STW 2014/15 Rugby Thread

Sale confirm Danny Cipriani has signed a two-year contract with the club. Very happy about that, not too happy to be losing Paterson to bloody Saints though.

not too happy to be losing Paterson to bloody Saints though.

I agree he is a very good player but we do have a lot of talent in that area with Hines/Ostrikov/Mills/Beaumont as well as one or two others although we need to think of future replacement for Hines.
Anyway a good deal for Saints.

I would have given Hines the invite when Gray got broken,He is a machine.

He is always entertaining 😀

🙂 should have been a yellow too !

10 Weeks for Pape. 🙂

Good

Why don’t you start a thread on religion if you want to spout that sort of idiotic,trolling pish?

Calm down dear, have a cup of tea or some suitably pleasant beverage.

Do you mean Nathan “Yellow Card” Hines?

Second only to The Great Danny Grewcock.

I am afraid I was calm Mr Troll,so you can stop rubbing your thighs together. I am going to talk about rugby now, so you may want to google the various terms used.

Do you mean Nathan “Yellow Card” Hines?

Second only to The Great Danny Grewcock.

POSTED 1 HOUR AGO # REPORT-POST
Far better player than Grewcock, RL background and the nous to play at 6 at international level.

.

Every time I see Hines play he’s on the edge of getting carded at any moment.

Grewcock should have done the Ref, his team mates, and the opposition a favour and sat on the bench for 10 minutes each half.

Good forward play that from Hines,best forwards from a refs point of view are the ones you want to yellow card but can’t catch! I thought that was what Grewcock did,was that not a formal,contractual arrangement?

My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius. Commander of the Armies of the North. General of the Felix Legions. Loyal servant to the true Emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife – and I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next. So Select Sam Burgess for England

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-union/31547115

Well, it made me laugh!

Ref Grewcock, I was drinking with an old scrum half team mate of his and he said he was the best possible player to have on your side. If there was any kind of niggle at all, “just set Grewy on em”. Can’t imagine what it would have been like facing a pairing of him and Martin Johnson, I’d personally shite myself and go straight to the pub!

On the Rugby Show on Sky several years ago they polled a fair number of players and asked the question – “Who was the hardest opponent you ever faced?”

The overwhelming response was “Danny Grewcock”. With a few honourable mentions for Buck Shelford.

2005 I think it was, Grewcock steps over the ruck and kicks Dwayne Peel in the head as he’s about to pass the ball out. Austin Healey was on the commentary team:

“Oh he’s just clumsy, he did that to me once, and we were on the same side, he didn’t mean it!”

Some interesting ideas for improving the game:

how-to-improve-rugby-15-ways

Agree with stopping the offsides thing. These rush defences are offside most of the game. The choke tackle is a bit shit too (hopefully we’ll see more bastardo techniques, that’ll stop it). The rest are crap ideas.

@bigblackshed 😀

To be fair it’s been said many times that everyone, including his team mates want to kick Healy

Agree with stopping the offsides thing. These rush defences are offside most of the game. The choke tackle is a bit shit too (hopefully we’ll see more bastardo techniques, that’ll stop it). The rest are crap ideas.

Yup agreed. My RL coach in Australia (1968 😳 ) used to call that a “pommie tackle” and made it quite clear it won’t stop anyone of any size. Trying to tackle Basteraud high is just inviting that responce especially if you are the 9 or 10

made it quite clear it won’t stop anyone of any size.

But the thing is, it did stop Basteraud.
And prevented him crossing the gain line.
And prevented France building off the crash ball as intended.
And the key thing, it produced turnovers, both direct quick ball and scrum put ins.

Trying to tackle Basteraud high is just inviting that responce especially if you are the 9 or 10

What response?

Anyway, note also, one of Englands’ key ploys in beating Wales the other week was to tackle high and keep their big crash-ball carriers up then strip them of the ball.
Did it to all 4 of Roberts, North , Davies, and Cuthbert in the second half.
All in the 10 channel, too. Admit he he did get a bit of back-up from Robshaw, Haskell and friends, but it’s a team game 🙂

Teams do it because it works.
And it works even better when the opponents don’t expect it – like when opponents think sending a 17+ stone centre/wing/battering-ram down the fly halfs channel is the best way to play rugby.

I like choke tackles. I see it as a bit of an antidote to Warrenball / BasteraudBall (or whatever the French imitation is called).
it encourages more expansive , passing rugby.

But the thing is, it did stop Basteraud.
And prevented him crossing the gain line.
And prevented France building off the crash ball as intended.

Well he did break the gain line (just not by as much) but it broke the tackler (the best player on the team), took him off the field for a good while and made sure he didn’t play as well when he came back on. I hope he does it against us.
I see it as an entirely negative tactic designed to slow the game (preventing off loads, quick ball etc) and force an easy turnover. It is legal though, so can’t discredit any teams for using it.

I hope he does it against us.

?

Sorry. Just don’t really understand what you mean there

Sorry. Just don’t really understand what you mean there

Well Sexton is the best player on the irish team. If he decides to hurt himself by running bolt upright into one of our biggest players then he might not score so many points. I’m not hoping that he does get hurt but I am hoping that he doesn’t score very many points 😀

Don’t see the choke tackle really being a feature of the Eng-Ire game , tbh.
it’s a deffensive counter to Warrenball stylle attacks.
When an offense plays bosh-ruck-bosh-ruck-bosh-ruck-bosh-ruck-bosh-ruck… (wales/France style) then you either commit defenders to changing the cycle, or you eventually run out of defenders. You can afford to commit those players , and have to or you eventually concede.
Biggest exponents of choke tackling so far this tournament were England, against Wales followed by Ireland against France. It’s a response to their style of attack.

It’s gonna be far less relevant in Dublin, ‘cos England and Ireland are far less likely to just send big runners on crash-ball off of good possesion.
England will want to get the ball past Burrell, out to Joseph and Watson if they get good ball. if they just go steaming into Sexton with Burrell then they’re playing away from their strengths.
Likewise Ireland and Henshaw attacking Ford. It would be a stupid gameplan playing away from their strengths of Bowe/Kearney/Zebo and into Robshaws and haskells hands.
Also, effective choke tackles use more than one player to commit. It’s a far riskier strategy committing these against teams who use players outside the 12 channel – like Joseph or Kearney.
I expect England and Ireland to leave that sort of nonsense to Wales and France. Try to use the ball rather than just bash through the phases.

All good points but I would expect to see billy V taking it in a bit. I would have said the same for Heaslip had he not been injured.
Whilst you’re on; do you think o’donnell was hard done by getting dropped like that? He looked like one of ireland best players against italy and (this may be considered blasphemy in ireland) in better form than o’brien. Is he liekly to be heaslips replacement or doesn’t he play 8?

Agree re Billy V, Haskell too.
Same applies to SOB a bit they’ll both want a run at a 10. but it’ll be part of an overall more varied attacking gameplan, and intended to suck in oppo back row to create a bit more space elsewhere. They’ll use their weight/ strength to make sure they get to ground too.

O’Donnell was great against Italy, agreed. He’s an out and out 7, probably the fastest in Ireland, and been in good form for Munster. It was harsh, but he was only ever standing in for SOB due to that pre-match twinge. Think he’s done his WC chances a world of good, but if fit SOB’s alwways first choice.
Problem is SOB’s at about 70% fitness after long time out.
Said at the time that I’d have preferred SOB sent home rather than face France, and give Murphy/O’Donnell another crack. Now, however, I’m so glad Joe played SOB because he’s far more suited to playing England, and desperately needed a game before that happened.
Put it this way, would have been worried going into the England game without SOB.
Would have been just as worried (even more so now losing Heaslip) going into the England game with him having not played for about a year and having pulled up in the warm up v Italy as his only action.

As always, looks now like Schmidt made the right call.

Ireland rely on having some decent close in carriers in the back row, bit like England. With Heaslip out SOB’s even more neccesary. Healy’s another big loss in that department too. O’Donnell’s probably easiest to describe as a bit more of a “Tipuric” style 7.
Maybe could afford to play him if Heaslip and Healy were propper fit, or if Henderson , another good carrier, stared in place of Toner. Not sure the losses in other areas, loke safe lin-outs would be worth the change.
Just about balance of skills, really. That and the fact that SOB, Sexton, Healy etc need the matches to get match fit.

SOB’s looking a bit on the erm…large side though isn’t he? Looked a bit off the pace to me. Plus O’Donnell scored the try of that weekends rugby and played brilliantly, he looks like a great player to me but then I’ve always preferred Tipuric to Warburton.
Very excited by the ire/eng game, should be fascinating.

SOB’s looking a bit on the erm…large side though isn’t he?

I think they call it “lacking match fitness” now in the pro era. 😉
Was surprised he lasted 80 minutes v France, tbh, but think that’s mostly down to the Heaslip injury. will have done him good to get 80, though.
Think Ireland will need him to bring a bit of that weight to the forward battle. Haskell, BillyV and Robshaw all carry well and hard. It’s gonna be a tough battle up front.
And can see O’Donnell making the bench and coming on for the last 20 too, maybe a little more space for him then as well.

Talking of injured players returning a differnt size – saw something about Cian Healy too. Apparently his injured leg’s quad is about 70% the circumference of the good one. Can’t find the article or pics – but it’s not good news for the Ireland scrum. Marler always seems to have the beating of Ross too, did for Quin’s again recently.
Don’t want to sound “Welsh”, but I really hope Ireland can at least hold on in the scrum this time. They need a bit of “home-side reffing” IMO, ‘cos apart from that it’s pretty evenly matched.

Should be a really interesting game. Now they’ve both got they’re WC group mates out the way I think we might see them try a few more moves.
I know I’ve slated the Henshaw / Payne centre combo before, but it’s starting to make a little more sense to me now Sexton’s back. If you’ve got JS and CM’ s kicking games at 9 and 10, why not play two extra full backs for the chase. Don’t think we’ve really seen it yet in this 6N, but I get the feeling they’ll be using Bowe, Zebo, Henshaw and Payne in the air a hell of a lot more now. Who needs centres anyway?
Johnny May’s in for an interesting game.

SOB’s looking a bit on the erm…large side though isn’t he?

Round these parts it’s called “put on a bit of timber”.

Back to the choke tackle for a moment. If you tackled that high in open play then it would be a high tackle?

Mentioned earlier as well, I’d like to see the “choke, twist, clear out” penalised as dangerous too. It’s only a matter of time before someone gets hurt properly. Especially if the defenders legs are buried and they can’t twist with the clear out.

Interesting discussion on tactics/tackles.

My problem with the choke tackle followed by the maul, other than the legality of the tackle, is that after the ref shouts ‘maul’ the defending team invariably collapse it and are awarded the scrum put-in. This should almost always be a penalty conceded for collapsing a maul.

But most of the time the defending team is tackling the ball carrier, it’s not often the ball is moved to another carrier, and they are legally allowed to tackle and bring the ball carrier to ground. It’s very rare to see a maul formed from a line out legally brought down because the ball is shipped to the back quickly.

I like the high risk defence of the line out maul where the defending team do not bind, thus making the attacking team guilty of obstruction, or “truck and trailer”

I too was surprised that SOB lasted the full 80. That was a big ask after such a long lay off. He’s a quality player though.

It’ll be interesting to see how England go in Dublin…when the pressure / expectation is on its not a nice place to go. I remember when we were humiliated there going for the grand slam. Turned out to be men against boys that day.

As much as I rate Wood, our back row does seem a bit more balanced with Haskell in some ways; it takes the pressure off Billy V to carry everything on his own. The downside is that we lose and option in the line out and Wood does a lot of nasty work that I’m not sure Haskell is do keen on. His carrying isn’t great though.

I’m a big May fan because his kind of pure pace is lethal, but I think he’s in the last chance saloon. His defence had been squiffy this 6N and he’s butchered a few clear chances. He needs to play like he did against the All Blacks in the autumn. Try advise, he was just busy that day.

I’m struggling to keep my inner pessimist in check. I’m an England supporter through and through, I’m just not sure how much faith I have in the team (coaches, players). I guess we’ve just had too many false dawns.

10 Weeks for Pape. 😀

Going back to this… the quality of flowers and chocolates must be much much worse in France than Ireland when Heaslip got only 5 weeks for his 2 knees on McCaws head which was far more blatant. 10 weeks sounds like a lot

To add a bit of “Northern” interest, looks like it’s 1 – 0 to the Aussies after St. George beat the Wolves. Fingers crossed that Wigan level the series at 1 – 1 against the Broncos followed by the Rabbitohs teaching the Saints how to play rugby.

Special interest as my lad and I are Rabbitohs fans and he is on mascot duty at Langtree Park on Sunday.

DanW – Member
10 Weeks for Pape.
Going back to this… the quality of flowers and chocolates must be much much worse in France than Ireland when Heaslip got only 5 weeks for his 2 knees on McCaws head which was far more blatant. 10 weeks sounds like a lot

I must admit that incident was going through my mind when the Pape thing first broke,and it did temper my sympathy for Heaslip somewhat.

I’m just not sure how much faith I have in the team (coaches, players). I guess we’ve just had too many false dawns.

Indeed……… 🙄