Heineken & Amlin Cup 2012/13 General Discussion

ray jay

Clermont Auvergne

Impressive stuff from Harlequins, best match of the day.

cgpg5

Clermont Auvergne

Outstanding second half from Quins. Not looking good for Connacht next week. Very complete performance

Agree with Greenwood they'll be one of top two seeds. Should get a bonus in basically every game now bar Biarritz away and maybe sportsground but wouldn't put that past them

shuffol

Northampton 0 Glasgow 10
25 mins gone

Castre

Northhampton 0 - 15 Glasgow with conversion to come.

Come on you weeeegies

Taco Corp

Castre

Glasgow 2 tries up now. Lamont beats 4 saints player for his. 15-0 con missed

cgpg5

Clermont Auvergne

See Dom Waldock lining out for Saints, burst on the scene about 5 years ago now, would've bet my house he'd be an England regular at this point

Taco Corp

Castre

Big 10 minutes for Northampton 12-15 ht

Quint2010

Munster

Cardiff leading Sale 24-12 at HT away from home.

danthefan

Clermont Auvergne

Sale seem to be a right shambles this season.

cgpg5

Clermont Auvergne

Sale having an absolute mare of a season and that's continuing here..

Cipriani not even starting!

Oh what a player he could have been

Fishooks12

Glasgow Warriors

Good god I hate Northampton

Glass Prison 1214

Connacht

Fishooks12 wrote: »

Good god I hate Northampton

especially hartley

.ak

Feck. C'mon Glasgow.... 10 minutes left to conjure something up.

irishbucsfan

Munster

Northampton aren't nearly as good as they could be. Some really dodgy players mixed up with some truly brilliant ones.

Fishooks12

Glasgow Warriors

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Northampton aren't nearly as good as they could be. Some really dodgy players mixed up with some truly brilliant ones.

I'd expect Ulster to beat them home and away tbh

In fact, I have a feeling Ulster could go one better this year

.ak

Stupid decision by Glasgow to kick it at the end. I think they could've rumbled on and tried a drop goal, they are making decent ground.

irishbucsfan

Munster

It'll be a tough task in Franklins Gardens (or Milton Keynes?). I'd hope Ulster can handle it though.

Northampton though are a good NIQ scrum half and a good 10 away from being a completely different animal.

Sale somehow won that other game?! Jesus Christ. Cardiff should be ashamed, Sale are useless this season.

Quint2010

Munster

Tony Buckley scored the winner for Sale. That's him back in the Ireland squad!

Castre

Tony Buckley...

Fishooks12

Glasgow Warriors

irishbucsfan wrote: »

It'll be a tough task in Franklins Gardens (or Milton Keynes?). I'd hope Ulster can handle it though.

Northampton though are a good NIQ scrum half and a good 10 away from being a completely different animal.

Sale somehow won that other game?! Jesus Christ. Cardiff should be ashamed, Sale are useless this season.

Did Cipriani come on?

.ak

Wow, Sale sneak it in the end...

leonard7

Connacht

looks like cipriani orchestrated sales victory

Fishooks12

Glasgow Warriors

Big Tony Buckley with the try at the death apparently

Delighted for him!

irishbucsfan

Munster

Ive been looking forward to this all weekend. Deserves some blurb.

planetrugby wrote:

Toulouse: 15 Clement Poitrenaud, 14 Vincent Clerc, 13 Florian Fritz, 12 Gael Fickou, 11 Yoann Huget, 10 Luke McAlister, 9 Jean Marc Doussain, 8 Louis Picamoles, 7 Thierry Dusautoir, 6 Yannick Nyanga, 5 Yoann Maestri, 4 Romain Millo Chlusky, 3 Census Johnston, 2 Gary Botha, 1 Gurthro Steenkamp.
Replacements: 16 Christopher Tolofua, 17 Jean Batiste Poux, 18 Antoine Guillamon, 19 Patricio Albacete, 20 Jean Bouilhou, 21 Yannick Jauzion, 22 Luke Burgess, 23 Timoci Matanavou.

Leicester: 15 Scott Hamilton, 14 Niall Morris, 13 Manu Tuilagi, 12 Anthony Allen, 11 Vereniki Goneva, 10 Toby Flood, 9 Ben Youngs, 8 Jordan Crane, 7 Thomas Waldrom, 6 Steve Mafi, 5 Geoff Parling, 4 Graham Kitchener, 3 Dan Cole, 2 Tom Youngs, 1 Logovi'i Mulipola.
Replacements:16 George Chuter, 17 Marcos Ayerza, 18 Martin Castrogiovanni, 19 Ed Slater, 20 Richard Thorpe, 21 Sam Harrison, 22 George Ford, 23 Matt Smith.

Date: Sunday, October 14
Kick-off: 16:00 local (15:00 BST)
Venue: Stadium de Toulouse
Referee: Nigel Owens (Wales)
Assistant referees: Sean Brickell (Wales), Jon Mason (Wales)
Television match official: Derek Bevan (Wales)
Timekeeper: Bernard Perez
Assessor: Patrick Thomas (France)
Citing commissioner: Denis Templeton (Ireland)

Two reeling giants go head to head in the south of France.

This is the game of the weekend. Leicester are not the team they were 5 years ago. They are still brilliantly coached, they still operate in fantastic facilities and they are still a collection of some of the best individually talented players around. What they lack are the intangibles: The unparalleled leadership of Martin Johnson, the incredible nuance of Neil Back, even the magic of Geordan Murphy is gone now. Most of all the collective spirit, they were such a close-knit bunch. All of it has gone and none of it has been replaced. I have a friend who played there in the good days and the stories are simply incredible. They were one of the best sides in the history of the competition. This side isn't on that level.

Lucky for them, Toulouse aren't quite at their peak either. They're still a fantastic side made up of some real superstars, but they just seem to be off the boil. That's what makes this game so interesting. Noves is one of the most successful coaches in recent history but questions are being raised about him this season, as incredible as that is. This machine is just not performing up to the sum of its parts.

Leicester will need to keep the ball away from the Toulouse backs and they will need to be unbelievably aggressive and hard worming when they lose it. Allow this Toulouse side to have decent quality ball and they will smash you out wide. Niall Morris might be a great prospect for Irish rugby, but Huget and Clerc will be relishing the opportunity to get a chance to run at him. Toulouse need to spend 20 minutes moving the ball coast to coast so they can work down the Leicester pack. Then they need to get tries on the board. Once there's 15 points in this game it'll be beyond Leicester, but that's a lot easier said than done.

Hard to predict this one. I think Toulouse will win but it's hard to predict the manner in which that win will come. I think it'll be close, but Toulouse will pull away at the end and win by 7-14 points.

.ak

Now THAT is a team intro tune. None of this Welcome to the Jungle crap.... Anyone know what that is? Sounds like Justice...

cgpg5

Clermont Auvergne

irishbucsfan wrote: »

It'll be a tough task in Franklins Gardens (or Milton Keynes?). I'd hope Ulster can handle it though.

Northampton though are a good NIQ scrum half and a good 10 away from being a completely different animal.

Sale somehow won that other game?! Jesus Christ. Cardiff should be ashamed, Sale are useless this season.

This.

Myler is a very, very poor player imo and how Dickson made the England team in the six nations this year is laughable in the extreme.

Lucky for England they now have 3 scrum halves who are way ahead of Dickson (I assume Care is in the reckoning again?)

Like said above, I also think Ulster will beat Saints home and away but the latter's domestic form has been brilliant. Front 5 are immense! Foden is a loss though at 15

Also how on earth did Cardiff blow it v Sale? Cruising at half time against a team who couldn't buy a win all season. If Cipriani did make a difference then that's a first. he has been woeful all year.

Toulon will win that group pulling up. What a soft draw

irishbucsfan

Munster

Picamoles unlucky there, the ball was out.

Although there was clear hands on the deck fro. Toulouse to knock the ball out in the first place. So maybe justice was done.

irishbucsfan

Munster

Haha Dan Cole you fool!

irishbucsfan

Munster

Haha Nigel Owens is so good at dealing with moaners.

duckysauce

Connacht

sweet try