Edinburgh V Northampton - final pre season game

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15 Tom Brown

14 Mike Penn
13 Greig Tonks
12 Ben Atiga/John Houston
11 Sep Visser

10 Gregor Hunter
9 Richie Rees

1 John Yapp
2 Andy Titterrell
3 Willem Nel
4 Perry Parker
5 Steven Turnbull
6 Dimitri Basilaia
7 Roddy Grant CAPTAIN
8 Netani Talei

Substitutes:
16 Alun Walker
17 Robin Hislop
18 Lewis Niven
19 Sean Cox
20 Robert McAlpine
21 Hamish Watson
22 Chris Leck
23 John Houston
24 Jamie Farndale
25 Dougie Fife
26 James King

15 Ben FODEN
14 Vasily ARTEMYEV
13 George PISI
12 Dom WALDOUCK
11 Ken PISI
10 Ryan LAMB
9 Lee DICKSON
1 Soane TONGA'UIHA
2 Dylan HARTLEY (capt)
3 Brian MUJATI
4 Samu MANOA
5 Christian DAY
6 Phil DOWSON
7 Tom WOOD
8 GJ VAN VELZE

Replacements
Mike HAYWOOD, Alex WALLER, Paul DORAN JONES, Mark SORENSON, Teimana HARRISON, Martin ROBERTS, Stephen MYLER, Luther BURRELL, Ross MCMILLAN, Rhys OAKLEY, James WILSON

Have to say think this is going to be a tough one from Edinburgh. That is pretty much the Saints' first team against very much a new 2nd team for us! Will be a good indicator of how we'll do when the internationalists are away though. My main concern is that our Scotland players' first games will be in the league itself!

Other minor concern is that only 2 forwards and 3 backs are Scottish....

What do Saints fans think of the game? 3rd game now so I expect you'll be flying.

Complete mystery to me given the pre-season. We really aren't ready in the slightest, and even players like Atiga and Nel who have had a pre-season, don't look very fit.

The only players I can think of who really looked match sharp were Titterall, Yapp, Grant, Hunter, Visser (jnr) and Brown.

On that basis I'd pick those guys to start. I'd also probably get as many Scots internationals back as possible. The sooner they are match fit the better. Atiga should be on the bench - he isn't ready to start.

As you said above, our only hope is that Munster aren't ready either.

What happened to Basilia? Was it a serious injury that led to him retiring from the match?

I take comfort from the fact that Ford, Gilchrist, Dozer, Talei, Rennie, McInally, Laidlaw, NDL, Scott, Visser Snr and Lee Jones had nothing to do with that abomination of a match.

I'm sure the loss will have sparked a melt down in Back's brain and he'll be wandering the touchline and babbling incoherantly about what a poor decision he made to come to Edinburgh.

You guys will be doing the same wondering why you bought Season tickets!

Seriously though the names mentioned above better be coming back fresh as daisy and ready to play because being turned over by 50+ points at home is disgraceful.

What Radge said.

Munster don't look as though they have their shoite together much better than us. I hope that the internationalists coming back will insert a steel rod up the proverbial of the other Edinburgh team members that have, as a collective, been incredibly poor to date. I don't care if the Jeff clubs are a couple of weeks ahead - shipping 50 points to the Saints (even a strong 22 like they listed) in the largely jessie manner that they did is not acceptable.

Bradley has to do something because I'm fed to the teeth of Scottish teams being 'slow starters'.

Clearly it's taking a while for the likes of Nel to find his feet, Atiga to find anything like professional fitness, Basilaia to find a way to foul without getting pinged, Jones to find his catching gloves and Penn to find a way of distinguishing his backside from his elbow.

If Edinburgh can't find more consistency with this squad, then I will be calling for Bradley's head on a pointy stick by Christmas because it smells entirely like a coaching problem.

Luckily I've not bought a season ticket!

I agree FES - Titterall (although he is a midget), Grant, Tom Brown and Visser Juniour have looked the most match fit and several players look extrememly not match fit.

Injuries permitting, I'm going to stick my neck out and take a stab in the dark at what I'd pick based on pre-season and the lack of action from the internationalists:

1 Yapp - impressed me against Saints, very aggressive
2 Titterall - looks in great shape, needs to work on lineout drastically
3 Cross - use Nel as an impact sub
4 Gilchrist - has had a full pre season so really should be fit
5 Cox - Ditto
6 Basailia - was a ball carrying dynamo until he went off, hopefully nothing serious
7 Grant - model professional, looked in great shape and kept going for 80 mins
8 McInally - Talei and Denton haven't played yet, and not sure what Denton's injury status is
9 Rees - looked the better scrum half so far
10 Hunter/Leonard - 50/50 call
11 Sep Visser - answered my criticism on Friday night with some great runs. Looks big and strong
12 Atiga - I don't think he's match fit yet, and was defo carrying an injury, but another week's training will have helped
13 Tonks - Solid if unspectacular so far
14 Jones - needs a massive improvement from Newcastle game, but again has had a full pre season
15 Brown - looked in great shape and ready to take the mantel from the injured Hogg for Scotland

Subs: Chunk, Walker, Nel (not a bad front row replacement and reckon Ford will be given another week), Perry Parker, Talei, Leck, Leonard/hunter, Fife

Should be enough to beat a similarly undercooked Munster hopefully.

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:What happened to Basilia? Was it a serious injury that led to him retiring from the match?

I take comfort from the fact that Ford, Gilchrist, Dozer, Talei, Rennie, McInally, Laidlaw, NDL, Scott, Visser Snr and Lee Jones had nothing to do with that abomination of a match.

I'm sure the loss will have sparked a melt down in Back's brain and he'll be wandering the touchline and babbling incoherantly about what a poor decision he made to come to Edinburgh.

You guys will be doing the same wondering why you bought Season tickets!

Seriously though the names mentioned above better be coming back fresh as daisy and ready to play because being turned over by 50+ points at home is disgraceful.

OK Radge, you can add to your list of non starters Chunk and Cross, also a couple of players out of position like Cox. First half was poor, 12-3 would have been 12-9 if we'd taken the easy points rather than kicking to touch. It's pre-season Bradley tried all the new guys against a pretty much full strength Saints ans the result was as expected.

No big deal looking forward to Munster on Saturday.

Good interview from Titterell in the Hootsman this morning

http://www.scotsman.com/sport/rugby/top-rugby-stories/interview-andy-titterrell-warns-edinburgh-will-be-hardcore-1-2492104

He has been one of Edinburgh's better players in pre season and it is good to hear him sounding so motivated and driven. Hopefully that rubs off on some of the rest of the team!

Delighted to read that. Intensity and drive is what seems to missing from so many Edinburgh players at the moment, and last season in the Rabo.

Until you treat every single game and every single tackle as do or die you won't cut it in professional rugby. That's certainly how Munster will play on Saturday, and if we don't go toe to toe in that respect, all the pretty offloads etc. won't amount to snuff.

We need to be mean!

Good man - Titterall is a winner and I agree that he wouldn't be joining some shower that he felt were going nowhere.

Why do I get the feeling that Edinburgh will either be terrific or appalling this season - nothing in between?

Cause that's what we're used to with them??

What do you think the team will look like for next weekend?

Will Bradley re-introduce all the Internationalists or ease them back in to try and tackle the inevitable rustiness.

Would hope to see Denton, Laidlaw, Scott, De Luca and Visser involved at least.

I put the team I'd chose further up the page. I'd maybe bring in De luca at 13 on 2nd thoughts to try and counter LuaLua who has been known to run through slight Edinburgh centers before. No indication yet on whether Denton is fit either.

So I'm going to go with the team I said but with De Luca at 13, with Nel and Talei providing excellent impact subs.

Just can't see Ford and Laidlaw starting due to their importance to Scotland, but may be surprised!

Any Saints fans on here see the game? How did everyone look? Foden, Waldouck and Wood imparticular...

Or Edinburgh fans that could shed some light on their performances of course!

Foden caused us problems when running back our kicks because we didn't follow them up very well.

None of the forwards particularly stood out individually, but as a unit they destroyed us!

Thanks RDW, appreciate the info. I thought Edinburgh would gain superiorityin the backrow, because Saints' starters are actually quite light in comparison- i'm guessing that wasn't the case?!

When we had Basailia on (the Georgian number 8 that scored against England in the WC) he was making some great runs and constantly getting past the gain line. He unfortunately went off injured after about 15 mins and left us with 2 opensides for most of the game, one of which was a young elite development player. Our blindside is usually a 2nd row too (Cox) and he was put there as Talei had to pull out before the game.

For most of the game therefore our backrow consisted of a 2nd row and 2 opensides!

So if we had a backrow of Denton, Rennie and Talei out I think it would have made a difference!

Definitely, that's quite a mercenary backrow you were left with.

On a side note, Basilia is one heck of a player, and I reckon he'll be having a huge season (if his injury isn't too bad). Glad to see he's off to a good start!

Actually come to think of it I don't quite feel as bad now that I've been made to think about the pack we had out - our 2nd rows were a fairly average squad player (Turnbull) with a player who has only every played championship rugby (Parker) and as I said for most of the game our backrow had a 2nd row playing at 6, an openside who is 5ft 9 or something playing at 8 (Grant) and an elite development player playing at 7 (Watson).

So when you compare that to Saints' first choice pack of grizzled veterans I'm not surprised we got dominated!

THink you're probably right RDW. It's certainly good experience for them, and to be honest, I wouldn't take too much from the result. It was a hell of a squad Saints put out.

Our only issue is that a lot of those guys will be playing when the Internationalists are away or being rested so would have been good to have had a better performance.

Still early days though - hopefully when we've made the Rabbo playoffs and Heineken QF we can look back at this and laugh!

"Remember when we got pumped by the Saints and we all panicked and thought we were doomed??"

RDW_Scotland wrote:Cause that's what we're used to with them??

Sadly, yes.

""Remember when we got pumped by the Saints and Newcastle and we all panicked and thought we were doomed??"."

RDW...am i allowed to add this in?

RDW_Scotland wrote:Our only issue is that a lot of those guys will be playing when the Internationalists are away or being rested so would have been good to have had a better performance.

Still early days though - hopefully when we've made the Rabbo playoffs and Heineken QF we can look back at this and laugh!

"Remember when we got pumped by the Saints and we all panicked and thought we were doomed??"

That quote just made me laugh

Rava - you've got to have some kind of (false) hope for the season to make you want to shell out loads of money to watch!

GeordieFalcon - I'll give you that, although we weren't pumped quite as badly by you lot!

No we just softened you up for the Saints

Think you guys will be fine once you get your first choice starting. You need to toughen up the pack though...need a rocket up their backsides!

That is hopefully where Neil Back comes in!

Indeed...

Started a match thread

https://www.606v2.com/t34232-edinburgh-v-munster-build-up-thread#1504279