JP Morgans - first teams announced

First topic message reminder :

Leicester Tigers (JP MorganAsset Management Premiership Rugby Sevens, Friday, August2,Franklin's Gardens, kick-off 7.15pm) 1 Michael Noone 2 Jake Farnworth 3 Lucas Guillaume 4 Harry Wells 5 Blaine Scully 6 George Catchpole 7 Pasqualle Dunn 8 Henry Purdy 9 George Tresidder 10 Oliver Bryant 11 Scott Steele (c) 12 Perry Humphreys

Northampton Saints: Vasily Artemyev, Tom Collins, Alex Day, Ryan Glynn (c), Will Hooley, Sam Olver, Tom Stephenson, Harry Bett,Paul Diggin, Sam Harry, Buster Lawrence, Olly Robinson

Newcastle Falcons: Harrison Collins, Ben Morris, Richard Mayhew (c), Glen Young, Michael Tait, Tom Catterick, Zach Kibirige, Chris Harris,Andy Davies, Joel Hodgson, Sean Brown, Tom Penny

These are from a article on the Tigers site. Looks like we're taking it slightly more seriously. Purdy, Wells and Catchpole have all appeared for England under 20s, Noone is former Leinster and Ireland age grade, Steele is Scotland under 20s, Scully a trialist American international and 7s player, Guillaume had some France age grade appearances previously and Bryant is the one I'll be interested to see, he's highly rated in the academy and is the 10 and captain. Doubt we'll win the cup but maybe grab a win this time.

Looking forward to this tonight now.  Although we have a few 'guests' playing, I am really keen on seeing how our young guys go.

Falcons breeze into final, mostly made up of kids so good effort, loads of young talent coming through.

Irish looking decent against Wasps but too late and knocked out.

Quins fight back to beat Sarries in final, Charlie Walker fantastic. Both go through to final

Anyone know how Chis looks, injury wise?

Fairly stunned that Quins beat that Sarries team.

Charlie Walker is a special talent and hopefully we'll see a little more of him this season. He looked electric at 13 for the Eng age grades.

It was a great fight back Yap, Walker was major threat. He's always looked very quick but seems to have bulked up a bit too.

You see him at wing or 13?

Wing, but covering 13.

13 but covering wing  

I just want him to get the ball as much as possible tbh.

Think he covers FB as well.

Conflict amongst the Quins ranks

Looks a cracking talent, he'll be biting at the bit seeing Yarde come through so well.

Yea isn't odd how some youngsters just seem to walk straight in to their side and then the national set up while others have to wait for ever or don't ever get picked.

To be fair Yarde has come through whilst Irish's squad has looked pretty dreadful so he's had plenty of game time and a chance to shine.

Sometimes it's better being a big fish in a little pond.

Yeah, we see very few back three players break into our squad at Tigers. Hopefully Tahir "Cookie" el Mahdi will start pushing for a place. Caught the highlights of the other night earlier and he looked like he's improving nicely. Very quick feet and lots of pace, took his tries well last night.

I suspect that bigger teams have more depth as they are right up to the cap. Smaller teams will use their academy as squad players giving more chances. Quins blow that theory though.

Players that take Those chances and claim regular first team action will make progress through to international rugby quickest. The fastest rise is probably Nowell who has gone from nobody to England under 20 to Chiefs regular and now England Saxon.

Nowell was very quick.

I was watching an old U20's game with Walker, Mills, Robson etc. Yarde was shining on the right wing, he's really made the jump up last season.

Just watched our games last night...Falcons looked strong. Good runners, defence, creativity..

My thoughts:

London Irish's no 1 looked good. Big guy who was threatening.

London Wasps - no one really stood out for me. Varndell was a bit disappointing though did make one good run.

Quins looked like a good unit. Best team on the night. Charlie Walker was obviously the star but for example no 3 played well too - I think his name was Patrice.

To my own side: I was really disappointed with Ashton. I thought he was poor. He missed far too many tackles. In the game vs Quins gave away a crucial penalty (Quins scored almost straight afterwards. Didn't make much progress with ball in hand.

It's indicative that he didn't start the match vs Quins. We were winning before he came on....

Two best players for us in my opinion were Ben Ransom and Tim Streather.


Yappysnap it wasn't a surprising result on the night. Plus Saracens were missing James Short.

Beshocked after a performance as bad as that can you see Ashton being dropped at the start of the season? Or do you think he just doesn't give a sh*t about a pretty micky mouse 7's comp?

Short/Strettle/Wyles still make a good pool of wings to choose from.

Yappysnap I think he was trying - he just didn't seem to live up to his profile. To be fair neither did Varndell either. I thought both were going to shine as the two biggest names (with Short missing).

Perhaps I am being harsh - he did score a try and did help set one up. It's just for an England winger with 25 caps - with his profile etc I expected a lot more.

Certainly for Saracens who really rate defence he just wasn't up to standard.

Maybe it's just he doesn't suit 7s. He's not particularly good in a 1 on 1 situation both in attack and defence.

Yes Short/Strettle/Wyles are all decent options though none have electric pace. Tagicakibau and Wilson also both played quite well in my opinion.

Yappysnap you must be pleased with Charlie Walker. He was in sparkling form.

I don't think performance in a 7's competition will have any bearing on whether Ashton is first choice at the start of the season for Saracens. For what it's worth, I thought he did ok. I was pitchside for all of the games and I certainly wouldn't question his commitment.

Worrying to hear his tackling was still poor though? I haven't had a ahcnace to see the games, but will watch them today at some point. Looking forward to seeing Walker's highlights!

I'm not convinced that his tackling was any poorer than most peoples on the night. Don't forget this is 7's and is very different in terms of how you defend.

Is Ashton at the wrong club? He's not a shadow of the player he was at Saints.

Can't comment on any performances in the JP7s as I wouldn't be even remotely interested even if I had BTV.

That's a fair question Portnoy. Personally I think he misses a strike running full back to track off. If you watched him at Saints, he scored countless tries where Foden broke the defensive line and had Ashton tracking off his shoulder. At Saracens, Goode is not that type of full back so he does not get the same opportunities.

Well its difficult to judge in a 7's game.

However the basic skills should be there...and tackling is a basic skill. I havent seen the games he played in so cant really judge but these are the same things being labled at him last season.

He needs to start the season firing...because he really is under pressure now from Wade, Yarde, May...not to mention other wingers like Benjamin, Thompstone, Short etc who all have their strengths.

Maybe Saracens isnt the club form him. I think he's better in a more expansive open style of play where his lines of running is best used...

Ashton was rubbish. He needs to shed some pounds too.

Ozzy I am not faulting Ashton's commitment. I just thought his tackling was poor personally. I thought he was at least partly guilty for 3 tries conceded.

Maybe it's also because I have higher expectations as he's meant to be one of the top wingers in the country.

Geordiefalcon if he does leave as things stand I wouldn't be too upset. Ashton must deliver.

I don't know what your definition of expansive open style play is. Saracens have shown in matches they can play expansively.

loganruns38 glad it's not just me with the opinion that Ashton was poor.

Ransom and Spurling were excellent. Shame Mordt got injured earlier on as I think he is a very under rated player.

You do realise that 7's is a different game, with players often left isolated defensively, particularly in the wide areas right?

I'm not saying that Ashton is the worlds best tackler in XV's, but do you want a tackler or a finisher on the wing.

This is the problem for me in this country, we are too busy concentrating on players weaknesses rather than their strengths. Yes we want him to tighten up in defence and he needs to work on that, but his role is to score tries, and given the right opportunities by his team, he will do that.

True about missing Foden and his line breaking skills. Sarries do play expansively but its very different to Saints and usually their wings get it when the defense is still set.

Ad pointed out though 7s means little to the actual season.

Except it's a trophy at least

Yeah but we've got this trophy in the bag already.. 

We'll see

I didn't realise how old Mordt was! I thought he was a young'un. When I have seen him, he's impressed me, but I just assumed he was a recent academy player because of his few matches. Why is he used so infrequently?

Because Mordt is so average. He's a brilliant squad player capable of covering large swathes of the backline and he can kick. He isn't really a big game kind of player, in that he won't be the one to make big breaks etc, a solid jack of all trades. He's done good jobs at Saints and Sarries over the years and I'm surprised a smaller team hasn't come in and offered him more rugby as he's a reliably good utility player.

Cheers Sam.

Perfect example of being a victim of your own versatility I guess.

Isn't it more being a victim of his averageness. He can cover the positions but none as well as say Tait can

Sam summed it up nicely in regards to Mordt. When he has had opportunities in the 1st team he hasn't properly capitalised unfortunately.

Ozzy3213 I agree a wingers role is score tries but in the 7s he only scored 1. I don't think he had to beat a man either.

ChequeredJersey wrote:Isn't it more being a victim of his averageness. He can cover the positions but none as well as say Tait can

 I guess it is. But maybe he's just average because he hasn't held down one position for long enough to become decent at it.

Just another way of looking at it.

Having seen the Tigers squad for the final I can safely say that we are boned. No Scully, Wells, Catchpole or Purdy who are all in Geneva with the first team. Instead we have just 4 of the players from last week and whilst It's nice to see Harry Thacker the England under 18 hooker get a run out the other 'trialists' (read Uni 7s ringers) show Tigers had not planned to get this far and are not ready to change plans now they are.

The retained four are Steele (c), Tahir "Cookie" el Mahdi, Jake Farnworth and David Williams. At least our captain and top scorer remain.

Saracens squad
1. Eoin Sherrif
2. Jack Wilson
3. Scott Spurling
4. Tim Streather
5. Nils Mordt
6. Nick Tompkins
7. Aaron Morris
8. Ben Ransom
9. Luke Baldwin
10. Michael Tagicakibau
11. Sam Stanley
12. Matt Hankin

Very similar squad except Chris Ashton is dropped, Nick Tompkins is brought in.

This actually strengthens the team. Tompkins is one of Sarries' most exciting young prospects. Couldn't understand why he didn't start in the Allianz park leg.

Two changes for us..

Chris York and Warren Fury comes in as captain having represented Wales at 7's. Replacing Ollie Hodgson and Chris Harris

Newcastle Falcons: 1 Harrison Collins, 2 Ben Morris, 3 Richard Mayhew, 4 Glen Young, 5 Michael Tait, 6 Tom Catterick, 7 Chris York, 8 Warren Fury (c), 9 Andy Davies, 10 Joel Hodgson, 11 Sean Brown, 12 Simon Hammersley

Tompkins and Hankin are excellent players and Mordt is fit which is good news. Good Newcastle side too.

We're actually undefeated in this competition since 2011.

Won it then and couldnt defend it as our 15's were gash and got relegated. Back in the final again...looking forward to watching it.

Everyone is bringing stronger sides and we are sending the majority of our promising players to Geneva instead. If Murphy plots a single win on Friday night I will be very impressed by his coaching skills.

I suspect for many of the youngsters half a match vs Montpellier in the first team will stand them in better stead than this comp. The likes of Wells and Purdy will want to lay down some early markers. Catchpole in particular will want to be noticed as he didn't shine for the 7s and with only Smith and Manu ahead in the OC pecking order he might squeeze in some game time next season if he impresses now. If he doesn't we'll move a none specialist 13 in to place.

Our side is weakened due to loss of Chis and OLH

We've had one of the randoms pull out and be replaced by a Loughborough Uni student who has previously spent time in both the Wasps and LI academies.

Chequered as long as you have Walker you should be fine.

Walker showed he can win a match on his own.

No one player can win a game of rugby on their own B. Walker may race away for several tries making it considerably easier on his team mates, however.

Got to make the Falcons favourites at the minute. That's a strong looking team.

Are there video highlights anywhere of the games so far?

This is the Glaws squad with a very, very welcome back to Apo Satala, who'll add a bit more Fijian flair to the side:
Martyn Thomas, Apo Satala, Will Hayward, Akapusi Qera, Andrew Bulumakau, Matt Cox, Nevaro Codlin, Gareth Evans, Rhodri McAtee, Billy Burns, Steph Reynolds, Drew Cheshire

So I'd go with a starting 7 of Q, Satala, Evans, McAtee, Burns, Thomas & Reynolds - that's not a bad side at all. Just a shame my BT service doesn't get installed until next week!  

Is McAtee just a guest player for the 7s?