TJ – the Scottish Rugby Union seem to be a bit bonkers. I won’t comment on the technical stuff on the field – but they have an odd strategy for managing Murrayfield.

Last time I was there they delayed the KO for 20 mins, as there were loads of folk still waiting outside for day tickets.

Seems they don’t normally sell day tickets, so were not adequately staffed so delays. Hence they have decided it was a failed experiment and will continue to not sell day tickets.

Insanity. The best way to make money from an event is to deny people entry to a half empty stadium, of course. It’s almost as if they don’t want people coming in, cheering at the wrong time or something.

Adn all that snobbery that came out when there was talk of sharing a stadium with the Hearts team while theirs was being refurbished a few years ago.

With thinking like that in the board room no wonder they can’t muster a decent team on the pitch.

deadlydarcy – Member

Booing the kicker, although prevalent everywhere, seems worst at Murrayfield.

I would have to disagree and say that it’s worst at the millennymum. … We were surrounded by a bunch of pissed up blokes who were quite abusive towards us, …. pre-loaded women of a certain age behind us, I’m not sure if they were sober enough to realise which team was which tbh.

Sums up the Millenium stadium fairly well these days. It’s turned into a day out on the pop. Too many people who know nothing about rugby and are just interested in the next beer. Last time I was there, the people behind me didn’t know who Habana was. 🙄

toys19 – Member
Hmm I have had a bad time in Swansea and Cardiff and some small towns in Wales. Lots of fighting (well I say fighting, more beating) and threats , nothing like sheep jokes.

When I went to Wales in 92 ….. But this went sour when the first “incident” occurred after about a month of living there, followed by plenty of others.

Lots of English people live in Wales. Why do only a few seem to notice this anti-Englishness. In fact, a quick count gives me about a dozen English people who I have contact with on a weekly basis (‘married in’ family members, friends, work colleagues, etc). Are they all getting abused on a regular basis?

trailmonkey – Member

Would you find similar types of fans in Gloucester, Bath, Leicester? Places with less of a middle class support base?

how keenly observed, only oiks can be xenophobic or boorish

I meant it the other way around, Trailmonkey. Ime, the more working class the club, the more of a football style fan they produce, especially when there isn’t a decent football club to siphon off the worst of the hooligan element.

BlindMelon – Member

Or worse, had to put up with Ulster fans. Urrgh.

Have you had a bad time at an Ulster game? Genuine question as most travelling fans seem to really enjoy our hospitality at Ravers

I should have put a smiley there, sorry! 😳

idle Jon TBH I’m not bothered, I like Wales and the Welsh. I’m married to a swansea born girl who doles out the ty de geg tupsins like water. I go back there all the time, love all my welsh inlaws. I made my point on here about some peoples bias being boring, especially if they deny it. As most here have admitted it, then that makes the discussion about rugby more open, as in you can take an comment on the welsh team/player from a frothing leek hating englishman with a pinch of salt and vice versa. Conversely there are some on here who can genuinely analyse the game objectively, which is way more interesting than just trading insults. (to be fair to AA whilst he has admitted being welsh biased, but his analysis is sometimes good as actually he is pretty scathing about pretty much everyone…)

Lots of English people live in Wales. Why do only a few seem to notice this anti-Englishness. In fact, a quick count gives me about a dozen English people who I have contact with on a weekly basis (‘married in’ family members, friends, work colleagues, etc). Are they all getting abused on a regular basis?

I’m not sure what you are implying here? I lived there, I and my mates were often on the receiving end of it, it isn’t sporting. Are you accusing me of either lying or hating for the sake of it? I’m happy to receive banter, I just think the ABE attitude sucks, and it’s unedifying but then I will go on and support Wales and Scotland despite their hatred of us.You and they can do what you like.

But TBH idlejon you have displayed ABE so I don’t see how you can deny it. I feel that the ABE attitude in the end leads to poor behaviour at the millenium, and nastiness between fans that isn’t a part of Rugby I want to see.

Why don’t we put this to bed, I’ve been trying not to mention it. I discussed the aus thing in defence of them as they proved to be very sporting.It was not meant to to be a resurrection of points I made clearly 5 pages ago. You might disagree but until you get your nation to dump ABE I won’t be able to agree, it exists, I don’t like it but you embrace it. How can we ever be chums over it? Not going to happen, so drop it.

Blimey the Italians have put the pressure on now. 10 Points now so with Ireland on 13 and Aus on 10 this pool is interesting. Can’t see Aus losing to the Bears but Italy vs Ireland will be very interesting! (Although based on form Ireland will stomp them…)

Am i reading this right Jon – are you saying Kingsholm, produces more of a footy style or hooligan supporter? 😯 Compared to almost any other Club vocal and pashionate on match day yes, but hardly football or hooligan stylee fans.

With average gates week in week out of 14k, i doubt footy fans turn up every week. However, with crowds that big, compared to most of the premiership, you are always going to get a few idiots, mind.

I am off to Kingsholm this weekend to watch tham beat the not nots, never seen any grief there and had some great banter. Some of the shedheads could cause offence if you let them but no malice involved.

I’ll be on the West Terrace as usual to welcome our `favourite’ team. 8)

World class I would say is the top couple of players in that position in the world.

Not I said Wales have a few players who on their day are approaching world class such as Shane, Phillips, Gethin, Adam Jones, Roberts.

Has anyone mentioned that the youngest ever try scorer in a world cup is now Welsh? He will be worldclass if he keeps improving (and retains his pace).

Is that Scott Williams?

*gets even more worried about Sunday morning*

Big George 😀 does look very promising doesn’t he.

Is it North? Blimey didn’t realise he was so young.

From Wikipedia:

making him the youngest ever try scorer at a Rugby World Cup competition aged 19 years and 166 days and beating the record set by Australian Joe Roff

Big George does look very promising doesn’t he.

Mrs Rusty once sat next to him on a train journey from Swansea to Manchester.
Apparently he’s “Ever such a nice young man, very polite”.

So – help me out here. Why are scotland so shite?

It’s a tough one.

I think having only two professional sides can’t help. In a way, it’s like Scottish Football. They’ve effectively got a two team league and they’re shite too.

The Irish pulled out all the stops to prevent the disbanding of Connacht whereas the SRU meekly allowed the Border Reivers to fold. Leaving the traditional heartland of Scottish rugby without a top side.

I thought regular Magner’s League exposure would improve the playing standards but abysmal Heineken Cup records would seem to rule that out. In the last 5 6N Championships Scotland have won the wooden spoon once and been 5th on the other occasions. They’ve managed less than one try per game and been the lowest try scorers over that period.

Big George in the centre for the next game, I believe!

north and Roberts running at the legendary tackling of ROG in a later game? 🙂

I’ve had loads of abuse at Kingsholm….but then I was a travelling Bristol fan. It’s all them Forest Dwellers with 6 fingers on each hand, you know.

to be fair to AA whilst he has admitted being welsh biased, but his analysis is sometimes good as actually he is pretty scathing about pretty much everyone…)

except the great one who can do no wrong 😀

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFD0BcV4Hr0&feature=fvst[/video]

INWAOT…

Poor Scotland, I notice they have slipped to 9th in the IRB world rankings.

toys – been 9th before – thats why the were 3rd pick in the WC draw.

As to why Scotland are so shite – its not simply the players are not good enough – they made enough yards and territory, beat enough defenders etc against argentina they should have won easily. Look at the stats on scrum.com.

There is a core of good players who while struggling to get into a world 15 for sure are the equal of many of the players in the rest of the 6N and teams ranked around them. Decent pack of forwards with some great athletes and ball players and steady if unspectacular backs. We now have the biggest pack in teh 6N FFS – thats a rare luxury

The inability to convert opportunities into scores its what losing the games – but why? Is it as simple as the lack of a finisher like Ashton?

Look at teh close games scotland have lost the last couple of years? Its a recurring theme – control a game, be unable to score tries, lose the game

Teh SRU are a bunch of idiots for sure but are being reformed and are now financially stable which they were not. I don’t know how much influence that has on this team

I thin Coaching is a big issue. Townsend and Robinson had everything they wanted for preparation and the team has not played to its potential. They must surely take the blame for that.

“sulks”

As to why Scotland are so shite – its not simply the players are not good enough – they made enough yards and territory, beat enough defenders etc against argentina they should have won easily. Look at the stats on scrum.com

I kind of agree and dont agree, Scotland looked much better organised than Argentina and the Scottish pack is strong, but half backs are weak and the midfield very one dimensional especially without Ansboro, the wings are ok but having Paterson at 15 is a complete waste of time. In general I would say Argentina had the better players but Scotland were, up to a point, better coached. We should also not underestimate the lack of confidence the Scotland team have, its been expressed by Sean Lamont for example. Get a couple of good wins under their belt and they would improve by a lot.

Don’t Argentina get only a handful of training days together during the year or something?

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9_wPb73pRs&feature=player_embedded[/video]

Scamper – Member

Don’t Argentina get only a handful of training days together during the year or something?

I thnk they had quite a lot this year but not many competitive games

As to why Scotland are so shite

The lack of a good quality No.10 must have a lot to do with it – Parks has a reasonably dependable boot, but his distribution by hand is pretty uninspiring. Ruaridh Jackson looked a bit more creative, but still didn’t seem to be able to generate line-breaking moves by the backs.

I was surprised at how poor Scotland were at shifting the ball in the tackle – they all seem too concerned with going to ground and avoiding being held up in a maul, rather than committing the tackler and releasing the ball. That seems to suggest a coaching issue, rather than one of player quality per se. It was very obvious watching the USA this morning, where they demonstrated a much higher degree of competence in this area against the Italians, who are not dissimilar to Argentina, but the US players had far more success in breaking through the defensive line than Scotland did against Argentina.

http://www.asiaone.com/News/Latest%2BNews/Sports/Story/A1Story20110928-301894.html

Hmm.

Watched the highlights of the Italy USA game last night. I’m a little less worried now 🙂

Oh, and Mallett’s up there with Gatling for cock-ness.

Next game is a big one. Come on SAMOA!

Cool vid:
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdomvwNjwp8&feature=related[/video]

@CFH

Interesting link, that one. Don’t think NZ have thought that one through properly, if South Africa and Australia decide to compete in the World Cup then who are NZ going to play in their full length tri nations? How are they going to show off their sponsors with all other teams they could play involved with the world cup? Pretty empty threat, I reckon.

More likely if they don’t win this year. If they don’t play in the RWC they can’t choke in the knock out stages.

😉

The Aus were behind this as well apparently. The whole IRB/RWC balckout thing is insane here – we tried to have a rugby world cup ‘event’ – 50 people for beers and the game. Got a nice letter from the IRB saying we couldn’t refer to the RWC at all – WTF. Heard lots of stories about exactly the same things here – utter bolax. Scots were planning to use the Basin for training which was about 800m up the road from the hotel – oh no you don’t, hasn;t been sterilised and all other advertisers hoardings etc removed so no chance. For training. Again, W T F. They had to dismantle the ‘Westpac’ name off the Cake Tin in Wellington. It’s bonkers.
And I sincerely hope NZ don;t choke, they seem to be playing some nice rugby. A few good games coming up – esp looking forward to Ire v Wales if that comes to pass …

CHEATS 😉

What happens to Wales if Samoa win?

How are they going to show off their sponsors with all other teams they could play involved with the world cup? Pretty empty threat, I reckon.

[Whining accent]
But we’re the All Blacks, we’re more important than rugby itself. Didn’t you know?
[/Whining accent]

Flash why the strong dislike of NZ rugby, did a wild colonial boy give you a thumping at school or something 😉

dirty cheating English they should have banned Wilkinson too!!!!! 😈

O’Flashearty’s not sure who to dislike – comes from being a plastic – just generally confused.

16 men last world cup and now cheating to get past the minnows, shame on england 😆 foreingn players pretending to be english is there no depth they will not sink to 😉

Now I know England are my second team, and Wales are my nineteenth. But the irony (or hypocrisy, use whichever word you like) of Wales fans slagging the England team off for using a different ball is not entirely lost on me. I don’t think the change of ball won them the game did it? 🙂

😆 oh yes I forgot about that stroke of genius/skulduggery.

You cant prove it didnt win them the game 😉