championship having just finished Super Rugby in August, then others who are in preseason for the Pro12/14, then the Pro 12/14 players will miss the first 6 weeks or so of the season as the Rugby Championship runs from end Aug through to the start of October

Seemingly its now a done deal that the 2 SA teams being kicked out of Super Rugby will be joining the Pro 12 possibly for this season coming. Apparently will be playing home and away, but no info on whether it will be a straight 26 games or whether it will be split into pools

to be fair wish I had done the same

especially if the beatings are worse in the next 2 tests

Transformers: Age of Extinction - 3/10 Had completely missed this first time round, and only realised it existed when I was talking with someone about the new one, so thought I should at least check it out. I knew this was going to be CGI heavy and not a lot of story so was slightly surprised that it actually started quite well, protective single dad, daughter nearing the age of leaving to go to college etc. Dad is an inventor / repairs scrap tech and happens upon an old truck that just happens to be Optimus Prime and the adventure ensues with the cliched daughters boyfriend that is a bit of a boy racer, secret US govt agency up to no good, as is dodgy tech company. Now if the movie had finished at 1hr 45 or there abouts I think I would have been tempted to rate it 5 or 6 as it was passable sci-fi entertainment. But the running time is 2hrs 45 minutes, and the last hour really drags. Once the action moves to China, i started to lose the will to live as it just drags on, and i thnk the people working on the movie did as well. the editing is shockingly bad in places, people leave and then turn up again later on, the dialogue from the autobots sounds like it is lazily just added on over the top and doesn't fit with the movie. It really does just fall apart, is far to long, and the fight sequences which to start with are good, become tedious and repetitive.

I agree we should have taken the points early on with the penalties, and given Scotlands record at lineouts its probably not the best approach. However we have to remember we did score 3 tries to Fiji's 2 which seems to have been forgotten in all the talk of fantastic Fijian running rugby. Agree on Nakarawa, he should have been snuffed out much more than he was given half the players and management team would have been training with him every day for a few years. As Barclay states, the tackling wasn't good enough, some of the decision making wasn't good enough, but as long as we learn from it and make some further improvement in November it will all be forgotten. If we can beat Australia again, a convincing win against Samoa, and run NZ close (a better result than the Lions can muster would be superb) and it will set us up nicely for the 6N's.

No, lions dont count for rankings, same as the Barbarians. Only counts when both countries put out their full 1st team (ie recent America 6 nations games against the Argentina XV didn't count for rankings whereas all other games did), and there is 10 points or less between the country in the rankings - ie Scotland and Australia vs Italy had no bearing in the rankings due to the huge gap between the teams, but Fiji vs Italy and Fiji vs Scotland did.

Scotland down to 6th in the Rankings as SA move above us, although not much between us, SA and Oz now. Wales still below us in 7th, although gap has closed. Fiji close in on Argentina in 9th. Italy move up to 15th due to the points dropped by Samoa vs Wales.

Wee mention for Hugh Reed and the Velvet Underpants - 6-1 has to be near the top of the best Scottish songs ever

Have been meaning to watch this for a while, I love the Japanese Godzilla movies. Saw the trailer for Shin Godzilla, and was gutted when I found out it wasn't getting a full release over here, but haven't been able to find a subtitled version yet. I thought the last American Godzilla was actually quite good, much better than previous versions, I'm just hoping the next one as hinted at by King Kong will be a worthwhile watch

I had expected the UA to win, but the should take the win in the home leg. Sounds a better performance from Canada who have been woeful of late and have dropped out the top 20 in the rankings

Just watched the game, on world rugby Facebook, and we were way of the pace all game. Pyrgos was slow, we lacked invention without Russell, the forwards looked one paced as well. I think our issue against Fiji is that normally we are the team looking to play a quick game, harrying the opposition, but Fiji just do it better than us. We just didn't get going. Subs bench wasn't great, Taylor went off at half time I think and we only had tons to come so Jackson went to 10 and Horne to 12, but it meant we had to delay bring price on as he was the only other back on the bench with a 6 2 split. Plenty to work on and pushes Fiji as the 10th best team in the world. Had to smile though when Nakarawa put a chip down the line straight into touch, just goes to show even the best player in the world can't do everything! Edit to add I think it's a 3 way tie between us, oz and Fiji all with 2 wins and one lose, not sure the rules on who wins on a tie, it's usually head to head first but as we all beat each other not sure the next decider

If there is going to be any expansion to the Pro12 either through the US / Canada or SA, we definitely need to be in their lobbying for a 3rd Pro team in Scotland. Granted Edinburgh have been poor, but I dont think they have been whipping boy levels of poor, its more down to the fine margins, and pretty poor coaching. If you look at the pro12 it would be a big ask for any team to break into the top 6 of Glasgow, Munster, Ulster, Leinster, Scarlets and Ospreays. Add in Connaught at home are a match for anyone, and Cardiff should be a top team its about where you would expect them to be. If you take the 35 odd guys away with Scotland / Lions, the 15 I listed from the last WC squad and others out injured there is over 50 internationals class players as a starter over 3 teams. Granted some are already playing in France & England and we maybe have to admit we cant afford to keep some in Scotland. But on top of that we have the U20's / past few years U20's / institute of sport players (im assuming the SRU pays for these guys already?), a whole host of pro club players who will never be internationals but are solid players. Add in the current foreigners and it would only take maybe an extra 10 players. Yes it would weaken Glasgow and Edinburgh slightly to start with, but in the long run it benefits everyone. The London Scottish thing will help short term to give some of the U20's / fringe players some game time, last season they took as many players as they could. There was a bit of a falling out though as the SRU had thought they were loaning youngsters and the club would have a backbone of experienced pros to help with their development, whereas London Scottish hardly had any players signed to start with and where hoping the SRU would bail them out.

In terms of strength in depth, I think it is incredible how far we have come on in the last few years. Its not to long ago you would look at the subs bench and you would think to yourself, I hope no one gets injured as you didn't want someone getting on the pitch as they were no where near international standard. I had a look at the squad from the World Cup and the following players who were in that squad have not been involved either this Scotland tour or the Lions either due to injury or just not picked, Bryce, McInally, Dickinson, Grant, Sutherland, Welsh, Gilchrist, R.Grey, Cowan, Denton, Hidalgo-Clyne, Weir, Bennett, Vernon, Maitland Also Strockosh and Lamont have retired since If you are looking at our weakest positions, I would say hooker to start (as has been mentioned). We need to start developing hookers earlier, rather than converting backrows in their early 20's when they aren't good enough to get in the team as a backrow. Prop, 2nd row and wing forwards we have plenty off and no concerns, No.8 is a bit of a concern for me, Strauss is good - solid but could be improved on, Wilson can be a liability (in terms off needing a 10 minute rest during games) but is a good player, Denton is too injury prone, and dont think he suits the way we play now, Fagerson looks a player so may be the answer. Scrum half we are sorted, 10 after Russell there is a huge drop to Horne, Jackson and Weir. Hastings is next down but untried, dont know if Kinghorn is an option, he has played their for Edinburgh, but dont know if he was good - cracking fullback prospect though Centres we look fine as we do on the wing. At Fullback after Hogg there is no natural replacement, I thought Tonks did well against Oz, Taylor was fine vs Italy, Maitland can play there also, and Kinghorn as noted above. The issue we have is that we are developing loads of players, but dont have the club sides to play them, so we have to ship them off to England and France, then they dont get as much time as a Squad as they have to stay with the clubs.

TBF it is pretty much the Welsh 3rd team that's playing given the first and second choice players are all with the Lions!

Thought Turner, Rae and Kennedy would have at least got a spot on the bench, just so they could get the experience of the international game day having made the trip out on tour. Otherwise I think we have rotated all the players well, with only Barclay and Taylor starting all 3 - albeit with taylor starting one at FB rather than centre. I think we should have enough up front to win the match, especially with 6 forwards on the bench rather than 5

Wasn't sure if I was going to stick with this, but started watching season 3 as just about everything else I was watching has finished for the summer, and have to say the first episode was ok, but the next 2 have pretty good so looking forward to seeing where this goes now

Cotter was the right person at the time for the role - we were an absolute shambles. Lets not forget before Cotter we were lucky if we got one try in the entire 6N's, when he left you would back Scotland to score 2 or 3 tries against any team in the world. We had a bit of shape, a game plan and were picking up wins. I think he gave Scottish Rugby the kicking it needed and has set it on the right path. And much the same as at Glasgow, where I think Lineen did a lot of the hardwork to turn Glasgow round, Townsend coming in will take it to the next level. Lets not get to carried away as we have only beaten a very poor Italian side and a slightly experimental Australia side but there is plenty of reason to get optimistic. On the U20's I know we did have a tie up with London Scottish where we were loaning players to them to get game time, so I would think those not getting game time at a decent level that is the first stop. I think George Horne was down there, as was Hunter-Hill, not sure who else. But a 3rd Pro team has to be looked at soon as we dont want to be either losing players or stunting their development with lack of game time

Having just looked at the U20's results, apart from France in the semi, we had the best result against NZ - so in my eyes that makes us unofficially the 3rd best team at U20's.

They have said from the start the tour was all about looking at the players to see what they can do. I wouldn't be surprised to see the likes of Grigg, Allan, Rae etc who haven't featured yet to get a run out against fiji