Scottish Pro team thread

[123456789]

First topic message reminder :

There doesn't seem to be much going on but I thought it might be an idea to set up a thread devoted to transfers, coaching news and general new information to do with the Scottish pro clubs over the summer

[EST]

Hi all! Newly joined and thought I would join in.

The way I see it is Edinburgh are a 10 and a 13 away from having a good enough starting XV let alone enough strength in depth. I know I should not be saying this as a Glasgow supporter but I will never understand why Jackson is not sent along the M8 - suits Edinburgh's game and both he and Weir will be playing most weeks.

If the Hardie from the Highlanders comes to Glasgow then that is great but the focus for the rest of the summer from the SRU should be on Edinburgh.

Also agree with the saint in the previous comment that Vernon will be a quality addition for the Warriors.

Welcome Wizard, 

I am in the same boat re Jackson, I have mentioned it before but I think a move along the M8 would suit all parties.  Jackson, although he does some things very well, is too temperamental.  Looking back over his career, I struggle to remember when he has strung together more than 5 games in a row before being dropped or injured.  A move to Edinburgh would allow him to (hopefully) get the game time he needs to improve his consistency.  With Weir, Wright, Horne, Russell and (potentially) Hogg, being able to fill in at 10 for Glasgow it just seems to be the sensible thing to do.  Would our Edinburgh brethren want him?

[Manky-Flanker]

Dot, I meant it has backfired in terms of heineken Cup success and revenue. This seasons heineken cup was not the immediate return on investment the SRU were perhaps looking for after the financial windfall of the previous season.

[George Carlin]

Welcome Weegie. Nice to have another wise man from the west coast.

I would be absolutely happy to send Jackson on to Edinburgh - will give more time to Horne and Finn to start playing. Incidentally, does anyone know whether Cooseetah started training this week? Surely he cannot still be injured. Who does he think he is? Rory Lamont?

[Dorothy_Mantooth]

Dot, I meant it has backfired in terms of heineken Cup success and revenue. This seasons heineken cup was not the immediate return on investment the SRU were perhaps looking for after the financial windfall of the previous season.

In terms of HC progression you are correct there was no return on their Investment in terms of the HC but I would guess at this point extra cash from the HC is a bonus.  Scotland are light years behind the Irish in terms of pro Rugby, we are only just realising how to run pro teams. It will take years to match the Irish, intact we might never recover from the decade head start we gave everyone else in the pro era.

This year I think has been a massive step forward.

[Manky-Flanker]

Dot, I meant it has backfired in terms of heineken Cup success and revenue. This seasons heineken cup was not the immediate return on investment the SRU were perhaps looking for after the financial windfall of the previous season.

In terms of HC progression you are correct there was no return on their Investment in terms of the HC but I would guess at this point extra cash from the HC is a bonus.  Scotland are light years behind the Irish in terms of pro Rugby, we are only just realising how to run pro teams. It will take years to match the Irish, intact we might never recover from the decade head start we gave everyone else in the pro era.

This year I think has been a massive step forward.

I agree this year has been a massive step forward, but surely a large part of that is due to the increased investment that came from HC revenue from last season. That money isn't so much a bonus but more a prerequisite to improving Scottish rugby.

[GLove39]

Saw this on the Edinburgh twitter feed & got rather excited 
@EdinburghRugby: Bath and Scotland back signs for Edinburgh http://t.co/wC17j8Flf8
Assumed that despite all we'd heard Heathcote was coming up North to answer our calls for a decent 10...
Instead it turns out Jack QE2 Cuthbert has penned a 2 year deal.

[George Carlin]

Saw this on the Edinburgh twitter feed & got rather excited 
@EdinburghRugby: Bath and Scotland back signs for Edinburgh http://t.co/wC17j8Flf8
Assumed that despite all we'd heard Heathcote was coming up North to answer our calls for a decent 10...
Instead it turns out Jack QE2 Cuthbert has penned a 2 year deal.

Zane Kirschner's looking pretty good now, isn't he? I suppose that you need someone to make Tonks look especially good...

[Manky-Flanker]

So Edinburgh could have a back 3 of Jones, Cuthbert and Walker. Think the 1872 cup will be safe again this year.

[RuggerRadge2611]

Saw this on the Edinburgh twitter feed & got rather excited 
@EdinburghRugby: Bath and Scotland back signs for Edinburgh http://t.co/wC17j8Flf8
Assumed that despite all we'd heard Heathcote was coming up North to answer our calls for a decent 10...
Instead it turns out Jack QE2 Cuthbert has penned a 2 year deal.

[allyt2k]

Not international standard but good club player for edinburgh

Aleki Lutui 17 st 0 lb
Nikki Walker 16 st 12 lb
Jack Cuthbert 15st 11lb

Sounds like there making the point of bulking up the sqaud

[RDW]

[funnyExiledScot]

Wow! Walker and Cuthbert working in tandem - devastating!

I'm not as big a critic of Cuthbert as others on here, but a good footballer he is not. We've got three players who are big powerful runners in Visser, Cuthbert and Walker, but I wouldn't back any of those guys to connect with the rugby ball upon being asked to kick it, or passing further than a metre.

Whoever is in charge of Edinburgh, they are certainly building a physical squad!

[RuggerRadge2611]

I don't care if this sounds like a bitter rant but Edinburgh are getting shafted here.

Glasgow get a nice new stadium, competent Scottish Qualified players like Strauss, Maitland and NSQ guys like Matawalu "furrah lineeee" and we get stuck with Walker, Cuthbert... sorry JOCK FEICKING CUTHBERT and NSQ guys like Piers Francis.


All the while playing in a stadium way too big for us.

If the soap dodgers get 1st dibs on this Kiwi openside prodigy I'll be really upset!

What benefits have come Edinburgh's way after our excellent HC run the season before last?

[RDW]

What benefits have come Edinburgh's way after our excellent HC run the season before last?

Ben Atiga...

[funnyExiledScot]

Mike Penn, Ben Atiga, Dmitri Basilia, Nel, VDW, Tonks, Rees, Yapp, Lutui, Walker, Parker, Francis, Cuthbert, Dickinson.....

It isn't that they haven't been signing players. It's that the signing policy has been utterly dreadful and illogical, and has wasted a lot of money.

[RuggerRadge2611]

What's the reason for that though FES? The SRU not giving a guy like Chic Chalmers or any of the up and coming Scottish coaches a chance after Bradley's HC run papered over the cracks of a shambolic season!

[RDW]

Another reason why Edinburgh Facebook people are a bunch of idiots – ‘Great signing!’

[funnyExiledScot]

You can pick a XV in fact of players signed/introduced since the QF victory over Toulouse:

1.Yapp 2.Titterall 3.Nel 4.VDW 5.Parker 6.McIver 7.Watson 8.Basilia 9.Rees 10.Francis 11.Penn 12.Atiga 13.Tonks 14.Walker 15.Cuthbert

That lot might even give Zebre a fright at Murrayfield!

[Manky-Flanker]

What benefits have come Edinburgh's way after our excellent HC run the season before last?

Come on Radge, be fair, how many other teams can boast having a former All Black pulling the strings in their mid-field?

Edit: ignore, someone already got in before me above

[George Carlin]

I do agree that Edinburgh has got the fuzzy end of the lollipop in a great many respects, but in terms of player signings, It's becoming increasingly important to know who exactly is signing players to each club. We'll know soon if there's any method to the madness because whatever you might think about signings to date, the east coast does NOT need another openside.

[EST]

Somebody at Edinburgh is playing a cruel joke...Jack Cuthbert?  Who made this decision, thats what I want to know?  And why the two year deal, he has just been released from Bath for not being good enough, on what basis is that for giving him a two year contract?  If anybody needed to disappear to the championship, it was him. 

The signing policy at Edinburgh is an absolute sham.

[RDW]

Complete agree GC that we don’t need another openside, but what we certainly don’t need is a 16st lumbering fullback!

[RuggerRadge2611]

Who is this Penn chump anyway? I just think he is someone the Edinburgh press office has invented to scare children, like the Boogieman and Michael Jackson.

[funnyExiledScot]

The reason is that Edinburgh has been poorly run and poorly coached. Could you imagine Dean Richards or Richard Cockerill sanctioning some of the dross to come through the door at Murrayfield?

We need a top class head coach. No organisation or business can be effective without a top person at the helm. Rugby is no different. Someone at Murrayfield watched Mike Penn and decided to buy him. That person should be fired. Someone, possibly the same person, made a similar decision regarding Ben Atiga. P45 for that person.

Problem is that without someone taking responsibility, someone at the top who is accountable, the whole thing just gets fudged! Apparently it was Wayne Smith who "tipped us off" about Piers Francis. He doesn't even work for the SRU, so how can he possibly be to blame? Was Bradley solely the man behind these signings? They'd like us to believe that, so that we can all feel that the problem is solved, but I don't believe it for a moment, useless coach that he was in any event.

[funnyExiledScot]

Maybe we're going to convert Cuthbert into a flanker! He's about the right size, and is probably only slightly slower than Ross Rennie....

Radge - it isn't kids that Penn is there to scare, it's Edinburgh fans!

[RDW]

I'm getting my social media rage on again.

[EST]

It is a completely rudderless ship, over successive seasons at Glasgow Sean Lineen built a solid foundation of young, hungry emerging players: Wilson, Fusaro, Cusak, Dunbar, Murchie, Grant etc.  These players were generally unheralded from championship sides or from the U20 program.  But look at things now, it may have taken 2-3 years, and some pretty big losses along the way, but we are now starting to feel the benefit of those prudent signings, there was an obvious plan in place.  

Contrast with Edinburgh, there is no plan whatsoever, the signings since the HC run could have been picked out of a tom-bola - Lutui, Cuthbert, Penn, Francis?  Somebody with zero rugby knowledge has sanctioned these?

[RDW]

You’d maybe understand if he was a young Scottish player earmarked for better things, that was being released by a foreign cub (i.e. not Scottish).  However, this guy is 25, has had limited game time for Bath because he’s crap, played one game for Scotland and looked laughably slow and clumsy, and is playing in a relative position of strength for Scotland – why they hell do we need him??

Plus Edinburgh have to audacity to class him as a fullback / winger – winger??????

[funnyExiledScot]

Cuthbert and Walker on the wings?? Cross-field kick anyone?

To be fair, like Walker, Cuthbert is not a bad player when brought onto the ball at pace (relatively speaking) on the angle. His size makes him a handful for defenders, and if we can generate momentum in that manner, recycle quickly (take note Greg) and get the ball out to Scott, Visser and Tonks, then there's a workable option there. I just don't see the logic in signing both Walker and Cuthbert - they both do the same thing basically.

[RDW]

Cuthbert makes Walker look like Joe Rocokoko in comparison.

[funnyExiledScot]

Well at 25 I suppose Cuthbert has the potential to be rubbish for us for longer than Walker...

I actually think Walker will be a decent signing for us. Cuthbert will I expect exceed expections (as they are so low), but with Tonks and Brown in the squad I can only assume he's brought is a cover for the wing principally, but with Visser, Walker, Jones, Fife and Farndale about, it's hard to see where he's going to fit in.

Again, why do this when whoever is in charge needs to be focussing on the back row?

[Dorothy_Mantooth]

I don't care if this sounds like a bitter rant but Edinburgh are getting shafted here.

Glasgow get a nice new stadium, competent Scottish Qualified players like Strauss, Maitland and NSQ guys like Matawalu "furrah lineeee" and we get stuck with Walker, Cuthbert... sorry JOCK FEICKING CUTHBERT and NSQ guys like Piers Francis.


All the while playing in a stadium way too big for us.

If the soap dodgers get 1st dibs on this Kiwi openside prodigy I'll be really upset!

What benefits have come Edinburgh's way after our excellent HC run the season before last?

Now that made me laugh.

[RDW]

If Cuthbert gets regular gametime over Farandale I think will lose all faith in rugby and go and watch netball or something.

[George Carlin]

But don't you see? It works. Glasgow is Jack Lemmon, Edinburgh is Walter Matthau.

You guys sign Atiga, Jones, Penn and Cox. So we don't have to. Taking one for the team, I call it.

[allyt2k]

thought Jones was moving to the sevens squad?

[funnyExiledScot]

Yeh GC - go team Scotland!

[EWT Spoons]

I have no idea who is signing these players for Edinburgh, I can only imagine it’s someone who hates us.

On a totally unrelated note has anyone noticed that '21st century schizoid man' has been pretty quiet…..

My best guess is that the SRU are running a competition, like some kind of brain teaser, for folk to try and work out the signing policy at Edinburgh. I’ve given up

Also I totally agree with folk above, can’t see why Cuthbert has been signed and I’ll be gutted if he starts ahead of the like of Farndale.

I suspect the next big news coming out of Edinburgh will be that Marcus Di Rollo has come out of retirement and Edinburgh have swooped to sign him up on a 5 year deal as our first choice hooker.

[IanBru]

Suggested marketing line:
"Edinburgh Rugby - We Blow So You Don't Have To"

[RDW]

thought Jones was moving to the sevens squad?

Where did you hear that? With Farndale coming through and Brown probably being shifted to the wing to accommodate the oil tanker at 15 that would probably be a good move.  Plus he is significantly better at 7s than at 15s.  He might not want to though as joining the 7s team is effectively saying your international career is over….saying that it is a pretty good lifestyle travelling all over the world!

[AsLongAsBut100ofUs]

Cracking signing

[funnyExiledScot]

You're all heart!! Something tells me you're going to enjoy watching Walker and Cuthbert in tandem in the 1872 Cup!

[123456789]

Although I am enjoying their new signing policy for Edinburgh, last year it was crap foreigners so young Scottish players received less game time now this year their re-signing all the players that were good enough to occasionally get us in the top five about four years ago and now can't make a second string Scotland squad.

Joking apart if you could get a loosehead, a tighthead, a second-row, a fly-half and an outside centre you might challenge the top 10

[21st Century Schizoid Man]

Walker, Cuthbert, Visser - jeezus h.   That will have the Rabo teams cacking themselves with fear    Cracking up with laughter more like.   

Radge - take your reference to 'soap dodgers' is irony ? Coming from a prop from Kirkaldy and all ! 

[Pat_Mustard]

The scotsman have reported on Bradley Harper, a young South African centre with Scottish parents who is in the sharks academy, and has met up with the Scotland coaches recently with a view to possibly coming to play over here.

http://www.scotsman.com/sport/rugby/top-rugby-stories/bradley-harper-nails-his-colours-to-scotland-1-2968236

Edit: he was over here playing for Hawks for a while last season.

[21st Century Schizoid Man]

Pat,

The Herald seem to think he -Harper- may be Glasgow bound ?

[Pat_Mustard]

Sounds good, anyone seen him play?

[RDW]

Some interesting comments from Tom Smith on the state of pro rugby in Scotland, and Graham Low particularly...

“Every conversation I had with Graham Lowe started: ‘In New Zealand we did it this way’ and that was the extent of his knowledge,” is one of Smith’s kinder observations. “He was behind a lot of Edinburgh’s journeymen signings. Guys within the organisation could have done a better job, guys who knew Scottish rugby better.”
The influence of foreigners on Scottish rugby is a contentious issue but Smith is not against them per se. He would have offered Wayne Smith a blank cheque to become Scotland’s head coach and he insists that [Scotland’s Welsh forwards coach] Jonathan Humphreys and [Scotland’s Kiwi head-coach-in-waiting] Vern Cotter are two of the good guys.
But there are plenty of the other sort, tumbleweeds who arrive with a fanfare and slip out the back door a couple of years later. It’s a complex area, the foreign influence, and by commenting on it Smith insists that he isn’t fishing for an invitation to return to Murrayfield.
“Have we handed the keys of the castle over to another guy and said here you go, take Scottish rugby and do what you like for the next few years? Maybe? Maybe it’s the right decision. I don’t know. I’ve come full circle on this. There are good people in Scottish rugby, guys like John Jeffrey and others from that era. We have two Lions captains that we don’t use. You don’t have to have been a professional coach but you know Scottish rugby, you live in Scotland, you have a better crack at getting that balance between the clubs and the international team right and we know that, in ten years’ time, you are going to be living in Scotland and contributing. I don’t want to come over all nationalistic and say it’s got to be a Scottish bloke but there does come a point when you have to promote a few guys from within.”

[funnyExiledScot]

So Edinburgh are rumoured to be signing an openside flanker whereas Glasgow are rumoured to be signing a centre?? That's just really stupid.

I agree with Tom Smith completely. There is clearly a total void of rugby knowledge behind a large number of the signings at Edinburgh. Signings that just make no sense whatsoever for Edinburgh or for Scottish rugby.

I for one would love to know who is responsible. Someone must have decided that Mike Penn was an astute signing, and someone must have watched Ben Atiga up close and recommended him. Why are these people not putting their hands up and resigning??

[Portnoy's Complaint]

We really need to. Take a look at this:

Enlarge this image

Could you state the source of this please?

I'd like to discuss some mathematical/statistical graphic representations with them.

[123456789]

So Edinburgh are rumoured to be signing an openside flanker whereas Glasgow are rumoured to be signing a centre?? That's just really stupid.

I agree with Tom Smith completely. There is clearly a total void of rugby knowledge behind a large number of the signings at Edinburgh. Signings that just make no sense whatsoever for Edinburgh or for Scottish rugby.

I for one would love to know who is responsible. Someone must have decided that Mike Penn was an astute signing, and someone must have watched Ben Atiga up close and recommended him. Why are these people not putting their hands up and resigning??

I suppose the subsequent lack of job might come into it

[Sponsored content]