Fantasy Anglo Welsh Cup Round One

Cardiff Blues v London Wasps
Ospreys v Gloucester Rugby
Saracens v Leicester Tigers
Northampton Saints v Harlequins
Bath Rugby v Newport Gwent Dragons
Worcester Warriors v Scarlets
London Irish v Sale Sharks
London Welsh v Newcastle Falcons

1 wood
2 Strauss
3. Harden
4. Percival
5. Robson
6 ferris
7 saull
8 Harinordoqouy
9 Robson
10 goosen
11 Guildford
12 Donald
13 Horne
14 Clarke
15 balshaw
16 Payne
17 fourie
18 ousthuizen
19 stookes
20 Nizaam Carr
21 tj perenara
22 lamb
23 may

Will format later

Mark-are we playing the teams the regions put out this weekend?

Steve - not sure how much I will be online this week, so wont be able to wait for the AI teams to be named so I think my team will have to be:

1. Lugi Mulipola
2. Mike Haywood
3. Carl Hayman
4. Courtney Lawes
5. Patricio Albacete
6. Dan Lydiate
7. Julian Salvi
8. Billy Vunipola
9. Joe Simpson
10. Danny Cipriani
11. Siti Siviatu
12. Matt Giteau
13. Elliot Daly
14. Christian Wade
15. Ben Foden

16. Webber 17. Henry Thomas 18. Seb Taofifonia 19. Calum Clark 20. Joe Launchbury 21. Sam Harrison 22. George Ford 23. Niall Morris/Matt Tait

Chris Daley is on loan to me remember?

Didnt see you stick it up on confirms mate, so assumed that you didnt want to go ahead with the deal? If you do then stick itup, but I'm not going to be around much this week, so maybe go through after this round?

Yeah cool.

Saracens
Manager – Driver

01.Max Lahiff	09.Will Chudley
02.Hika Elliot	10.Iain Humphreys (K)
03.Ben Tamifuna
04.Bryn Evans (c)	11.Harry Robinson
05.Tim Swinson	12.Gael Fickou
06.Rhys Ruddock (c)	13.Chris Bell
07.Shane Jennings	14.Adam Thompstone
08.Luke Narraway	15.Rory Lamout

16.Scott Spurling 17.Efion Lewis Roberts 18.Phil Swainstone 19.Tom Jubb 20.Rocky Elsom 21.Paul Hodgson 22.Tom Catterick 23.Mark Cueto

Wanting to rest players who've played a lot, and also those who are gonna play for the next month in the AI's, but also be competitive....proving tricky lol.

Had my head spinning when thinking about who to play this week , i'v got two massive AP games coming up.

Should be a good game.

Pete, this will be a pretty weak lineup, not sure I can put out a 23 tbh

Are EQ rules same as the league?

Yes they are Luke.

Leicester Tigers have named their side to play Saracens this week.

Tigers have made 15 changes to the side that beat Northampton Saints last week.

There are a few youngsters in the Tigers 23 picked by LukeLovesLuka, with academy players Jared Saunders, Jimmy Stevens, Pieter-Steph du Toit and Paul Jordaan all making their first starts, whilst Ryan Bower, Jonny Harris, Rob Conquest, Edwin Maka and Francois Venter will impact the game from the bench.

Experienced players such as Brian Mujati, Simon Shaw, Tom Croft, Jacques Burger, Brock James and Clement Poitreanud will no doubt be asked to guide the youngsters through the game against Sarries.

Jordan Crane will captain the side.


Leicester Tigers
Manager – LukeLovesLuka

01. Jared Saunders	09. Sarel Pretorius
02. Jimmy Stevens	10. Brock James (k)
03. Brian Mujati
04. Simon Shaw	11. Rene Ranger
05. Pieter-Steph du Toit	12. Hudson Tonga'uiha
06. Tom Croft	13. Dominic Waldouck
07. Jacques Burger	14. Paul Jordaan
08. Jordan Crane (c)	15. Clement Poitreanud

16. Ryan Bower 17. Sebastien Bruno 18. Jonny Harris 19. Rob Conquest 20. Edwin Maka 21. Micky Young 22. Rory Clegg 23. Francois Venter

Tactics:

- In decent conditions we will play attacking rugby, led by our attacking HBs.

- Use Tonga'uiha at 12 to really attack the 10/12 channel of Sarries, looking to break through a weak defensive unit.

- Use the likes of Crane, Burger, Mujati, Shaw and du Toit to gain hard yards in the tight.

- Target the lineout, with Croft, du Toit, Shaw and Crane all great jumpers.

- Use out attacking back three when we can - get the ball wide and look to cause damage.

- Brock James in great form for Clermont, and look to him to play the game as he sees it, with an attacking mindset.

01.Nathan Catt	09. Dwayne Peel
02.Korree Britton	10.Tom Heathcote (k)
03.Samson Lee
04.Juan Cruz Guilleman	11.Eli Walker
05.Leo Cullen	12.Regan King
06.Tom Savage (c)	13.Ian Whitten
07.Chris Walker	14.Sean Maitland
08.Mamuka Gorgodze	15.Cameron Shepherd

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16. Dave Ward 17. BJ Botha 18. Chris Budgen 19. Ollie Kohn 20. Kearnen Myall 21. James Short 22. Sam Vesty 23. Ben Ransom

Tactics
Big pack for go forward with experience and youth,
Backs to look to run with Heathcote standing flat and using tactical kicking,
Bring on experience on 60mins to bitz Scarlets,
We are targetting a win to get momentum again.

Falcons name a side littered with experience and youth for the trip away to London Welsh. Pooly:

"We see the LV as a great oppertunity to blood some youngsters who are normally a little way off the first XV. Alex Waller gets his first start of the season after really impressing off the bench and is joined in the starting lineup with Luke Marshall and Colin Slade. Luke has been outstanding in training and deserves his recent call up to the full Ireland set up. He's a big unit and has excellent distribution skills, he really could be a world class player.

We've went for a mainly youthful bench and will look to get them plenty of game time. We've named young Scotty Wilson & Cowen-Dickie as propping options so the England U20 management will be keeping an eye out with them both in the wider England U20 squad. Jonny Gray is a real prospect following in the footsteps of his older brother and has looked at star at U20 level. Similar with Francis Saili who already has a U20 World cup medal under his belt and a full season in the Super 15.


Newcastle Falcons
Manager – Sgt Pooly

01. Alex Waller	09. Luke Burgess
02. Lee Mears	10. James O’Connor
03. Clement Ric
04. Ed Slater	11. Colin Slade
05. Paul O’Connell©	12. Luke Marshall
06. John Barclay	13. George Lowe
07. Heinrich Brussow	14. Miles Benjamin
08. Jackson Wray	15. Jared Payne

16. Rory Best 17. Scott Wilson 18. Luke Cowan-Dickie 19. Jonny Gray 20. Joel Conlon 21. Jimmy Cowan 22. Henry Slade 23. Francis Saili

TACTICS

Normal Falcons tactics....high intensity, offloading rugby (if weather permits). Target breakdown & set piece. Plenty of kicking options in Slade, JOC.

Look to get youngsters game time in the 2nd.

London Welsh name a starting XV which contains 10 full internationals, with a further four capped players on the bench. Head coach Ozzy3213 had this to say.

“We are going out to win this game. The Anglo Welsh cup is a very important competition for us for a number of reasons. Firstly there is a Heineken Cup place for the winners, and in such a tight league, you have to take any opportunity that you can to qualify for that competition. Also in terms of the season as a whole, if we can build momentum by winning games in this compeition, then that can only be good for us when we get back to Aviva Premiership action.”

London Welsh
Manager – Ozzy3213

01. Brett Sturgess	09. Tomas O’Leary (c)
02. Chris Whitehead	10. Butch James
03. Adam Jones
04. Sitaleki Timani	11. Digby Ioane
05. James Hanks	12. Gavin Henson
06. Maurie Fa’asavalu	13. Joel Tomkins
07. Siya Kolisi	14. Bryan Habana
08. Sione Kalamafoni	15. Tom Homer

16. Tom Cowan-Dickie 17. Ben Alexander 18. Werner Kruger 19. Dean Schofield 20. Luke Wallace 21. Charlie Davies 22. Jonathan Davies 23. Matt Jess

Tactics to follow…

Northampton Saints name a strong starting XV as they begin the defence of the Anglo Welsh Cup. Saints manager, Dammit Chris, had this to say:

"We go out to win every game we play and we'd love to become the first club to retain the Anglo Welsh Cup, it got us into the Heineken Cup and provide us with a great chance to see more of Mike Haywood, Christian Wade, George Ford, Henry Thomas and Elliot Daly. We've picked a strong pack and will certainly be looking to give our backs an opportunity. I'm delighted to welcome back Calum Clark to the match day 23, and we've agreed with the Welsh coaching set up to give Bradley Davies and Ashley Beck some game time".

Manager – Dammit Chris

Northampton Saints team versus Harlequins

01. Loti Mulipola	09. Joe Simpson
02. Mike Haywood	10. Danny Cipriani (k)
03. Carl Hayman
04. Courtney Lawes	11. Christian Wade
05. Patricio Albacete	12. Matt Giteau
06. Dan Lydiate (c)	13. Elliot Daly
07. Julian Salvi	14. Siti Siviatu
08. Ashley Johnson	15. Ben Foden

16. Rob Webber 17. Sebastien Taofifenua 18. Henry Thomas 19. Bradley Davies 20. Calum Clark 21. Sam Harrison 22. Ashley Beck 23. George Ford

Tactics:

- Game plan to control the ball through the forwards, all but one is an international from the starting pack. To work through the phases, build a solid platform for our backline to attack from. Have a really strong pack and will look to assert some real pressure on Quins. Confident that if our pack can gain the upper hand our backline has a lot of tries in them.

- Getting our big runners on the ball early on and getting over the Quins gainline - Mulipola, Haywood, Lawes, Albacete and Johnson. A lot of the running will come off the Cipriani/Giteau axis and we will look for Foden and Siviatu as our main strike runners early on.

- Attack the breakdown with Salvi targeting the ball, with Lydiate and AJ clearing the Quins players out of the way. As a backrow unit we will look to try and get some dominance at the breakdown and seek turnover ball. Have a very strong backrow for during the AI's with Clark to add some bulk in second half.

- With our backline we are only going to go out and attack Quins and look to score tries, got good form in Simpson, Cipriani (so nice to be able to type that again), Giteau, Wade and Siviatu.

- When turnovers are on we will have options with Simpson's running threat, but also a great chance to use Wade on any overlaps that are created - on great form, in what could be a high scoring game.

- Strong defensive effort with Lawes and Lydiate leading the pack and will be looking to slow down Quins ball and set a solid defensive pattern. Will look to put Quins under pressure, force mistakes and errors and then attack. Foden will be very important at fb, as one of the best defensive fbs in world rugby.

- Will look to use the set piece as an area to build a platform - powerful pack and scrummaging unit, and feel that we can get at Quins lineout through Lawes athleticism. Very even lineouts otherwise.

- Will get Cipriani kicking all goals when points on offer, with Daly able to kick from 55metres.

London Irish
Manager – stnick88

01. Matt Stevens	09. Julien Dupuy
02. Tom Lindsay	10. Elton Jantjies
03. WP Nel
04. Dean Mumm	11. Sailosi Tagicakibau
05. Nick Kennedy	12. Shane Geraghty
06. Jerome Kaino	13. Mathieu Bastereaud
07. Will Fraser	14. Bjorn Basson
08. Netani Talei	15. Anthony Watson

16. Grant Shiells 17. James Buckland 18. Brok Harris 19. Stuart Hooper 20. Hendrie Fourie 21. Neal De Kock 22. Matthew Morgan 23. Guy Armitage

- Play an attacking expansive game.
- Use big ball carriers like Stevens, Mumm, Kaino, Talei, Bastereaud to make inroads before getting the likes of Basson, Geraghty, Watson running at Sale.
- Jantjies to kick all pens in range for goal.

Chris, Tamololo starts for Tonga against Italy this weekend

Luke, matavesi playing for Fiji

Cheers Steven, saw a different spelling of his name on another website and didnt quite twig - will move Mulipola over and start Hayman.

Matt/Pete/Luke

James Johnston is playing for Samoa v Canada on Friday night.

Census Johnston and Josh Matevesi are playing for Samoa and Fiji respectively.

Ofisa Trevirinus also in the Samoa side.

Harlequins
Manager – Steven_Sharks

01. Will Collier	09. Karl Dickson
02. Rob Buchanan	10. Freddie Burns (k)
03. John Afoa
04. Bakkies Botha	11. Tom Biggs
05. Jerome Thion	12. Anthony Faainga
06. Carl Fearns	13. Jonathan Joseph
07. Jamie Gibson	14. Luke Morahan
08. Nick Easter (c)	15. Andre Taylor

16. Rob Hawkins 17. Kyle Sinckler 18. Kieran Brookes 19. James Gaskell 20. Will Welch 21. Jano Vermaak 22. Quade Cooper 23. Olly Lindsey-Hague

Tactics

Play as we usually do. Strong carrying and rucking by our forwards before getting the ball into the hands of our quick backs who can exploit the gaps created. Picked a very big pack to attempt to control things upfront.

Control the breakdown with Fearns and Gibson nulifying Salvi.

look for Afoa to control scrum and Gibson and Thion to control the lineout

Burns to kick points. Win is important not tries today.

Apologies, I didn't realise Matavesi was in their squad, and didn't think Samoa had a game.

Team updated.

London Wasps
Manager – ‘Arry

01. Charlie Beech	09. Haydn Thomas
02. Huia Edmonds	10. Stephen Jones (k)
03. Shaun Knight
04. Samu Manoa	11. Tom Varndell
05. Dan Tuohy (c)	12. Dan Bowden
06. Dewald Potgieter	13. Matt Banahan
07. Jonathan Poff	14. Jamie Elliott
08. Roger Wilson	15. Steven Myler

16. Nathan Morris 17. Ben Daley 18. Rhodri Jones 19. Mouritz Botha 20. Ben Mowen 21. Jonah Holmes 22. Dan Hipkiss 23. Jack Wallace

Tactics
To come...

Who are Samoa playing? I didn't think they had a game this week?

They are playing against Canada in Colwyn bay. Double header with Russia v France.

I only know as its local in North Wales

Russia v USA even

Ah bum, will replace Big Trev with Siya Kolisi in that case.

Sale Sharks
Manager – SJE

01. Vasil Kakovin	09. Ben Spencer
02. Darren Dawdiuk	10. JJ Hanrahan
03. Luc Ducalcon
04. Romain Millo Chluski	11. Craig Gilroy
05. Andries Bekker	12. Francois Steyn
06. Matt Kvesic	13. Will Addison
07. Matt Todd	14. Tom Brady
08. Alex Tulou	15. Jean-Marcellin Buttin

16. Jerome Schuster 17. Tommy Taylor 18. Ross Harrison 19. Dave Attwood 20. Luke Whitelock 21. Nicholas Bezy 22. Tommy Bell 23. Sam Smith

Tactics

We will look to play a fast paced attacking game using big carriers running of the 9/10/12 axis to get us over the gain line and generate quick ball. Keeping the ball alive is crucial so our carriers will be looking for support runners to hit on the offload and get us further over the gain line. Our back three will look to get involved as much as possible running support lines of the halfbacks and midfield looking for the inside ball or offload. If for whatever reason we aren’t getting quick ball, we will look to take control of territory with the boots of Spencer, JJ & Steyn and force Irish to come at us from deep.

• With a powerful front 5 on show we will look to keep the scrum up and use it as a weapon. On our own feed we will look to get the wheel on and give our 8-9-10 axis as much room as possible to attack from.

• In Irish territory, with 5 jumping options to use, we will look to play off the top and move the ball out to Hanrahan and the backs. In our own territory, we will look to take the ball down into the maul and drive ourselves into the right areas.

• We will play an aggressive blitz on defence, playing on the edge of the offside line and coming up at pace, looking to isolate the ball carrier and stop any Irish momentum before it can get going.

• Spencer will act as a sweeper and cover any chips or grubbers behind the defensive line.

• We will leave two players sitting deep to cover any kicks and they will look to counter attack of any loose ball.

• With the blitz in operation, we will look to be at the breakdown first hitting it hard and fast. If the ball looks available we will flood the breakdown with Kvesic & Todd looking to get their hands on the ball.

• If the ball is not immediately available we will only commit 1 or 2 players to legally slow the ball down and instead look to strengthen the defensive line.

Strauss is starting against Ireland at the weekend Matt

Cardiff Blues

01. Sam Hobbs	09. Lewis Jones
02. Rhys Williams	10. Gareth Davies
03. Taufa'ao Filise
04. Lou Reed	11. Tom James
05. James Down	12. Gavin Evans
06. Luke Hamilton	13. Owen Williams
07. Josh Navidi (c)	14. Tom Williams
08. Robin Copeland	15. Dan Fish

16. Marc Breeze 17. Nathan Trevett 18. Ryan Harford 19. Macauley Cook 20. Thomas Young 21. Rob Lewis 22. Ceri Sweeney 23. Dafydd Hewitt


Scarlets

01.	09.
02.	10.
03.
04.	11.
05.	12.
06.	13.
07.	14.
08.	15.

16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23.


Ospreys

01. Marc Thomas	09. Rhys Webb
02. Matthew Dwyer	10. Matthew Morgan
03. Joe Rees
04. Lloyd Peers	11. Will Price
05. James King	12. Jonathan Spratt
06. George Stowers	13. Ben John
07. Sam Lewis (c)	14. Tom Grabham
08. Morgan Allen	15. Ross Jones

16. Scott Otten 17. Nicky Smith 18. Nicky Thomas 19. Rhodri Hughes 20. Arthur Ellis 21. Tom Habberfield 22. Sam Davies 23. Nathan Edwards


Newport Gwent Dragons

01. Tim Ryan	09. Jonathan Evans
02. Sam Parry	10. Lewis Robling
03. Dan Way
04. Ian Nimmo	11. Hallam Amos
05. Adam Jones	12. Pat Leach
06. Ieuan Jones	13. Ashley Smith
07. Jevon Groves	14. Will Harries
08. Nic Cudd	15. Dan Evans

16. Steve Jones17. Nathan Buck 18. Owen Evans 19. Josh Tyler 20. Andrew Coombs 21. Liam Davies 22. Steffan Jones 23. Ross Wardle

Guys I'm not on much by 1pm tomorrow.....if kerr barlow is picked then Peel onto play at 9 and kyle godwin onto bench please. Ta

Bath Rugby
Manager – inthefastlane

01. Charlie Faumuina	09. Fourie Du Preez
02. Chris Brooker	10. Gareth Anscombe
03. Carl Rimmer
04. Louis Deacon	11. Maxime Medard
05. Tom Donnelly	12. Luther Burrell
06. Brad Shields	13. David Marty
07. David Seymour	14. Only Woodburn
08. James Haskell	15. Isiah Toeava

16. Will Tanner 17. Jon Golding 18. Davit Kubrashvilli 19. Jarrad Hoeata 20. David Pocock 21. Richard Wigglesworth 22. Anthony Allen 23. Rob Miller

Guys, am super tucked up at work and not able to get the page updated. I will do it when I get hom later tonight and will extend predos accordingly.

Sorry

Pete,

I'll smash one together now fella.

I'm off to Germany this weekend, leaving 3am tomorrow and not landing until 11pm on Sunday - might not be able to make predos this week.

Prediction thread

https://www.606v2.com/t37007-anglo-welsh-cup-round-one#1664469