Tigers v Ospreys.

First topic message reminder :

Wow knock a player out with a malicious forearm smash off the ball,red card?
Nope just a miss timed tackle!!!!!!!!!!!! WTF?

The saint; its no different to the players playing for wales that wasn't born there.

Well played Harry Thacker seems a modest lad to.

The Saint wrote:

formerly known as Sam wrote:Tigers hold coaching courses over large parts of the globe. Pasquele was spotted in Italy and given a scholarship. Given he started last season as an under 18 and ended up as the Italy under 20s first choice tighthead. Not really poaching as it's developing players for the future and Italy are benefitting as well. He's been in England for quite a long time I think,

How is that different to the French vultures looking to steal players from SA and the Pacific Islanders though?

How is that different from Ospreys stealing SA/USA heritage Hanno Dirksen from Cornwall?

nathan wrote:The saint; its no different to the players playing for wales that wasn't born there.

It's very different. We don't send poachers to other nations to nick their promising players.

Why should Tigers not develop talent? Pasquele is playing for Italy it's not like he's been poached to play for England. If anything Italy will gain as he was a young talent unconnected in Italy taken to Welford Rd and developed. Given he was the first choice under 20s TH at only 18 then I'd say it was a good thing for him and for them.

Remember English clubs aren't as jingoistic as the Rabo nations when developing players.

Dubbelyew L Overate wrote:

The Saint wrote:

formerly known as Sam wrote:Tigers hold coaching courses over large parts of the globe. Pasquele was spotted in Italy and given a scholarship. Given he started last season as an under 18 and ended up as the Italy under 20s first choice tighthead. Not really poaching as it's developing players for the future and Italy are benefitting as well. He's been in England for quite a long time I think,

How is that different to the French vultures looking to steal players from SA and the Pacific Islanders though?

How is that different from Ospreys stealing SA/USA heritage Hanno Dirksen from Cornwall?

It's not much different. Another one brought in to dodge around the quota.

formerly known as Sam wrote:Why should Tigers not develop talent? Pasquele is playing for Italy it's not like he's been poached to play for England. If anything Italy will gain as he was a young talent unconnected in Italy taken to Welford Rd and developed. Given he was the first choice under 20s TH at only 18 then I'd say it was a good thing for him and for them.

Remember English clubs aren't as jingoistic as the Rabo nations when developing players.

They can be commended for that. But realistically, they're looking out for their own and England's interests. Not Italy's. In this instance Pasquele is staying loyal to Italy.

Funnily enough I said the same thing in this competition a couple of seasons ago when we played Northampton, when they played many of their first team players, that we would learn more by playing a development team, as against a team of vastly more experienced players either selected or on the bench.

Saint: well shame on tigers for looking after there own and Englands interests. What selfish people...

We don't have a quota. Tigers are only interested in developing a talented prop for their future front row. It's not all about the next England international (we produce enough of those anyway). It would be better for Tigers if he didn't play for England as it will mean he's away from Tigers more often, if he plays for Italy he'll miss far fewer games.

Agree Wayne, much happier with us playing development players as opposed to fringe senior players who are trying not to get injured.

Strong performance from Tigers. Not always the control, but they got the job done. Really cranked up the pressure in the 2nd half. Credit to Ospreys for hanging on the way they did. 89% possession for Tigers in the 2nd half!  

Thacker and Pohe particularly good for me. Thacker looks tiny, but he is a right ball of energy, and Pohe looks like another Manu! Would love to see them in the centres together.

It did amuse me that the hooker shaped Pohe was crashing through the centres whilst the Allen sized work machine was actually the hooker. Thacker has been bigged up as a prospect for some time now and if he bulks up a bit more he'll be one hell of a player.

nathan wrote:Saint: well shame on tigers for looking after there own and Englands interests. What selfish people...

You must be dimwitted if you can't see what I was replying to. Selective, dull reading as per.

Oooh my your grumpy tonight. Well it gets a bit boring reading the same rubbish from yourself about anyone facing the ospreys.

I hope we see the same team get a run out next week as well with the exception of Wells starting at blindside, he offered a nice degree of abrassive physicality when he came on which we had lacked from the backrow. Very interested to see if a couple of these guys can force their way into the first team, certainly Pohe and Thacker must be in with a chance of making the next AP 23 with all of our injuries if they can produce another good performance.

nathan wrote:Oooh my your grumpy tonight. Well it gets a bit boring reading the same rubbish from yourself about anyone facing the ospreys.

Care to explain?

Also, Sam, actually curious to know more about Pohe. English? English qualified? Certainly Gats' type of centre.

Born in NZ. Kiwi dad, Cornish mum. Started playing league in NZ, before moving to England (not sure what age) and started playing union. Played England age grade. Likely to declare for England if/when.

maverickmak wrote:Born in NZ. Kiwi dad, Cornish mum. Started playing league in NZ, before moving to England (not sure what age) and started playing union. Played England age grade. Likely to declare for England if/when.

Blimey, everyone's poaching the Cornish.

Fair enough. He looks very good for his age. If he stays with Leicester for the next few years and plays for England, I'd consider him English. Shame there's a few of you still trying to claim Georgie is not Welsh.

There's a lot of angry people on here for an academy game!

Metal Tiger wrote:There's a lot of angry people on here for an academy game!

 

Let's hope the citing officer adopts your view.

http://www.rfu.com/news/2012/april/newsarticles/020412_javiah_18s

The Javiah Pohe story up to April 2012. Tigers have had a couple of Cornish youngsters in the academy. There's a lad from Jersey coming through as well.

Pohe certainly offers some midfield go forward and some good hands. Might need to tone up a bit but a combo with Manu is what many would like to see after tonight.

Ref really got my goat in this game.Only one line out called not straight?Oddly this went against the Ospreys.No card for that assault?TMO question?Crowd calling Ospreys' pass forward?
I have never seen this bloke ref well and he is getting on a bit now.Surely it must be time to try some younger refs?

He reffed in line with how most AP refs operate. I've made the point previously over different interpretations between leagues.

With the lineout he let it go as long as the ball went between the jumpers even if it was a bit crooked. Seeing as neither hooker threw that well and given that it was a blustery day that was probably the quickest way to get the game underway. The only thing that annoyed me about Rose was that he let Habberfield feed at every scrum, straight to the number 8.

Can't blame the ref for missed tackles, inability to defend a driving maul or your 7s poor work rate.

I only watched the highlights, but calling stankovichs tackle assault is over the top. Yeah it should of been a yellow but I think it was clumsy more than malicious.

Ospreys seemed to get away with a fair bit when defending mauls.

They did pick up a yellow card for collapsing mauls eventually. They really struggled to defend the rolling mauls off the lineout. To be fair he evened up the high tackle from Stanko with not issuing a card to the Ospreys player who almost took Harrison's head off.

It's not clumsy. You don't accidentally hit somebody late or where he hit him, sorry

I thought the ref, David Rose had a terrible game all-round but particularly with his decisions not to YC Stankovich and the wrong call (any reason not to award...) to the TMO as he was ideally positioned to have his own opinion, were spectacular in his weaknesses.

Rose's performances this season have been generally poor to dire.

Having said that, Owen Williams apart, the O's were pretty abject apart from effort and got their just deserts.

And O's posters on here have been mealy mouthed (not to say sour and envious) in their comments. Not least that there should have been two players given their marching orders for attempted decapitation. One for each side.

Portnoy, Deludedoptimist is a Scarlets fan; Dowlais... I'm not sure, but he is from the Blues Region so I assume that he supports Cardiff. People do tend to get angry when a careless, swinging arm goes unpunished so cut people some slack.

Yeah. Parochialism has the tendency to morph into nationalism and xenophobia on this board.

As an aside, when was the Ospreys high shot or whatever, as I know I rapidly lost interest in the game as a neutral and Dowlais said he did too, so is it not likely we missed it? I can't remember it anyway.

If I honestly have to say I do not hold any alegiance to any region in Wales, but what I do love is rugby and Welsh rugby more so, so I just wanted to watch a good rugby match last night with kids showing what they could do, no matter what their nationality is, but what I saw was taking the urine, I have asked a question earlier on in this thread, and I still stand with it, and I challenge any decent rugby fan on here who watched that game last night who can tell me that the ref was fair, if any of you can come on here and convince me then I am all hears, and I will apologise for my ranting, but the challenge still stands, prove me wrong. 

LD, don't think anyone cares given it was an LV cup game.

Late on Risca, the scrum half picks up a ball that's been nudged out of the ruck and the Ospreys player comes round the side and smashes him with a stooping tackle where the forearm smashes into the side of the face. Harrison left the game with concussion. I don't think it was worthy of a card personally as it was more clumsy and stupid than malicious. If you card Stankovitch in the first half then you bin the Ospreys player as well, Mr Quinnell didn't feel the need to mention that in a rant though, can't think why.

Haha. Fair enough.

What did the impartial Harry Ellis say about it?

Nout. Was too busy discussing Harrison's passing ability and man of the match Harry Thacker. Then again he only got to talk at half time and at full time where as Quinnell got his full touchline rant mid action. Judging by his comments Ellis isn't really the impassioned speaker anyway.

LordDowlais wrote:If I honestly have to say I do not hold any alegiance to any region in Wales, but what I do love is rugby and Welsh rugby more so, so I just wanted to watch a good rugby match last night with kids showing what they could do, no matter what their nationality is, but what I saw was taking the urine, I have asked a question earlier on in this thread, and I still stand with it, and I challenge any decent rugby fan on here who watched that game last night who can tell me that the ref was fair, if any of you can come on here and convince me then I am all hears, and I will apologise for my ranting, but the challenge still stands, prove me wrong. 

I thought the ref was incompetent - but balanced. He was equally crap for both sides. The Stankovich miss was bad, so was the one on the Leicester scrum half. He failed to police the lineout and for 60 minutes or so let both defences lie all ove rthe ball. He reffed this in the last 20 - by which time Ospreys were completely under the cosh.

Yes he allowed the Welford Rd crowd (and the Assistant note who told him the pass was forward) to sway his mind - unforgivable. After that he let Ospreys fire forward passes with abandon.

Personally I feel your take on the refs performance has a touch of national bias. Undertandable - but present nevertheless.

I too was looking forward to a good game. that we did not get it was largely down to conditions and poor skills, and yes a poor ref - but a ref who was poor for both sides..

I'm sure a lot of Tigers fans here have noticed that yet another Tiger is injured after this weekends internationals in the form of Mulipola.  Really feel for the injury crisis you guys have, though not too much as you are in our HC group

It does remind me of the injury crisis out of nowhere that Ulster got hit with last season which really derailed our campaign on both fronts.

Mulipola is a loss but Ayerza will be back from Argentina by the time of the next HEC game so Mulipola would have covered from the bench anyway. Stankovitch is an experienced loosehead and Bristow is a decent youngster. Centre is the main concern with Hempetema fracturing his eye socket vs Quins, no sign of Tait or Manu yet, Allen definitely out, Smith not having managed a full game back before suffering concussion and Bowden also recovering from concussion. Last weekend we had literally no centre over the age of 19 available probably the same this weekend.

What's more worrying than the injuries is that our youngsters managed more intensity in defence in the LV than the first team (or what's left of it) managed vs Quins and Wasps in the AP.

Think i read somewhere that Tait was going to be playing in a couple of a league games.

Because of the New A league structure that won't be possible as the A league season is pretty much done and dusted. I think only the playoffs and the final remain and I'm pretty sure we didn't qualify.

Hmmm, I'm not sure what I read then! Lol in other news it looks like Manu will miss the six nations after undergoing surgery

Oh and Camacho is out for another 3 months.

Allen not back anytime soon with no definite date for Tait's return as Cockerill seems at a loss to explain his inability to regain full fitness. Big concerns with Hempetema's fractured eye socket.

I hope we give Pohe a look as with only Smith and Bowden still standing we need another centre and he is a big boy with soft hands and good feet. He might be carrying a couple of pounds too many but given his performance vs the Ospreys he deserves a chance to show just what he can do. Bowden and his flat midfield passes with Pohe crashing in on the angle, yes please.