Magners League, Top 14 and GP

[Lee Grant]

I thought I would start a thread dealing with European club rugby for those of us that watch it.

T78

Munster 28 Cardiff Blues 20

I thought your (and may I say these days "our") lads were a tad lucky to get away with that win. I wasn't as sure about the POC try as the commentators were.

It's the 3rd time I've seen Cardiff this year and it was their best display by a long chalk; in fact I thought Munster was down and out at 7-17 but the midfield of Mafi and Tipoki - plus Howlett ended up being too classy.

You had to feel a bit sorry for the Blues - well maybe not since they had given a bit of cheek to Munster in recent years - because Ben Blair's penalty right in front at the end should have given them a bonus point loss, but he missed it.

It's always a pleasure to see Stringer's pass which should be required viewing for young scrumhalves - and it was also good to see Quinlan back. Was looking forward to seeing young Earls get another game but he didn't play. Instead Hurley had an unhappy game at fullback.

It should be a cracking match against Leinster next weekend.


Leinster 19 Ospreys 13

Leinster coach Michael Cheika from Sydney is rotating his squad as much as his countryman Tony McGahan is at Munster but both seem to be getting results.

It's just strange to see a Leinster team with classy players like Rob Kearny (MOTM in a losing Ireland team in Melbourne in June), and Malcolm O'Kelly, playing from the bench. The explanation is that these guys play so many games and have to be rotated, but in the Super14 our guys play only 13 matches unless they make the finals and that could be 2 more.

The score looked close but Leinster had it well in hand. Nevertheless coach Cheika would have been spewing that the Sprays got in for a late try which was converted and earned the visitors a bonus point loss.

Isa Nacewa had a blinder last week but was very scratchy against the Sprays at the start but his experience came through at the end. It was good to see BOD back in good form - he was fizzing round the park everywhere as in the good old day and young Fitzgerald oozed youthful class once more on the wing.

Old stager Felipe Contepomi just keeps rolling along like the Mississippi playing 12. He's not the fastest these days but he can do good things with his hands and feet and must be one of the most valuable players for his club anywhere in Europe.

 

[Thomond78]

Hurley went to tweety-land after being clattered going for a high ball. He manifestly just wasn't there after that. He should have been taken off for his own good, tbh.

POC's one was fine - no knock-on, and he got downward pressure, so try. Don't need to be holding it or have control, after all.

Thought Koro Tipoki wasn't great, to be honest; dropped a lot of ball, forced a lot of ball. Mafi's definitely the better of the two, and is playing some great rugby. Thought Strings had one of his better games for a while, too. Quinny was made for this type of game, and proved it.

 

[Lee Grant]

Cardiff Blues 58 Connacht 0

This wasn?t a game; it was a shame ? at least in the 1st half because the Blues were 46-0 up at oranges. Connacht looked even worse than 2 weeks ago against the Scarlets, but they showed a bit of guts in the second half.

After the interval you could see why Connacht were capable of beating the Queensland Reds development team a month ago in a trial match; before then you?d have wondered if they could compete in the amateur Sydney comp.

But the match was worth watching for some of the nice tries that Cardiff scored and some of the skill of their players.

? Old stagers ?Alfie? Thomas and Tom Shanklin, the only two players who can make Stirling Mortlock look like Tom Cruise, troubled the visitors time after time, but they weren?t the only ones.

? 21 y.o. Jamie Roberts, who I remember as a winger or fullback, had a Joe Roff type game as a 13. He?s studying to be a doctor, which in uncommon in the pro era. He certainly operated on the Connacht midfield.

? Ceri Sweeney is not going to contend with James Hook or Stephen Jones for the Wales flyhalf position this autumn but he had a cracking match.

? This was my first look, that I can remember at least, at 19 y.o. fullback Leigh Halfpenny in senior rugby. He?s only a little bloke, but he can shift and knows what finishing a try is all about.

? It was good to see Xavier Rush make his comeback. He looked OK too as did countryman Paul Tito in the second row ? but the best of the Kiwis on the park was scrummie Jason Spice.

 

[Lee Grant]

Leicester 19 Wasps 28

This was the veritable game of two halves: Leicester were 13-7 ahead at oranges, which flattered Wasps greatly, but then the visitors turned a bumbling display around with a 6-21 effort in the second half.

You could see why Wasps hadn?t won a game this year in the first half hour. They played very little rugby that mattered, but fortunately were not punished enough by the Tigers. Both sides were playing low quality footie but then Wasps scrummie Sharkey Robinson was bumped off by fellow Kiwi Aaron Mauger, the Leicester 12, who dished the ball for a try for Geordan Murphy. This had Wasps coach Shaun Edwards kicking the ground in frustration.

Whatever he told his players at oranges was probably as profane as it was effective because the Wasps started to play and deny.

? You can see why the Poms are making a fuss about their 7, Tom Rees of the Wasps. He had a commanding second half and even when the Tigers sent on their form fetcher Ben Herring, he couldn?t make a difference.

? However Rees? Wasps? team mate, fullback Tom Voyce had a shocker with his hands, and the wing Josh Lewsey wasn?t that great either.

? Was interested to look at Toby Flood the Leicester flyhalf who is being touted for the England 10 jersey but he didn?t look much: a good footie player but neither a Wilko nor a Cipriani.

? Wasps were booed by the home fans after their second prop had to go off. Apparently they have a history of faking it to get uncontested scrums, but the 2nd bloke looked genuinely hurt.

? I?ve been sympathising with northern complaints about how the game has changed for them for a few weeks now, but the major change in my eyes is not the ELVs, but on the crackdown on leaving feet. You could see the effect of it clearly in this game.

The tactic of forming barricades of players bodies as though using logs, to protect the ball, seems to have disappeared; for a few weeks at least. Attacking teams are being pinged a lot; so they are scared of playing rugby in their own half. Defenders have adjusted better.

The northern referees are taking the IRB decree about staying on feet a lot more seriously than southern referees since the 1 August 2008 edict. SH teams are going to get a bit of a shock in the autumn tests and they may blame the ELVs also, but it doesn't have anything to do with them.

However, referees from all over the world stand united on another IRB edict issued at the same time ? putting the ball into the scrum straight. They have, as usual, ignored it.

But I digress.

 

[Scotty]

It's always a pleasure to see Stringer's pass which should be required viewing for young scrumhalves - and it was also good to see Quinlan back. Was looking forward to seeing young Earls get another game but he didn't play. Instead Hurley had an unhappy game at fullback.

Surely you can't be serious. I've always had a good laugh when I've seen his pass, particularly when he tries to throw it long - it is like he is flinging it from one side of his body to the other, and often the ball seems to be on a vertical axis rather than horizontal one. It looks more like a fast pilates exercise than a correct passing technique.

 

[Lee Grant]

So long as it gets to the receiver in the right spot in front of him, and doesn't involve too much of a pickup and the outside foot is opposite the ball so that a big wind up is not required and the ball can be swept from close to the deck - all standard fare for Stringer - I don't care if it doesn't have make up and lipstick on it and that you don't like the looks of it.

Minimum pick up, minimum wind-up and minimum delay are what our young scrummies need to learn from Stringer.

However they shouldn't watch his running game, which is virtually non-existent except in Heineken Cup finals.

 

[Lee Grant]

Burgoin 25 Stade Fran?ais 32

Link McKenzie got his Stade team out of town and back to Paris with another win but they didn?t dominate the locals. Actually they weren?t really locals at all: the Burgoin team which normally plays near Lyons moved their home game to Grenoble 85 kms away to increase the gate from about 9,000 to 20,000.

It may have well been at their home stadium as the crowd was going for the underdogs whose playing roster costs half of what the Paris outfit forks out every year.
.
? I was a bit surprised that the English and French commentator made a big fuss of Gasnier as the same two blokes didn?t have much to say about SBW when he ran on last month for his debut with Toulon.

Gaz did fine. They put him on the wing as the Tahs did to Tahu, to learn the game. He fielded a few high balls, tapped one back and presented the ball back long once to the manor born.

He ran the ball in for a superb team try started by who else but the sublime Juan Mart?n Hern?ndez, who cat footed his way through a gap, dished to Sergio Parisse, nominated for IRB player of the year, back to JMH on the run around, to Lionel Beauxis who shovelled the pill without catching it, Ella style to Gaz to score.

Apart from being absent once to field a wipers kick and not packing low enough to help out team mates when stopped a couple of times he looked like a rugby player. Mind you most backs support in contact like that.

But Gaz?s best move was in the second half when he delayed a pass and ran into the gap instead. A timely pass nearly had a team mate going into score but the ball was planted on the touchline, not the goal line.

? It was a top game in the first half with SF running the pill all the time and Burgoin responding. At half time it was 13-26 to SF and was a lot better game than the other two games this weekend I mentioned above, but Bourgoin got tough after oranges and they slugged it out.

? SF got 3 drop goals during the match. It sounds boring but some of them were so well struck they were worth watching. One was from 45 metres out on the 15 metre lineout line and Beauxais stroked it over like he was putting a birdie.

? There was a strange substitution with about 10 minutes to go. Scrummie Alexandre Albouy went off and tall strapping centre Mirco Bergamasco took his place. Did OK too but he looked so big he was like a cow typing a letter.

? Burgoin have won only 1 game this year but they?ve got losing bonus points in all their losses. Nobody except McKenzie and his coaching staff would have begrudged the successful penalty kick by Laloo to get to within 7 again on the final bell. In truth Laloo could have won the game had all his other penalty kicks gone over.

 

[Thomond78]

Evil Showboating Ladyboys (complete with CJ vd Ladyboy and Pebbles Elsom) - nil. Nowt. Nothing. Zip. Zero. Not a sausage. Bugger all.

Red Army of Righteousness - 18 (two tries, Melck and Maaaad Dougie O0, one conversion, two penalties).

That, for the moment, is all. ;D O0

 

[Lee Grant]

Leinster 0 Munster 18

Imagine the following:
- Queensland hadn?t lost to any Aussie team at home in a domestic game for 5 years.
- NSW had won the Super14 in 2005 and 2008 and Qld had never been in a S14 final.
- Queensland had beaten NSW home and away last year in domestic games.
- NSW hadn?t beaten Qld home or away in any kind of match since 2006.

Call Queensland, Leinster and NSW, Munster; imagine there is as much love between the two Irish teams as there is between the two Aussie teams, and you have an idea of what the atmosphere was like at kick off time on Sunday at Suncorp, sorry, the RDS, Leinster?s home ground in Dublin.

Some thoughts on the game:

? It was always going to be an arm wrestle but, Contepomi, no. 12 for the Blue Slime (Leinster), and who had kicked 16 out of 19 kicks at goal to date this year, missed three kickable goals in the first half. Instead of being 9-3 ahead at oranges, they were 0-3 down to the Red Tide (Munster).

It was a half that would have a Sydney crowd yawning. For example: BOD of the Slime didn?t get the ball for a run until the 37th minute, but I found the hard contact game as intriguing as a Heineken Cup or test match.

? It kept going like this for a while but then some rugby broke out nearly half way through the 2nd half. The Slime infringed a few times on their goal line, and the referee, infected with the international no-cards virus, gave a penalty only. 6-0.

? Players got tired and it was only a matter of time before one team cracked the other as we have seen so many times in tight S14 games at the money end of the match. It had to be the Blue Slime but it was the Red Tide instead. Tipoki threw a lovely long pass. Fullback Earls got it and backed himself, then to no. 8 Melck backing up at full pace slowly; he delays his pass to Mafi and then ?.. doesn?t pass at all ? angles in and bounces over in a tackle. 11-0.

? Two quick tries are needed by the Slime but the minutes tick by and ROG puts through the sweetest grubber for ?Offside Doug? Howlett to score another try for the visitors. 18-0. Game over. Sweet.

? Man of the Match ROG of Munster had a cunning, irritating, winning, controlling game in those circumstances where arms were wrestled, players bashed or were bashed, and receivers got the ball and tacklers at the same time all day. Although I have high hopes for Berrick Barnes, Oz hasn?t had a flyhalf who can play like that since the great Noddy.

There was some talk that ROG wouldn?t be the Ireland flyhalf for the autumn tests but he gave one of the young pretenders, Jonathan Sexton, a master class. Nacewa, who got a broken arm last week, was missed and I wouldn?t be surprised to see Contepomi move from 12 to 10 for Leinster's next match. Sexton?s time in the sun will come, but not now.

? Rocky Elsom had his first match for Leinster and had a pretty fair game taking the ball up. The scrummie was another Tah, Chris Whitaker, who has been playing well this season, but he showed his age a bit in this game and was outplayed by his opponent Tomas O?Leary, a likely Ireland scrummie.

? Another new Slimer was CJ van der Linde and he played true to form: guys on the ground and he flops on them leading with his elbow, for a Munster penalty. At least there was no head butt this time.

? Two up and coming Irish outside backs, Luke Fitzgerald and Keith Earls had fine games for Leinster and Munster respectively though it wasn?t a game for the back three. I was astonished to see Rob Kearney, the Ireland fullback in Melbourne and MOTM (though Australia won), on the Slime bench. I suppose that Leinster didn?t want 2 youngsters in their back 3 in such an important game.

? Both sides made a lot of errors as happens in attritional matches. Leinster turned over too much ball and Munster, as ROG said after the game, ? .. reacted better to our mistakes.?

? The referee had a fair game and like most NH refs this season was been harsh and consistent about leaving feet whoever had the pill. They have been better than SH refs in this regard but not as good at policing the offside line at rucks.

? Michael Cheika, the Aussie Leinster coach, has a bit of work to do because it is a blip on the Slime?s recent progress. The Munster coach, another Aussie Tony McGahan, who is virtually unknown at home, will be particularly happy with the nil scoreline of the Slime but will be having the lads work on the lineout during the week.

 

[Thomond78]

Few things; one, the Bull Hayes is a different man. His running, his handling, everything, are those of a different player. He was superb.

Secondly, vd Ladyboy got eaten alive in the scrums. I was genuinely, if pleasantly, surprised.

Thirdly, POC gave a masterclass in playing second row. He was everywhere, and I would love to see a video analysis of just how much work he did in the tackle and carrying. He was absolutely magnificent. Nathan Sharpe should be made to watch that, then made to watch what The Great Seagull considers to be playing second row in a full, start-up-the Beethoven Clockwork Orange styleee. Any of you with any spare high-voltage cattle prods, just send them to Jim Williams c/o The ARU; don't worry, they'll be used.

On his current performance, BOD needs some serious help, as he's unrecognisable as the player he was.

Also, fair call on the style of game. That was a HEC quarter or semi in disguise, make no doubt about it.

 

[Spook]

I thought Rocky was Leinsters best forward with Heaslip close behind - Rocky had a tremendous work rate but the Leinster engine room were anonymous. Can anyone explain how Jennings got MOTM? :nta:

ROG and and the Munster scrummie had it all over their opposites and won Munster the game. Who was that Munster fullback? He was dynamic.

BOD is broken.

 

[Thomond78]

Earls is the full-back. His father played on the team that beat the Wobblies in 1992, you may be glad to know. ;D

As for Jennings - that's what happens when you get bitter ex-Ladyboys picking it. Choke on it, goiys. >

 

[Pfitzy]

Secondly, vd Ladyboy got eaten alive in the scrums. I was genuinely, if pleasantly, surprised.

Clearly you haven't been watching him in scrums to date. As far as technically competent, massive props go, he runs down the sideline well.

 

[Lee Grant]

As for Jennings - that's what happens when you get bitter ex-Ladyboys picking it. Choke on it, goiys. >

Jennings of Leinster was announced by the ground announcer (though I thought that Wallace was better for Munster) and the Setanta TV people correctly chose ROG.

 

[RugbyReg]

So did the Reds win?

 

[Lee Grant]

Yes and no Noddy - yes and no.

In my mixed metaphor Queensland was Leinster and they lost, but the winners, Munster, wear Red jerseys.

 

[Thomond78]

Noddy, stop confusing him.

There, there, Lee. It's okay. Nurse will be along shortly. We're going for a walk later, would you like that?

 

[RugbyReg]

Bugger. Another rebuilding year for Leinster then.

 

[Spook]

;D Yep, Edinburgh will knock em out again The Leinster midfield looks a bit weak this year with BOD on the way out.

 

[Lee Grant]

I thought that BOD had a pretty good match the week before against the Ospreys.