Rugby Union 2013-14

[PGW]

What is happening to Leicester of late 17-27 at home to Bath.

[PGW]

Fair play to Tiger to come back to earn a 27 each draw.....but missed two conversions to have actually won it.

[paul_e]

Finished 27-27, fantastic game.

What's happening to Tigers is, simply, they're not that great any more.

Bath do have a hell of good side when they're on the front foot though.  Leicester got back into today by doing what Saints did last week which was to draw Baths centres into the tight.  Bath's weakness is that they don't have a mobile enough back row.  If you can pin their backs in at the ruck you can get round the back pretty easily, Leicester did it twice today, saints did it 5 times last week, they need to replace Fearns and Garvey with some more modern back row players who get around the pitch better.

[PaulWinch again]

Glad to see Ford is now in the squad, I think Burns is pretty lucky to retain his place.

[PaulWinch again]

Also Eastmond being in instead of Tomkins is good.

[paul_e]

Glad to see Ford is now in the squad, I think Burns is pretty lucky to retain his place.

He hasn't, he's still in the EPS squad because he's contracted but he's dropped out of the 6N squad.

I really happy with the squad they've picked I just hope he shows some common sense and gives Burrell, Eastmond, Nowell and Watson the game time they deserve, those 4 are the future of our backline and need to play ahead of the likes of Ashton, Goode and Barritt who are all functional but uninspiring options.

The only forward I'd question is Ed Slater, I'd have promoted Robson myself but 4th choice Lock isn't a position I'd lose sleep over.

[PaulWinch again]

Little annoyed to see Goode in the 6 nations squad as opposed to Foden. I'm hoping he's 3rd choice behind Watson.

[paul_e]

Little annoyed to see Goode in the 6 nations squad as opposed to Foden. I'm hoping he's 3rd choice behind Watson.

Foden is out until at least the 3rd game so there's no great problem with this, I'm happy with Goode as a more experienced option, I think Watson will go on to be one of the best back 3 players in the world but he's only played 19 games so we need to have a bit of caution with him.  So long as May, Watson and Nowell all get some game time I'll be happy, we have 18/19 games before we need to finalise the rwc squad, so we've got a lot of time to see these kids and today shows that the England management are looking at them to be part of our world cup plans.

[paul_e]

Good weekend so far, lots of interesting games.  Glaws were much better yesterday.  They didn't have enough to see off munster (to an extent this was because the ref did the usual thing and allowed Munster to kill it at the breakdown, I have no idea why they continually get away with that) but they showed they've got a bit more fight in them.

Today saw an abysmal first half in the ospreys-saints game but then a really good second half.  I found it quite amusing that, with Saints comfortably in the lead and totally deserving of the win the Welsh commentator picked out an Ospreys player and the only Welsh saints player to discuss man of the match.  The real answer to that question was Dylan Hartley, who is having a truly superb season but the non-English commentators have refused to acknowledge him all season.  His defending to hold the Osprey Fullback on his back over the line and stop a try was an exceptional bit of defending that capped a great performance.  I do however agree that George North was exceptional today, his try was a genuine worldy (to quote a football term).

[lovejoy]

I had to watch the Gloucester game on mute as the sky commentary was as biased as I've ever heard outside South America.

[paul_e]

I agree, the commentary on BT is far better, on Sky when it's an English team against Welsh, Scottish or Irish opposition you always get a English commentator who's trying to prove he can be impartial alongside an Irish/Welsh/Scot who's not bothering so you get a horribly skewed view of things.  Munster in particular have benefited from that consistently over the years, nearly as often as they're allowed to kill the ball at the breakdown by refs turning a blind eye.

There was a fantastic example yesterday where glaws caught at the line out and went for the line, Munster tried the choke tackle but they went down and then after a few seconds the ref gave them the scrum but only after telling the glaws SH that the ball was there and to use it.  which if tried to do but the ball wouldn't come out.  A few points on it:

Glaws were advancing after the choke tackle was attempted, making it a maul, which Munster collapsed (penalty and arguably a penalty try).
After it collapsed no attempt was made by any Munster player to roll away (penalty, maybe a yellow card - see Jimmy Cowan the week before).
After the ball came to the top, with Glaws 2 yards from the line the SH tried to play it but the ball wasn't coming free, his own players won't have been holding it in so that was almost certainly a Munster player playing the ball on the floor (penalty, maybe a yellow card - see Billy Vunipola the week before).

So 3 penalty offenses and potentially 2 of them leading to yellow cards and somehow the ref saw nothing wrong.  The choke, collapse if they start to go back and hold the ball in tactic is a particular favourite of Munster and I have no idea why no ref is willing to act on it.  I used to use choe tackles all the time because at lower standard you can turn the guy your way and let one of your team strip the ball but I'd never have got away with collapsing it if it didn't go to plan.

[cheltenhamlion]

You know more about rugby than me. Their game killing was driving me to a very sweary distraction Saturday though.

They would likely still have won but the ref fucked me off no end.

[lovejoy]

It's no surprise. ERC and Sky make money the further Munster go with all the hullabaloo that surrounds them. Whether directly or inferred, the preference the refs have for them is a natural progression from this. The fact a Celtic league team gets a Celtic team ref who they see week in week out again shows the natural bias of the organisers to Munster.

[paul_e]

You know more about rugby than me. Their game killing was driving me to a very sweary distraction Saturday though.

They would likely still have won but the ref fucked me off no end.

I can't remember watching Munster play a HC game and not having that feeling, they've been doing the same shit for a decade and never ben picked up on it.  It's one of a very small number of things that really pisses me off with professional rugby (it ranks just behind the fact that Richie McCaw has an entry in the rules of the game stating that he doesn't have to let go of the man after a tackle, doesn't have to be on his feet and doesn't have to enter a ruck through the gate).

As far as I'm concerned Munster are the Man Utd of rugby with half the refs in their pocket and when they lose that protection they'll be as badly shown up as United are being this year.

[cheltenhamlion]

Be interesting to see who Gloucester bring in to replace Burns.