Farewell Shane, and the regions chances for Heineken QFs

After watching some of the Heineken cup games this weekend, it seemed that the greatest fear of Welsh fans had come true. The game dubbed as a goodbye to one of our greats, hit us where it hurts, in our heineken cup hopes. As we went into the December pool fixtures, many were worried about the fall-out from the ill-timed international, and what it would do to the regions preparation.

Well, disjointed is the word best to sum up the performances of welsh regions this weekend.

I'd like to make it clear, I'm taking nothing away from the clubs that beat them, only that the lack of preparation was in the main, obvious.

The ospreys just didnt look anywhere near as ready as Saracens did for that game, they looked out-thought.

The scarlets backline just weren't really cohesive, none of the sweeping moves from deep, handling not good enough, disjointed.

The Blues came away with a decent victory, won from the boot of Dan Parks, a Scottish player who had been with his region while the internationals were away.

I still think the Scarlets should have beaten Munster, Priestland did what all of the welsh flyhalves in the world cup did, crumble when the pressure came on. He's a youngster though, he'll be learning through these experiences, but sooner or later, he'll need to start making those kicks/decisions under pressure like the master ROG has done for years.

But for me, the WRU have really hurt our chances of getting a good representation in the QFs. The groups are tougher year upon year, and the quality of all the teams involved is increasing, but this year, all of the regions laid good enough foundations in thier first games to escape their groups, and i cant seem to get rid of the bitter taste left in the wake of that money-spinner against the ozzies.

That's quite a tall suggestion, claiming that purely because of the Aus international no region will make it beyond the groups/QF's.

It's easy in retrospect to blame that game now that we've lost, if we had won and the regions had fared better against their respective opponents some would surely enough be praising the international as a means of having gotten the players fit and firing in advance. I think it's a tad irresponsible to leap at an excuse as such of why things weren't executed more favourably. Munster and Sarries are hardly a given to begin with.

This week, the 3rd round of group games to be precise, is the first time in the tournament that any region has lost. Blues are top of their group, while Ospreys and Scarlets are second in theirs. It's simply too early to be drawing any conclusions yet.

Parks didn't beat Edinburgh by himself, the points earned were thanks to well-exerted pressure by the Blues' forwards. Warburton, who of course did star against Aus, got MOTM for his contribution. And the Blues' only try was set up by three players who did take part against the Wallabies (Andrews, Warbs and Cuthbert).
Priestland had his first poor outing in quite a while. Whether he would have done better had he played the week before or not can't be proven either way. Maybe he just had a bad day at the office regardless of form and gametime.

Just believe and get behind em to make us proud next weekend

The return Ospreys v Sarries fixture should be a good match - Sarries were by far the better side for the first half and until Brits was subbed and Farrell sin binned in the secnod half, after which they went off the boil and the Os came back quite well. An 80 minute performance from the Saffacens would have seen a 15-20 point victory, and they'll certainly be looking for something closer to that next week, while the Os are much stronger at home and will have had a longer preparation time.

Knowsit, Im not blaming the defeats entirely on the game, but you could visibly see the lack of preparation in comparison to the opposition, as Dummy's said (and I agree with), the Saracens we're clearly better for a large period of the game, and that was down in part to having done their homework and all the team being on the same wave-length. Im a blues fan though, so perhaps more aggrieved than i should be.

I just think that without that international the regions could have continued in what they were doing and not been disrupted for 2 weeks having their star players back a few days before a massive heineken cup weekend for those involved.

Warburton was excellant, as was Bradley Davies, the blues/dragons pack play the same way as the welsh pack, hunt in pairs and hit the big ball runners at some sort of speed to break the gainline 1 or 2 passes out from the last ruck.

Maybe it is all hindsight (although a lot of us were airing caution before the game was played) but I just think the WRU could have done without handicapping the regions in this way.

Ospreys and Blues are still very much in with shout of going through. The home defeat for Scarlets will have hurt them and ruined the efforts up in Franklyn Gardens

Many of the player only returned to training just before the weekend on Thursday. Luckily they had all been performing prior to the Australia match, so all is not lost.

Just harder