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kiwififer

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Last comment from me on the England match.   

Scotland avoided any bad luck. In some other matches, recently v Wales , we have had unfortunate events that swayed the game.

I'm really not trying to be sour grapey, we've suffered some misfortune.  Remember the WC exit in 2015?

Maybe the fates have toyed with us enough.

Or maybe I just remember the bad stuff...

Edited by cyderspaceman
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9 hours ago, Loki said:

i would bin the STVplayer and use the ITVX app.  Just use a random English postcode, the only one I know is Wimbledon (SW19) and the stability of the stream and quality is far better than the STV player.  you would have thought they wouldn't be a difference but it is remarkably so.

I'll probably stick with French commentators that I can't quite understand properly instead of English ones that I can understand only too well

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21 hours ago, Virtual Insanity said:

Question from a 6 Nations/World Cup glory hunter: is there any realistic chance of them just doing away with scrums? Slow the game down to a farcical extent at times, put in is beyond ridiculous now and penalties are almost random a lot of the time. Don't seem to bring anything to the game. 

The best option would be to abolish them as the default restart method for knock-ons. On a horrible wet day where teams are dropping it all over the place, you also tend to find scrums slip and it's just horrible. Tap would be a better option. 

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1 hour ago, peasy23 said:

It's often been mentioned on here about the madness of drawing the world cup nearly 3 years in advance. We now have two pools without a top 4 ranked team in them.

https://twitter.com/RugbyInsideLine/status/1622353601459851265?t=PyznBXZZ8n7n_8yAmIdO_A&s=19

Yeah think I posted this before. Its made worse by the way the teams are split for quarters and semis, one from Eng, Wal, Aus, Arg, Fiji or Jap will make the final, currently Eng are highest ranked at 6th, with the top 5 teams fighting over the other place

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41 minutes ago, come on shire said:

Ange Capuozzo scored a fine try against France. I don't mean to be away with the fairies but I'm a bit nervous for the Italy game at Murrayfield on the final weekend.

Italy have improved greatly over the last few years, however a long way to go until the final weekend. If we can build on the Calcutta game, and get a win and a good performance vs Wales that set us up for  Ireland and France which could see us going into the Italy game looking for a grand slam.

On the other hand we could lose vs wales, get hammered in hte next 2 games and be facing Italy for 6th place

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6 hours ago, cyderspaceman said:

I found a website saying that this was England's main tactic and that Farrel was to blame for concentrating on Russel too much. Interesting for me as I know feck all about rugby tactics.   

https://www.rugbypass.com/news/going-after-finn-russell-backfired-for-england/?c=1

 

ETA   Soz, Mark Connolly, just read your post.

That article, despite its intended focus, really shows up Smith.  
 

On another note, I bought the Sunday Times for the first time in ages last weekend. Their two main rugby writers Stephen (?) Jones and Stuart Barnes can’t write for shit.  

Edited by Savage Henry
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2 hours ago, Savage Henry said:

That article, despite its intended focus, really shows up Smith.  
 

On another note, I bought the Sunday Times for the first time in ages last weekend. Their two main rugby writers Stephen (?) Jones and Stuart Barnes can’t write for shit.  

Stephen Jones is absolutely detested by almost everyone involved in rugby in any way, and rightly so. The c**t's c**t.

Great watching Duhan's 2nd try back from the start, so much good work by everybody. And, of course, an unnecessary and meaningless late bump on Finn right at the beginning by Freddie Steward.

 

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2 hours ago, Savage Henry said:

That article, despite its intended focus, really shows up Smith.  
 

Yeah, I agree. Also, despite how rattled Finn has him, I very much doubt Farrell went out there and focused solely on hitting Russell all off his own back. He's too experienced and disciplined for that and apart from anything else if he was completely ignoring the game plan and doing his own thing he wouldn't have lasted 80 mins. He was quite clearly doing what Borthwick told him to.

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4 hours ago, honestly united said:

Italy have improved greatly over the last few years, however a long way to go until the final weekend. If we can build on the Calcutta game, and get a win and a good performance vs Wales that set us up for  Ireland and France which could see us going into the Italy game looking for a grand slam.

On the other hand we could lose vs wales, get hammered in hte next 2 games and be facing Italy for 6th place

It'll be tricky. However if we keep Capuozzo quiet we should be ok at home.

3 hours ago, Savage Henry said:

That article, despite its intended focus, really shows up Smith.  
 

On another note, I bought the Sunday Times for the first time in ages last weekend. Their two main rugby writers Stephen (?) Jones and Stuart Barnes can’t write for shit.  

I subscribe to Rugby World magazine. They're regular contributors and Jones has his own column.

What's annoyed me in the media is what an improving England got wrong. Not much about what Scotland did right apart from Tom English's BBC piece...

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What is the consensus on here regarding international selection of players who play club rugby outside of their domestic league?

Have seen a bit of debate around it and the All Blacks’ refusal to change tact on it and being happy to give up on players who’ve moved abroad. Seems mental to me to potentially exclude your best players, but I guess they can get away with it due to their depth more than most. I hadn’t thought about it much as SRU allow it, but I’d be a seething mess if Russell for example was blacklisted because he’d gone onto a higher level. 

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18 minutes ago, Honest_Man#1 said:

What is the consensus on here regarding international selection of players who play club rugby outside of their domestic league?

Have seen a bit of debate around it and the All Blacks’ refusal to change tact on it and being happy to give up on players who’ve moved abroad. Seems mental to me to potentially exclude your best players, but I guess they can get away with it due to their depth more than most. I hadn’t thought about it much as SRU allow it, but I’d be a seething mess if Russell for example was blacklisted because he’d gone onto a higher level. 

The All Blacks can get away with such a policy. They are likely doing it to protect their domestic game and it also ensures that their players are not travelling thousands of miles for training camps. 
 

Scotland most definitely cannot. How many of our top players down the years have played “abroad” (including England)?

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5 hours ago, Honest_Man#1 said:

What is the consensus on here regarding international selection of players who play club rugby outside of their domestic league?

Have seen a bit of debate around it and the All Blacks’ refusal to change tact on it and being happy to give up on players who’ve moved abroad. Seems mental to me to potentially exclude your best players, but I guess they can get away with it due to their depth more than most. I hadn’t thought about it much as SRU allow it, but I’d be a seething mess if Russell for example was blacklisted because he’d gone onto a higher level. 

Ireland do it too and you can see the benefits in how familiar their players are with one another in transitioning from domestic to international games but I guess this probably wouldn’t work as well were Leinster not as absolutely stacked as they are.

Would be absolutely madness for Scotland (or any country) with only two pro teams to go down this route.
 

On the positive side, I don’t think going to England from the URC is in any way the step up in level it perhaps has been in the past (though France probably still is though also comes with its own challenges).

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5 hours ago, Honest_Man#1 said:

What is the consensus on here regarding international selection of players who play club rugby outside of their domestic league?

Have seen a bit of debate around it and the All Blacks’ refusal to change tact on it and being happy to give up on players who’ve moved abroad. Seems mental to me to potentially exclude your best players, but I guess they can get away with it due to their depth more than most. I hadn’t thought about it much as SRU allow it, but I’d be a seething mess if Russell for example was blacklisted because he’d gone onto a higher level. 

Rugby is the 2nd sport in Scotland which wouldn't be an issue but we're not a big country so we need to be open to our national players wanting to play outside Scotland or the URC. 

Other countries probably choose to have an internal selection as it makes it easier for coaches to keep track of players form and injury. Also, they'll have sway in managing game time ahead of international games. NZ could probably afford to select overseas players as rugby competes with cricket to be the first sport there...

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Wales and Australia have a hybrid where you have to have so many caps before you will be selected if you move abroad.

There are pro's and cons to both approaches. However you need enough clubs to ensure you dont block youngsters coming through, centralised contracts for your internationals so that clubs are not bearing the burden of not being able to play players when they want, that are also high enough that the players are not looking elsewhere.

 

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