Embra MFLs vs Connacht

Discuss

Brilliant.

This would be my team to crush Connacht:

1.Dickinson 2.Lutui 3.Nel 4.Gilchrist 5.VDW 6.Leonardi 7.Rennie 8.Du Preez 9.Hart 10.Leonard 11.Jones 12.Atiga 13.Braid 14.Fife 15.Tonks

16.Blauuw 17.Hilterbrand 18.Cross 19.Atkins 20.Grant 21.Hidalgo-Clyne 22.Dominguez 23.Cuthbert

I reckon Ford, Laidlaw, Denton and NDL could probably use a week off.

Worst.thread.ever.

Given that our run of games after this is 2 HK, Leinster then 1872 I'd suspect all of the Scotland players will get a rest, with the exception of Cross who hardly played.

Gilchrist only played one game - no need to limit him to 80 minutes in one month is there? I might have more sympathy for Dickinson, plus Blaauw could use the game time to shift some weight!

Most of all I want Rennie to start and get a full game under his belt, and I'm keen to see Braid get a start as well.

Agreed or Rennie, but remember the other Scotland players have limits on how many consecutive games in a row they can play - I'd rather they were all rested then played from the HK games, Leinster and 1872 games - 5 games in a row.

That might even be more than the limits allow.

Perhaps not a popular suggestion but we could use the Leinster game to rotate a couple of players.

Chance of victory against Leinster = zero. Chance of victory against Connacht = higher than zero.

Connacht have't been getting results, but they have been pushing teams close, near win over Saracens and Leinster, but with a smaller squad and a long injury list they are rightly struggling and haven't hit the form we have wished.
They still do have a number of very good players, and if Edinburgh are resting their internationals Connacht may well be able to win this, (depending on the injuries they now have).

One player the management will have to plan without is Brett Wilkinson who suffered a neck strain in Saturday’s disappointing three-point defeat to Scarlets. The Loosehead Prop has been ruled out for at least one week.

Danie Poolman, who pulled up in training last week with a knee injury, is awaiting further review following a scan, and it is unlikely that he will be available this week.

In better news, forwards John Muldoon and Andrew Browne both returned to training at the Sportsground yesterday and will continue to be monitored ahead of tomorrow’s team selection.

Irish international Robbie Henshaw returns to the provincial camp this week and is available to play against the Scottish side. It was at Murrayfield last year that the 20-year-old scored his first Connacht try in his side’s 32 – 24 win over Edinburgh.

Eoin McKeon, returned to club rugby at the weekend, playing 80 minutes for Division 1B side Buccaneers RFC in a 50 – 7 win over Dungannon.

The team to face Edinburgh is set to be announced at noon on Thursday.

Thanks for the udpate Kingshu.

I'm not looking forward to seeing Dan Parks - he generally does well against us!

Agreed RDW - he had the last laugh last season at Murrayfield, plus Leonard looked a little shakey against Ulster. Quite a gulf of experience between them.

Still, Du Preez ought to be told about that famous saloon door defence that Parks likes to practice, and likewise Ben Atiga.

Pretty sure Piers Francis should be back fairly soon - he might pick him over Leonard, rightly or wrongly.

Leonard hasn't overly convinced so far but let's face it he's not often had top quality players outside him.

To be honest I just want the better of the two players to be picked. I really wanted Leonard to be given a chance this season, and he's had a good long run of games. He hasn't made a huge impact, but hasn't been a disappointment either. He has good vision and nice distribution skills. He's no General yet, but there have been some nice touches, and he isn't afraid to take the ball flat to the defence and bring runners onto the ball from deep at pace; that's important.

I've seen nothing so far to suggest that Francis is better, but Leonard can't play every game this season so Francis will get chances as well.

I think we all agree Tom Heathcote would be a good addition to the squad next summer.

Francis' contract is up so wouldn't be surprised if we swap him for Heathcoat.

That would still leaves us with 3 young inexperienced 10s though so doesn't really solve anything...

Francis is soon to be fighting for his professional rugby future so may turn in some strong performances yet.

heathcote at least has potential. Leonard will never even be good enough to play well at Pro 12 level. Harsh, but true. Francis is just a waste of space.

I'm not wanting to come over like Asbo creaming himself over bennett, but Heathcote could have a bright future at Edinburgh!

tigertattie wrote:

I'm not wanting to come over ... Asbo creaming himself over bennett, !

Really Tiger, I'm quite taken aback by your unrequited smuttishness. You don't get that at Scotstoun!

Jaysus Asbo, shows how many hours I've wasted in putting threads together.
I might do it your way from now on.
 
Nice statement I saw from Edinburgh management saying they couldn't give so much as half a sh!t whether players had been involved in the international set up or not - if they're fit, then they're playing.
 
Surely by now, I think we can agree that Leonard is a good young club player, but he is not a Paddy Jackson or Ian Madigan and to be honest, is probably not as influential as the likes of Patchell or Heathcote. I have no quarrell with him at all, but surely to Oprah he cannot seriously be Scotland's future at 10. Heathcote in at the end of this season.
 
Very impressed with Du Preez lately and I'm happy that he is interested in playing for Scotland, which I am increasingly content is a good reason for a lot of young players to give it a lash over here.
 
Sacreligious though it may be in the wine bars that FES and IBD frequent, I am not convinced that Gilchrist is as good as everyone wants him to be.

George Carlin wrote:Jaysus Asbo, shows how many hours I've wasted in putting threads together.
I might do it your way from now on.
 

Say it isn't so GC - your threads provide the extra information and humour that the rest of us couldn't dream of producing!

George Carlin wrote:Jaysus Asbo, shows how many hours I've wasted in putting threads together.
I might do it your way from now on.
 
Nice statement I saw from Edinburgh management saying they couldn't give so much as half a sh!t whether players had been involved in the international set up or not - if they're fit, then they're playing.
 
Surely by now, I think we can agree that Leonard is a good young club player, but he is not a Paddy Jackson or Ian Madigan and to be honest, is probably not as influential as the likes of Patchell or Heathcote. I have no quarrell with him at all, but surely to Oprah he cannot seriously be Scotland's future at 10. Heathcote in at the end of this season.
 
Very impressed with Du Preez lately and I'm happy that he is interested in playing for Scotland, which I am increasingly content is a good reason for a lot of young players to give it a lash over here.
 
Sacreligious though it may be in the wine bars that FES and IBD frequent, I am not convinced that Gilchrist is as good as everyone wants him to be.

Well to be entirely honest, GC, I thought long and hard about the thread, its title, the content, the font, use of bold and italics, and even considered adding in some jolly nice pictures and some of those jolly amusing emoticons ... and then I realised that it would all be entirely unappreciated anyhew, so went for the succinct option

Fine assessment re Leonard and his potential

Gilchrist remains a bit of a curate's egg for me - I thought he did well on Saturday against Aussie, carried willingly, tackled hard, and generally got stuck in - but that was his best performance of the year so far, including his club games, which seems a little odd. Ideally I'd want to see him reproduce that kind of performance week-in/week-out, and he wouldn't be considered out of place as one of our lock options

Edinburgh team - strong lineup:

Tonks
Fife
De Luca
Atiga
Cuthbert
Leonard
Laidlaw

Dickinson
Lutui
Nel
Atkins
VDV
Du Preez
Rennie
Denton

Subs Hilterbrand, Blaauw, Cross, Cox, Grant, SHC, Beard, Brown



Hopefully that team should have more than enough for Connacht.

Very powerful pack, exciting backrow, add a fit Visser and Matt Scott into the back line and I'd be pretty happy with that team!

Surprised all the Scotland players are back, particularly Denton and Laidlaw who played most of all 3 tests

RDW_Scotland wrote:Edinburgh team - strong lineup:

Tonks
Fife
De Luca
Atiga
Cuthbert
Leonard
Laidlaw

Dickinson
Lutui
Nel
Atkins
VDV
Du Preez
Rennie
Denton

Subs Hilterbrand, Blaauw, Cross, Cox, Grant, SHC, Beard, Brown



Hopefully that team should have more than enough for Connacht.

Very powerful pack, exciting backrow, add a fit Visser and Matt Scott into the back line and I'd be pretty happy with that team!

Surprised all the Scotland players are back, particularly Denton and Laidlaw who played most of all 3 tests

Edinburgh really should be targeting a win with a line up like that.

Very, very interested to see what Atkins has got.

It does make you wonder when some of them are going to get a rest, they surely can't play right through till after the final set of HK qualifiers!

I would quite like to have seen another look at Hart, who looked pretty lively off the bench last week, not that S H-C played that badly. Beard looked good as well and must be worth a start at some point soon.

I wonder as well when we are going to see MacInally given a run off the bench. He has had a few club games now and was training with the Scotland squad at one point this autumn. He can't be to far away, having gone to all this bother they must try him at some point.

Solomon's has clearly decided that Edinburgh need to take the points from this game and you can't really blame him for that. I wonder who he will rest (if anyone) next week against Leinster. Will he put out a full strength side or put it down as a lost cause and really go for the HK games, both of which are potentially winnable!

He was decent last week GC.

Again it's strange to say when we shipped 41 points last week, but there were some strong individual performances from Atkins, Du Preez and Atiga.

Big Gee - we've got the two HK games coming up, Leinster is after that.

Full lineup:

Edinburgh Rugby team to play Connacht in the RaboDirect PRO12 at Murrayfield Stadium tomorrow (kick-off 7.45pm)



15 Greig Tonks



14 Dougie Fife

13 Nick De Luca

12 Ben Atiga

11 Jack Cuthbert



10 Harry Leonard

9 Greig Laidlaw CAPTAIN



1 Alasdair Dickinson

2 Aleki Lutui

3 WP Nel

4 Ollie Atkins

5 Izak van der Westhuizen

6 Cornell Du Preez

7 Ross Rennie

8 David Denton



Substitutes

16 James Hilterbrand

17 Wicus Blaauw

18 Geoff Cross

19 Sean Cox

20 Roddy Grant

21 Sam Hidalgo-Clyne

22 Sam Beard

23 Tom Brown

George Carlin wrote:

Very, very interested to see what Atkins has got.

He was definitely one of the better players last week, took his opportunity well. Lets hope he can back it up and add to the second row riches we currently have.

RDW_Scotland wrote:Big Gee - we've got the two HK games coming up, Leinster is after that.

Opps!

Well he definitely won't be resting anyone for the next couple of weeks then. I guess we will have to see who is left standing after the 2 HK games for Leinster!

Interestingly 10 of the starting 15 are SQ, so the usual 'rubbish foreigners' tag can't be put against the team if we lose!

Didn't watch last week so didn't see Atkins. No point in continuing to play Cox - we know what he can do and more importantly what he can't.
 
Hart is very experienced and came here highly credentialled. Why the feck isn't he being played more?

George Carlin wrote:Didn't watch last week so didn't see Atkins. No point in continuing to play Cox - we know what he can do and more importantly what he can't.
 
Hart is very experienced and came here highly credentialled. Why the feck isn't he being played more?

Soloman's must like the look of S H-C and from what I have seen on TV this year, admittedly not that much, there is plenty to like. He seems to be the only current Scottish scrum half with a genuinely quick pass. Watching the Ireland v Blacks game last sunday, it was just mesmerising the speed that the New Zealand scrum half moved that ball away from the breakdown. Okay it helps the way that they present the ball every time, but we can't get it away like that even when we do have ball on a plate.

I would say that he looks the most promising of the next generation of scrum halves. His trip to New Zealand in the summer seems to have done him no harm at all. He was called into the Scotland training squad for the experience as well and I think we will see him in the A team this year. Hart is just going to have to wait for injuries or the six nations to get his chance.

Having said that Hart did play well last week, even scored a try. He plays a different game to S H-C, more in the Phiiips/Murray mode. There are a lot od scrummies at Edinburgh chasing the spots. Even if we lose Black and Leck next year that will still leave us four good ones, assuming that Laidlaw, who I believe is out of contract stays. You could not blame him for looking for a money contract at this stage in his career. Maybe it might be the best move all round as it would let the others develop. Laidlaw will get game time wherever he goes. A good scrum half with a boot like his will be in demand and he could still play for Scotland.

Hart was injured for a good few months, but was still left out when he got back to fitness. Surprised he's not featured more but as has been mentioned Solomons is a big SHC fan.

I suspect Laidlaw probably will move on, which will leave SHC, Kennedy and Hart to fight it out.

George Carlin wrote:Didn't watch last week so didn't see Atkins. No point in continuing to play Cox - we know what he can do and more importantly what he can't.
 
Hart is very experienced and came here highly credentialled. Why the feck isn't he being played more?

Think he's been injured since he signed.  Pretty certain that was the case.

Very much like the look of that team and looking forward to Friday. Back row looks ideal.

This is the right selection from Solomons, putting out the strongest side. They need the chance to play as a team before the 1st HK game. Lose that and that tournament is pretty much done, win that and we have two wins on the bounce going into the next fixture.

Bradley loved continuous rotation and the team never settled. At least under Solomons I have a good idea of what the 1st XV looks like.

I think we'll win tomorrow.

With all due respect to Connacht, we used to be able to look at them at home as a good chance for a 5 pointer - show's how far we've been set back that we'd be content with scraping out a win!

I'd love to see us run them ragged tbh - we scrapped home against Zebre and Treviso, it's time we put a dominant performance in.

I'd still settle for a 3-0 win though....!

RDW_Scotland wrote:With all due respect to Connacht, we used to be able to look at them at home as a good chance for a 5 pointer - show's how far we've been set back that we'd be content with scraping out a win!

I'd love to see us run them ragged tbh - we scrapped home against Zebre and Treviso, it's time we put a dominant performance in.

I'd still settle for a 3-0 win though....!

Agree 100%, although it would be nice to score more points against them if for no other reason than to keep the Edinburgh "points for" column higher than the world class soap dodgers......

Ideal scenario is keeping them to single figures.  That is a strong Edinbrugh side and the chat seems to be that Connacht are struggling with a few key injuries.

Our defencive record is truly awful this year so we really need to keep their points down to at least show some progress defencively.

Keeping them tryless would be a big step. I'm sure they kick a few penalties, but we need to get better at shutting out the tries.

Wouldn't it be nice to get a TBP.....remember what those used to feel like!?

funnyExiledScot wrote:remember what those used to feel like!?

Nope.  

Great looking backrow for Edinburgh, though i would have Denton and du Preez the other way around.

Should be a close game imo.

Just realised that the Gloucester game is next Sunday - gives a nice long turnaround to hopefully give the Scotland players a long weekend off to recuperate after tonight's game!

Anyone going? It's a shame Alba are showing the Glasgow game when it is already on BBC Wales, but I suspect they are just jumping on the broadcast already set up by BBC Wales making it a lot cheaper to put on.

I'll be going this evening. Was in two minds having abandonned my wife for the last 2 weekends to watch Scotland play rugby, but the team selection swung it for me.

To be fair, Ospreys vs Glasgow will be a better game....on both channels!

Alba are rubbish, poor coverage in a language nobody speaks or understands. Let's hope Sky decide to extend their coverage after next year's toe in the water.

Anyway getting ready to head off to Murrayfield via a couple of hostelries. Looking forward to seeing this Embra team, best line up since Munster.

Enjoy Sinner. wrap up warm - its awfy caud out

Alba only have the matches 'cos no one else wanted it.

Ross Rennie sounds like he's having a strong game!

Anyone able to give a half time summary?

Right, so what's happening here?
The MFLs up 22-10, Dougie Fife scoring and the General kicking the rest.

I see Rennie was subbed on the hour mark. Everything all right, do we know?

For those who didn't see the Glasgow game, Schlong went down with a bad looking ankle injury - could well be a break or ligament damage.

Did we actually just get a big bp win limiting the other team to 10??

Du preez sounds like he had a stormer!

43 -10 to Edinburgh, at last something to smile about tonight

WTF?

justified sinner wrote:Alba are rubbish, poor coverage in a language nobody speaks or understands. Let's hope Sky decide to extend their coverage after next year's toe in the water.

Anyway getting ready to head off to Murrayfield via a couple of hostelries. Looking forward to seeing this Embra team, best line up since Munster.

But at least it's free for all to view. Once Sky take over fully, myself & no doubt many others won't be seeing any rabo.

Still on a happier note, what a score line for Edinburgh!!!    

GLove39 wrote:

justified sinner wrote:Alba are rubbish, poor coverage in a language nobody speaks or understands. Let's hope Sky decide to extend their coverage after next year's toe in the water.

Anyway getting ready to head off to Murrayfield via a couple of hostelries. Looking forward to seeing this Embra team, best line up since Munster.

But at least it's free for all to view. Once Sky take over fully, myself & no doubt many others won't be seeing any rabo.

If you can't get to the game just go down to the pub and watch it there, my plan.
Anyway back to the game: wimped out and watched the Weegies on Tele, they were awful, but got the win.

Appears Embra actually played well for once. We need Scott and Timbo back to put these games to bed early on.