The image editor posts hopefully
Scotland vs Italy
Previously the wooden spoon fixture, these teams have made some recent progress but the Italians are definite underdogs here. Italy have made 4 changes and given a dayboo to Simone Gesi on the wing. However, they lack Capowuoouuzzzo at full back so, whilst they look fairly settled, they don’t have much in the way of X factor.
Scotland have made 5 changes including leaving out Finn and Hoggy so, while I predict a win, the margin will be smaller without them. Also, given they have lost their last 2 games, they will be motivated to end in style (same could be said for Italy tbh).
Scotland have a better pack and cooler heads. Against Wales, Italy played like headless chickens for much of the game and gave Wales some points either by coughing up the ball in their half or failing to execute the basics. Scotland will be patient and gradually rack up a decent win.
Head-to-head Planet Rugby says that Scotland have won the last 8 fixtures but this only goes back to 2017 and I haven’t dug further. It would take a miracle or a card for Italy to win and it won’t happen this weekend as Scotland get their 9th (or more) win in a row.
30 – 10 to Scotland.
France vs Wales
France, France, France. Until last weekend many people said they had been underwhelming despite only losing in Dublin. That all changed when they swaggered into Twickenham and put 50 on some boys Borthwick had found. They said they could play rugby, double promise, cross their hearts – but they couldn’t.
To be fair, that was the best performance I’ve seen from a team against the English since the dastardly Saffas won the 2019 RWC. Maybe even better. Every time Dupont kicked the ball into space it opened up the back line and a French player waltzed over the line about 10 seconds later. Their defence was aggressive, their ruck speed brutal and every carry seemed to gain at least 3 Robshaws. But most impressive was how clinical they were. I can’t remember a scoring chance being wasted.
Wales on the other hand were solid last weekend but otherwise haven’t set this tournament on fire. They still drag around the reanimated corpse of AWJ but have some new talent including a footballer on the wing. How there isn’t a better 13 in Wales than George North I’ll never know.
There is a ‘last hurrah’ feel to this team but rather a white orc filled Dad’s army willing its way to victory, this feels like a Clive Woodward selected Lions team. If Clive Woodward had coached Wa…. You know what I mean! France to make it 5 in a row against the men in red.
50 – 12 to France
Ireland vs England
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
60 – 8 to Ireland (*starts crying*)
Laughing and crying by Craigsman
Onna telly this week
Friday 17th March
| Bulls v Western Province | 17:00 | Sky Sports Arena |
Saturday 18th March
| Scotland v Italy | 12:30 | BBC1 / RTÉ2 |
| France v Wales | 14:45 | ITV1 / S4C |
| Ireland v England | 17:00 | ITV1 |
Sunday 19th March
| Scotland v Italy (U20s) | 14:00 | BBC iPlayer |
| London Irish v Exeter | 14:00 | BT Sport 1 |
| Ireland v England (U20s) | 17:00 | BBC iPlayer |
| France v Wales (U20s) | 20:00 | BBC iPlayer / S4C |
Ovally Balls 
he awarded a penalty to Stormers which was exactly the same as one I thought he got wrong in the first half against them
While not being wild about this – you can work with the consistency….
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I re-watched the Exeter/Stormers game…………….
The first half was the best I have ever seen Exeter play: fast, accurate, lots of re-cycling and error free with very little kicking. Some of those players knew they would never play another home game and the group ethic was clear to see.
Key to the first half were: Becconsall at 9 – very quick and accurate delivery; Jo Simmonds at 10 – back to his R-R smooth best. With those two on song the forwards could all do their thing and the backs could attack with confidence.
I don’t think many SA teams will have faced an opponent playing like that and Stormers’ forward strength was almost completely negated.
I don’t really buy the travel argument 100% – these are fit lads and all the necessary facilities are available at airports and destinations. I do think it is harder for national sides than clubs.
Also, Exeter played over 110 hard minutes the previous w/end.
Unfortunately, they will struggle against LA – even though they have beaten them twice. The current iteration will mash them at scrum and breakdown.
Get off to a flyer again and who knows, ……………………………….. semi-finals are always a bit weird……..
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Slade, Sam Simmonds looks like he has bulked up a bit. Is that correct ? He looked in good form, personally, I would look at him for a run at 8 for England. Billy is a busted flush, and also possibly broken again, and whilst I really like Dombrandt as a player, he hasn’t really performed at International level so far, and they are the options for the world cup if you want an 8 at 8.
Interesting that the comms on the Saracens game yesterday kept pointing out that Glaws had given La Rochelle loads of trouble by going wide early the week before, and Sarries kept trying to break thru the middle without success. The obvious conclusion to draw here is that Billy Twelvetrees should be recalled to the England side as a ten in place of Faz :)
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36? huge heart but not there really……………………
Sam Simmonds is an unusual kind of 8 ……… I love him as a player but I think you may see him struggle against LA.
Exeter know how to use him but it’s more difficult(?) for England to accommodate him .
Montpelier will learn to adore him.
Dombrandt is a more typical and dare I say cerebral no.8. Unfortunately he seems to lack a mean edge which is a pity as he reads the game really well.
There may be a bolter for England 8 but I don’t know who.
Too many England qualified big lads look too lardy compared with their opponents – why? Are they trying to peak for the W Cup and not before?
I thought Exeter players looked very, very fit at the weekend.
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We were talking a week or two OK about UK energy generation and OT produced a Twitter bot, and I wondered if there were an Irish version …..
Lo and behold …!
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You have to draw the conclusion that there is a lot of wind in Ireland :)
Is there a comparison of useage per head of population ? Is industry a major factor in UK ? Strikes me that is quite a good figure.
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We’re getting there with wind – not that any new windfarm isn’t met with nimbyism….
Never going to be 100%.
Truthfully, one nuclear station would do the whole island and have plenty to export, but its a non-runner (look up Carnsore Point in 80s …I think)
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Back from a wonderful weekend at the coast. Was a brilliant Easter, spoiled only by the rugby results – a very chastening weekend for South African rugby and the lack of sufficient depth to compete in two major competitions. No idea really what the solution is, other than trying to bring back some of the bigger names that have gone on money sabbaticals in Europe and Japan. But we don’t have the finance to do that and won’t in the short term at least. I don’t know if our entry into Europe will mean more money for our franchises, although the travel costs will eat a lot of that up, but we need to have more in the tank.
Franco Smith said pretty much this after Glasgow saw off the Lions this weekend. He reckons getting 80% of the side together is pretty easy – 6 months to a year, but building the next 20% to a standard that is seamless (like Leinster) is where the real trick is. The Sharks and Stormers are well stocked with Boks and near-Boks in their starting sides (or even matchday squads), but there is a big drop in quality in most positions if you look at the next 23 or ‘B’ squad. The Bulls and Lions don’t even have that star quality in their ‘A’ squads, so getting anywhere on two fronts is quite an achievement. Looking at Lions, they’ve lost Kwagga Smith, Malcolm Marx, Franco Mostert and Ruan Ackerman to overseas contracts in the last few seasons, as well as a couple more to domestic poaching, without being able to replace them with similar quality. Those are big gaps to fill!
Anyway, it’s not just about our problems here – Exeter and Toulouse were both superb from the highlights I’ve seen, and maybe our sides would have been tonked anyway! What I am pleased about, is that as we settle into European rugby, our guys should develop better all-court rugby and get used to playing in NH winter conditions, which will only benefit them in the longer run.
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Kitson going all in, looking for clicks after the Easter weekend. Lovely bun fight developing! Basically rubbishing Richard Wigglesworth’s comments that Leicester can’t compete with the likes of Leinster because of money. From what I’ve seen BTL (and with no idea of the numbers), it seems that French clubs have the biggest budgets at around £10m a year, which is about 40% more than English clubs and about double the Scots, Welsh and Italian clubs. Leinster apparently somewhere between £6.5m and £7m a year. It’s more than three times what the SA clubs have available (ZAR60m a year cap, which is between £2.7m and £3m a year) , and they’re now juggling URC, Heinie (or baby Heinie) and Currie Cup back home. I think we’re winners just for reaching the knockout stages, heroes that we are.
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@trisk
Just took a look at the Irish energy bot. Quite interesting but a bit frustrating that they simply record wind and “other” as it doesn’t really let you know what is going on. I expect they must import from the UK (particularly as it is for the entire island, not just Eire).
The other thing I noticed just flicking through the data is how massively volatile the wind fraction is. On the 2nd Jan it went from about 10% to around 92% in a single day which creates big stability problems. It’d concern me if I was considering putting a manufacturing plant into Ireland, for example.
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Stockdale and Cooney resign for Ulster in Thaum pleasing news.
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re-sign ?
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OT – how did Germany do it? Europe’s largest manufacturing economy was driving renewables at a hell of a rate until Putain decided to invade Ukraine and bugger up the equation. Or was gas the baseload and likely to remain that for the foreseeable future?
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Apparently despite restarting the coal-fired plants in Germany last year, they still increased the share of renewables to 46% of power production last year. That’s pretty impressive for a highly industrialised country. So, from my wafer-thin knowledge, as long as you have a solid baseload, you can, with proper planning, storage and user-management, start blending your power sources to reduce the need for total fossil-fuel or nuclear baseload?
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Nice typo there Deebee, for Putin.
Germany was mostly using gas for its electricity. Still are. Sould remain so, unless they turn to nuclear which is very unlikely.
Besides hydro-electricity, renewables suffer from their inconsistency.
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@deebee
Don’t forget Germany is at a much more southerly latitude so they can use a lot more solar. That certainly has drawbacks but I seem to recall it was very sunny last year (apparently Germany had a record number of hours of sunshine, I just looked it up). If Germany has been like the UK this year it’s solar energy output will be diddly squat so far.
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PS Don’t forget any increase in wind or solar capacity needs to be backed up by an increase in capacity elsewhere to maintain grid stability. A sudden drop in sunshine or wind speed can’t be backed up by coal or nuclear (as they take a long time to power up) and the only viable option at the moment is some kind of gas turbine plant because they can be designed to be turned off and on* at will. So an increase in solar and/or wind means an increase in gas power capacity.
*
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SBT
Stockdale and Cooney resign for Ulster in Thaum pleasing news.
You nearly gave me a heart attack there! Glad you corrected it immediately.
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Flair, typo at a stretch.
OT – interesting, sun and wind are abundant down here, but battery storage is expensive for us, so a bit of a dilemma. As technology improves I suppose costs will drop and efficiencies increase to make an increasingly compelling case for renewables, but I don’t see fossil fuels exiting stage left for a couple of decades yet.
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Fossil fuels kill blog!
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Actually, more like Ulster players re-signing that did it. Boo!
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Ginsters to retire at the end of the season. I feel obliged to post this.
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I can’t see past nuclear long term tbh. I know we can meet current needs with renewables and they are definitely part of the equation but we should be building nuclear power plants imo.
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Leinster apparently somewhere between £6.5m and £7m a year
IRFU spend around 55M on “professional rugby” – now that includes coaching, etc – but it’s reckoned Leinster’s player budget is around €10-12M – which would be bigger than that GBP number quoted.
What isn’t reckoned on here is that there’s awhole ecosystem of fee-paying schools in SoCoDu (South County Dublin) – Blackrock, St Michael’s etc with full time DoRs, coaches, top quality pitches, s&c programs – turning out almost fully fledged “professional” players at no cost to IRFU or Leinster (look at the U20 6N results – we pulverised Scotland and after a nasty early shock overpowered Wales too). There was a time when the Irish age grades were overpowered by English and French teams – now we’re doing the overpowering
The other thing is that central contracts – of which Leinster have 7 and will rise to 9 (I think with Sheehan, VdF) also relieve Leinster – so they can afford to pay “depth” players more, and/or have more of them…..
Now, they are playing a very good hand very well – but you’d think they were plucky underdogs
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@craigs
I can almost hear FD now shouting “hands in the ruck!”
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OT – Genia knocked it on. That’s what I saw.
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Willis will stay at Toulouse which rules him out of the RWC. I think he will achieve great things there but you have to wonder why he doesn’t want to play for England. Maybe he cynically thinks that this cycle is fucked and we have no chance or (more likely) there is something else.
It’s so frustrating to watch the mismanagement of English rugby players and clubs recently.
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Trisk – I’ve said this before but I am very jealous of the Irish rugby set up.
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Best bit of news in ages:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/apr/12/first-wild-beaver-in-wales-in-400-years-caught-felling-trees-in-garden
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Ages being 400 years.
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@craigs
I think being in the England set up is a nasty place to be, going back years. Look at how Andy Farrell got dumped and then refused to go back. Sean Edwards also turned them down (I think). Andy Robinson was very bitter I seem to remember, as was Stuart Lancaster. I also think a glimpse into that world was enough to convince Sam Burgess he was better off back in NRL (although that entire episode is probably a case study in itself). Plus the recent EJ saga seems to only add to this.
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“you have to wonder why he doesn’t want to play for England”
I thought he found himself unemployed due to his club going bust and got an opportunity to get back into work straight away at arguably the best club in Europe who can presumably pay him more than anyone back home, most of whom can’t be relied upon not to go bust in the same way as his previous employers did. He even gets to live and work in a great part of the world, staying seems like a pretty obvious choice.
He might even get to play for England if so many players go that England relent and start picking them regardless though on that front I suspect fewer will be going than some people discussing it on the Guardian site seem to think. French clubs aren’t going to want everybody and there’s only really there and Japan as steps up on the money front. There will also presumably be competition from the non-English players the English clubs used to sign who will also be hoping to go to France now so definitely no room for all that many.
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OT – It’s been shit forever. For coaches and for players. You need more than money and now that seems to be in short supply. I wouldn’t be surprised if Borthers didn’t last. We need a change.
Hold the blazers accountable (fire them into the sun), central contracts for English squad players (and a game time limit), investment at school level and a drive to promote the game beyond private schools just off the top of my head.
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Cmw – I get that. But he could walk into many clubs in the prem. It’s disappointing.
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I keep toying with a regional approach but think that removing the salary cap but mandating a certain number of English players for each match would certainly help. A la France.
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@craigs
It’s been the fault of the Blazers forever as well. It was their fault that the game of RL was created back in the 19th Century, for example. SCW had to pay for a decent hotel for the team out of his own pocket. The players used to fly cattle class while the top brass flew first class. Bunch of nobheads
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OT – ha! Every time something has happened (2015 RWC for example) a blazer has ‘supervised’ a ‘review’ of the game. But it’s never their fault it’s fucked.
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Is it that fucked or are the English clubs just having to accept that they’re going to be more on a par with most other countries than they’re used to in terms of competing for talent?
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Cmw – it’s fucked that we aren’t making the most out of our resources and player pool and that players in their prime are choosing to not stay in England to play for England.
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The last few years it has looked to me like you have loads of players of a similar good/very good but not necessarily ‘great’ level and lack a bit in standout individuals. If a few players go to France (and it will only be a few relative to the large number of players you have) I don’t see the replacements being much different.
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@cmw
I think if you’re Ireland coach (for example) you have the freedom to pick your own squad and develop players in the right way. For example I am pretty sure Jonny Sexton wasn’t always as highly regarded as he became but they stuck with him and he turned into the top class player we now remember.
I get the impression that the England coach is under a lot of pressure from the RFU and so ends up chopping and changing more. Remember Sam Burgess – at the time the story was Lancaster was a weak head coach and was being bullied by that thicko Andy Farrell who wanted to bring his mate in to play alongside his son. It’s clear that wasn’t the case but the only explanation I can think of is that Lancaster was under pressure from someone to play Burgess when he clearly wasn’t ready. And I reckon that interference must be constant. Then there’s EJ, another debate entirely
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@OT – I think Sexton was very highly rated for quite a while before he was the regular starter as they kept picking O’Gara for a while after he was past his best (he got far more caps than he should have really in my opinion as I have sympathy with Humphries’ supporters from the other end of his career too).
I guess the vast amount of money spent on Sam Burgess created pressure to play him and they seem to have enticed him across on the basis he would get to play in the World Cup when it was already too late in the cycle for that to be realistic.
I think the England coach is generally under much more pressure to chop and change because you have far more players, a higher profile one-country league and a bigger media carry on. Obviously the flip side of that is that having far more players really is a good thing as if you get a coach who makes the right choices and has the confidence to stick with them then you’re more likely to have a better team. It also means that you almost never get thrashed as you can always put a team of something like the right level (and largely made up of players who are used to some sort of success) on the pitch – it’s what made this year’s France game something of a special case.
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The special case being that it was an absolutely fantastic performance from France more than England being so terrible that these things can be expected to happen – it’s not like you’re in the same shoes as Scotland/Wales/Ireland have been in at various times over the last 30-odd years when we’ve copped regular proper hidings and not been surprised.
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Craigs, I think Willis, although playing for Toulouse, can play for England in the RWC as a special exemption, as his former club went bust.
Not sure he will be able to play for England later on, though.
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Cmw – why don’t we produce exceptional players as regularly as Ireland, France, SA or NZ? There’s something missing and I’m fairly convinced that it’s organisational. We are slow to adapt to rule changes (see the breakdown issues from a few years back) and there doesn’t see to be a pathway to make good players excellent for England.
And the one country league is exciting within the league but ultimately uncompetitive outside. And when a club does bend the rules (and actually looks after it’s players long term interests nd thereby creates a nurturing culture) it gets beaten down and the national team suffers. There are so many more constructive ways to have managed the last few years.
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@craigs
When Nick Abendanon and Steffon Armitage went to France they suddenly became exceptional. Before that they weren’t even considered international class.
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Before his breakthrough with Leinster, Sexton had been on the verge of getting cut.
2009 Leinster get through Heino QF vs Quins in what is now known as Blood Gate.
Semi at Croke Park – Contepomi got injured early vs Munster (holders – who had demolished Ospreys 43-9 in QF). Sexton comes on – Leinster vanquish old enemy in style (and haven’t lost that lead since)
Roll on Heineken Cup final – Leinster dog out a win….. and in the autumn Sexton scores 5 from 5 in the fog vs SA.
Even then, Deccie preferred O’Gara at 10 and had Sexton at 12 for sometime after.
My understanding is that somewhere in all these – the Sexton we have seen emerged from a talented but not driven individual … the driven bit came later like late life convert….
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@OT
Lancaster was clearly under pressure (from somewhere) to play Burgess – he was too high profile a convert to ignore (even as CMW says it was realistically too late). Playing him at 12 when Bath played him at 6 rang all sorts of alarm bells surely.
My memory of the England/Wales match is hazy – but I recall Wales stayed close due to England giving away daft pens – the try (after Burgess went off) seem to shock England and all decision making went out the window thereafter.
Lancaster is obviously better suited to the “Senior Coach” role he has at Leinster – let Leo be the public face. (also Leinster CEO Dawson was in place for 20-odd years and had a lot of input as well)
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I think the England coach is generally under much more pressure to chop and change because you have far more players
Absolutely, at times in Ireland John Hayes (for example) he played 80 mins of tests because no one else came close to the standard required, and we’d overlooked Mike Ross.
Upside of that is you have to stick with “the guy” – the merry -go-round with Farrell, Smith, Ford probably only happens in France otherwise (yeah, we have a merry-go-round for the #2 slot at 10 – but Sexton while able to run is #1)
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@OT
I think Abendanon is still playing away in ProD2 for Vannes….
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