Rugby Union - Six Nations & Erc

Discussion in 'General Football & Other Sport' started by Sting, Mar 12, 2017.

  1. tonycotonstache

    tonycotonstache Squad Player

    Well that was fun. England blew them away
     
  2. Sting

    Sting Squad Player

    Great win - only one point less a margin than the record 37-0 back in 1911
     
  3. wfc4ever

    wfc4ever Administrator Staff Member

    Hmm... got to say Wales deserved that win on the 2nd half performance.

    England didn't really threaten .

    Will they now win the Grand Slam?
     
  4. RookeryDad

    RookeryDad Squad Player

    Dreary spectacle.

    That’s my annual rugby game.

    (I was watching, not playing.)
     
  5. onion8837

    onion8837 Reservist

    Get the **** in - win dounle in cardiff
     
  6. onion8837

    onion8837 Reservist

    Oops may be more than slightly pissed
     
  7. onion8837

    onion8837 Reservist

    Wales 21 english public school nancy boys 13

    Loads of strawberry cord boys crying in their beer tonight
     
  8. wfc4ever

    wfc4ever Administrator Staff Member

    Joe Marler maybe showing it's not just football pundits who can look foolish .

    Predicting a double figures England win !

    Mind you even Sam Warburton expected England to win
     
  9. RookeryDad

    RookeryDad Squad Player

    Always better to blame predictive text.
     
  10. RookeryDad

    RookeryDad Squad Player

    Sounds a successful couple of weeks sportingwise chez Onion.
     
  11. onion8837

    onion8837 Reservist

    Very !
     
  12. WatfordÉire

    WatfordÉire Squad Player

    Opens its up again! With Ireland to go to Wales on the last day..
     
  13. Smudger

    Smudger Messi's Mad Coach Staff Member

    Well that must have brought down many England fans down with a bump especially those who had already jumped the gun thinking not only the Six Nations was already wrapped up but the World Cup too. In effect it was what Ireland mistakenly did against England in needlessly kicking the ball away. Possession is nine tenths the law in rugby and England clearly had no plan other than that in the second half refusing to use their backline. This is what seperates New Zealand from the rest in that the players on the pitch can think for themselves and mix it up according to what is before them instead of just playing a formula.

    The only bright spot should be that with Curry and the Underhill brothers the backrow is well stocked for the future. Wales deserved their win and Eddie Jones needs to keep his mouth shut before launching off on his feeble attempt at mind games.
     
    iamofwfc likes this.
  14. Smudger

    Smudger Messi's Mad Coach Staff Member

    Can you please get away from these stereotypes. The game in the south west and Midlands is very what would be described as working class. Players like May, Curry and Farrell are all comprehensive educated as well among others.
     
    iamofwfc likes this.
  15. onion8837

    onion8837 Reservist

    No
     
  16. Smudger

    Smudger Messi's Mad Coach Staff Member

    So World Rugby (formerly known as the IRB) after examining the global state of the game identifying the problems with player welfare and developing the sport have come up with plans that have alienated the World Players Union, the Pacific Island unions in particular and have shown that the pursuit of money only breeds more greed.

    The plans involve creating a 12 world team league and a unified northern and southern hemisphere season. And no promotion or relegation to this idiotic World League for eleven years.

    So much for player welfare with even more Test matches in the schedule. So much for developing Tier Two nations into Tier One and those in tier three into the second level. It also undermines the World Cup as the pinnacle of the sport and a ban on promotion is contrary to all principles of sport in trying as an individual or team to better yourselves.

    It is a retrograde step should it be adopted. At present after the players have spoken out it seems thankfully unlikely. It is a shame that this idea was even mooted at a time when union is rapidly growing globally. There are new continental tournaments, more coaching expertise finding it's way to every continent and a rise in professionalism. Such as the new US league with three Canadian teams set to join. The South American Championship, African Cup and Asian Cup as well. Nations in Europe like Belgium, Germany, Russia and Spain are starting to move clubs to a professional set up and a Georgian franchise is proposed for the Pro14.

    One must feel for the Pacific Island unions in particular. It seems every attempt has been made to exclude them from moving forward. Western Samoa as they were then kicked out of Super Rugby, the islands plundered for their players by the established unions from school level. Even with Fiji riding high in the rankings they are set to be excluded. No wonder they along with Samoa and Tonga are considering a boycott of this years World Cup. They also get shamefully treated in their allocation of gate receipts in the Autumn Internationals and like many of the so called lesser unions had to suffer with players not being released for the early World Cups. Back in 1991 and 1995 Fiji for instance had to almost beg for official blazers to be made as they could not afford it.

    I am especially disappointed with WR's vice president Agustin Pichot. He better than anyone should know the difficulties the non old boys union network made life difficult for the Pumas to get Test matches and entry into the Tri Nations championship. Hopefully given the outcry against these idiotic proposals Brett Gosper, Bill Beaumont and Pichot and the bean counters will drop these nonsensical plans.
     
    Beekayess and RookeryDad like this.
  17. wfc4ever

    wfc4ever Administrator Staff Member

    Wales Grand Slam it seems .
     
  18. wfc4ever

    wfc4ever Administrator Staff Member

    Have England gone home early or something?

    Goodness knows what Eddie Jones will say after this - probably drop the lot of them!
     
  19. Smudger

    Smudger Messi's Mad Coach Staff Member

    Perhaps he will have the good sense to shut his mouth for once. His verbal tirades are becoming tiresome. You don't hear Steve Hansen belittling the opposition before matches. All in all this Six Nations means that the Northern Hemisphere will have a very good chance of winning the World Cup. Wales , Ireland and England can all approach it with real confidence and Scotland with a fully fit team could make a deep run.

    I take Onion is Welsh so warm congratulations on a deserved Grand Slam. Gatland is a great coach and the infrastructure put into place by him will serve Wales well for the future despite the worries over this merging of Ospreys/Dragons and replacement by a north Wales region. Perhaps not the expansive rugby of Wales in their former heyday but it is very difficult to play like that in the modern game. And Alun Wyn Jones. A great player to rank alongside players like Merv the Swerve, a great person and a great captain which all coaches need.
     
    iamofwfc likes this.
  20. Aberystwyth_Hornet

    Aberystwyth_Hornet Squad Player

    I'm just relieved we (England) didn't lose that and managed to salvage a draw. Feels ridiculous to be relieved with a draw after being 31.0 up but if Scotland had finally won away in that way they'd never let us forget it

    Well done to Wales though as I was in a Welsh bar for the 2005 grand slam they won, them winning a grand slam or beating England always brings back bad memories
     
  21. hornetboy1

    hornetboy1 First Team Captain

    I don't get Rugby. Spain are crap at it.

    But leading 31-0 and still not winning sounds a bit mental to me.
     
  22. RookeryDad

    RookeryDad Squad Player

    UnderWOOD brothers.
     
  23. wfc4ever

    wfc4ever Administrator Staff Member

  24. RookeryDad

    RookeryDad Squad Player

    Contrast with cricket where Afghanistan has risen through the rankings to become a test match country.

    The greatest sporting story of the century.
     
  25. Smudger

    Smudger Messi's Mad Coach Staff Member

    The Lions as they are known have been playing rugby under the auspices first of FIRA since the thirties. Pretty decent at sevens and they have been doing better in recent years. However that is due to the number of 'imports' they have fielded mainly from France. They have produced some excellent players in the past like Cesar Sempere, Pablo Feijoo and Northampton legend Oriol Ripol. Rugby is predominantly played in the Basque region and towards the north of Catalonia.

    In recent years Perpignan in French Catalonia have played games in Barcelona and there were recent talks of creating professional rugby clubs attached like basketball, volleyball with Barcelona FC and Real Madrid. It's a slowly growing sport there and but for the fiasco with wrongly registered players Spain would have had a chance to qualify for Japan.
     
  26. Smudger

    Smudger Messi's Mad Coach Staff Member

    Indeed. However cricket like rugby but even more extreme has really pulled a brake on the sport with the old Test nations reluctant to help develop the game and limiting participation at World Cups. Cricket is truly a parochial sport played in a handful of countries to a reasonable level whereas rugby union is played in nearly almost every country now with about thirty or so playing to a decent standard and a dozen or so at the top level.
     
  27. Smudger

    Smudger Messi's Mad Coach Staff Member

    In any sport when you lose focus and think the game is won is when you are vulnerable . Argentina were 31-7 up against Australia in the last Rugby Championship. They were running rampant dismantling the Wallabies. Cue the loss of Nicolas Sanchez and a fortunate charge down try (cue the two intercepts yesterday) and Australia won 45-34. So it can happen. The proverbial game of two halves.
     
  28. onion8837

    onion8837 Reservist

    Yes I am and thank you sir - had to run from the vic at the end of the game to get to pub just in time to hear the anthem. Pretty much perfect performance from Wales to make it a fantatsic day all round

    The England / Scotland game kept me in the pub rather longer than expected - was like 15 man Sevens - brilliant entertainment for a (by that stage) pissed neutral
     
  29. GoingDown

    GoingDown "The Stability"

    Sounds like some sort of Rugby FA conspiracy to me.
     
  30. the treatment of most tier 2 nations is appalling
     
  31. wfc4ever

    wfc4ever Administrator Staff Member

    Not good news for the Aussies - one of their key players being "sacked" after making comments on Social media about Gay people - it might be his beliefs but surely in today's society not the sort that can be shared in public.

    And now an England star has got involved - bit of a headache for Eddie Jones potentially.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/47909515
     
  32. Filbert

    Filbert Leicester supporting bloke

    Can someone explain what’s going on with Tigers? I’ve never followed the rugby at all but I remember them being a really big deal when I was a kid, winning the European Cup and what have you in the early 2000’s. I hear they’re pretty **** now though, what’s gone on?
     
  33. luke_golden

    luke_golden Space Cadet

    Mid-table in the Champ, m8.
     
    Filbert likes this.
  34. wfc4ever

    wfc4ever Administrator Staff Member

    Too many coaches and big egos ?

    Still got loads of Internationals but maybe the general squad isn't good enough ..

    Fallen behind the likes of Exeter and Saracens
     
    Filbert likes this.
  35. Bwood_Horn

    Bwood_Horn Squad Player

    TBF the same could be said for Newcastle and London Irish - two top teams who've 'rested on their laurels'. Although in the holy trinity of recruitment, training methods and dosh, the effects of the latter are becoming too dominant: I can see both Exeter and Sarries getting 'done' for breaking salary caps 'soon' and there have been a lot of grumblings about just how much of a financial basket case Sarries is becoming.
     

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