Pro 12 Round 7 Edinburgh (the numpties) vs. Scarlets Murrayfield Friday 26th Oct KO 19h35

First topic message reminder :

Something tells me Murrayfiled will be even quieter than normal with a bitterly cold night forecast and a reasonable chance of snow.

As if our players playing so badly as to not even have scored a point in HC was reason enough to stay away.

Quite frankly I'd rather watch it at home on BBC Alba and not have to part with £20 for a ticket, £10 for my train fare and not have to get out of my onezie.

Also if we look rancid I can always go back to playing Skyrim.

Anyway here are the teams, with Bradley talking the talk and saying it's time to regnite the season.

“The PRO12 is really tight just now. All but the top and bottom teams are on two, three or four wins, so success can shoot you up the table very quickly. But we need to strike now.

“We know we have a lot of talent in our side and we know we’re a good rugby team, but we haven’t been able show it, so the key this week has been to focus on ourselves, and what we can control.”

Edinburgh
15 Greig Tonks
14 Lee Jones
13 Matt Scott
12 Nick De Luca
11 Tim Visser
10 Harry Leonard
9 Chris Leck

1 John Yapp
2 Andy Titterrell
3 Willem Nel
4 Grant Gilchrist
5 Sean Cox CAPTAIN
6 David Denton
7 Ross Rennie
8 Stuart McInally

Substitutes
16 Ross Ford
17 Robin Hislop
18 Lewis Niven
19 Robert McAlpine
20 Roddy Grant
21 Richie Rees
22 John Houston
23 Tom Brown


Scarlets :
15 Liam Williams
14 George North
13 Nick Reynolds
12 Scott Williams
11 Morgan Stoddart
10 Aled Thomas
9 Gareth Davies

1 Phil John
2 Matthew Rees
3 Samson Lee
4 Sione Timani
5 Tomas Vallejos
6 Aaron Shingler
7 Johnathan Edwards
8 Rob McCusker (capt)

Replacements:
16 Ken Owens
17 Shaun Hopkins
18 Deacon Manu
19 Richard Kelly
20 Kieran Murphy
21 Aled Davies
22 Rhys Priestland
23 Gareth Owen.

So are any of the phony tough or the crazy brave going to this one?

The scarlets must stop kicking the dam ball away and poorly, North is causing Ed all sorts of problems. The Ed flanker ball won by ball off his feet.

Why no yellow by Denton?

I cannot beleive Denton was pinged there, the guy before him shouldve been carded for playing the ball then getting to his fett. Denton did nothing wrong!!!

Did Matt Scott throw the game away with that ball..?

Edinburgh player comes off his feet, on the wrong side, gets up an plays the ball - on the wrong side. The ref has previous - see the Amlin Cup, Gloucester v Bordeaux Begles

Only just got that kick in front of the posts

Anyone look at the Scarlets player all watching Rps kick nervously, RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE POSTS!!!!

Smirnoffpriest wrote:I thought that was decent for a Scottish match in the depths of winter?

Is it? Jeez. Well hopefully more will turnout after this performance. Much better from embra

Forecast - Edinburgh penalty at 79:54

But where on the pitch penfro?

What the hell were they doing spreading it wide!?!? They were right up near the 22

what was the pen for?

That's a first Preistland hit touch to win the game

glam

Thank the lord - the team that scored FOUR tries beat the side that scored one

4 tries to 1 we didn't deserve to win, so well done Scarlets
But damn in the second half we really should have closed out

OMG that was close!!!

Well done Scarlets! Deserved the win in the end, never gave up.

Smirnoffpriest wrote:

Morgannwg wrote:

glamorganalun wrote:Poor by Davies running away from support

Sounded like Scarlets best scrum half was having a good game up until this. Score?

Do you ever get tired of repeating the same thing Morg?

I do. Clearly you don't though. Time for you to get over the fact that Knoyle isn't good enough to be where he is.

Smirnoffpriest wrote:what was the pen for?

Visser was isolated holding onto the ball

Morgannwg wrote:

Smirnoffpriest wrote:

Morgannwg wrote:

glamorganalun wrote:Poor by Davies running away from support

Sounded like Scarlets best scrum half was having a good game up until this. Score?

Do you ever get tired of repeating the same thing Morg?

I do. Clearly you don't though. Time for you to get over the fact that Knoyle isn't good enough to be where he is.

WTF?!?! you're the one who posts that Davies is the Scarlets best SH/Knoyle is **** on every Scarlets thread.

I only asked if you got tired of mentioned it. I ain't said anything about Knoyle on this thread or for a while.

bsando wrote:

Smirnoffpriest wrote:what was the pen for?

Visser was isolated holding onto the ball

Cheers - though I think my stream on Iplayer was behind everyone elses' as I was wondering what the pen was for when we almost scored and then got pushed into tough just before the try line, then it went back for a pen in front of the post (when we took the lead).

Missed it.

Great 'jobsworth' stewarding there as the Scarlets fans just want to shake hands with the players . Then again things can get officious can't they - HERE

Smirnoffpriest wrote:

Morgannwg wrote:

Smirnoffpriest wrote:

Morgannwg wrote:

glamorganalun wrote:Poor by Davies running away from support

Sounded like Scarlets best scrum half was having a good game up until this. Score?

Do you ever get tired of repeating the same thing Morg?

I do. Clearly you don't though. Time for you to get over the fact that Knoyle isn't good enough to be where he is.

WTF?!?! you're the one who posts that Davies is the Scarlets best SH/Knoyle is **** on every Scarlets thread.

I only asked if you got tired of mentioned it. I ain't said anything about Knoyle on this thread or for a while.

I hadn't mentioned Knoyle for a while either, until my 2nd comment on this thread. Just making a point of why would the 2nd best Scarlets 9 (and LW from the Blues for that matter) be in the Wales squad?

PenfroPete wrote:Great 'jobsworth' stewarding there as the Scarlets fans just want to shake hands with the players . Then again things can get officious can't they - HERE

Yeah thought that was rather mean spirited of them.
Also wow, never heard about the Guy Noves arrest incident before

GLove - just really annoys me that they treat fans like that. Oh, I remember the Noves incident, Toulouse were not happy

Good to see Gareth Owen get a run

Lucky Scarlets though

Baws.

Big hairy baws.

Well that was gutting! Absolutely criminal to lose 4 tries in the first half but that was such a good 2nd half. Scarets had nothing and won 1 penalty and got 3 points - right at the death.

What annoyed me the most is that they didn't have to work overly hard for their tries. 2 of them came from first phase and terrible tackling, and the other 2 were fairly soft tooo.

But god that was so much better than Edinburgh! they showed heart, desire and real aggression in the forwards.

The entire front row had a great game, Gilchrist had so many carries and Rennie and Denton were back to their best. McInally had a mare, and should have binned George North but got easily fended off.

In the backs Matt Scott had a storming game, apart from that crazy pass into touch with 5 minutes to go which I think actually lost the game for us. Yes the 4 tries at the start didn't help, but we were leading and should have closed out the game.

So I'm gutted - the players deserved to win that from all the effort they put in but fair play to the Scarlets - they took their chances in the first half and hung on for the 2ns half!

And 3700 is actually an impressive crowd considering how crap we've been and how bitterly cold it was tonight.

Told you it would get better, didn't I?

Also - I thought Lee Jones actually played pretty well!!

Jeebus what a kick in the bollix for the Edinburgh fans. Must have been a close one.

Get a few down ye guys.

Did you get your free scarf, RDW?

Already had one from the Dublin trip - needed it last night!

Was so surprised with the crowd - shows there's some loyalty with the Edinburgh fans which is good to see.

How did Scott play RD ?

Scott had a bit of a stormer except for one brain fart/pass straight in touch! Maybe its the Edinburgh 13 shirt that makes good players a little bit insane...

Agree re Scott. That pass was a blemish on an otherwise very good game from him.

Overall, our going forward was back to our best. Denton in particular needed that game to have any chance of playing in the internationals.

big games from Titterall, Tonks, Denton, Leck, and Leonard.

Watching Tonks tonight reinforced how strange it is that hes not even in the training squad for the AI's.

Surprised James King has still to get a run out this season, espeically with De Luca pulling out tonight. Hes tiny, but defensively better than Houston who contributed to some of the weak tackling in the first half.

King ain't that small now, he has obviously been in the gym a lot recently and is looking pretty big now. For his lack of size in the past King has always been a good defender, thinks he deserves a go in the match day squad again. Rate him a lot higher than john houston!

From a Scarlets point of view, on the official facebook page there were myriad posts slagging Priestland off, and calling for Aled Thomas to take the 10 shirt. I'll just say this: one sliced clearance bomb from Priestland, which was poor, yet Aled Thomas tried three defensive cross field kicks, each time giving the ball away, and I also think each time a penalty was given to Edinburgh seconds after the concession. It's this that grates, how people look out for Priestland's mistakes, because he now has a reputation, whereas every other player isn't held by the same standard. Scarlets looked much better and slicker moving the ball when he came on.

Also, Gareth Davies should have been in the Welsh squad ahead of Tavis.

Despite the result, I think Robinson will be satisfied with the Edinburgh's performance.

He really needed the likes of Scott, Denton and Rennie to put in a decent shift ahead of the All Blacks match and all three performed well.

Shame for McInally, that performance may cost him his place on bench for All Blacks.

Really hope Bradley gives Leonard and extended run at fly-half, looks like he has the potential to be a top 10.

Leonard definitely looks better than Hunter, but he is a year or two further on on his development.

If he has same strong games for Edinburgh over the next dew months might move Laidlaw back to 9

miaow wrote:From a Scarlets point of view, on the official facebook page there were myriad posts slagging Priestland off, and calling for Aled Thomas to take the 10 shirt. I'll just say this: one sliced clearance bomb from Priestland, which was poor, yet Aled Thomas tried three defensive cross field kicks, each time giving the ball away, and I also think each time a penalty was given to Edinburgh seconds after the concession. It's this that grates, how people look out for Priestland's mistakes, because he now has a reputation, whereas every other player isn't held by the same standard. Scarlets looked much better and slicker moving the ball when he came on.

Also, Gareth Davies should have been in the Welsh squad ahead of Tavis.

Besides the backward up and under, Preistland almost missed the kick in front of the posts, he inspires very little confidence he needs to sit out more games at least the Scarlets scored tries in the first half. I agree with your comments on kicking but it seems to be a Welsh desease, the Irish and English all seem to be running back at the opposition espectially poor kicks.

P.S. Preistland's kicking out of hand is also poor e.g., the last HC

Allan Massie in Friday's Hootsmon: "(Edinburgh) are no longer doing what they were good at, whilst they are not good at what they are doing now". Why the change in tactics, anyone?

So better but not brilliant is the consensus? Not sure I want to watch the game on the iplayer since we leaked another 4 tries and only clung on through penalties.

Radge - watch Visser's try then skip forward to the 2nd half, and turn it off on 75 minutes.

You'd actually be pretty happy with the performance if that's all you watched!

Didnt see any of the game but sounds like you could have got that win.

Well from what I have read, it seems that Leonard had a stormer and scooped the MOTM award.

I wonder if it would be worth playing him at 10 and shifting Laidlaw to 9 since we are having Scrum half Issues at the moment. Perhaps it's worth considering?

Stormer is maybe pushing it, but he kicked all but one penalty and kicked well from hand. Backline looked a lot better too but he will have been helped by the forwards actually showing interest in the game!

I don't know where the praise for Leonard is coming from. Apart from his excellent record from the tee his kicking from hand had no distance on it and left us in the wrong part of the park. What is it with Scots and kicking for touch?? Never any distance. A fair few of his passes were fizzed across the ground.

He had some mildly impressive games last season but seems to have regressed starting at the U20s.

I see people write - you can't expect him to be Dan Carter. I don't believe its down to age as i've seen young guys around his age in other countries manage these simple skills and then some and still have that spark.

I don't see him as the next Scotland 10. Is Hunter any better? Not seen much of him.

Being a bit harsh there cp10 - I didn't think his kicking from hand was bad at all. He regularly got from inside the 22 to the halfway line which is the very minimum you'd expect from your 10.

He also had to contend with some horrendous passes from his scrum half.

You've also got to remember he's been playing most his rugby in the permiership this year and is a big step up!

He's still young and we certainly can't discount them at this stage of their careers - we've not exactly got an abundance of 10s

Its the fact he had time, set him self then only made 10 meters. More distance was made going into the stands than going along the touch line. This happened countless times. Now if he had been put under pressure and rushed into kicking I would understand.

Didn't notice that at all. Must not have been paying attention!