European Club Rugby
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@catogrande said in NH club rugby:
@mikethesnow said in NH club rugby:
@derm-mccrum said in NH club rugby:
The key point - not in the stuff article - is that in 2020 and 2022 - the Premiership final takes place a week earlier - funny that.
It also omits the fact that the PRO14 Championship has already said it’s willing to finish its season sooner. When it becomes the PRO16, the regular season number of games will likely reduce by another 3 weeks to 18 and then finals stage - making it 21 weeks in total.
So, the Lions tours will likely have less English players in them in the future.
May work out well for Wales actually.
If English based Wales players could miss out on a Lions tour, it may encourage more to play for Welsh regions.
Is that a big issue though? Off the top of my head, nailed on Wales first team squad members would be Francis, Faletau and Biggar, perhaps the winger from Worcester?
Liam Williams
Ans we'll see how the Leicester kid goes soon.@mikethesnow said in NH club rugby:
@catogrande said in NH club rugby:
@mikethesnow said in NH club rugby:
@derm-mccrum said in NH club rugby:
The key point - not in the stuff article - is that in 2020 and 2022 - the Premiership final takes place a week earlier - funny that.
It also omits the fact that the PRO14 Championship has already said it’s willing to finish its season sooner. When it becomes the PRO16, the regular season number of games will likely reduce by another 3 weeks to 18 and then finals stage - making it 21 weeks in total.
So, the Lions tours will likely have less English players in them in the future.
May work out well for Wales actually.
If English based Wales players could miss out on a Lions tour, it may encourage more to play for Welsh regions.
Is that a big issue though? Off the top of my head, nailed on Wales first team squad members would be Francis, Faletau and Biggar, perhaps the winger from Worcester?
Liam Williams
Ans we'll see how the Leicester kid goes soon.I'd forgotten about Williams, yeah it is mounting up I guess.
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^ The stuff article. Unsurprisingly not very well researched.
The reduction of the Lions tour from 6 weeks to 5 weeks (or 10 games to 8 games) is quite old news.
What is new news is that the English Premiership's decision here will mean that the same issue at the start of the 2017 tour (English based players unavailable for the first week of the tour and unavailable for the pre-tour camps) will occur again even though the tour is reduced and by that time the international window is moved to July.
In 2017 it meant the team was weak and unorganised for the tour operner against the semi-pros in Whangarei. But it could still be worked through and players integrated in the 2 weeks of touring before the first test.
In 2021-2033 there won't be that wriggle room.
If I was the coach I would seriously consider whether I could build a stronger squad out of the celtic nations only rather than the full 4 nations but with my preperations totally up the waazoo.
From a SANZAAR point of view. I'd like them to seriously consider withdrawing from reciprocal June/November agreements with the RFU. In an attempt to put pressure on the RFU to put pressure on EPR. I haven't thought this through, though. Obviously they'd need to do a cost/benefit analysis. Even then I'm not sure whether they would then have a legal leg to stand on as we are talking about the week before the international window for the first week of the Lions tour. Plus SANZAR aren't currently very united ......
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La Rochelle (including Victor Vito) beat a star-studded Toulon team (including Julian Savea and Malakei Fekitoa) away with Ihaia West scoring all the points for the visitors. Toulon are now 13th in the Top 14 and risk a relegation battle if they can't improve their form.
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La Rochelle (including Victor Vito) beat a star-studded Toulon team (including Julian Savea and Malakei Fekitoa) away with Ihaia West scoring all the points for the visitors. Toulon are now 13th in the Top 14 and risk a relegation battle if they can't improve their form.
@sparky said in NH club rugby:
La Rochelle (including Victor Vito) beat a star-studded Toulon team (including Julian Savea and Malakei Fekitoa) away with Ihaia West scoring all the points for the visitors. Toulon are now 13th in the Top 14 and risk a relegation battle if they can't improve their form.
Makes you wonder if providing past peak overseas players with a comfy salary and far less motivation than they used to have is such a great idea.
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@sparky said in NH club rugby:
La Rochelle (including Victor Vito) beat a star-studded Toulon team (including Julian Savea and Malakei Fekitoa) away with Ihaia West scoring all the points for the visitors. Toulon are now 13th in the Top 14 and risk a relegation battle if they can't improve their form.
Makes you wonder if providing past peak overseas players with a comfy salary and far less motivation than they used to have is such a great idea.
@crucial said in NH club rugby:
@sparky said in NH club rugby:
La Rochelle (including Victor Vito) beat a star-studded Toulon team (including Julian Savea and Malakei Fekitoa) away with Ihaia West scoring all the points for the visitors. Toulon are now 13th in the Top 14 and risk a relegation battle if they can't improve their form.
Makes you wonder if providing past peak overseas players with a comfy salary and far less motivation than they used to have is such a great idea.
Not to be snarky but its been a winning formula for a few years now, and also its not like La Rochelle is some home grown success story.
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@sparky said in NH club rugby:
La Rochelle (including Victor Vito) beat a star-studded Toulon team (including Julian Savea and Malakei Fekitoa) away with Ihaia West scoring all the points for the visitors. Toulon are now 13th in the Top 14 and risk a relegation battle if they can't improve their form.
Makes you wonder if providing past peak overseas players with a comfy salary and far less motivation than they used to have is such a great idea.
@crucial said in NH club rugby:
@sparky said in NH club rugby:
La Rochelle (including Victor Vito) beat a star-studded Toulon team (including Julian Savea and Malakei Fekitoa) away with Ihaia West scoring all the points for the visitors. Toulon are now 13th in the Top 14 and risk a relegation battle if they can't improve their form.
Makes you wonder if providing past peak overseas players with a comfy salary and far less motivation than they used to have is such a great idea.
Agree completely. Non-test players are generally much better. And in small numbers too.
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Haha just watching highlights of Zebre v Edinburgh and had to laugh at the intercept pass that Simon Hickey threw to give Zebre a try. Bought back some bad memories from his Aucklad days.
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For your amusement:- from RugbyOnslaught site -
Of course, the front rows would all be the ones involved in this.
In a match in Georgia just after halftime, the referee took exception to constant errors at the scrum from both sets of forwards. Rather than just bin one player from each side, the referee decided to send the whole front row of both teams.
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For your amusement:- from RugbyOnslaught site -
Of course, the front rows would all be the ones involved in this.
In a match in Georgia just after halftime, the referee took exception to constant errors at the scrum from both sets of forwards. Rather than just bin one player from each side, the referee decided to send the whole front row of both teams.
@daffy-jaffy said in NH club rugby:
For your amusement:- from RugbyOnslaught site -
Of course, the front rows would all be the ones involved in this.
In a match in Georgia just after halftime, the referee took exception to constant errors at the scrum from both sets of forwards. Rather than just bin one player from each side, the referee decided to send the whole front row of both teams.
Would fair ruin a game of
rugbyscrum in Georgia huh? -
I watched Clermont play on the weekend and Ice and Moala had very good games.
Ice was probably the best on the field. Clermont pretty much use him the same way the Blues use to. He has the 15 jersey on, but he's basically position-less on attack and pops up everywhere across the backline.
Fritz Lee was good as well. He always gets through a lot of work when I watch Clermont play.
TNW was playing his first game at 10, but struggled quite a bit there. He did set up a good try for Moala though.
Ngatai was playing for Lyon, but didn't get much chance to do much.
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I watched Clermont play on the weekend and Ice and Moala had very good games.
Ice was probably the best on the field. Clermont pretty much use him the same way the Blues use to. He has the 15 jersey on, but he's basically position-less on attack and pops up everywhere across the backline.
Fritz Lee was good as well. He always gets through a lot of work when I watch Clermont play.
TNW was playing his first game at 10, but struggled quite a bit there. He did set up a good try for Moala though.
Ngatai was playing for Lyon, but didn't get much chance to do much.
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Rugby World Cup winner Stephen Donald rolls back the years to touch the ball twice as part of a 65 metre try in Japan. Pretty good handling and he looks in good nick, especially considering Ulster rejected him on medical grounds.
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Wasps have dropped Lima Sopoaga to the bench for their away game to Toulouse. A relatively unheard of 22 year called Billy Searle is being picked as the Wasps 10 ahead of him. Lima has really struggled to settle in Coventry and get to grips with NH Rugby.
Kaino is playing Number 8 for Toulouse.
