Aviva Premiership - Round 18

Positions:

62pts Northampton
53pts Exeter
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52pts Saracens
51pts Bath
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51pts Leicester
48pts Wasps
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43pts Sale
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39pts Harlequins
37pts Gloucester
29pts London Irish
25pts Newcastle
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1pt    London Welsh




Fri 27 th

BT Sport
Northampton Saints v Wasps, Franklin's Gardens, Northampton 19:45 GMT
Just one round of the AP before the European semis, and both clubs will have one eye on their tough away trips next weekend. Northampton have not been in the best of form but have managed to grind out results with 3 wins and a draw during the 6 nations. Wasps last recorded an away win in the AP in December so despite having the talent may not have the belief to challenge the champions. Mallinder has an interesting selection decision to make at 12. Tom Stephenson is a young man with huge potential, who has been on fire while Burrell has been away.
Both teams have players returning, but Saints returnees are of a higher quality. I expect the champions to play this Midlands derby  tight and wrestle their new neighbours out of it.


Sat 28th

Leicester Tigers v Exeter Chiefs, Welford Road, Leicester  15:00 GMT
2nd visit 5th in a must win game for both sides. A repeat of the result from Sandy Park at the start of the season will see Leicester move into the Top 4 and Exeter probably drop out. While disappointed to lose their LV title, Chiefs will have been heartened by the spirit shown in coming back and the win at Welford Rd in the semis. Much may depend on the performances of the Devon bound Parling and (if selected) Salvi.

London Irish v Newcastle Falcons, Madejski Stadium, Reading 15:00 GMT
Both sides have Challenge cup matches next week, and with Premiership safety guaranteed and 7th spot out of reach may have one eye on that. Irish won the reverse fixture and will be confident of doing a double. Falcons will hope that their threatening backs can profit against an Irish defence that scrambles well. As so often this will probably come down to how the ref polices the scrums and breakdowns. Irish will be hoping Blair Cowan can bring his Scotland form back with him and secure ascendancy in the latter.

BT Sport
Saracens v Harlequins, Wembley Stadium, London 15:15 GMT
Having secured silverware last week, Sarries will be confident that they can handle a faltering Quins team. With the play-off situation so tight, they cannot afford to have any attention drawn to their trip to Paris next week. Quins have a weekend off next week, so may choose to play all their England men. Sarries will surely give BillyV the week off.
Sarries surely too strong.


Sun 29th

BT Sport
Sale Sharks v Gloucester Rugby, Salford City Stadium, Salford 14:00 BST
Sale seem to have dropped out of the Semis race and currently sit in the ECC playoff spot. They need to win this game to keep the breathing space they currently have. Gloucester have a challenge cup match with Connacht just 5 days later and will probably field a team this week that takes the short turn round into account.

London Welsh v Bath Rugby, Kassam Stadium, Oxford 14:30 BST
Bath have major injury crisis amongst their props. With a crunch ECC trip to Dublin next week and the need to give some rest to their England guys this will not be the strongest team they have put out. They are the only side to have allowed Welsh a point so far. Yet the only chance that LW have is surely if Bath forget the clocks went forward over night and arrive an hour late.

London Irish v Newcastle Falcons, Madejski Stadium, Reading 15:00 GMT

Theres not really a huge amount to play for...apart from teams working on techniques tactics etc for next season. Hopefully both teams will open up and play a great game of rugby.

Irish v Falcons will be an interesting game. We're almost unrecognisable from the reverse fixture in terms of style and confidence whilst Irish have probably slipped off a little over the last few months.

The performance a few weeks back in the LV will show us that we can go there and win (although the lineups won't be too similar).

Saints by 7
Exeter by 5
Falcons by 3
Sarries by 7
Sale by 5
Bath by loads

You are definitely a different side Pooly, but I'd say whilst we did most definitely slip off, we have then picked up again since the turn of the year. It will be very interesting to see how both teams approach this one, as we both have a more important fixture the following weekend. Neither side will want to finish 11th however, and I expect us to put out as near as possible to our best side to try to win the game and go into the quarter final with some momentum. Whilst I'd love to see an open, flowing game of rugby, unfortunately the weather forecast for down here on Saturday is for rain from about 12 o'clock onwards. It may well be that the team who makes least mistakes wins the game, and in damp conditions the scrum battle could have a bigger impact.

Ozzy3213 wrote:You are definitely a different side Pooly, but I'd say whilst we did most definitely slip off, we have then picked up again since the turn of the year.  It will be very interesting to see how both teams approach this one, as we both have a more important fixture the following weekend.  Neither side will want to finish 11th however, and I expect us to put out as near as possible to our best side to try to win the game and go into the quarter final with some momentum.   Whilst I'd love to see an open, flowing game of rugby, unfortunately the weather forecast for down here on Saturday is for rain from about 12 o'clock onwards.  It may well be that the team who makes least mistakes wins the game, and in damp conditions the scrum battle could have a bigger impact.

Well we make so many unforced errors and our scrum is pants...so congrats on the win

To be fair we make a few ourselves GF, and as we saw against Tigers our scrum can misfire badly. That said, we scrummaged well against Quins last time out, albeit their front 5 are not great. Will be interesting to see how this one pans out. I'll settle for a similar result to last season!

I think it's only Quins & Gloucester where we've actually got on top in the scrum. Oddly we have one of the best scrum completion rates in the AP. I think this is because we get it in and out so fast we don't give the opposition a chance to get a nudge on.

Hopefully Brookes will get at least 50mins on the park for a change, I won't hold my breath though.

I'd hope for a better outcome vs Chiefs in the AP. We're at home but unlike in the LV will be naming a much stronger squad. Something along the lines of;

Ayerza, Youngs, Cole
Thorn, Kitchener
Pearce, Crane, Salvi
Youngs, Burns
Bai, Loamano
Goneva, Tait, Thompstone

Bench: Rizzo, Ghilrildini, Mulipola, Parling, Barbieri, Harrison, Bell, Catchpole.

It's do or die so I expect we'll come out fighting and won't be such an easy walkover at the set pieces.

Kitch, Thorn and Roberts still having their fitness assessed. Cockers sayin g the returning internationals all desperate to play and with the next 3 rounds of the AP interspersed with Euro weekends there are obvious rest periods.

So I expect:

Ayerza, Youngs, cole, Parling, De Chaves, Gibson, Salvi, Crane, Youngs, Burns, Thompstone, Bai, Goneva, Morris, Tait

Saints team. No Burrell

15 James WILSON
14 Ken PISI
13 George PISI
12 Tom STEPHENSON
11 George NORTH
10 Stephen MYLER
9 Lee DICKSON
1 Alex CORBISIERO
2 Dylan HARTLEY (capt)
3 Salesi MA’AFU
4 Courtney LAWES
5 Christian DAY
6 Tom WOOD
7 Calum CLARK
8 Samu MANOA

16 Mike HAYWOOD
17 Alex WALLER
18 Gareth DENMAN
19 Sam DICKINSON
20 Jon FISHER
21 Kahn FOTUALI’I
22 Dom WALDOUCK
23 Ahsee TUALA

Wasps Team

15. Rob Miller
14. Christian Wade
13. Elliot Daly
12. James Downey
11. Sailosi Tagicakibau
10. Alex Lozowski
9. Joe Simpson
1. Matt Mullan (c)
2. Edd Shervington
3. Lorenzo Cittadini
4. James Cannon
5. Kearnan Myall
6. Ashley Johnson
7. Thomas Young
8. Nathan Hughes

Replacements:

16. Simon McIntyre
17. Phil Swainston
18. James Gaskell
19. Ed Jackson
20. Guy Thompson
21. Piri Weepu
22. Glyn Hughes
23. Will Helu

Unavailable for selection:

Josh Basset - ankle, Chris Bell - shoulder, Jake Cooper-Woolley - concussion, Bradley Davies – shoulder, Charlie Davies - calf, Carlo Festuccia – leg, Andy Goode – ankle, Ruaridh Jackson - ACL, Ben Jacobs - shoulder, Joe Launchbury - neck, Alapati Leiua - knee, Jack Moates – hamstring.

Rested after RBS 6 Nations campaign:

James Haskell and Andrea Masi

Home wins all round bar Welsh. Glaws haven't won away at Sale for c.15 years. As LT rightly points out the Connacht game has to take priority, so I'd imagine the likes of Hibbard and Laidlaw to be rested.

Wonder when Wasps still banging on about their injuries.

HKC yes it should be straightforward - home wins except for Welsh. Though saying that maybe Quins can pull off an upset. They'll have the spine of their team back of course.

Is Irish v Us a straight forward irish win?

I may be biased but I wouldn't say so...

beshocked wrote:Wonder when Wasps still banging on about their injuries.

I think it is very good treatment of the fans to let them know who was and was not available. Most clubs, and certainly true for Leicester, rely on rumours. This is an area I feel all clubs should emulate Wasps in.

GeordieFalcon wrote:Is Irish v Us a straight forward irish win?

I may be biased but I wouldn't say so...

Its the St Patrick's Day game, so there'll be a lot of home support I would think. Certainly I'm going with the pub junket.

I agree on the injury front LT, Saints are poor when it comes to information on injuries, especially shorter term ones where there is often no information whatsoever.

Saints team as I expected other than thought Hartley would be on the bench after the 6N and with the games coming up. Missing Foden & Burrell but otherwise its the first choice 15 (certainly first choice pack). I'm another one predicting all home wins bar LW & Bath. Wasps certainly have a decent absentee list for this weekend, hoping Saints can maybe find some form.

I can't believe Saints have rolled out their 6N players, have they not learned from last season?

I am surprise that Hartley has been selected, but Lawes and Wood have missed so much of the season they still need game time. As to North - well not really been overworked during 6Ns

Lawes look shattered last week.

I remember Sale giving them a bit of a humping last season after doing similar.

Lawes always looks dead on his feet by the end of a game but generally is back to normal by the following week. He's only played twice in about 7 weeks or something though so should be good to go. Only England sub appearances for Wood since injury too (one Sainst agme where he played about 60 mins I think) so again he should be good and North is a winger, only has to put about 10% effort in compared to the forwards (spoken as an ex second row/ flanker in my playing days ).

Your right though about Saints and resting players in general. One of my biggest criticisms of JM is that he doesn't rotate his squad enough and it's cost the team on many occasions in my opinion, not to mention potential injuries to the players.

They've not got a Euro game have they? Will mean they get next week off to recuperate. Saints looking for a win to cement their position at the top of the table. Given Burrell's form of late I'm not surprised to see him rested.

Saints play Clermont??

Think your mixing us up with Tigers there fkaSam .

I feel Stephenson is a better player than Burrell, certainly more skilful with a better understanding of the game.

LondonTiger wrote:I feel Stephenson is a better player than Burrell, certainly more skilful with a better understanding of the game.

Agree to an extent LT regarding skills and understanding of the game but when on form Burrell is still a very effective player for Saints, especially with their style of play. When George Pisi was out suspended earlier in the season Stephenson filled in at 13 (most expected Waldouck to come in) and he did a decent job but 12 certainly looks to be his best position. Burrell can play 13 well enough as we saw with England last season so there are options between the 3 players mentioned when everyone is available.

I think JM feels Burrell and G. Pisi are still his first choice center partnership, I expect Stephenson to be on the bench for the ECC quarter final unless he has a absolute stormer tomorrow or either Burrell or G. Pisi are unavailable.

B91212 wrote:Think your mixing us up with Tigers there fkaSam .

No, no. I know we are definitely out of Europe not sure on everyone else as it was so close. Asking the first team big names to play this week after the 6N and the at Clermont is tough. I'm surprised they are doing that.

LondonTiger wrote:

beshocked wrote:Wonder when Wasps still banging on about their injuries.

I think it is very good treatment of the fans to let them know who was and was not available. Most clubs, and certainly true for Leicester, rely on rumours. This is an area I feel all clubs should emulate Wasps in.

It's always moaned about on CAW how the club never let the fans know about injuries. Wasps handle this do much better and it must take all of 10 mins to do?

Oh and I agree all home wins, bit looking forward to the Wembley game. I'm going but may need to start the drinking early to make it through.

I sadly expect a Sarries win with them actually doing very little, just living off our mistakes as is their way.

CHIEFS SIDE TO FACE LEICESTER TIGERS

Dean Mumm at 7!!!!!

15 Phil Dollman
14 Ian Whitten
13 Jack Nowell
12 Sam Hill
11 Matt Jess
10 Henry Slade
9 Will Chudley
1 Carl Rimmer
2 Jack Yeandle
3 Tomas Francis
4 Mitch Lees
5 Damian Welch
6 Dave Ewers
7 Dean Mumm (capt)
8 Thomas Waldrom
Replacements
16 Elvis Taione
17 Ben Moon
18 Alex Brown
19 Ben White
20 Kai Horstmann
21 Dave Lewis
22 Gareth Steenson
23 Tom James

Saracens side to face Harlequins
1 Mako Vunipola, 2 Jamie George, 3 Juan Figallo; 4 George Kruis, 5 Alistair Hargreaves ©; 6 Jackson Wray, 7 Jacques Burger, 8 Billy Vunipola; 9 Neil de Kock, 10 Charlie Hodgson; 11 David Strettle, 12 Chris Wyles, 13 Marcelo Bosch, 14 Chris Ashton; 15 Alex Goode.
Replacements: 16 Scott Spurling, 17 Rhys Gill, 18 Biyi Alo, 19 Maro Itoje, 20 Kelly Brown, 21 Richard Wigglesworth, 22 Nick Tompkins, 23 Catalin Fercu.



Really worried that BillyV starts.

Harlequins team

15. Ross Chisholm
14. Marland Yarde
13. Matt Hopper
12. Harry Sloan
11. Ugo Monye
10. Nick Evans
9. Danny Care

1. Joe Marler©
2. Dave Ward
3. Kyle Sinckler
4. Charlie Matthews
5. George Robson
6. Jack Clifford
7. Chris Robshaw
8. Nick Easter

16. Rob Buchanan
17. Mark Lambert
18. Matt Shields
19. Netani Talei
20. Luke Wallace
21. Karl Dickson
22. Ben Botica
23. Charlie Walker

London Irish team to play Newcastle Falcons:

15. Andrew Fenby; 14. Alex Lewington; 13. Eoin Griffin; 12. Eamonn Sheridan; 11. Tom Fowlie; 10. Shane Geraghty*; 9. Scott Steele; 1. Tom Court*; 2. David Paice*; 3. Halani Aulika*; 4. George Skivington (Captain); 5. Nic Rouse; 6. Conor Gilsenan; 7. Blair Cowan*; 8. Tom Guest;
Replacements: 16. Jimmy Stevens 17. Matt Parr 18. Leo Halavatau 19. Jebb Sinclair*; 20. Luke Narraway*; 21. Darren Allinson; 22. Chris Noakes; 23. Topsy Ojo*

Newcastle Falcons vs London Irish

15. Alex Tait, 14. Noah Cato, 13. Gonzalo Tiesi, 12. Adam Powell, 11. Sinoti Sinoti, 10. Tom Catterick, 9. Ruki Tipuna; 1. Rob Vickers, 2. Scott Lawson, 3. Kieran Brookes, 4. Kane Thompson, 5. Dom Barrow, 6. Richard Mayhew, 7. Will Welch (c), 8. Mark Wilson.

Replacements: 16. Rob Hawkins, 17. Alex Rogers, 18. Juan Orlandi, 19. Josh Furno, 20. Andy Saull, 21. Andy Davies, 22. Juan Socino, 23. Chris Harris.

Leicester Tigers (vs Exeter Chiefs, Welford Road, Saturday 3pm)
15 Mathew Tait
14 Adam Thompstone
13 Matt Smith
12 Seremaia Bai
11 Miles Benjamin
10 Freddie Burns
9 Ben Youngs (c)
1 Marcos Ayerza
2 Tom Youngs
3 Dan Cole
4 Sebastian de Chaves
5 Geoff Parling
6 Jamie Gibson
7 Julian Salvi
8 Jordan Crane

Replacements
16 Leonardo Ghiraldini
17 Logovi'i Mulipola
18 Fraser Balmain
19 Jack Whetton
20 Laurence Pearce
21 Sam Harrison
22 Tommy Bell
23 Vereniki Goneva

Interesting that Niki Goneva only makes the bench

Smith @ 13 should shore up the defence a bit more. esp with Nowell playing 13.

Giving Benjamin more game time I guess?

Goneva coming on at either 13 or wing with 20 to go could do some damage.

Forwards should have them in the front row.

Prefer our Back row balance.

B91212 wrote:Lawes always looks dead on his feet by the end of a game but generally is back to normal by the following week. He's only played twice in about 7 weeks or something though so should be good to go. Only England sub appearances for Wood since injury too (one Sainst agme where he played about 60 mins I think) so again he should be good and North is a winger, only has to put about 10% effort in compared to the forwards (spoken as an ex second row/ flanker in my playing days ).

Your right though about Saints and resting players in general. One of my biggest criticisms of JM is that he doesn't rotate his squad enough and it's cost the team on many occasions in my opinion, not to mention potential injuries to the players.

I tend to agree with you there, but he also has this annoying habit of taking half the team off on 60 minutes whether those plays are looking tired or not, which is a form of rotation.

LondonTiger wrote:London Irish team to play Newcastle Falcons:

15. Andrew Fenby; 14. Alex Lewington; 13. Eoin Griffin; 12. Eamonn Sheridan; 11. Tom Fowlie; 10. Shane Geraghty*; 9. Scott Steele; 1. Tom Court*; 2. David Paice*; 3. Halani Aulika*; 4. George Skivington (Captain); 5. Nic Rouse; 6. Conor Gilsenan; 7. Blair Cowan*; 8. Tom Guest;
Replacements: 16. Jimmy Stevens 17. Matt Parr 18. Leo Halavatau 19. Jebb Sinclair*; 20. Luke Narraway*; 21. Darren Allinson; 22. Chris Noakes; 23. Topsy Ojo*

Ofisa Treviranus out for 5 weeks is a big loss for LI ...

Bath team up. Pretty much as expected, with all the injuries in the front row and the England players rested ahead of Leinster next week

15 Tom Homer
14 Semesa Rokoduguni
13 Sam Burgess
12 Kyle Eastmond
11 Olly Woodburn
10 Ollie Devoto
9 Micky Young
1 Nick Auterac
2 Rob Webber
3 Kane Palma-Newport
4 Stuart Hooper (c)
5 Dominic Day
6 Carl Fearns
7 Alafoti Faosiliva
8 Leroy Houston

Replacements

16 Ross Batty
17 Beno Obano
18 Max Lahiff
19 Matt Garvey
20 David Sisi
21 Chris Cook
22 Matt Banahan
23 Horacio Agulla

Suspicions that Glaws may rest a few ahead of Friday night's game against Connacht seem well founded.  On a side not it is wonderful to finally see Galarza in the team. He was one of our main forward signings for this season and has been out injured since the final game of the 4Ns; he should hopefully build a very good partnership with Jeremy Thrush for next season.

Billy Burns; Charlie Sharples, Brendan Macken, Billy Twelvetrees (capt), Jonny May; James Hook, Callum Braley; Nick Wood, Richard Hibbard, John Afoa; Elliott Stooke, Tom Palmer; Tom Savage, Matt Kvesic, Sione Kalamafoni

Replacements:
Darren Dawidiuk, Yann Thomas, Sila Puafisi, Mariano Galarza, James Hudson, Dan Robson, Bill Meakes, Ross Moriarty

Exeter have gone big up front. Mumm at 7 won't help them at the breakdown but will add plenty of grunt. Tigers will need to two up physically.

No Rizzo? Injured or dropped in preference for Balmain who seems a bit more reliable in the scrum with Mulipola covering at loose head.

formerly known as Sam wrote:Exeter have gone big up front. Mumm at 7 won't help them at the breakdown but will add plenty of grunt. Tigers will need to two up physically.

No Rizzo? Injured or dropped in preference for Balmain who seems a bit more reliable in the scrum with Mulipola covering at loose head.

I am always a touch confused as to whether Logo is a LH who can cover TH or vice versa. In his first season he played LH much more. Since then Castro left and Cole has missed a fair bit.

He is probably our second best on both sides, but with Balmain better than Rizzo.

yappysnap wrote:Oh and I agree all home wins, bit looking forward to the Wembley game. I'm going but may need to start the drinking early to make it through.

I sadly expect a Sarries win with them actually doing very little, just living off our mistakes as is their way.

What do you expect when Quins seem to gift so many needless points to Saracens? Also Saracens repeatedly score more tries than Quins.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jemmlPtUu6E

Two intercepts in this game.

Quins need to cut out the stupid errors.

Saracens have a brilliant record against Quins in recent years but Quins have nothing to lose. Quins with nothing to lose could be dangerous.

Though Quins' fast and loose style suits Saracens perfectly.

WELL-PAST-IT wrote:I tend to agree with you there, but he also has this annoying habit of taking half the team off on 60 minutes whether those plays are looking tired or not, which is a form of rotation.

Agreed. Perhaps JM's practicing for if he ever gets the England gig so there is no disruption from SL's method of substitution's?

This Wade bloke is rubbish.........

The referee might be over his head in this one.

Hartley is giving him a hard time, needs to watch himself.

I actually think he's got most calls bang on.

I take that back......omg, that was never a red

Think the ref is doing ok. Bad calls seem to be coming from the AR.

Not looking good for North (after looking very good). Not sure if it's a red but understand the call. If the ref thought he tried to kick ball out of North's hands then it's a fair call. But I don't think was trying to do that. One angle maybe, but...