Another good result for the League but bad for Ulster, is today's home win for Zebre against a strong, but perhaps not strongest, Ulster team. The victory is not a surprise but possibly the opponents were surprised, although they shouldn't have been.
Bradley was always likely to target an Irish Province for a win and Ulster, coming off the high of their defeat of the Champions Scarlets last week, fitted the bill perfectly. Try as they might Kiss and Gibbes would have had a difficult task invested any great emotional energy in an away game against Zebre after last week's victory and with the prospect of ERC and interpro games on the agenda in the next 4 weeks.
Treviso and Zebre are both now competitive as are Cheetahs and nobody can take them for granted. Ospreys and Connacht have joined S Kings, Dragons, Cardiff and possibly Edinburgh as the best targets for points. With the quality of coaching tickets and the development almost everywhere of good young players, there will be less and less obvious points available as the weeks progress and thus "surprises" every week.
And yet the media silence on the positive progress is deafening. They were quick enough to claim we'd been sold a pup on SA and that the Italians should be written off only two weeks ago, looks like we have two quite competitive conferences on our hands.
TerenureJim wrote:And yet the media silence on the positive progress is deafening. They were quick enough to claim we'd been sold a pup on SA and that the Italians should be written off only two weeks ago, looks like we have two quite competitive conferences on our hands.
The highlights of the SA games are worth a look. Some nice skills. They've a good run of fixtures up to Christmas, but I can see it all going a bit runny for them during the 6N.
Ruddock's tackle stats consistently too low for me to be taken seriously as a Six Nations blindside..... Ruddock's defensive stats don't stack up. - All Blacks Nil, Jan 15th, 2014
England A 8 - 14 Ireland A, 25th Jan 2014 Ruddock(c) 19/2 Tackles
The Ospreys have lost 10 of their last 12 competitive matches(it's a bit mad that they made the play-offs given how they finished the season). Difficult run of games to the 6N.
Show Spoiler:
Welsh Derby
Scarlets (H) Pro12 Champs
HEC
Clermont (H) Last years Runner-Up
Saracens (A) Last Years Winners
Welsh Derby
Dragons (H)
Intra Conf game
Edinburgh (A).
Conf Game
Glasgow (H) -top of Conf A
Munster (A) - 2nd Conf A
HEC
Saints (H & A) - Top of AP
Welsh Derby
Scarlets (A)
Dragons (A)
Cardiff (H)
HEC
Saracens (H) Last Years Winners
Clermont (A) Last years Runner-Up
Conf game (6N)
Connacht (A)
Connacht are in pretty much the same boat(even in terms of form) with league fixtures being dominated by interpros. They should pick up a few wins in the Challenge Cup though and they've a game against Zebre....
I think the Cheetahs have the better run of fixtures (plus 2 3 week breaks). Should see them comfortably 3rd by NY.
Ruddock's tackle stats consistently too low for me to be taken seriously as a Six Nations blindside..... Ruddock's defensive stats don't stack up. - All Blacks Nil, Jan 15th, 2014
England A 8 - 14 Ireland A, 25th Jan 2014 Ruddock(c) 19/2 Tackles
Reddan taking Off The Ball and Gavin Cummisky to task re media coverage of the league was good value on Monday, didn't go for the jugular but started the conversation. Oddly Cummisky even seemed half hearted about the Euro Cup launch, you wonder at times does he actually like rugby?
TerenureJim wrote:Reddan taking Off The Ball and Gavin Cummisky to task re media coverage of the league was good value on Monday, didn't go for the jugular but started the conversation. Oddly Cummisky even seemed half hearted about the Euro Cup launch, you wonder at times does he actually like rugby?
Seems to be across Irish sports journalism these days. They look on us not as fans of sports, but fans of sports writers. We just follow sport to enable us to read their wonderful work, in fact sport is starting to get in the way of their writing.
Its extra annoying when you consider hundreds of writers would push their granny down the stairs for Cummiskey's job but he treats it like he's the owners moody teenage son
Retired from babbling. Can be found on twittter @okeeffesimon
TerenureJim wrote:Reddan taking Off The Ball and Gavin Cummisky to task re media coverage of the league was good value on Monday, didn't go for the jugular but started the conversation. Oddly Cummisky even seemed half hearted about the Euro Cup launch, you wonder at times does he actually like rugby?
I think that's a slight exaggeration. He was asked about how the English bigged themselves up and talked down the celtic league when he was playing over there but said that the negativity was as much from reading Irish papers as anything else. It was a throwaway comment more than something he had a bee in his bonnet about.
TerenureJim wrote:Reddan taking Off The Ball and Gavin Cummisky to task re media coverage of the league was good value on Monday, didn't go for the jugular but started the conversation. Oddly Cummisky even seemed half hearted about the Euro Cup launch, you wonder at times does he actually like rugby?
I think that's a slight exaggeration. He was asked about how the English bigged themselves up and talked down the celtic league when he was playing over there but said that the negativity was as much from reading Irish papers as anything else. It was a throwaway comment more than something he had a bee in his bonnet about.
Yeah, I just listened to it now and found it an interesting conversation. He did mention the negativity of the Irish press kind of in passing, but then he also brought up the lack of respect or underestimation of the Pro14 again at the end, when talking about Hanrahan moving back. It's always interesting to get the views of recently retired players.
TerenureJim wrote:Reddan taking Off The Ball and Gavin Cummisky to task re media coverage of the league was good value on Monday, didn't go for the jugular but started the conversation. Oddly Cummisky even seemed half hearted about the Euro Cup launch, you wonder at times does he actually like rugby?
Seems to be across Irish sports journalism these days. They look on us not as fans of sports, but fans of sports writers. We just follow sport to enable us to read their wonderful work, in fact sport is starting to get in the way of their writing.
It's a bit like watching sky news.
You've got the anchorwo/man interviewing a panel of media types commenting on whatever.
Total closed loop with little or no external (ie objective) input.
And worst of all they keep repeating it.
Maybe this should be in the 'Rants thread.?
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall who's the greatest player of them all? It is Drico your majesty.
TerenureJim wrote:Reddan taking Off The Ball and Gavin Cummisky to task re media coverage of the league was good value on Monday, didn't go for the jugular but started the conversation. Oddly Cummisky even seemed half hearted about the Euro Cup launch, you wonder at times does he actually like rugby?
I think that's a slight exaggeration. He was asked about how the English bigged themselves up and talked down the celtic league when he was playing over there but said that the negativity was as much from reading Irish papers as anything else. It was a throwaway comment more than something he had a bee in his bonnet about.
Yeah taken to task is a bit ott I guess but he defo intimated that players aren't too keen on how the media portray the league and he has a point when you consider how teams largely made up by players from the league have pushed NZ more than most in recent years (2013, 2016, 2017 etc.).
Quality wise we compare quite favourably with the prem and top14, in fact on our day there's probably more of a mix of decent sides given the quality of our 4 provinces, Scarlets, Ospreys, Glasgow plus all bar dragons and kings now liable to push visitors at home and post unexpected wins on the road given quality of coaching.
blockhead wrote:Rhys Webb off to Toulon next season.
Gatty's law gets interesting again
It doesn't really exist. They said something like they'll only pick a max 3 players but once a few others left, the law was ignored.
What'll be interesting is the effect it has on the Welsh national side. Half their team will soon be playing abroad.
Oddly theres 4 wildcards for rwc year then down to 2. Maybe PRL money trouble will save them. But yeah, squad sessions and their 4th AI even more disrupted now
A lot of rumours Moriarty moving to Scarlets on NDC
Retired from babbling. Can be found on twittter @okeeffesimon
