Preseason friendlies

Just seen Quins are playing Castres tonight:

http://www.quins.co.uk/news/6378.php

And it's a team I'm interested in seeing what it can do, with Botica and Hopper in the centres, Chisholm at FB and Matthews and Wallace (at 6!) in the pack.

What other friendlies are going on? What combos would you like to see? And feel free to post the results

That looks a pretty strong team, should be a good measurement of how you're looking ahead of the new season.

Tigers friendlies kick off on this weekend with a trip to Jersey, then after that we welcome the EPS lot back to the squad for a trip to Belfast and from there it's back home for the final friendly against Nottingham at Welford Rd.

I'm hoping to see the Harrison Ford combo at Tigers get some game time, Slater and Kitchener as the young pretenders to Deacon and Parling. The return of big Jordan Crane and how the back threes line up (we have enough options). For the Jersey game I hope to see something like:

Mulipola, T Youngs, Brookes
Slater, Deacon
de Carpienter, Deacon, Thorpe
Harrison, Ford
Bowden, Smith
Lewington, Morris, Goneva

I think the EPS are having a debriefing session following SA so no Cole, Parling, Kitchener, Flood or Manu. With Ben Youngs, Newby, Woods and Croft injured.

Very interested in seeing that Front Row at work, Sam

Yeah, add Marler to it instead of Mulipola and that could be an immense front row to come off the bench for England with Corbs, Hartley, Cole starting. Brookes will be a real work in progress this off season and Tigers desperately need Tom Youngs to step up and take the 2 shirt.

Wasps are playing there regular preseason opponents Treviso on Friday night in Italy.

London Wasps
1 Tim Payne
2 T Rhys Thomas
3 Simon McIntyre
4 Marco Wentzel (c)
5 James Cannon
6 Sam Jones
7 Matt Everard
8 Billy Vunipola
9 Nic Berry
10 Stephen Jones
11 Jack Wallace
12 Lee Thomas
13 Chris Mayor
14 Tom Varndell
15 Tommy Bell
Replacements:
16 Zak Taulafo
17 Lewis Thiede
18 Tom Lindsay
19 Richard Birkett
20 Tom Palmer
21 Ashley Johnson
22 Joe Simpson
23 Nick Robinson
24 Andrea Masi
25 Christian Wade
26 Will Robinson



Stephen Jones will make his Wasps debut
Stephen Jones, T Rhys Thomas, Lee Thomas and Tommy Bell are all to wear the Wasps shirt for the first time while Andrea Masi, Ashley Johnson and Lewis Thiede are also set to make their first appearances if selected from the bench.
The game also sees a return to Wasps colours for England second-row Tom Palmer who re-joined the Club this summer from Stade Francais.
Marco Wentzel captains the side and will make a return to Treviso having played there for three seasons earlier in his career.
Both Wasps and Treviso will use an extended bench for this game.
Director of Rugby Dai Young said: “We’re looking forward to getting back out there and getting a game under our belts. The boys have worked very hard in pre-season and they’re all excited about getting out there for the first time.”

My second team, Ealing, are playing Cardiff RFC at the CAP on 25th. Quite a few Ealing fans are making the trip. An amazing match up for a club who were in the Counties leagues not very long ago.

Scarlets are hosting London Welsh the same day.

Trev - I assume Wasps can't afford to host anyone at the moment. All our friendlies are away.

Glaws start with a trip to Leinster this Saturday followed by visits from Cardiff and Doncaster. No team news yet...

BigTrevsbigmac wrote:Wasps are playing there regular preseason opponents Treviso on Friday night in Italy.

Stephen Jones will make his Wasps debut
Stephen Jones, T Rhys Thomas, Lee Thomas and Tommy Bell are all to wear the Wasps shirt for the first time while Andrea Masi, Ashley Johnson and Lewis Thiede are also set to make their first appearances if selected from the bench.

This will be a little weird, eh? All these guys suiting up for Wasps. Especially Stephen Jones. Hope they all do well, but it will be a strange sight. He should have gone to Glaws just for the red colour.

Hound_of_Harrow wrote:My second team, Ealing, are playing Cardiff RFC at the CAP on 25th. Quite a few Ealing fans are making the trip. An amazing match up for a club who were in the Counties leagues not very long ago.

Scarlets are hosting London Welsh the same day.

Trev - I assume Wasps can't afford to host anyone at the moment. All our friendlies are away.

Hastily arranged fixtures but at least we have some!

Ps. I once played for Ealing many moons ago...

doctor_grey wrote:

BigTrevsbigmac wrote:Wasps are playing there regular preseason opponents Treviso on Friday night in Italy.

Stephen Jones will make his Wasps debut
Stephen Jones, T Rhys Thomas, Lee Thomas and Tommy Bell are all to wear the Wasps shirt for the first time while Andrea Masi, Ashley Johnson and Lewis Thiede are also set to make their first appearances if selected from the bench.

This will be a little weird, eh? All these guys suiting up for Wasps. Especially Stephen Jones. Hope they all do well, but it will be a strange sight. He should have gone to Glaws just for the red colour.

Yes it will feel a bit strange - looks very much a second XV starting & will probably end up in a chaotic merry ground in the second half!

The funny thing is I could see Wasps doing pretty well this season. Its hard to blend in a lot of new faces, but if they hit any sort of stride they could be pretty decent. It certainly wouldn't surprise me if they had a strong second half.

doctor_grey wrote:The funny thing is I could see Wasps doing pretty well this season. Its hard to blend in a lot of new faces, but if they hit any sort of stride they could be pretty decent. It certainly wouldn't surprise me if they had a strong second half.

Yes I'm more hopeful this season & fingers crossed we won't be blighted with injury problems like last season where we seemed to play most of our games with. Second XV. On a positive note it was a great experience for the youngsters & they did very well.

Notable players missing are Haskell, Poff, Chris Bell & Southwell.

Chiefs are hosting Connacht this weekend, i'll be there! Not sure of the team, will post as i learn more.

Carpe Diem wrote:Chiefs are hosting Connacht this weekend, i'll be there! Not sure of the team, will post as i learn more.

CD, starting XV looks this: Moon, Whitehead, Tui, Hayes, Hanks, White, Baxter, Skaysbrook, Thomas, Steenson, Tatupu, Naqelevuki, Whitten, Jess, Dollman

Cheers ASBO, that's a strong side!

Ulster are playing a training match in Bayonne tonight. Even considering some guys aren't available for selection yet, Anscombe has named a team that mainly consists of fringe players with only 3 or 4 guys who would be in the first team.

Ulster (15-9): P Nelson; C Gilroy, J Payne, C Farrell, C Cochrane; P Jackson, B McIlroy;
(1-8): C Black, N Annett, A Macklin, J Muller (c), N McComb, M McComish, S Doyle, R Diack

Replacements: R Herring, R Lutton, J Afoa, L Stevenson, A Birch, M Heaney, N O’Connor, L Marshall, M Allen, R Andrew

I believe it's going to be rolling subs.

Saving the big names for us next week Notch? With Tigers missing the EPS guys this week there should be a pretty strong team headed to the friendly in Belfast. If your boys could provide a decent challenge coupled with a morale boosting win and no injuries that would be appreciated.

Ospreys face Clermont in France on Friday night (8:00pm local time).

Ospreys team:
(15-9) Richard Fussell, Tom Grabham, Tom Isaacs, Jonathan Spratt, Ross Jones, Matthew Morgan, Kahn Fotuali'i
(1-8) Ryan Bevington, Scott Baldwin, Joe Rees, Ian Gough, Sam Williams, James King, Sam Lewis, Jonathan Thomas (Capt)

REPLACEMENTS:
Scott Otten, Duncan Jones, Aaron Jarvis, Lloyd Peers, George Stowers, Morgan Allen, Tom Habberfield, Dan Biggar, Hanno Dirksen, Nathan Edwards, Nicky Thomas

Clermont squad:
Pour les avants (forwards) : Julien Bardy, Benoît Cabello, Raphaël Chaume, Damien Chouly, Jamie Cudmore, Vincent Debaty, Nathan Hines, Loïc Jacquet, Benjamin Kayser, Viktor kolelishvili, Daniel Kotze, Alexandre Lapandry, Julien Pierre, Elvis Vermeulen, Davit Zirakashvili

Pour les trois-quarts (backs) :Jean-Marcellin Buttin, Lee Byrne, Anthony Floch, Wesley Fofana, Brock James, Regan King, Julien Malzieu, Noa Nakaitaci, Morgan Parra, Ludovic Radosavljevic, Aurélien Rougerie, Sitiveni Sivivatu, David Skrela, Benson Stanley

A bloody strong Clermont squad!

Ouch! That may be a very painful day at the office for the Ospreys.

I think the Top 14 starts next week so Clermont are probably trying to get some momentum going in.

Leinster host Gloucester in that great bastion of rugby, Tallaght stadium on Saturday.

Can't bloody wait, Tallaght is a massive place with no rugby pedigree whatsoever, and it's my home town, would love to see more people there take up the sport, I never had the chance when i was younger.

Quins team for tonight:

1. Mark Lambert
2. Rob Buchanan
3. Will Collier
4. Olly Kohn
5. Charlie Matthews
6. Luke Wallace
7. Will Skinner (C)
8. Tom Guest
9. Karl Dickson
10. Nick Evans
11. Sam Smith
12. Ben Botica
13. Matt Hopper
14. Tom Williams
15. Ross Chisholm

Good looking side there. It'll be interesting to hear how Will Collier and Charlie Matthews get on in the engine room and further out see how Botica and Hopper go in defence as they look pretty dangerous on the attack.

formerly known as Sam wrote:Saving the big names for us next week Notch? With Tigers missing the EPS guys this week there should be a pretty strong team headed to the friendly in Belfast. If your boys could provide a decent challenge coupled with a morale boosting win and no injuries that would be appreciated.

Yep, I'd say so.

You'll probably see a stronger team next week and then the strongest available team the week after for the game against Newcastle. We always start off with a weaker side then work towards our strongest team the final weekend before the competitive games start.

A few guys will double up but by and large the team for Leicester will be much stronger. Hopefully see the likes of Roger Wilson, Paddy McAllister, John Afoa, Iain Henderson, Luke Marshall, Nevin Spence, Adam D'Arcy, Lewis Stevenson etc. next week.

Obviously there won't be any Irish internationals involved in the friendlies. Tommy Bowe might get a run out against Newcastle.

No Irish internationals in pre season friendlies? Surely that's asking for injuries to be picked up in the first few games of the new season?

The Tigers internationals will probably only get one start (probably not a full game in most cases) and maybe a second game off the bench but they'll get something to blow the rust off before the season starts. Not sure I'd want to be starting the AP season with none of the England internationals having had any game time, they break easily as it is.

No, throwing them in now would be doing that. I mean, they are only two weeks into pre-season. They are a full month behind in pre-season than the rest of our guys. You need to do a certain amount of conditioning before you get back to match fitness.

They won't be available until Round 3 of the Pro12. It's normally that way. Not much we can do about it; our pre-season started two days after the final test match of last season. They need a holiday as well.

Notch - there's quite a few names in that Ulster team from the B&I Cup; from reading the match reports in TRP.

yappy, you're not wrong about one part of the defensive side of Quins' centre partnership. With Hopper he seems to get caught out of position, and brushed aside too easily. Botica (son of RL legend Frano) should be a bit more solid.

Yep, very much about bringing through some younger guys. With a few experienced heads.

Good luck to ya. Building on last year is something you're looking forward to I would think.

Yea Hound Hopper's very keen in defence but just not always that solid.

I've heard a lot of good things about Botica's dad so lets hope some of it's rubbed off!

Hound_of_Harrow wrote:Good luck to ya. Building on last year is something you're looking forward to I would think.

Very much so. Given the inexperience of the team we put out, we got a cracking win over in France. 20-15 over Bayonne!

First half team was;

(15-9): P Nelson; C Gilroy, J Payne, C Farrell, C Cochrane; P Jackson, B McIlroy;
(1-8): C Black, N Annett, A Macklin, J Muller (c), N McComb, M McComish, S Doyle, R Diack;

Second half team was;

(15-9): P Nelson, C Gilroy, M Allen, L Marshall, R Andrew, N O'Connor, M Heaney
(1-8): C Black, R Herring, J Afoa, L Stevenson, N McComb, M McComish, S Doyle, R Diack

And then Ali Birch came on for Sean Doyle in the second half.

Given this was our first hit-out, a lot of fringe players in the team and Bayonne are priming up for the start of the TOP14 next weekend, Ulster getting the win over there is very encouraging!

Great win for Ulster weith their youngins starting. Well done lads of the High Veldt. Sorry Belfast.

It's an easy mistake to make. The lads from the High Veldt are actualy Munster, though (Wian, BJ, CJ).

Just for clarification...

I suppose Diack was the only Saffer playing. You won this round.

Mickado wrote:Leinster host Gloucester in that great bastion of rugby, Tallaght stadium on Saturday.

Can't bloody wait, Tallaght is a massive place with no rugby pedigree whatsoever, and it's my home town, would love to see more people there take up the sport, I never had the chance when i was younger.

Will they be selling tickets outside the stadium? I was thinking of heading up to it.

At least bellow "Curse you!" and shake your fist angrily at the sky after saying that.

Apparently Quins lost to Castres 31-15

Lindsay-Hague scored a try though

No, throwing them in now would be doing that. I mean, they are only two weeks into pre-season. They are a full month behind in pre-season than the rest of our guys. You need to do a certain amount of conditioning before you get back to match fitness.

Fair enough. I think Tigers got their boys back at the end of July/start of August. The last test was 23rd of June so they had a month of holiday to relax before coming back in for light training. It used to be the case that internationals got sent on the Tigers training camps in their first week back because it raised to profile of the camps for the kids going and gave them a chance to have a run around without doing anything to stressful. Don't know if they still do that.

We have three games at KP tomorrow with falcons split in two teams.

Falcons v Doncaster
Then local team Consett v Chicago from USA
Then falcons v Leeds

Should be a great day

Tigers team sheet for first friendly vs Jersey. No EPS players available.

1.Fraser Balmain - academy prop who has been on exchange programme with Clermont
2.Rob Hawkins - great to see he's back in action after that thug broke his elbow
3.Martin Castrogiovanni (Capt) - no intro needed
4.Rob Andrew - new heavy weight Saffa lock from French division 2 brought in as squad back up
5.Joe Cain - young and dynamic looking lock made his debut in the LV last season against Quins at 18
6.Brett Deacon - returning home after a two year stint at Glaws
7.Richard Thorpe - year long term signing on the cheap from LI
8.Jordan Crane - great to see the big man back at the base of the scrum
9.Mickey Young - nightmare first season, will be looking to put an early marker down with Ben Youngs out injured and young Sam Harrison the current favourite for the 10 shirt
10.George Ford - former IRB young player of the year has been on a summer of conditioning, interesting to see how that's gone
11.Vereniki Goneva - Fijian wing/centre signed from French div 2
12.Andrew Symons - young IC signed on Mauger's recommendation last summer, I have my doubts
13.Matt Smith - club stalwart
14.Scott Hamilton - probably his last season, lots of competition on the wings
15.Niall Morris - good start and then faded away last season, will want to remind the coaches of what he can do

Subs:
George Chuter - experienced hooker
Keiran Brookes - exciting young prop who had a nasty injury last season
Jonny Harris - solid loosehead and former England under 20
Ryan Bower - former England under 20 and JWC runner up
Harry Wells - hard working academy lock
Wessel Jooste - backrow trialist (another one?)
Julian Salvi - first choice 7 might get a little run out
Patrick Phibbs - 9 signed as injury cover
Matt Cornwell - 10/12/15 returning to his first club, a fan favourite and former England under 20s captain
Alex Lewington - former England under 20s an exciting young wing/15
Geordan Murphy - club legend doubt he will play to be honest
Adam Thompstone - Alesana's direct replacement, give his knee and early test after injuries at LI

LeinsterFan4life wrote:

Mickado wrote:Leinster host Gloucester in that great bastion of rugby, Tallaght stadium on Saturday.

Can't bloody wait, Tallaght is a massive place with no rugby pedigree whatsoever, and it's my home town, would love to see more people there take up the sport, I never had the chance when i was younger.

Will they be selling tickets outside the stadium? I was thinking of heading up to it.

I presume so. Only 4k sold and it's 6k capacity stadium. Come along, Tallaght aint so bad really!

Sam, just looking at that Tigers team, there aren't many big names in there are there? I know your fellow Tigers supporter Portnoy has been vociferous in his criticism of Irish teams and there selection policy for pre-season friendlies, just wondering are there many other supporters who are up in arms about this type of thing?

To be honest I enjoyed the friendly against Leinster at WR that Portnoy always moans about. It was a fairly strong Leinster team minus their Irish internationals and I sat next to a couple of Leinster boys who were a good laugh in the sunshine and watched a decent game of rugby (we won as well).

Tigers can't field any of their summer EPS boys (Youngs x2, Kitchener, Cole, Parling, Flood, Manu, Allen) as they have been away all week and are only joining up with the squad today (according to Cockers on the radio). Add to that there are injuries to Croft, Newby and Woods with Ayerza also away with Argentina. It's not a bad team to start off the pre season games. Castro, Crane, Ford are all likely to be in the 23 every week with Goneva and Young as well. There's still 4 internationals starting and another couple on the bench.

Jersey Team 1-15 ( # denotes full international )
Richard Barrington
Steve Boden
Ben Evans #
Nathan Hannay (Capt)
Rob Anderson
Charlie Clyde-Smith
Guy Thompson
Talite Vaoileti #
Nicky Griffiths
Ross Broadfoot
Ed Dawson
Donovan Sanders
Mike Le Bourgeois
Richard Haughton
Glenn Bryce

Subs:
Sean McCarthy
Dave Felton
James Gethings
Dave Markham
Eoghan Nihill
Nick Trower
Joel Dudley
Tom Cooper
Dai Bishop
James Copsey

Two former Tigers (Broadfoot and Markham) with a former pest on the wing. Just in case anyone was interested.

"Harlequins director of rugby Conor O’Shea was happy with his side’s first pre-season run-out as they lost 31-15 to a full strength Catres last night despite missing 13 of their star names.

The Premiership champions were without nine EPS players while James Johnston, Maurie Fa’asavalu and Nick Easter are still on their pre season programmes.

The French side, in comparison, were at the end of their friendly preparations ahead of their Top 14 opener against Toulouse next week.

“A lot of players got an opportunity tonight and against a full-strength Castres side, who prepare to face Toulouse next week, we played some outstanding rugby,” O’Shea todl the club’s official website.

“We have learnt a lot, both individually and collectively tonight and we were delighted with the commitment and skill shown so early in the season.”

Tries from Marc Andreu, Karena Wihongi and seven points from Rory Kockett’s boot saw the French hosts take a 17-3 half time lead, but the London side responded with scores from replacements Ollie Lindsay-Hague and Pete Browne in the second period."


http://www.hamhigh.co.uk/sport/rugby/quins_chief_happy_with_performance_in_french_test_1_1477919

Leinster team to play glaws:

15: Darren Hudson
14: Andrew Boyle
13: Collie O’Shea
12: Noel Reid
11: Fionn Carr
10: Ian Madigan
9: John Cooney

1: Jack McGrath
2: Aaron Dundon
3: Jamie Hagan
4: Damian Browne
5: Tom Denton
6: Ben Marshall
7: Shane Jennings CAPTAIN
8: Leo Auva’a

REPLACEMENTS: Tom Sexton, Jack O’Connell, Martin Moore, Jordi Murphy, Dominic Ryan, Luke McGrath, Cathal Marsh, Sam Coghlan-Murray, James Tracy, Brendan Macken

Insteresting that noel reid is starting at 12. I think that could be were his future is tbh. Giving how light we are in the midfield.

Falcons team split for both games tomorrow...

Newcastle Falcons v Doncaster Knights (kick-off 1pm):

1 Grant Shiells,
2 Matt Thompson
3 Oliver Tomaszczyk
4 James Hudson
5 Carlo del Fava
6 Richard Mayhew
7 Will Welch (c)
8 Taiasina Tu’ifua

9 Jordi Pasqualin
10 Jimmy Gopperth
11 Michael Tait
12 Tane Tu’ipulotu
13 Alex Crockett
14 Rikki Sheriffe
15 Alex Tait

Reps: 16 Joe Graham, 17 Michael Mayhew, 18 James Ponton, 19 Joe Robinson, 20 George McGuigan, 21 Waisea Luveniyali, 22 Chris Harris, RES Greg Goosen, RES Ollie Richards, RES Jamie Sole, RES Jonny Burn, RES Jonny Neville

=============================
Newcastle Falcons v Leeds Carnegie (kick-off 5.30pm):

1 Jonny Golding
2 Rob Vickers
3 James Hall
4 Chris Wearmouth
5 Scott MacLeod
6 Mark Wilson
7 Ally Hogg (c)
8 Chris York

9 Chris Pilgrim
10 Joel Hodgson
11 Ryan Shortland
12 James Fitzpatrick
13 Suka Hufanga
14 Andrew Higgins
15 Luke Fielden

Reps: 16 Joe Graham, 17 Michael Mayhew, 18 James Ponton, 19 Joe Robinson, 20 George McGuigan, 21 Waisea Luveniyali, 22 Chris Harris, RES Greg Goosen, RES Ollie Richards, RES Jamie Sole, RES Jonny Burn, RES Jonny Neville
.

Sam - Jersey have a heavy duty pack, which has been the mainstay of their promotions. They starve the opposition of ball. Should be a good contest up front.

When they do spin it wide Le Bourgeois is a classy operator (as the name suggests). More normally a full back, and occasional 10, he has a good boot too.

Mickado wrote:Leinster host Gloucester in that great bastion of rugby, Tallaght stadium on Saturday.

Can't bloody wait, Tallaght is a massive place with no rugby pedigree whatsoever, and it's my home town, would love to see more people there take up the sport, I never had the chance when i was younger.

Good luck today

Nice to see Cook, 36 & Kalamafoni make their debuts

formerly known as Sam wrote:
2.Rob Hawkins - great to see he's back in action after that thug broke his elbow

Isn't this game massively early for Hawkins?! The injury only occurred back in April and at the time reports were that he was struggling to move it at all, then there were questions raised as to if he'd ever play again. I worry he's been rushed back a bit here as i'm sure estimates said about 8 months recovery?

HongKongCherry wrote:

Mickado wrote:Leinster host Gloucester in that great bastion of rugby, Tallaght stadium on Saturday.

Can't bloody wait, Tallaght is a massive place with no rugby pedigree whatsoever, and it's my home town, would love to see more people there take up the sport, I never had the chance when i was younger.

Good luck today

Nice to see Cook, 36 & Kalamafoni make their debuts

Hey HKC have you posted the Glos team up? I've looked but can't see it here...

It'll be interesting to hear how 36 goes, I take it he's playing at 12 right?