The Rugby Union thread!!

[Erebus Pasha]

Great display by England. Must admit that my opinion of Lancaster has changed somewhat over the course of the Six Nations. We really destroyed Ireland in the scrum, and it was fitting revenge for last year. How do you like it Halbard - seeing your boys turned over by Wales and owned by England?

[emotion_name]

Not really. The opening game against Ireland was a lie. That last penalty was a joke. Thats a legal tackle.

Get over it!

What i mean was not the kick for goal. I agree with the decision. What i can't understand is that after wales restarted the game, France had the possession, and instead of grinding down all the way to the endzone, they bloody kicked&ran for it. Rugby players are so damn dumb...

Its the ability to change your gameplan, to play what you see as the game changes, and its something France didnt have. I mentioned midweek the selection looked like France were going to play a kicking game and attack down the flanks, they did but it failed miserably and they didnt have a plan b to fall back on.

When they did turn it on though, boy did they turn it on eh?

Ireland is playing shite right now, but Rob Kearney is a GOD under the high ball. One of the best, if not THE best fullbacks i ever saw.

Agreed! He is a monster under the high ball, and he is very good positionally as well.

Pathetic display from Ireland.

Hate to say i told you so, but go back to the RWC thread and you will indeed see that i did forewarn of this happening. Ireland just havnt rebuilt enough, have no strength in depth in key positions and are worryingly weak in the breakdown.

Having their scrum pulverized by England's doesn't help.



Somebody's still mad at having Warburton stupidly squandering a chance of being crushed by the All Blacks...

I dunno about being crushed by All Blacks, i mean France didnt get crushed in the final did they and we gave them a good run for there money with just 14 men.

Never seen such domination in the scrum.

Really???

Go watch England from 02/03 and you will see it! Or watch England from 94/95 and you see it again.

Its the English way, they batter you upfront with big forwards, shove the ball up there jersey sort of playing. Unless your a purist its boring, but it gets the job done as the RWC in 03 shows!

Great game between Wales and France. A victory well-deserved.

On a different note: Belgium has been promoted to group 1A. Feels good, bro. I really hope that by some miracle we end up qualified for the RWC 2015, because it'd be a major boost for rugby in this country.

Thats great for Belgium, and for NH rugby in general!

I have a national team member in my year at school. He's really positive too. Players like Debaty (who's switched to France obviously) are coming thick and fast.


Russia and Romania are also teams on the rise. I hope the Six Nations expands one day. Maybe we could have a Rest Of Europe XV with Italy and aforementioned countries competing for the title itself.

Russia have the potential to be world beaters in rugby if they get it as popular there as football. The player pool they would have just by law of averages would allow for some quality players.

They also have a good welsh man in charge of them, with a good welsh set-up!

Missing Paul O'Connell and Brian O'Driscoll is decisive.
No lock or centre Wales have can compare to these men. No player born in Wales will ever compare to BOD.

Disagree about POC mate! Charteris is far, far better than POC. Dont get me wrong, POC is good but not that good!

I have to disagree about BOD as well dude, because its not just Wales who will never get a player to compare to BOD, the whole world will never see a player of his quality again!

BOD = Legend!!

Great display by England. Must admit that my opinion of Lancaster has changed somewhat over the course of the Six Nations. We really destroyed Ireland in the scrum, and it was fitting revenge for last year. How do you like it Halbard - seeing your boys turned over by Wales and owned by England?

He will claim it wa sunjust, a few errors by others robbed ireland of the GS they are destined to own every season!

I said awhile back Lancaster and Co seem to be the right way to go, you can see the players really love playing for him and have bought into his tactics and team ethos.

Interesting that Sarries have said Farrell is contracted to them until 2013 season and wont allow him out of it though, although they did say they would look at a PT role/ Job sharing thing like Edwards did with us and Wasps!

(Still gutted we missed out on chance to nab Graeme Rowntree when he was available, that man is awesome)

Anyways, my head still hurts and there is still beer to drink, so im off!


WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLEEESSSSS!!!!

[Halbard]

Great display by England. Must admit that my opinion of Lancaster has changed somewhat over the course of the Six Nations. We really destroyed Ireland in the scrum, and it was fitting revenge for last year. How do you like it Halbard - seeing your boys turned over by Wales and owned by England?

Ireland will be back. Ireland was missing Paulie and BOD.

[Shankbot de Bodemloze]

Well after a tremendous Six Nations I only have one thing to say...

Lancaster should get the job!

Here's to next year

[Armchair Revolutionary]

Really???

Go watch England from 02/03 and you will see it! Or watch England from 94/95 and you see it again.

Its the English way, they batter you upfront with big forwards, shove the ball up there jersey sort of playing. Unless your a purist its boring, but it gets the job done as the RWC in 03 shows!

Let me rephrase that : never seen a team in the 6 nations been so poor in the scrum. England's scrum only just matches France and Wales'. But Ireland are now undoubtedly the worst scrumagers in the 6 nations. The fact that the only decent team they have beaten in that department is Australia says a lot.

[emotion_name]

Ireland will be back. Ireland was missing Paulie and BOD.

Let me rephrase that : never seen a team in the 6 nations been so poor in the scrum. England's scrum only just matches France and Wales'. But Ireland are now undoubtedly the worst scrumagers in the 6 nations. The fact that the only decent team they have beaten in that department is Australia says a lot.

Halbard, im beginning to think that Kidney and his coaching team think like you, and therin lies the problem. The fact POC and BOD were not playing means little, very little, if you look at the bigger picture. There time has passed now, squeezing another season or 2 out of them wont benefit Irish rugby in the long run. A "Golden Era" of Irish rugby has been squandered, because what have you got to show for the last 10 years?)

The IRISH INDEPENDANT ran a story on the failings of the team, quite an honest and brutal assessment imo...

(also ask why we have now beaten you 3 times on the trot, home/away and RWC? It isnt always the ref screwing you, or Phillips and Rees tag-teaming you out of glory.)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

This latest humiliation has exposed Ireland's glaring deficiencies at the highest level, writes Eamonn SweeneyAbject. Humiliating. Dire. At one stage it looked as though we were trying to honour the memory of the late great Mervyn Davies by producing a repeat of our 34-9 defeat by the Welsh team he captained back in 1976.

Though perhaps a better analogy would be with our 32-4 defeat by Wales in 1975, a loss which brought down the curtain on one of Ireland's more successful rugby eras and set the stage for a number of fallow years.

Because, make no mistake about it, Ireland are in big trouble.

By the end of this match we looked like a bedraggled touring team playing the final game of a gruelling schedule. England are not great but they are unmistakably headed in the right direction.

And Ireland? Gordon D'Arcy, Jamie Heaslip and Tomas O'Leary showed further evidence of Fernando Torres-style declines in form and confidence, Sean O'Brien was ineffective and Stephen Ferris outshone by Tom Croft.

Worst of all, our scrum was pulverised about as completely as is possible in international rugby, England marching us around at will as though they were the Duke of York and Ireland were his men.

This is a team in unmistakable decline.

Take away the big win over Australia in the World Cup final, a win which is starting to look like a bit of a fluke, and we've been badly off the pace in recent years. Since our Grand Slam year in 2009 we've lost six games in the Six Nations.

A team which once set its sight on challenging the Southern Hemisphere giants has now slipped behind both Wales and England.

Yet we've continued to delude ourselves about our real standing at international level.

The apparent disrespect shown by both Ferris and Rob Kearney towards England last week probably has more to do with media hubris than the attitude of the players themselves. But it indicated our inability to see ourselves as we really are.

The Welsh victory in the Aviva was waved away with reference to the controversial nature of the late match-winning penalty from the visitors. But this was the third time in a row we've been turned over by Wales.

Yesterday Wales won their third Grand Slam in eight years. It has taken the entire history of Irish rugby for us to amass a mere two. Yet we have been dismissive of both Wales and Warren Gatland in recent years, imagining ourselves as operating from a position of superiority.

Our draw with France in Paris has been put into perspective by the subsequent French losses to England and Wales. We're going nowhere.

As the towel was thrown in at Twickenham the thought occurred that it was performances like this which cost Eddie O'Sullivan his job. Declan Kidney will hold on, aided by the fervour which will accompany the exploits of our provinces in the Heineken Cup. But boasts about our strength in that competition will ring pretty hollow after this sorry display.

International rugby is what matters. It's where you find out how good you really are.

Some of the stats for this 6N overall for us are very impressive, not least the amount of points conceeded which is lower than our previous best recorded in 08.

The time we kept the ball in play, and the territory overall show good signs for the future, all i hope is we break the recent trend of following a GS with a dismal showing the following year (4th and 5th in 06 and 09 respectively).

Now, for me, its back to the doldrums of Regional Rugby, where top internationals are told they wont be paid for playing for country so sign contracts elsewhere, the continued exodus of players to France and England, the low levels of skill and the boring rugby on display all bring us welshies back to earth with a bump.

Ah well, we still got the Summer tour to Oz to look forwards to!

[Erebus Pasha]

I don't feel so bad about domestic Rugby. Tigers beat our closest rivals, Northampton, in the LV Cup Final with our young fly-half George Ford running the show (take note Lancaster, take note), and we've had a decent run in the Aviva Premiership where we are currently running third.

[Armchair Revolutionary]

I don't feel so bad about domestic Rugby. Tigers beat our closest rivals, Northampton, in the LV Cup Final with our young fly-half George Ford running the show (take note Lancaster, take note), and we've had a decent run in the Aviva Premiership where we are currently running third.

Which team do you support?

[Erebus Pasha]

Leicester Tigers.

[Shankbot de Bodemloze]

I don't feel so bad about domestic Rugby. Tigers beat our closest rivals, Northampton, in the LV Cup Final with our young fly-half George Ford running the show (take note Lancaster, take note), and we've had a decent run in the Aviva Premiership where we are currently running third.

It was a good game, a rocky start for Tigers though, and Ford has got potential

I'm glad Tigers won, it's even sweeter when we beat Saints

[Erebus Pasha]

Another Tigers supporter - good lad! Hopefully now we can make a push for the Premiership title now we've got our internationals back.

[Shankbot de Bodemloze]

Indeed

I don't know why but I found it quite funny that during the World Cup our performance dropped I wonder why that is

It just shows we're the best team, because England relies on us

[Erebus Pasha]

My dream is that one day an English coach will see the light and put out a starting fifteen that is entirely made up of Tigers players and do away with all those soft southerners that represent Harlequins, Bath and Saracens.

We are indeed the only club of note in the whole of England.

On a more serious note it does fill me with pride when Tiger's players make match-winning contributions to the national side - we had Manu and Croft in Paris and Youngs against the Irish.

[Shankbot de Bodemloze]

My dream is that one day an English coach will see the light and put out a starting fifteen that is entirely made up of Tigers players

We must have exactly the same dream

On a more serious note it does fill me with pride when Tiger's players make match-winning contributions to the national side - we had Manu and Croft in Paris and Youngs against the Irish

Great minds think a like

[Sidus Preclarum]

Worst of all, our scrum was pulverised about as completely as is possible in international rugby, England marching us around at will as though they were the Duke of York and Ireland were his men.

I wish I could come up with images such as this one at will...


Also, I'm looking at how the Anglo Welsh cup works : what a strange format...

[emotion_name]

Hehehe, the LV Cup!

Pool 1 play Pool 4 and Pool 2 play Pool 3 and the Welsh teams get disqualified from there own Celtic League coz the Scots and the Irish kicked off, plus no welsh team has won it since 09 when the Cardiff Blues lifted it.

Yeahhh,, the LV Cup!

Im not 100% sure, but if you take the LV Cup in all its formats (Powergen, EDF etc) and from when Championship teams were allowed to enter (back before our Regions got involved) then the Tigers have won it the most times, followed closely by Gloucester.

Dont get me wrong, i like the idea of an Anglo-Welsh cup but im not sure of the timing of the fixtures, usually when international tournies are ongoing to allow all clubs to "blood in" some youngsters. Would be a lot more interesting and probably get more fans in if it was with full strength squads and marketed as "Eng v Wal at Club Level" or something.

[Sidus Preclarum]

So Igather this cup is somewhat of a second rate tourney ?
The pool stage is 4 matches for eacht team, right ?
Then, that makes the total match played by, say, the Aviva clubs, the same as the French clubs play for the top 14.
And, since 2 of those 14 clubs are relegated at the end of the season, and 6 can qualify for the H-Cup and the playoff, most games at played at full-squad, or at least, "as full as the internationnal calendar allows".
Which already causes problems, and complaints of both an overburdened calendar for the clubs _ and this year's world cup and postponing of France - Ireland didn't help a bit teams who fielded a lot of active european and non european internationals (or at least those who hadn't a bench of retired or could-be internationals *cough* Toulouse *cough* ) _ , and out of shape players for the national team.

[Armchair Revolutionary]

Never liked Leicester Tigers, but I prefer them to Saracens, who play the most boring rugby in Europe.

[Erebus Pasha]

Hehehe, the LV Cup!

Pool 1 play Pool 4 and Pool 2 play Pool 3 and the Welsh teams get disqualified from there own Celtic League coz the Scots and the Irish kicked off, plus no welsh team has won it since 09 when the Cardiff Blues lifted it.

Yeahhh,, the LV Cup!

Im not 100% sure, but if you take the LV Cup in all its formats (Powergen, EDF etc) and from when Championship teams were allowed to enter (back before our Regions got involved) then the Tigers have won it the most times, followed closely by Gloucester.

Dont get me wrong, i like the idea of an Anglo-Welsh cup but im not sure of the timing of the fixtures, usually when international tournies are ongoing to allow all clubs to "blood in" some youngsters. Would be a lot more interesting and probably get more fans in if it was with full strength squads and marketed as "Eng v Wal at Club Level" or something.

We won it blooding our youngsters, but you can't argue with Leicester's history - it's not like it's the only trophy we've won in a decade or so is it? We're still in contention for the Premiership as we invariably always are.

I don't think the LV Cup is marketed well to be honest and it's almost becoming like the League Cup of Rugby Union but it's good for the youngsters to get some real game time - and at Leicester they do tend to get plenty of opportunities as we don't have a huge squad of big names. We suffered more than most at the beginning of the season when the World Cup deprived us of our senior players.

[Halbard]

6N Statistics

Statistics for the entire Six Nations tournament

Most tackles made: England - 504
Most tackles missed: England - 45
Most passes completed: Scotland - 939
Most line breaks: Ireland - 20
Most possession kicked: England - 136
Most turnovers won: Italy - 23
Most offloads in tackle: Scotland - 51
Most errors made: Italy / England - 59
Most penalties conceded: Wales - 55

Fewest tackles missed: France - 35
Fewest errors made: Wales - 44
Fewest penalties conceded: France - 33

Most points scored: Ireland - 121
Most tries scored: Ireland - 13
Fewest tries conceded: Wales - 3

Most tries conceded: Italy - 12BR>Fewest tries scored: Italy / Scotland - 4
Fewest points scored: Italy - 53

Most points scored (player): Leigh Halfpenny (Wal) - 66
Most tries scored (player): Tommy Bowe (Ire) - 5

team that scored more points, performed more line breaks and scored more tries...