Rugby – Heineken cup

An Irish side and a French side

I would have gone for Toulouse at the beginning but Quims (with thanks to duckie) changed my mind today.

If Leinster don’t win it, I’d be surprised. They were devastating against Bath (albeit those tossers are weak these days and have relegation worries of their own to worry about) in the first half.

I suspect a lot will hinge on home advantage in the QFs. Munster are looking like they might have a QF in Thomond Park so might make a semi – but that would be as good as they can hope for this year I think.

Outside of Leinster, it’s wide open IMO.

Outside of Leinster, it’s wide open IMO.

I agree. Leinster look superb right now. Lovely rugby.

English clubs get good results against French in weekend shocker !!!!

Comeon Darcy how about a bit of postive feedback for us ????

Starting to think you judgment of rugby success is based purely on nationalism and nothing else……

How basic !

Frankers; Any of the English teams in with a shout in your opinion? Sarries are brutally efficent,but outside of that don’t see anything better than quarters(draw allowing)Tigers and Saints don’t have the dog in them to win away. As good a win as it was for Quims, Toulouse blew it. I cannot see past the Dubliners after the way they took a weak Bath side apart. However I get the feeling both C/A and Toulouse have had their bad games. Anyway; cracking cup this year and a Scottish team still involved by xmas…braw.

Just one thing…..Where is A-A in the Welsh hour of need? 😀

I know it wasn’t in the Hydrogen Cup, but as this is the current rugby thread, just wanted to give The Bull a quick mention. Fare thee well John Hayes – a modest professional, who retired today. 105 caps for the green machine, a couple of H Cups and destroyer of many a visiting front row at Thomond.

Irish Independent Article Clicky

Well johnson is leaving the ospreys just need to have holly and humphrey shown the door.
John Hayes now theres a player that maximised his talent. Fair play 105 caps and two lions tours is some achievement.

Any player that gets 105 caps has to be special, to be honest never really noticed him but that is the same way as you never really noticed Richard Hill he just did everything bloody well.

God knows what is going on in Ospreylia need to get back to work tomorrow to talk to Jon Jones he seems to have the inside track.

99 of those were as starts too Piggie. Funny, ’twas only as I read a bit more about him today, that I respected him even more. Thoroughly decent guy. Back to wrestling cows on the farm now. 🙂

Hayes was/is an example to any player. He was not as talented as a lot of his rivals,but worked really hard to make the best of what he had,and has the caps/medals to prove it.LEARNT to play front row says it all,and kept coming back after a few beatings to be worthy of a Munster strip.A bit like Neil Back, wouldn’t you say DD? 😀
I also felt people never gave him (Hayes DD!) the credit he deserved as a sneaky git in the loose.The image he liked to foster of an unfit bumbler kept him off the ref’s radar,but he was properly streetwise.

🙂 @ Duckman!

Agree re Hayes, though. A true shining example of a sportsman.

🙂 @ duckie too.

No comparison to a lying cheating bastard prick like Back for me though.

The hand of Back

no wait, it that cheating lying Munster bastard prick Quinlan…
😛

Hayes is however one of the games greats. Definatly in the same style as Jason Leonard

Oooh, get you girlfriend. Never remember Quinlan lying though. Next time you need to offload some bollocks, make up your own insults. 🙂

just pointing out, everyone’s at it. Some are just better at getting away with it…!
😆

😀

Or you could be Leicester and just have men yellow carded every game. Nice to watch the Edinburgh Glasgow game where appealing to the ref, cheating and “professional” fouls were rare although there was one yellow card

Just read one of the rugby quotes of the year
“Manu Tuilagi was asked to sum up England’s RWC performance. ‘World Cup?’ he replied. ‘I thought we were on Mike Tindall’s stag do’.”

Oh dear DD what happened the Munster tonight at Ravers that was quite a kicking we dished out, the Bull would not have been impressed with the scrummaging!!

Shows there’s no certainties within any matches, ok maybe some there are!!

Hopefully Ulster have ran out if steam for when Tigers get to Ravenhill, gonna been a very tough game for us

TandemJeremy – Member
Or you could be Leicester and just have men yellow carded every game

No Leicester players yellow carded playing against Worcester, only 2 Warriors players so you can start pointing your crabby finger elsewhere if you don’t mind!!

Frankers we are just getting warmed up and with our Irish squad players to come back the tigers will not be roaring on the 13th!! Should be a great game, hoping to get up to it, although with a week old baby it might be difficult

Week old baby, no excuse…..

I made my missus have our little one (3 months) at the Leicester Royal (opposite Tigers ground) as could kill 2 birds with 1 stone incase the birth coincided with home game 😉

Was that the Munster seconds BM? 😉

Nah the Ulster seconds!!

Gavin looks set to play again tomorrow, how exciting.
He’s wasted at 15 though.

Got me some tickets a_a, not really a Blues or Ospreys fan so will be a good match for me, really hope he proves himeself though i would like to see some good run’s and touches deep from FB but some fireworks would be nice too! Being back at the Liberty n’all be rude not to “welcome” him back. 😆

Frankers – our son made his first trip to Kingsholm at about 10 weeks recently. He loved it, but had to take him inside off the terrace in the second hand as he was getting choppsey with the Tigers fans 😀

As a counterpoint to Tigers being cheats; Ben Youngs was a class act when the Sale 7 took a head knock on Sat.

Yep, was very impressed with him. Decent performance by Tigers again despite the ref letting Sale lie all over the ball.

Oddly, have you noticed how much Saracens look like Tigers from about 5-10 years ago? They’re winning as well…..

Ben Youngs was a class act when the Sale 7 took a head knock on Sat.

“Class act”? Seymour and Thomas were both clearly hurt, Flood and Castrogiovanni both realised immediately that it was serious (as did the crowd) and waved for help. Good sportsmanship of course but what type of person would continue?

Well….When I played I would not have stopped for the prop, indeed I would have been glad he was going to weaken the opo scrum as he got sown up,which I as a forward would have seen as an area Sale can be attacked. Youngs arrived at an attacking ruck with Sale on the back foot and their shape broken.In that split second his runners will be moving,he will be looking at where the gaps are. He didn’t;he immediately alerted the ref. So a class act.As to who would not have stopped,I can’t recall seeing anything like it since BoD’s nemesis put a player in the recovery position during a NPC game a few seasons ago.

Oh, and I take my comment about relegation battles back,that was based on how dire they were last season. Sale are vastly improved this year.If the could get parity in the scrums,then they would be contenders for Europe.Apparently Gray pushes like a truck so he will help,they will also suffer a bit less during the 6N.However the Sky cameras kept cutting to Diamond trying to chew,which was car crash tv.

As a Sale fan i’m heartily glad that we are now attempting to play rugby once again, but i would say that Sale are still a work in progress.
Yes, since Diamond came in and sacked some 40+ people he’s turned the club around, there is obvious pride in playing again but it is a relatively young squad and their occasional naivety shows. McLeod is still flakey sometimes and as Duckman says, the pack needs some grunt.
Overall though i’m just happy to watch them attempt plays again, the last few yrs have been miserable.
Kingsley Jones should be shot.

as he got sown up

It was the Seymour injury that looked most serious as he appeared to be flailing on the ground semi conscious and had to be restrained by Powell (who has been impressive so far if he wasnt prone to the occasional error)
On the face of it I would agree if it was only the Thomas injury as that just looked like a bump.

Surfer – you off to the Budgies game on Boxing Day? Quite looking forward to it,

Sorry Muddydwarf only just seen this! Missed it, family commitments unfortunately so gave my ticket away.

If Seymour was the 7,yup he looked like he was fitting on the ground as the ruck formed.It looked awful as they collided,I saw it right away and thought it was a bad un’ From the telly the prop was obviously leaking quite quickly.

What position did you play Duckman?

Played 6/7 for Dundee (mostly 1sts)London Scottish(mostly 2nds)

And he is a level 3 referee now don’t you know. 🙂

(with a patriotic streak)