The Rugby Thread

[Buzzo]

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[Buzzo]

I agree, how he missed the ‘tackle’ on Hogg was incredible. And then Hogg was out of position dragging Maitland across for the ****e pass from Seymour. To go in 2 points down having played so well must have been demoralising, but it does highlight the accuracy required.

Ireland’s defence was incredible first half and we threw everything at them but couldn’t get across the line.

Your analysis of second half is bang on. Everything went flat. Atmosphere chances open play. Everything.

[Irishnev]

Some of the hits on Sexton were certainly borderline, although they made the point on the UK coverage that by taking the ball right to the line (which is one of his great strengths), he is going to get the big hit rather than the guy outside him for whom he creates the space.

And within the millisecond of it occurring it's not always possible to judge whether the tackler is already committed or whether he's trying to leave one on dear Johnny.

I thought Carberry was pretty good when he came on (intercepted pass aside) so at least there should be a seamless transition when Johnny hangs up his shoulder pads.

With Connor Murray, the thing that struck me about his quality of kicking in the Champions Cup was that no one was putting any pressure on him. So maybe some analysis was done on that because he hasn't had nearly such an easy ride these past two weeks and has suffered accordingly.

Carbury was in Sextons shadow at Leinster so he moved to Munster this year, still v young at 23 but he needs to improve his kicking game. In terms of carrying the ball and having that maverick quality he’s got that for sure.

Ronan O’Gara is an analyst on Irish tv and compares him to Beauden Barrett at the same age.....big shout! ROG is a future Irish coach - v highly rated at both Racing and now at Canterbury.

[Cormack74]

second half . . Everything went flat. Atmosphere chances open play. Everything.

That's the thing which has impressed me the most about Scotland in the past 18 months, that in the big matches they haven't got flustered but have continued to play their own game in a calm way.

Yesterday the second half was a bit of a throw back to that less successful period where they wanted to force things to happen rather than trusting in themselves to make them happen.

[Cormack74]

Carbury was in Sextons shadow at Leinster so he moved to Munster this year, still v young at 23 but he needs to improve his kicking game. In terms of carrying the ball and having that maverick quality he’s got that for sure.

Ronan O’Gara is an analyst on Irish tv and compares him to Beauden Barrett at the same age.....big shout! ROG is a future Irish coach - v highly rated at both Racing and now at Canterbury.

Yes, I always saw ROG as a rather boring (but clearly effective) player whereas as a coach he definitely seems to have something about him. Big call that though, no pressure on Joey at all

[rodo]

[ame]https://twitter.com/IrvineWelsh/status/1094341950898089984[/ame]

[Cormack74]

Well Buzzo did tell us he'd be there with his mates

[ChesterDave]

I'm in the top 100 of Telegraph Fantasy Rugby.

£5k to the winner

[Buzzo]

https://twitter.com/IrvineWelsh/stat...41950898089984

Age old argument up here because you aren’t allowed alcohol at football.

Mainly because of the old firm.

The rest of it is fairly standard behaviour in Edinburgh on a Saturday night (I believe) throwing the class argument is typical of non Rugby supporters and though it may have happened not representative of the 70k who attended the match.

I was home by 7

[Cormack74]

It's agenda led bollocks. There weren't 70 thousand posh blokes at the game and I wonder who the Police would rather deal with, pissed rugby fans or pissed football fans?

[labourRed]

In fairness I've been to a few six nations games across Cardiff, Rome, Dublin, Edinburgh. Rome is ridiculously civil, you'd be forgiven for thinking there wasn't a game on bar a few extra shirts around. Cardiff, Dublin and Edinburgh in order of chaos to half decent is my experience. Only been to Scots/Irish and Welsh games. Wales v Scotland in Cardiff typically looks like a ****ing war zone by the end of the night.

[Cormack74]

Mako V out for 10 weeks. That won't do England's 6 nations tilt or Sarries CC aspirations any favours.

[Buzzo]

Ryan Wilson our for tournament, Huw Jones out for tournament, Stuart Hogg being monitored.

Nel, Fagerson, R. Gray, Skinner, Wilson, Watson, Barclay, Jones, Taylor, Hogg, Scott, Bennett

All genuine shouts and some guaranteed starts there.

Too much Rugby means we don’t get to see the best players in the big games. Two or three injuries is obviously fairly expected but we are seeing international squads absolutely decimated by injury

[Cormack74]

I was watching Brian O'Driscoll's Shoulder to Shoulder documentary (again) last night - try and see it if you haven't already - and marvelling at the difference in size between players twenty five or thirty years ago and now. Some of the 70/80/early 90's guys, notably the wingers, would have struggled to have reached eleven stone. And these blokes were Internationals. I doubt there's a player in the top league of any rugby playing nation on earth these days who's less than 14.5.

So now guys are so big some impacts are effectively like car crashes with injuries as severe.

One pundit (I've forgotten who) that I read recently, went on to make the point that the use of replacements was far more limited back then too. This meant that you had to have guys who weren't so big that they ran out of puff at 55 or 60 minutes - they had to have the capacity to play 80 minutes and their build reflected that. Nowadays we'll see the entire front row being changed in the second half.

So maybe that's the answer - either go back to limiting replacements or introduce weight limits for players. Much as I like seeing the the big lads in action smashing into each other, modern rules (which make for a faster more open game) together with lighter players might make for some cracking fast flowing rugby.

Of course it will never happen and they'll mess around trying to reduce injuries by changing some of the rules so eventually IMO we'll just end up with a game that looks nothing like the one we enjoy currently.

[Buzzo]

Totally agree with that. The game has changed and in some respects is still struggling to sort itself out since professionalism. At its best, it is such a phenomenal sport, but, the injury levels are unacceptable, and we are yet to truly see the repercussions of some of the head injuries. I also agree with the replacements, and the 'finishers' has to be something that is looked at.

Just to confirm how far the game has moved (I'm sure I have posted this before) but take a look at the infamous Haka ciirca 1970. This certainly also demonstrates the change in body shape over the last 30 years.

Intimidating

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emJyEa4z2Ec"]Haka 1973 - YouTube[/ame]