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That I would agree with. Either play all teams or do pools like the HEC, if you're going to play 13/15 teams then go the whole hog and play all 15. That is one place where an advantage can be gained as getting the weakest team from one of the other conference and avoiding the strongest from...

True but my point is dept in one squad does not equal dept in Australia. It just points to a cencentration of talent in 1 or 2 Franchises rather than being spread among 4-5 in SA & NZ. The performance of one or two teams are never a good indicator of overall dept. I could be wrong, but I think...

I'm completely new to Super Rugby in terms of following it closely. Have watched a lot of it on Sky sports over here as I just love my rugby. But that was always as a stand alone thing and never with an eye on the overall picture. So forgive me if I'm being ignorant and also please know I'm not...

From reading the last page or so of the thread anyone who didn't know would think that the Reds played Oz teams all the way through last years S15 including the semi-final and final. If they had played such poor competition in half of their conference games then they would have been under cooked...

Sometimes it takes an outsider to stand up and get the discussion rolling on something that although obvious to everyone still isn't being adressed sufficiently.

I agree with the assertions that to create dept it has to be from the bottom up. School link-ups, summer camps, tag rugby, junior teams/academy are all ways that the clubs can create dept for their future. Increasing the numbers of participants at underage level will eventually mean a bigger...

True Lee, but proactive isn't a word normally associated with the English team in recent years. Other than that I agree the 7 doesn't necessarily have to be the fetcher. For years BoD has been one of the main fetchers for Ireland while the back row have rotated the responsibility

England have confirmed that Chris Robshaw will be captain for the rest of the 6Ns. Strange decision given that he's still wouldn't be an automatic pick at 7. I'm sure there's a few guys who were hoping for the captaincy to be rotated their way also.

France v Ireland match rescheduled for 3pm GMT on Sunday 4th of March.

I can't see as many Irish supporters travelling to Paris for the rescheduled match if it's pushed back after the end of the rest of the 6N. By then for Ireland it could very well be a nothing game in terms of our chances to win the 6Ns. Having forked out on flights, accommodation and ticket for...

Yes Lee it was the 2001 6Ns and here in Ireland it's viewed as the slam that got away. Before the postponements we had already beaten Italy and more importantly France. Then in the first Autumn game we lost to heavily to Scotland before beating Wales and England.

I agree with you Lee on the expansion of the TMO's role. But it raises a new problem. Giving more power to the TMO means that even more of the major decisions will be taken out of the hands of the referee. We already see timidity in some refs who go to the TMO on tries that anyone can see are...

Decision on the try didn't affect the final outcome, Wales would have won anyway. But Refs should be performing better. Wales are still looking really good, if I was Welsh I wouldn't want the 2 week break with them in such good form.

5-10 minutes after announcing they game was called off they annouced in the stadium that tickets would be honoured for the rescheduled game. But RTÉ, the Irish TV station, raised a good point. By then how many people still had their tickets?

Bit of a farce to call it off so close to kick off when it was known since Tuesday that this was going to happen. 8pm kick off, to suit TV, for an outdoor game during such cold weather is just stupid. March 2nd is the preliminary date set for the game to go ahead.

Final score Italy 15 England 19. The game turned on one charge down and two substitutions. Hodgeson got a charge down try for the 2nd week running. Then Youngs woh'd looked clueless all game was replaced by Dickson who injected pace for England. Burton got the hook due to his poor general play...

Half time Italy 12 England 6. After 20 odd minutes it looked like there could be no score in the first half. Then England got 2 penalties to take a 6-0 lead. Italy's scrum was creeking a bit before Castrogiovani had to go off with a rib injury and it's only gotten worse. But a night mare last...

One of the problems for any Irish centre replacing BOD is that fact that he's been carrying D'Arcy both in attack and especially defence for years. So Earls or McFadden coming in might do well defensively in their own channel but BOD's defensive duties ranged much further than just worrying...

I'll be ever the optomist and say France 19 Ireland 26

Change to the French team named for Saturday. Yachvili is carrying a knock so Parra is starting, Julien Dupuy onto the bench as cover.