Jeff Round 5

So 4 rounds gone and after impressive wins for Saracens, Exeter and Gloucester along with a squeaky bum win for Quins and a fairly ropey win for Sale this is how the table looks:

P W D L Pts
Harlequins 4 4 0 0 17
Saracens 4 3 0 1 14
Exeter Chiefs 4 3 0 1 14
Sale Sharks 4 3 0 1 13
London Irish 4 2 0 2 11
Gloucester Rugby 4 2 0 2 9
Bath Rugby 4 2 0 2 9
London Wasps 4 2 0 2 9
Leicester Tigers 4 1 0 3 6
Northampton Saints 4 1 0 3 5
Worcester Warriors 4 1 0 3 5
Newcastle Falcons 4 0 0 4 1

Harlequins sit top of the table with 4 from 4, just behind them and you feel their gaining momentum again the juggernaught of Saracens have climbed steadily after their openning day defeat. In third place Exeter continue to show they are comfy in the prem, setting them selves well for when the internationals return. And in fourth place Sale bring some cheer to the north of the country. I think this could be the first time a northern club has been in the top four since '08? (Tell me if i'm wrong stattos).

From 5th to 11th it's the mid country (and London, well ish) any of these positions could easily change though with so few points in it.

And taking up their customary position, Newcastle sit at 12. Can they change things around? You have to wonder if it'll be them or Worcester going down this season.

So on to the games to look forward to this weekend we have:

Fri 30 Worcester Warriors v Northampton Saints, Sixways, Worcester
19:45 local, 18:45 GMT

Sat 1 Gloucester Rugby v London Irish, Kingsholm, Gloucester
13:00 local, 12:00 GMT

Sat 1 Exeter Chiefs v Saracens, Sandy Park
15:00 local, 14:00 GMT

Sat 1 Harlequins v Sale Sharks, The Stoop, London
15:00 local, 14:00 GMT

Sat 1 Bath Rugby v Leicester Tigers, Recreation Ground, Bath
15:15 local, 14:15 GMT

Sun 2 Newcastle Falcons v London Wasps, Kingston Park, Newcastle
15:30 local, 14:30 GMT

My predictions.
Saints to grind out a win any way possible, Northampton by 5.
Gloucester to win a high scoring affair against an inexperienced LI side, Glos by 8.
Saracens to get in to their stride and have too much on the bench for Exeter, Saracens by 3.
A revitalised Quins carry on their winning streak in a brutal game, Quins by 7.
Bath finally get a win against Tigers in a try bonanza, Bath by 15.
Wasps click and run in some beauts against a clueless Falcons, Wasps by 10.

Agree, disagree?

yappy, loving this series of previews, thanks

My thoughts on this coming weekend's games:
Experience tells, Saints be less than a score.
It's that Kingsholm thing again, Glaws by more than a score.
Sarries to enjoy success at SP, Saracens by more than a score (hope I'm so so so wrong!).
Quins to edge a close contest, Quins by less than a score.
Could any other loss hurt the Tigers quite so badly?, Bath by less than a score.
Pests revitalised in the north-east, Wasps by less than a score.

Warriors to beat Saints
Comfortable win for gloucester
Quins to win with a last minute kick.
Bruising battle at Sandy Park - just one try scored by Tom Johnson,but 7 penalties for Hodgson and 2 for Farrell give Sarries a 27-17 win.
Bath to get TB win against Tigers.
Falcons to win by 10 over Wasps in a try fest.

Table will see Quins and Sarries pulling away at the top, while Tigers and Saints will occupy the bottom two positions.

Glad you enjoy it Aslong.

I really think Exeter will contain Saracens. Your defence against Wasps was very organised, which is what you need against Sara's as they generally go through the phases and try to grind open a gap for Barritt or a loose forward to barge through, as long as you keep to your drills you should be ok. And that monster centre of yours should give them a bit of grief too!

After that it'll come down to the set piece, scrums should be pretty even but you really need to sort out the lineout or else!

I do think they'll control the game too well though and will kick enough points to get a win without ever looking like running away with it, you should get the losing bp though.

Tiger if that's how it plays out at Sandy Park then can you tell me the lotto numbers too!

Can't see Johnson scoring the one try of the game though, Saracens loosies will contain him, it'll be Exeters monster centre who runs through Strettle to score in the corner (conversion kicked).

Unless an under cover defence coach has come in and done some serious work at Tigers and this is accompanied by some personel changes I see another mauling this weekend. Made worse by the fact I think the game is on Sky and Stuart Barnes will be the smuggest man in the world, prepare for horrendus sweeping generalisations and calls for at least one Tigers player to be sin binned irrelevent of innocence or guilt.

This is going to be a really interesting week and potentially could ruin my sportsguru progress! I think only Glaws and Quins are safe bets for victories but all the others could go either way.

Saints will sneak it against Wuss by 3
Glaws will win by 12
Exeter to win by a point
Quins by 15
Bath by 3
Falcons by 6

But I'm sure i'll change my mind on half of those before Friday!

formerly known as Sam wrote:Tigers player to be sin binned irrelevent of innocence or guilt.

You're showing your bias there Sam. Everyone else knows the Tigers are never innocent!!

formerly known as Sam wrote:Unless an under cover defence coach has come in and done some serious work at Tigers and this is accompanied by some personel changes I see another mauling this weekend. Made worse by the fact I think the game is on Sky and Stuart Barnes will be the smuggest man in the world, prepare for horrendus sweeping generalisations and calls for at least one Tigers player to be sin binned irrelevent of innocence or guilt.

Isn't Barnes out in New Zealand? Didn't think I've seen him on sky for a while. Might be mistaken

Aslongasbut100 is it true you have injury problems in the frontrow?

I actually think Worcester could win this one. Newcastle could also win.

Agree about the others though.

Saracens do have excellent away form and have happy memories of Sandy Park. Exeter are a streetwise side and could well pose problems. Also missing a lot less players should work in their favour.

Yappysnap our scrum is the most underrated in the league in my opinion. It has had the upperhand in all encounters so far generally.

It will be a huge test. Hopefully the Saracens attack can show for a 2nd week in a row they can score tries.

I will have to back my side to win based on bias, being the champions, current form, excellent away record and previous match at SP. Saracens to lay down a marker with a 12 point win in my opinion. It won't be like last week but I think we'll win with something to spare.

beshocked wrote:Aslongasbut100 is it true you have injury problems in the frontrow?

I actually think Worcester could win this one. Newcastle could also win.

Agree about the others though.

Saracens do have excellent away form and have happy memories of Sandy Park. Exeter are a streetwise side and could well pose problems. Also missing a lot less players should work in their favour.

Yappysnap our scrum is the most underrated in the league in my opinion. It has had the upperhand in all encounters so far generally.

It will be a huge test. Hopefully the Saracens attack can show for a 2nd week in a row they can score tries.

I will have to back my side to win based on bias, being the champions, current form, excellent away record and previous match at SP. Saracens to lay down a marker with a 12 point win in my opinion. It won't be like last week but I think we'll win with something to spare.

Don't think so, beshocked - Tui came off with a knock, but should be fine, so expect a starting 3 of Sturgess, Whitehead/Clarke, & Tui, with Moon, Clarke/Whitehead, and probably Andress on the bench (Budgie is off to the Forces world cup - gutting, his presence never fails to inspire)

You coming down for this one? Sadly, I will be stuck in London

Nope not this one.

Is that a good frontrow?

The only Exeter players I know are Johnson,Arscott, Budgen and Kevin Barrett.

Who are the players to watch out for?

You're showing your bias there Sam. Everyone else knows the Tigers are never innocent!!

I'm more than aware of the song sung in the shed (I adapted it for our win down there a season or two ago, that didn't go down well). Sadly we don't have a pack that handy in the breakdown, though Salvi and Woods are trying to change that, currently far to nice or far to obviously slowing the ball down. We really are missing the likes of Croft, Crane and Deacon they make a huge difference to so much of our play. Nice to see Castro warming up his scrummaging muscles this morning, hopefully he'll be back in time for the Quinns game.

C'mon now, I'm not giving away our state secrets, we all know that you're of the Wray dynasty!!!

No I am not of the Wray dynasty but I have met Nigel Wray before.

True I might well relay the information onto the Sarries management.

Ha, ha. It's a good front row, usually on top imo, even against the best, with very good bench depth. Second row a bit of a worry, with Short and Hanks out injured, leaving just inspirational captain Hayes and Muldowney. In the backrow, your man Johnson, plus Scaysbrook the scavenger, and either Richie Baxter or the youngster Phiilips at 8. Thomas likely to keep the 9 shirt over Barrett, Mieres at 10, oh whom some say he should have been at the world cup for Arg, Naqer and Shoey, the bludgeon and the rapier in midfield, and a back three of Jess (speedster), Arscott (ever dependable, lovely mazy runner) & Tatupu/Rennie/Foster/Sestaret (depending on injury status) - fairly settled, and won't make it easy for you, but suspect you will be too strong

I still remember you shocking us at Vicarage Road. I still have nightmares.

You have a big physical strong team which will probably look to rough us up like you did at VR and Worcester did recently.

Crucially we are missing two of most physical backrowers, Jacques Burger and Kelly Brown.

Also Charlie Hodgson the greatest defensive fly half in the AP will be starting. Lovely! He does get the backline moving though.

I would love us to pack our bench with the likes of Saull,Brits and Short to cause havoc in the 2nd half.

An in form Ernst Joubert is a machine.

beshocked, Shouldn't Burger be back possibly? What with Namibia now being out of the WC.

The way I see it is that Saracens scrum looked shaky v Wasps, while Exeter pushed them there. So should be a toughy.

[quote="beshocked"]I still remember you shocking us at Vicarage Road. I still have nightmares.

You have a big physical strong team which will probably look to rough us up like you did at VR and Worcester did recently.

Crucially we are missing two of most physical backrowers, Jacques Burger and Kelly Brown.

Also Charlie Hodgson the greatest defensive fly half in the AP will be starting. Lovely! He does get the backline moving though.

I would love us to pack our bench with the likes of Saull,Brits and Short to cause havoc in the 2nd half.

[b]An in form Ernst Joubert is a machine. [quote]

I genuinely believe he should be captain for you boys. This isn't just Borthwick bashing but as you say Joubert is a total machine, every time he plays he leaves everything on the pitch. For me although Borthwick is very smart he doesn't lead by example and too many times seems to pee off the ref. One of the reasons you seem to struggle to put teams to the sword is the safety first approach Borthwick goes for, he appitamises sticking to a gameplan rigidly and not playing off the cuff rugby (not necessarily a bad thing).

Borthwick a useful technical second but Joubert definately captain.

For me although Borthwick is very smart he doesn't lead by example and too many times seems to pee off the ref

He does seem to try and always get his point across even if the ref has told him to retreat, that's going to get him into trouble one day. Captains need to keep the ref onside otherwise you're just making a rod for your own back as the ref will stop listening to you and it gives the oppositon much more time to carefully point out just what your openside is doing at the breakdown.

I am biased, but I think Newcastle could break their duck this weekend. Despite the scores, we've been getting better and a long trip up North could do for Wasps. Newcastle really do need to start getting some points on the board.

think Gloucester v Irish will be close but home advantage may see them sneak it

Cumbrian, I was gutted when you boys lost to Leicester, I think every one was willing you to win! Can you get out of this losing rut now though?

I must say i think Wasps may be the perfest team for you to turn up for, they seem flaky when faced by sides that get in their face and if your pack pulls its weight and goes out to smash them they may decide they just want to go home.

You guys do need to sort out the forwards though, if you let the pests build up a head of steam, well we've seen what Wade can do already.

Sam, do you think Castro will be straight back in the team after the WC? I don't think he'll be needed against Quins, best rest him for a game or two, last thing you want is to rush him back too quickly and have him injured.

Eh?

Hint hint. Let him have a week off.

yappysnap I must have watched a different game to you. I thought Saracens shunted the Wasps pack around.

Agree that Joubert should probably be captain but it will never happen.

Borthwick is a hard worker, he puts in a deceptively high amount of tackles and is well respected. He isn't charismatic but the Bath and Saracens players must have seen something about him they like. Also MJ wouldn't have picked him as captain for so long if he didn't have some leadership qualitiies. Also I think in some circumstances he handles the ref very well!

Ernst Joubert is a more approachable bloke than Steve Borthwick too but both have their strengths and weaknesses.

I thought the world cup boys had to have an enforced rest of 2 weeks. Is that true?

I have no idea, I hope they do though. Not just so we don't face a few of them but it must be bad for them to go so long without a break, a week off and just training with their teams and going through drills must be a lot better in the big picture.

Castro or Murphy will be back. Whichever one it is will probably be on the bench.

Two weeks rest, whose rule is that? An EPs one perhaps and not applying to non english players.

As to Borthwick's abilities as captain. Everywhere he has been he has been made captain, by coaches such as John Connolly, Brendan Venter, Brian Ashton and Johnno. none of them appoint captaions based on sentiment - but rather hard nosed pragmatism. I can only assume he is a damn good captain.

yappysnap wrote:Cumbrian, I was gutted when you boys lost to Leicester, I think every one was willing you to win! Can you get out of this losing rut now though?

I must say i think Wasps may be the perfest team for you to turn up for, they seem flaky when faced by sides that get in their face and if your pack pulls its weight and goes out to smash them they may decide they just want to go home.

You guys do need to sort out the forwards though, if you let the pests build up a head of steam, well we've seen what Wade can do already.

Sam, do you think Castro will be straight back in the team after the WC? I don't think he'll be needed against Quins, best rest him for a game or two, last thing you want is to rush him back too quickly and have him injured.

Eh?

Hint hint. Let him have a week off.

Thanks, it was pretty gutting and a real opportunity missed TBH, it will be a while before we get a better chance to turn over the Tigers.

I'm hoping the long journey and a fired up Falcon's pack will push things in our favour. Yeah, I'm worried about Wade, I've had an eye on him for a while and I'm a big fan. I hope his size doesn't count against him in the future because he's the sort of player I'd like to see get a chance for England.

Sam, do you think Castro will be straight back in the team after the WC? I don't think he'll be needed against Quins, best rest him for a game or two, last thing you want is to rush him back too quickly and have him injured.

He can rest during the Low Value Cup weeks that follow the Quinns game. Cockers and the lads will be desperate not to lose three in a row at Welford Rd, that would be unheard of and probabley increase pressure on Cockerill. Plus we are desperate for a tight head to be fit and available as with the injuries to White, Brookes, Campo (academy) and Bower (academy) we really are down to just Holford and Bucknall (both are better loosies than tighties) and neither are particularly good. If one of those goes down we'll need either another loan or will be using an 18 year old with no first team experience. Thankfully Stanko seems ok and we have the talented young Harris to cover him at loosehead.

formerly known as Sam wrote:

Sam, do you think Castro will be straight back in the team after the WC? I don't think he'll be needed against Quins, best rest him for a game or two, last thing you want is to rush him back too quickly and have him injured.

He can rest during the Low Value Cup weeks that follow the Quinns game. Cockers and the lads will be desperate not to lose three in a row at Welford Rd, that would be unheard of and probabley increase pressure on Cockerill. Plus we are desperate for a tight head to be fit and available as with the injuries to White, Brookes, Campo (academy) and Bower (academy) we really are down to just Holford and Bucknall (both are better loosies than tighties) and neither are particularly good. If one of those goes down we'll need either another loan or will be using an 18 year old with no first team experience. Thankfully Stanko seems ok and we have the talented young Harris to cover him at loosehead.

If the Quins pack can't finally take advantage of that weakness then i think i'll cry.

As long as we don't pick up any injuries or bans (marler) then we'd be looking at a front row of Fairbrother/Marler, Gray, Johnston. More than enough to cope with yours?

Stanko is a good scrummaging prop but not great around the park (useless Scotland could have done us a favour and knocked out Argentina, that way we could have had Ayerza back), we have all our hookers available and it's only tighthead we're down to the bare bones. Tighthead is however, the cornerstone of the scrum and if they aren't going forward then the pack isn't going forward.

All will be immaterial if our Poopie defence doesn't improve as your backs will cut us to shreads on the outside. Sarries did it with barely needing to exert effort, Joubert's first will be the easiest he ever scores so bad was the attempted tackles (not sure they even count as attempts really).

Well that's lovely to hear.

I expect a win a from Quins away aginst you boys but to be honest wouldn't be surprised to find we couldn't manage it.

How's Allans knock looking? Will he be around to face JTH & Lowe do you think? If not who'll be played?

Allen and Skivington are out for this weekend but should be back for Quins. Allen has a shoulder injury that should be fine and Skivington is being rested because he took a knock to the head against the Falcons and the club want to be careful. On the upside the rumours that Parling will return look to be true and Salvi and Tait are both fit to play. Not sure what the line up will be yet, apparently the club doctor needed to stitch some players up after a full blooded training session at Oval Park yesterday. Cockerill is in the paper this morning saying the players were too soft and needed a hard session in order to get ready for the weekend.

Seems my last article has been changed slightly I used a different five letter word and not poopie to describe our defence. Apologies to the mods.

We never win at Kingsholm, I'll be very happy if the boys come back from there with an LBP

Sam I agree to a certain extent.

Where is the balance between rubbish defence and good attacks?

I thought Saracens put through some exceptional passages of passing skill. They were patient, recycled the ball well and the gaps appeared.

Especially in the first try. I thought Leicester tackled well to hold Saracens in check.

The first Ernst Joubert try and Owen Farrell try were admittedly pathetic defence. They strolled through.

Really good hands leading up to Ernst's first try though.

http://www.saracens.com/sarriestv/

Beshocked, what's your lineout like? Chief's was woeful on Saturday, lost so many against the throw it stopped being funny!

Young Wade was lightning for Wasps but i did have to laugh at his tackling technique. It appeared to invovle running up to the opposing player then stopping just before the tackle was made and trying to pat them gently with both hands til someone bigger came along. Terrifying pace on the fella though!

Carpe Diem last season it was the best in the AP. Wasps do have a very good lineout which caused us a lot of problems in the first game of the season. No surprises it caused Exeter problems

In general our lineout is good. Borthwick is an excellent lineout operator.

Thanks Beshocked. Didn't know how good Wasp's lineout was! Unfortunately i can't make SP this weekend either. Loved the fixture last year, Sarries fans were great fun and well up for the banter!

Carpe Diem last season it was the best in the AP.

The scourge of your lineout is about to make his injury comeback this weekend. Big boost for Tigers that Parling will be back. Borthwick hasn't been in the imperious form he was last season, seems a tad lethargic by his normal lineout standards.

Where is the balance between rubbish defence and good attacks?

When the opposition are making easy gainline attacks with little effort and forcing your defence to retreat before competing at the ruck giving even greater momentum then I'd say that was bad defence. To many miss tackles and far too easy for Sarries to gain good position by merely running around the winger on the outside. Somebody really needs to have a word with Morris about actually sodding drifting, he just kept stepping in a leaving an overlap.

Fair play to Sarries they were given quality ball and gaps to attack and they did so ruthlessly. They may be annoyed to concede three tries and what could have been more had it not been for two very poor calls from the assistant on the Crumbie side of the pitch (forward pass to Hamilton that wasn't forward it was deflected off of a Sarries hand and the 'stamp' by Kitchener which clearly wasn't).

Sam you are not very balanced when it comes to the ref are you? Leicester aren't whiter than white.

Were all the ref's mistakes in Saracen's favour? Silly me they must have been.

If you are so sure the assistant got it wrong and with your sharp eye for infringements by Tiger's opponents you should become a touch judge or ref.

Admittedly sometimes it is hard not to look only at the decisions which favour the opposition.

Sam you are not very balanced when it comes to the ref are you? Leicester aren't whiter than white.

Never suggested they were, I did not complain about any of the penalties conceded by Tigers other than the stamp of which the touch judge had a perfect view (he was about 1m away) and tv footage clearly showed that Kitchener went to lengths not to stamp on Joubert despite them being tangled with Joubert on the floor at the bottom of the maul and trapping Kitchener's foot. I didn't criticise the referee, he made neither of those decisions they were handled by the bumbling idiot on the touch line.

They would have made no difference to the result but had one of the two converted we would have had a try bonus point which in a tight season like this is likely to be could come in handy at the end of the season.

Fair enough. Anyway it's your opinion. I can't really give my opinion on the matter as I wasn't there. If there was no stamp would Leicester have scored a try?

Have to say I am relieved to see Leicester not rack up yet another bonus point as you are the best team at getting them. No team better.

You'll probably still win the bonus point competition again.

We have become fairly good at playing the system under Cockerill, there is a fair rotation of players and normally we can keep most of them fresh until the finale. These intensive injury curses and international call ups do tend to play merry hell with the planning.

I mean there's 6 games from the start of the season to the LV Cup and Tigers don't care about the Low Value competition so who would have guessed that the two tightheads (White and Brookes) we have got on the books would be out of it for the majority of those 6 games, Cole and Castro didn't have an injury between them last season. Crane was given the entire summer off to recover properly and that didn't work, Newby we knew would be out of action but just no luck is falling our way. Cockerill must wonder why he bothers planning ahead sometimes.

But imagine how much better your whole squad will be for all of this rugby their playing.

Next year your whole squad will be twice as experienced as it was, not just the top 25odd which is the problem for you at the moment.

We gave all these youngsters experience over the last couple of years, especially last year when we had mass injury problems at the start of the season. The only players making their first team debuts are the ones that have just signed. The like of Harris, Forsyth, Ford, Armes etc have all been slowly intigrated over a period of time. Ford made his debut at 16.

We might not be as good as Quins when it comes to churning out almost an entire team from the academy but more than a third of the England team that lines up against Scotland will be from the Tigers academy (Cole, Deacon, Croft, Moody, Youngs, Tuilagi). We are good at bringing players through, to be honest I just hope that this forces the board to hire a defence coach.

On the topic of coaches at least Aldred has to keep his mitts away from Wilko on Sat now! What a joke our kicking specialist has been.

Will Leicester get a defence coach? I really can't see any reason why they wouldn't already have one, but if they don't at the moment why would things change.

Yappysnap if Quins shipped 16 tries in 4 games I think you would be looking at the defence very closely!

We'll see what Leicester do against Bath on the weekend.

Sam why do you have no defence coach? It's madness.

We have had no specialist defence coach since Neil Back left, we had Ben Herring who was the breakdown coach and helped the players keep on top of the current interpretations but he was offered a bigger job in Japan and so left during last season. Richard Blaze 'replaced' him on the staff but is a forwards coach so the role has just moved far from it's original concept.

Defence is not normally a big issue because our tight five is normally powerful enough to control the set piece and limit the amount of quality ball reaching the opposition. Now the amount of front five forwards missing is about in double figures we aren't controlling the set piece and applying lots of pressure to the oppositions tight game our defence is being found out. Doesn't help that there's new players so everyone isn't on the same wave length yet. In the big games last season (vs Leinster and Sarries) we were undone by outside breaks from counter attacks and that is still a major weakness. Maybe when Geordan is there to lead from the back it will improve (a general a full back is a god send to a backline under pressure).

What a joke our kicking specialist has been.

Don't get me started. The idiot ruined Flood's kicking style and hence is kicking percentage during the 6N and Paul Burke (Tigers kicking coach) was apparently livid and has managed to coach the stupid little run up step thing out of him.

I know what you eman about full backs, our club side have two to choose from, one who hardly ever drops the ball and tackles anything near him. The other who's really a winger and doesn't like any of the full back jobs...

It's 'uncomfortable' when the second plays.

Yep the silly run step and Wilkinsons odd little leg shake are both new inventions from Aldred, hopefully after this campaign we'll see the back of him.

Well I fail to see why Flood needed to change his style, his range wasn't the biggest, true, but his accuracy before the 6N was excellent and in the opening rounds he was rock solid. By the end of the competition he couldn't be relied upon and that did not help Tigers finish to the season. I agree that hopefully we'll be rid of him by the end of the RWC.

Uncomfortable is the right word, even at amateur level having an authoritive full back counts for a lot, there's no uncertainty about who your man is and whether you need to stay out or step in etc. Interesting conundrum raised on the Tigers board, do we support Italy or Ireland this weekend? If Italy win we get Castro back and our scrum is fixed, if Ireland win we get Murphy back and he will help the defensive side of things no end.

I'd go for Castro and then play the tight game, keep the ball in the forwards and only let the backs have it when you're about 5 metres out, and don't kick it away.

Just not against us, best way to play against Quins is fast and loose. Fact.