[Closed] Rugby Thread 2017/18.

Woohoo, good work Duckman

Who knows about the Pro 14 as I can't get my head around it 😆

I think that the Crusaders might win the Pro151. They're in it, right?

And Bristol - Charles Piutau in 2018-2019? Can we start the yearly rugby thread for that season this soon?

Pro 14 Munster
Prem Who cares?
6N England
Scotland will click in half the games blow up in one and struggle to a draw in one. They will play very like Warriors of 2 years ago
Who ever wins the Pro14 will go down in history as the only winners of that tournament.

Pro14 dunno, Ulster or Leinster or one of the Saffas?
Prem. Sarries
Europe. A French team
6N's England.

In other news, Lealiifano to Ulster. Paddy Jackson to miss the season as he is being prosecuted for rape (which he denies) not too much info available, seems like 4 guys are being prosecuted.

Watching currie cup games. The saffas are pretty abrasive. But not sure they'll cope with a wet November in Glasgow.

Malcolm jaer is a flyer.

No takers for Scarlets again? 🙂

Will be a surprise if England aren't the strongest in the 6N

Western Force out of Super Rugby. Surprising given the locations of the clubs remaining but not surprising given the funding/ ownership structures and legal complexities of each being booted out between the two

Could have been them or the Rebels really, I read an article a while back talking about how union was on the bones of it's bum with regards to players numbers/spectators etc.

Could have been them or the Rebels really, I read an article a while back talking about how union was on the bones of it's bum with regards to players numbers/spectators etc.

Yeah in Oz union is still looked on as a ra-ra sport for posh kids in stark contrast to the more blue collar League and Aussie Rules.

The public supports it when they perceive that the Wallabies and the Super Rugby sides are going well. Unfortunately that perception is based on whether they beat New Zealand or not. What's also unfortunate is that nobody beats NZ much and the Aussie SR teams went 0-26 against the NZ franchises this year. This misses the point that the Wallabies are generally very competitive in RWCs and are never as bad as some of their results can suggest.

I linked an article in last year's thread which had Union as around the 28th most popular sport in Australia by participation. I didn't meet anyone in Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane who had even a passing interest in rugby let alone Union which was a shock given how successful we generally view the national team (unless playing Scotland of course 😉 ).

It made more sense to shelve the Rebels and keep rugby in Western Australia but I think it came down to the Rebels having the bigger threat of successful legal action/ more expensive buyout based upon the way they were set up and current ownership/ funding. That is the hidden subtext to "keeping the Rebels made more financial sense"

Glasgow and Edinburgh rebuilding a bit this year. I am hopeful(!) cockers will bring a bit of backbone to Edinburgh and we might see a bit mmnore from them

National team placed well - time to improve over last years tally. No lions hangover for us! but ickle jonny is out for a while - dunno if he will be back for the AIs

Rugby is crap. All the players are violent cheating scum and/or fat fools. Except Welsh ones. Or Scottish ones. Referees don't know what they're doing. Except Welsh ones.
None of you know what you're talking about, I've played in every level of the game and watched every match ever played, analysing and understanding every play perfectly. Everything I say is FACT. Your opinions are worthless and meaningless. I hate every player you like and love every player you hate.

Hopefully that's that done and you can actually discuss rugby.
Carry on.

Brizzle to return from the depths.

Who is good in the top14? Are Toulon close to bucking their ideas up?

How do you guys rate Cockerill? Edinburgh have the budget and some decent players but play far below their potential. Is he the man to turn it around? Inject some steel perhaps?

No

Loved him as a player and as a coach, he did pretty well for my beloved tiggers. Still, somehow I don't think he's a great coach. I don't think he'll,get the absolute best from the team, something always just missing.

Love the look of tigers back line this season. Young, ford, tuhoomah (sp) tuilagi, may, veanu and thompstone. If they can just get a bit of ball and remain uninjured for 15mins....

Cockerill didn't do too badly with Toulon at the end of last season...

Give him a chance, he'll get them playing with a bit of gumption.

I thought he was a good coach, the DOR thing at Tigers came to him too quickly but he managed it well. I think in the end there was a lot more going on at Tigers. But as the DOR he had to take the hit. The Aaron Mauger experiment didn't work, as coaches they just didn't see thing the same way.

I think he's a good bloke but he'll always be someone people like to hate.

Yes, I'm a Tigers fan.

I've never been convinced that he's a great coach but isn't awful I guess. He does however like a moan at the referees and I shudder to think about his blood pressure with the standard of refereeing in the Pro14

Rugby is crap. All the players are violent cheating scum and/or fat fools. Except ENGLISH ones. Referees don't know what they're doing. Except NIGEL OWENS.
None of you know what you're talking about, I've played in every level of the game and watched every match ever played, analysing and understanding every play perfectly. Everything I say is FACT. Your opinions are worthless and meaningless. I hate every player you like and love every player you hate.

Exactly what I've been saying for years..... 😆

Actually I just re-watched the 1st Argentina v England test last night. What a game!

Best game of rugby I've seen this year. Not just because Argentina attacked constantly and England were forced to do likewise but there was a lot of terrific, hard hitting defence (despite the scoreline) - but mainly because Nigel Owens refereed with common sense, let it flow and didn't KEEP GOING TO THE TMO EVERY FIVE MINUTES!

People say "oh the Jaguares were rubbish so Argentina must be too" but that was a decent Argentina side, at home, against the hated English. For a mainly 2nd/3rd string side it was an exceptional win.

Agreed. I thought it was a great game!

Geez! The ABs have got over their Lions hangover.

40-6 up against the Wallabies, in Sydney, at half time!

Geez! The ABs have got over their Lions hangover.

I think its more about how shite Aus are playing.

I was going to write the same at half time, then the Aussies remembered how to run into space!

then the Aussies remembered how to run into space!

True but they didn't start doing that until they trailed 54-6! Which was a tad late.

To re-write the old joke:

Nobody was Australia's best player - because they kept passing to him.

Pro Munster...or maybe Leinster.
6n Ireland.

RIP Pinetree.

Watched SA v Argentina. Raymond poite had a pretty awful game. I thought in this age of assistant referees that they were there to assist. Every try seemed to have at least one reason to be disallowed and SA are the masters of the forward moving"flat pass".

[url= http://www.skysports.com/rugby-union/news/12504/10998806/toby-flood-considers-germany-switch-after-england-exile ]Herr Tobias Flut [/url]

Anyone else excited about tomorrow night's World cup final?

Not entirely convinced putting Scarratt at 15 in replacement for Waterman is a great idea unless she is regularly hitting the line as she's devastating at OC. She is an extraordinary player.

and Rocky Clarke- 128 caps (local Wuss girl) is in her 4th (Fourth!) World cup final!

ITV from 7.15pm on Saturday (7:45pm KO).

You need to be watching Aus vs NZ now!

damm forgot it was free to air here...

and despite that can't "legally" stream it. Seen the scoreboard rattle around and Barret being the difference there

It would appear that rumours of the death of union in Oz, including those from me, are premature.What a game! And Dan who?

and the all blacks never looking stressed, whats that we need to score, we better score then.

The ausies had them rattled there. That last 30 mins was brilliant!

Stoner - yes, I'll be there 🙂

Available on You Tube for anyone that missed it - just watched the first 10... not often teams score a point a minute against the ABs.

What a great game!

THey should make the ABs start every match 17pts down!

Brilliant try to win it under the most severe pressure. Kurtley Beal owned SBW defensively. Mind you, Aaron Smith made a fool out of Hooper too.

Nigel Owens made a poor mistake IMO. He gave a penalty for the Aussie blindside coming back offside at a ruck and getting in the path of what was an obvious scoring pass. Accidental or not - surely it was a penalty try?

Agree with the posts on here. Best game I have watched for ages!

Really had my fingers crossed for the Wallabies, but sadly it wasn't meant to be.

The Kiwi scrum was on point today.

RWC Final time

finally got round to watching the 2nd bledisloe cup game between Aus and NZ. Astounding game. NZ look terrifying, and some of the gold play was great. But what disappointed me was Michael Hooper's appalling contempt for the refereeing. Owens had a good game, (yes he didnt call the intentional offside namastebuzz refers to - but it was followed 30s later with a AB try in favour - and maybe the head-dump of cooper could have earned a short yellow) but the speed of play and the decision making in spite of it was pretty bloody impressive. And I dont see any of Owens decisions even if they were wrong have a substantial negative impact on the game. The kiwi commentators were embarrassing in how often the made the wrong call compared to Owens on the pitch and were second guessing his calls before the explanation. And if you start looking for administrative offences youve already lost the game on the pitch really.

Between the commentators (on the you tube feed I saw) and hooper it really left a bad taste in the mouth for what was a fantastic high quality game of rugby and it's reffing.

yes he didnt call the intentional offside namastebuzz refers to - but it was followed 30s later with a AB try

Yeah but that doesn't matter - what if the ABs hadn't scored that try but had knocked on or something? Two wrongs don't make a right - or, in this case, a wrong and a right don't make a right.

I agree with much of what you say. Hooper's attitude was poor but maybe Nige should have put him in his place? In general Owen's reffing was good and it was still a great game.

Mind you, the Retallic non-try was a strange one too. Owens was on the spot and awarded the try. Then, as the kick was being lined up, he decided to go to the TMO. He started off asking "Is there any reason not to award....." and then changed to "Try - yes or no?" This seemed a bit odd as he'd awarded the try so why wasn't he asking if there was any reason he couldn't? As it turned out the replay looked like the ball had to have been grounded at some point but seeing as you couldn't see the actual grounding it wasn't given.

Get rid of the TMO - IMHO

I thinks owens was getting peeved with the ref's assistant on the TV camera side butting in with Foul Play calls hence why he later ignored both the deliberate offside (called by the RA) and the Cooper head drop (Called by the RA as well) because that RA had a track record of getting it wrong.

As you say the try/no-try call was the one spot where I think Owens let himself down. He blew and signalled what looked a try signal and then a short while later said that, no, he was blowing for a penalty from which no advantage had come. And so had not given a try on the pitch. Then he asks try no try? Inconsistent really.