Not a bad one. They lost a two key men to injury early on, and then got a Red.
A day to forget.
What sort of team did Saracens put out?
Going into this weekend, Bristol and Saracens were 2nd and 3rd in the table. The former lost 0-38 at home and the latter 68-10. Saracens had a player sent off after 15 minutes but that still doesn't justify such a hammering.
Really hard to gauge the actual quality of the league.
I could probably have asked this here before but… anyone keep a count of number of rugby games they attend in a season. Including the pro games I'm working at I'm at 74 including tomorrow's Munster games. For most seasons going back the last 10 years I nearly always gwt to 150 or so in total. Just curious to see what others might get to.
Rest in peace
Stephen Bale (rugby writer), Kevin Bowring (Wales), Alun Carter (Wales), Peter Crittle (Australia),
Ronnie Dawson (Ireland), Connor Garden-Bachop (New Zealand), Sid Going (New Zealand)
Derrick Grant (Scotland), Norm Hewitt (New Zealand), Barry John (Wales), Lewis Jones (Wales)
Ken Macaulay (Scotland), Courtenay Meredith (Wales), Lucien Mias (France), Derek Morgan (England)
Peter Morgan (Wales), Medhi Narjissi, (France U18), Tony O’Reilly (Ireland), John O’Shea (Wales)
Shayne Philpott (New Zealand), Malcolm Price (Wales), Jack Rowell (Bath/England coach)
Donald Scott (Scotland), Andrew Titheridge (commentator), Chris Wardlow (England)
JPR Williams (Wales), Tom Voyce (England).
this looked fun.
https://www.reddit.com/r/rugbyunion/comments/1hinueu/sacha_and_libbok_keeping_it_up/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
From the Guardian / Irish Times
English Premiership rugby clubs who “have been teetering on the edge” are set to come under further scrutiny by the British government over the repayments of their £124 million Covid bailout loans.
A report by the UK’s National Audit Office details how the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) awarded 26 per cent of its £474 million loans to Premiership clubs, including £41.6 million to Worcester, Wasps and London Irish, who have all since gone bust. According to the report, they are three of nine borrowers who in total received £46.1 million and their collective demises mean the DCMS does not expect to recover up to £29 million in loans awarded.
The chair of the committee of public accounts Geoffrey Clifton-Brown said: “The government stepped in to lend just shy of half a billion pounds to the sports and culture sectors during the pandemic, saving many organisations from near-certain failure.
“Although progress has been made in recovering initial repayments, it is concerning that up to £29 million of taxpayer money could be lost from borrowers who have since gone under. DCMS should continue to keep a close eye on English rugby union clubs that have been teetering on the edge. Given the public money at stake, the department has more to do to show it has a long-term plan for managing and recovering loans across the sectors.”
A Premiership Rugby spokesperson said: “Since the pandemic the clubs and Premiership Rugby have worked hard to move back into a period of growth and stability, which is well under way. Premiership Rugby strengthened its financial regulation and governance with the formation of an independent Financial Monitoring Panel, which was set up with the help of former government and financial advisers. Our clubs are fully committed to repaying all taxpayer money and we continue to work closely with DCMS, for whom we are thankful for their ongoing support.”
The ref himself on Sunday night hadn't a clue what he was seeing or 'rewarding', so I have huge sympathies for the casual fan watching trying to make sense of it.
Leinster & Ireland are almost never; going back a long time now and against lots of big scrummaging teams, dominated in the scrums. That is - rarely are we getting driven backwards etc. It tends moreso to be refs taking a view on technical infringements from our props at the point of engagement.
That has to be a coaching issue at some point for Leinster & McBryde to resolve (and for the props themselves to work through).
Haven't checked this again, but think (with advantage being called more often) there are now fewer scrums, but that the playing time taken up by scrums has increased. IE: Fewer but slower scrums / reset scrums. To an largely partisan audience who can't follow the Refs signals this quickly (& repeatedly) produces tedium.
Two of the last games I watched - Ireland v Australia and Leinster v Bristol both had atmospheres severely damaged by long, ponderous periods waiting for scrum resets.
Brusset completely lost the plot on Sunday with the scrum, but remember an early spell in the Aus game too where it took an age to get the game going again, while the atmosphere just dissipated away in the meantime.
Rugby as entertainment ?. Who'd have believed that TV would ultimately determine how the game is presented ?.🙄
This is absolutely fascinating. Korean reality show based on rugby.
What is particularly interesting is there is a huge focus on the scrum in the first episode. When people complain about too many scrums ruining the game I think they sometimes fundamentally misunderstood the sport.
Terrible news.RIP
Awful news coming from England.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c7859539x9vo
Police fear former England rugby international Tom Voyce has died after he went missing in an area of Northumberland which was flooded during Storm Darragh.
I'll have a look at that. He's a 'Joe type' prop.
Yeah, it's always kind of baffled me. I look at guys like Stephen Perofeta (i know he can cover 10 too) getting a decent amount of gametime for the ABs this season, and for me, guys like Shaun Stevenson and Ruben Love are way superior players.
It's a shame he wasn't given more of a chance with the AB's, especially when they're selecting players like Sevu Reece.
I think that's the intention. The Planet Rugby article I read suggested that was the plan.
Could Ross feature at loosehead for Oz v The Lions ?
Shaun Stevenson has left the Chiefs (and NZRFU) with immediate effect. He's gone to Japan to play for the Kubota Spears.
Would imagine he's firmly on the radar of all European teams who are in the market.
Aidan Ross leaving too - apparently to go to Queensland Reds, as he'll be eligible for the Aussies from next year.
Speaking of ongoing trials, Chris Farrell, Denis Coulson and co are finally in court this week, 7 years on from their involvement in that (alleged) gang rape in Grenoble. Two of the five have been playing rugby every week since the event.
Drop Him hopefully. His form has been crap.
A 2nd conviction would make him a 'must have' signing for them.
He's probably made himself unemployable in NZ.
This case was ongoing from November last year, not sure if there was any period of stand down for him. Tbh NRZU don't seem to give much care to this kind of stuff
They'll send him to Montpellier
Pishing away his career, and life. Will the NZRU send him to counselling, or just drop him ?.
I can't rouse myself to give a single solitary shiny shyte about the old logo or the new one.
In 10 years time they'll redesign it again and people will defend this one agaisnt the new one and forget they ever hated it.
Sevu Reece a bold boy again….
https://www.planetrugby.com/news/all-blacks-sevu-reece-avoids-conviction-after-drunken-car-crash-in-christchurch
The idea that somebody got paid to 'design' that is deeply distressing (unless of course it was designed by a primary school class).
Come on now. It's a modern classic, with warmth and optimism, the feel of pressed metal, and a refined bevel. What's not to love? 🙄
