The Battle of Dave Parade - Dragons v Blues

First topic message reminder :

Looking forward to this game on friday, should be good. We were convincingly beaten last season at Dave, i just hope that the players have learned much needed lessons. We can't just turn up at DP and expect a win (maybe when we play at home ) so we need to turn up.

I hope we introduce our WC players as starters and not off the bench, they need to get straight in to the game and get stuck in. Rather than trot on after 60, no point in that.

I'm optimistic that the boys returning might galvanise the blues and we do have the quality to win, but the Dragons treat their home matches against us and the Ospreys as the biggest of thier season...so we have to front up.

1. Gethin Jenkins
2. Rhys Thomas
3. Tau Filise
4. Deiniol Jones
5. Bradley Davies
6. Michael Paterson
7. Josh Navidi
8. Xavier Rush

9. Lloyd Williams
10. Ceri Sweeney
11. Tom James
12. Jamie Roberts
13. Casey Laulala
14. Richard Mustoe
15. Chris Czekaj

That's the team i would pick, Deiniol because he offers more in the ruck and mauls that Tito does and with a pack the dragons, with the fans behind them, will be fired up to take it on up front. For me, Tito offers less in this area than DJ.

Gone for Lloyd Williams to start over Richie Rees, RR had a decent game last week but LW will be pretty confident over how the WC went and him v wayne evans would be a pretty good battle.

Sweeney to start. This is probably the one game of the season where Sweeney actually performs, didn't start last year and look what happened Games against the Dragons at Dave are never going to be territorial, kicking games because the match is physical and loose a lot of the time. So Parks' kicking game isn't really needed, Dave is a tight ground and as i said, the games between these two are usually quite attacking affairs and not the type where kicks for territory are needed much.

Finallly, i've gone for Mustoe on the wing. Cuthbert got injured in the last match and it looked like one which could keep him out so i haven't put him up for selection. Mustoe is dependable, quick around the park and gets stuck in. I could have put Czekaj on the wing and Fish at full back but i feel, definsively, Mustoe is better than Fish and with 1/2p out for a few weeks, Czekaj covers full back.

Dragons fans, who are you expecting to start this match? Hopefully the evening will be a nice, dry one so we can get the expansive game that these matches usually are.

From what Rucking Flanker says it sounds like the organisation was even worse than I thought - and yes they let some people in, they seemed to let fans into the Hazell stand first, then let me and a load of people into the Bisley stand and North stand and then stopped most other people coming in. There was only one roller on the pitch and it was small, nobody started forking the turf until 7.30 and the organisation of the sweepers was very poor.

It's a shame as I was looking forward to the game, and typical that it's not raining today.

I was sat in the squash club trying to hear what was going on by watching Scrum V and txting mates outside who were queuing to get in - mental

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

Looked terrible there Munkian. When Scrum V first came on, they said Nigel was late cause he was stuck in traffic, and when he did appear, he was stood there in his jeans and jacket inspecting the water so I assumed it was off anyway.

Cari wrote:Looked terrible there Munkian. When Scrum V first came on, they said Nigel was late cause he was stuck in traffic, and when he did appear, he was stood there in his jeans and jacket inspecting the water so I assumed it was off anyway.

It was mental - was drizzling a bit in the day then bamm ! I'm getting flash back of last years last years derby called off cos of the snow.Mother nature may have done us a favour though - we'll have more of our squad back for the re-match

munkian wrote:

Cari wrote:Looked terrible there Munkian. When Scrum V first came on, they said Nigel was late cause he was stuck in traffic, and when he did appear, he was stood there in his jeans and jacket inspecting the water so I assumed it was off anyway.

It was mental - was drizzling a bit in the day then bamm ! I'm getting flash back of last years last years derby called off cos of the snow.Mother nature may have done us a favour though - we'll have more of our squad back for the re-match

But the Blues will have Warburton, Halfpenny and Henson back, maybe we will have L.Williams at 9 and Henson at 10 for the return

Well i guess i was right, there was a battle...but it was between the waterogged pitch and several brooms

They said on Scrum V last night that the club had hired pumps to get rid of the water....but they got stuck in traffic too and didn't make it in time.

Just to add: people have asked why the fire brigade were not called in to help. Well, there were something like 17 reported call outs to houses that had flooded in the Maindee area (where Rodney Parade is) so they were probably a bit busy.

That's why the club went for plant hire, but as I said they got stuck in the traffic and just didn't make it.

In fairness, so much rain fell in such a short space of time that it would have surprised most clubs. It was a shame the match didn't go ahead - and the (new?) stadium announcer was out of order getting the crowd to cheer in an attempt to influence Nigel Owens's decision on whether it should go ahead - but it was great as usual to see fans mingling and joining each other in a drink afterwards.

yeah i read about the announcer trying to get a reaction out of the fans.

Luckless - what I thought was out of order was the guys behind me in the Bisley stand booing Nigel Owens before he'd made any decision.

I think the game should have been called off at 5.30 as it was apparent even then that the pitch was in an awful state - the only reason it probably wasn't called off is because the opening of the new stand.

But I can't believe that with the Dragons wanting to go ahead with the game, they didn't start clearing the pitch until an hour before kick off and didn't have more people, tools or organisation for the job.

Well they wanted to put it back to 9pm, luckily baber said no.

I couldn't have seen it being playable even at 9 as they were struggling to get the pool around the dead ball area/try line dealt with, and were ignoring the rest of the pitch which had about half an inch of water (or a lot more in places) over it. The ball wasn't bouncing, it was terrible - but at the same time I was gutted as was looking foward to a right battle between the 2 sides.