Edinburgh vs Dragons, ECC Semi Final

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Edinburgh Rugby v Newport Gwent Dragons
Friday 17 April 2015
KO 19:45
BT Murrayfield, Edinburgh

Referee: JP Doyle
AR1: Luke Pearce
AR2: Marius Mitrea

*****
Teams:

Edinburgh Rugby
15. Jack Cuthbert
14. Dougie Fife
13. Sam Beard
12. Andries Strauss
11. Tim Visser
10. Phil Burleigh
09. Sam Hidalgo-Clyne

01. Alasdair Dickinson
02. Ross Ford
03. WP Nel
04. Anton Bresler
05. Ben Toolis
06. Stuart McInally
07. Roddy Grant
08. Mike Coman (c)

16. Neil Cochrane
17. Rory Sutherland
18. John Andress
19. Fraser McKenzie
20. Cornell Du Preez
21. Nathan Fowles
22. Tom Heathcote
23. Tom Brown

Newport Gwent Dragons
15 Jason Tovey
14 Tom Prydie
13 Tyler Morgan
12 Jack Dixon
11 Hallam Amos
10 Dorian Jones
09 Jonathan Evans

01 Brok Harris
02 T. Rhys Thomas (c)
03 Dan Way
04 James Thomas
05 Cory Hill
06 Nick Crosswell
07 Nic Cudd
08 Taulupe Faletau.

16 Rhys Buckley
17 Phil Price
18 Lloyd Fairbrother
19 Matthew Screech
20 James Benjamin
21 Luc Jones
22 Ashton Hewitt
23 Geraint Rhys Jones

*****
Couldn't wait any longer to start this thread.

Absolutely bouncing for Friday. First semi final for 8 years and hoping we can go one better. Dragons have just announced a third coach of supporters booked for the trip which, given the short notice, is a great effort.

We are coming in off a bonus point win against pro12 champions Leinster (while being 22-8 down at one point), have won four on the bounce and have a great team spirit of young Welshmen from around the region with a sprinkling of gnarly pros.

Bouncing

I hope so. Maybe there's a chance we can push for 7th spot in the league, would need a lot of luck though!

The Saint wrote:

RDW_Scotland wrote:

The Saint wrote:Well done Edinburgh, a comprehensive win. I hope you take that form to the final. As for us, well we spoke about the scrum before the game and it happened. I didn't know Edinburgh's scrum was that strong either. Kingsley and TRT have at least been honest about the performance, but I wonder what Lyn thinks seeing as he made the calls. Surely he's going to hold himself accountable.

Scrum was one of the things we were confident about pre-game. We've done that to a lot of teams this year!

Fair play. You'll need a strong scrum if you end up playing Exeter in the final. I hope you lot go and win, Scottish rugby needs it! Good luck.

Raphael Ibanez coach of Bordeaux said Edinburgh shouldn't fear any scrum in Europe after the Embra front row did a number on his team, and i guess he is used to see pretty decent scrum in the top 14!

Seems I'm a bit guilty of not really paying attention to Edinburgh this year. I thought their season was a write-off after I seen that match at the Liberty Stadium... Fair play to all involved as they've done well to come back from that and get to where they are now.

There's been many, many ups and downs Saint but since around November we've probably had more ups.

It has coincided with our front 5 finding their mojo and our defence getting better. That O's game was embarrassing though, and we've had several terrible results since then too.

Being honest, the Challenge Cup is the thing that seemed to get us going - early wins against Lyon and Bordeaux gave us a lot of confidence at a time when we really needed it.

The concern now is player fatigue - we haven't had great squad depth, and Solomons tends to use subs sparingly so our front 5 have played a lot of rugby this year.

Yeah, the challenge cup (CC) is certainly proving its worth. It's been good for Dragons too, but we weren't good enough to go all the way. We gave some young guys good exposure away from home, that's where it came in handy. I'd rather the winner of the CC get promoted to the top tier comp, and get rid of the 7th place play off between the 3 leagues - Edinburgh are also one of the teams fighting for 7th place in the Pro12 so this could be a good season for the burgh after all.

Exciting start to the other semi - if anyone is struggling to find somewhere to watch it let me know!

Greig Laidlaw playing well so far - responding to the challenge laid down by Hidalgo-Clyne!

Gloucester it is then! Very good performance from them. Chiefs were poor.

They can be got at in the scrums, but your defence will need to improve. They are very dangerous when they get hands on the ball. My advice to your coach , put loads of pressure on Hook and watch him crumble.

They dominated in the scrums tonight to be fair!

Their backline is frightening though - a lot of firepower out wide.

Exeter had the dominance early on. Then from that point the scrums kept very strangely going down with most of penalties going to Glaws... I hope you get some key players back for it, at least it's a game on neutral grounds.

Probably not the expected result, but maybe a better match up for Edinburgh. It is definitely a winnable match but not easy, at least they won't be getting a battering next weekend and should be able to prepare a bit better.

The way Connacht totally dominated the Gloucester' scrum, i fully expect Edinburgh (who have an even better scrum than Connacht) to do the same too.
I see Gloucester have Newcastle at home next week so will probably rotate a bit, if i was Solomons i would be tempted to do the same against Zebre.

If Solomons can't rotate for the worst team in the league at home then he really is neurotic!

The thing is, Sutherland, mcinally and McKenzie coming in doesn't overly weaken things.

The problem is at tighthead.

I actually don't think Andress has been that bad, scrum wise. But the guy has serious discipline problems, how many times has he been carded the odd 10 mins each game he has been on the pitch?

Rotating for the Zebre game would be the logical way indeed!

I'm not overly convinced by Andress' scrummaging, and he tends to get on the wrong side of the ref with 50/50 calls (Connacht at home).

He also doesn't have as much impact around the park as Nel.

He's been a solid enough signing, but not a player to build a team around!

Game's up - search edinburgh dragons, long>20mins in past week - it's by ''rugby championship''

???

I know you Scottish boys speak a lot in code and nicknames..... bamboozle stuff a lot of it for the casual observer sometimes................. but what the hell did that sentence mean Nematode?

I think he is referring to the game being available on YouTube.

oh yeah...it's easy enough when someone gives you a hint

I thought 'Game's Up' meant something about 'capitulation' of some sort, and that then threw me well off the scent.

If you go to YouTube and search 'Edinburgh-Dragons' and change the search filters to the last week and a long video, you'll find it.

Simple!

RDW_Scotland wrote:I'm not overly convinced by Andress' scrummaging, and he tends to get on the wrong side of the ref with 50/50 calls (Connacht at home).

He also doesn't have as much impact around the park as Nel.

He's been a solid enough signing, but not a player to build a team around!

Maybe time to give Berghan some game time as Nel needs a rest before the final. Berghan played in the cup final yesterday so is obviously fit enough to play.

SecretFly,

I was an undercover agent for Alan Solomons and the SRU.

I've gone rogue since they kicked me out and replaced me with Agent Plastic.

End.

I missed the game and only caught the highlights. What an incredible result! Don't wanna tempt fate, but imagine an Edinburgh/Glasgow double! Would certainly give the guys a lot of confidence going into the RWC.

How did du Preez go off the bench?

madmaccas wrote:I missed the game and only caught the highlights. What an incredible result! Don't wanna tempt fate, but imagine an Edinburgh/Glasgow double! Would certainly give the guys a lot of confidence going into the RWC.

How did du Preez go off the bench?

du Preez was only on for the last 10 mins, which was forgettable. The game was easily won by then and, with all the changes, was a bit scrappy.

He survived - that's the main thing. Made 6 tackles apparently!

What happens in the final if it goes to extra time and the teams are still equal after extra time?

Nematode wrote:What happens in the final if it goes to extra time and the teams are still equal after extra time?

Penalty shoot out like this, I imagine?

RDW_Scotland wrote:He survived - that's the main thing. Made 6 tackles apparently!

More than Visser all season....

madmaccas wrote:I missed the game and only caught the highlights. What an incredible result! Don't wanna tempt fate, but imagine an Edinburgh/Glasgow double! Would certainly give the guys a lot of confidence going into the RWC.

How did du Preez go off the bench?

Didn't see too much of him apart from a cheeky through the legs pass out to the wing. Certainly didn't look to do much wrong though.

Just watched the full game - favourite bit was when they brought the Dragons coach on for a quick chat and he said our scrum dominance was partly down to us cheating on our own feed. Just as he finishes speaking we destroy their scrum on their feed and Hidalgo-Clyne scampers in for a try!

RDW_Scotland wrote:Just watched the full game - favourite bit was when they brought the Dragons coach on for a quick chat and he said our scrum dominance was partly down to us cheating on our own feed. Just as he finishes speaking we destroy their scrum on their feed and Hidalgo-Clyne scampers in for a try!

I know, classic!

And he was complaining of cheating after they'd had 3 yellow cards!

Haven't got around to watching the game, but I'm wondering just how we managed 3 yellow cards....

Different ref and you could have had more to be fair!

Faletau - bringing down a maul as we were charging towards the line. Both Andy Nichol and Martyn Williams reckoned it should have been a penalty try too

Scrum half - same offense

Hooker - deliberate knock on

Potential yellows were for taking our player out in the air, and for a deliberate knock on which for me was worse than the one he did yellow for!

A little harsh, RDW, aren't you? The 3 yellows were all correct but I don't think the incident under the high ball justified one as it was, I thought, two guys fairly going for the same ball. Going by the "Finn Russell" incident, it was yellow but, in both cases, both offenders had a good case. The knock-on one was borderline but I think the ref got it right, if for no other reason than the embarrassing whining from Andy Nicol who wanted a yellow card, a penalty try AND the offender to be wedgied and left on a hook in the changing rooms,

I said potential yellows


By the letter of the law I think the high ball incident was probably be yellow - the guy realised he was never going to  get the ball and pulled out late, hitting Cuthbert in the air. Sound familiar?? I agree the laws aren't great, but they at least need to be consistent...

The other one was a one handed slap down while the guy was in an offside position while we were attacking their 22 - I'd say that was more of a yellow than the one he did yellow for!

I think he felt sorry for the Dragons hooker who was blowing out his hoop very badly by the time he carded him. I think the ref thought he needed to rest after an unpleasant day at the office!
One of the key things is consistency in refereeing decisions and in that respect, the ref did the Cuthbert incident right but, as you say,the rules are 'nads and make the high ball an area that is not allowed to become competitive unless both players are at the landing spot and are jumping vertically

There was a similar high ball yellow in the Toulon vs Leinster game today when Wayne Barnes carded Ali Williams. Two players competing for a high ball, but one jumps higher and wins the ball, making the losing jumper somehow reckless and worthy of a yellow.

Is anyone on here a season ticket holder at Edinburgh? And if so do you fancy buying me & my best mate 2 tickets for the final? We will of course reimburse you. Plus buy you a pint if we meet!


Would've bought them on Friday night, when they seemed to be on general sale, but my mate said he had work on the 1st. Found out this afternoon that's no longer the case, what timing, but tickets no longer on general sale. And Edinburgh saying they'll review on Tuesday evening and let the general public know if there's any left overs. But really don't want to leave it to chance!

RDW_Scotland wrote:I said potential yellows


By the letter of the law I think the high ball incident was probably be yellow - the guy realised he was never going to  get the ball and pulled out late, hitting Cuthbert in the air. Sound familiar?? I agree the laws aren't great, but they at least need to be consistent...
!

The ref and TMO agreed " only a penalty as cuthbert landed on his feet. Correct call,

TJ wrote:

RDW_Scotland wrote:I said potential yellows


By the letter of the law I think the high ball incident was probably be yellow - the guy realised he was never going to  get the ball and pulled out late, hitting Cuthbert in the air. Sound familiar?? I agree the laws aren't great, but they at least need to be consistent...
!

The ref and TMO agreed " only a penalty as cuthbert landed on his feet.  Correct call,

Genuine question - does the fact he didn't land on his head have any bearing on the matter in the eyes of the law? Surely the fact he was taken out in the air is the thing that needs to decide the punishment - not how the player ended up? A yellow card for a high tackle isn't decided on the basis of whether the guy breaks his neck or not. The fact is that by taking him out in the air he could have caused Cuthbert to land dangerously.

Just to clarify I think it would have been a soft yellow, but there have been a lot of these incidents this season and similar incidents have been yellow cards. I hate the current rules, but it is an interesting debate...

Yes, it seems that the injury is what is penalised these days rather than the action.

Cannot be right and I wonder if they will issue clarifications before the World Cup because you just know that someone is going to walk in a very important game and these boards will light up like a strip of magnesium.

Edinburgh did look very strong on Friday, I knew if we won the battle up front we would win the game, but I never would have predicted routing the Dragons so easily.

Dragons fans must be disappointed, the Pack looked like they had never played a competitive game together. Certainly they didn't look like a team that beat Leinster last weekend.

Equally Edinburgh didn't look like a team that got pumped by Munster neither.

Its not the injury thats penalised. Its how the player lands

If the player is tackled in the air its a penalty for foul play. How the tackled player lands decides the sanction - lands on feet - pen only. Lands on back - yellow, lands on head neck or driven into the ground red

Fair enough TJ.

Sounds like if Cuthbert had taken a bit of a dive then it would have been a yellow. Good thing this isn't football then eh!

I agree. It's what happens to a player as a result of your action. If you jump, knock him and he lands on his feet then that needs to be judged differently to a jump that leads to the opponent landing on his neck. Both could be entirely innocent, but if one could result in serious injury and the other not then I think the referee should be allowed to referee them differently in terms of penalties awarded and cards shown. Otherwise we don't have as game as people will be afraid of contact for fear it will cause a penalty or worse.

Agree with RDW though, the danger is that this could lead to more play acting. Not good.

GLove39 wrote:Is anyone on here a season ticket holder at Edinburgh? And if so do you fancy buying me & my best mate 2 tickets for the final? We will of course reimburse you. Plus buy you a pint if we meet!


Would've bought them on Friday night, when they seemed to be on general sale, but my mate said he had work on the 1st. Found out this afternoon that's no longer the case, what timing, but tickets no longer on general sale. And Edinburgh saying they'll review on Tuesday evening and let the general public know if there's any left overs. But really don't want to leave it to chance!

See PM. Sadly I can't make it