Cardiff Blues vs Zebre (KO 14.30, S4C)

Cardiff Blues: Dan Fish; Aled Summerhill, Tom Isaacs, Gavin Evans, Tom James; 10 Rhys Patchell, Tavis Knoyle; Sam Hobbs, Ethan Lewis, Taufa'ao Filise, Jarrad Hoeata, James Down, Josh Turnbull, Manoa Vosawai, Josh Navidi (capt).

Replacements: Rhys Williams, Thomas Davies, Craig Mitchell, Macauley Cook, Ellis Jenkins, Lewis Jones, Gareth Davies, Garyn Smith.

Zebre: Kayle Van Zyl; Gabriele Di Giulio, Tommaso Castello, Mattia Bellini, Michele Visentin; Maicol Azzolini, Luke Burgess; Bruno Postiglioni, Tommaso D'Apice, Pietro Ceccarelli, Michele Sutto, George Biagi (capt), Paul Derbyshire, Andries Van Schalkwyk, Maxime Mbandà.

Replacements: Oliviero Fabiani, Andrea De Marchi, Emiliano Coria, Marco Bortolami, Johan Meyer, Giulio Toniolatti, Ulrich Beyers, Matteo Pratichetti.


Referee: Andrew Brace (IRFU)
Assistant Referees: Gwyn Morris, Ben Whitehouse (both WRU)
Citing Commissioner: Gwyn Bowden (WRU)
TMO: Jon Mason (WRU)

Anyone got a link to this game? It appear S4C have stopped streaming them online which is very annoying for a Blues fan living in England.

Yeah what's up with S4C?

Found a way to watch in on a tvcatchup app I have for windows 8

Nice try by blues there

And another great try

That was so easy

Tom James has gone off apparently???

Mixing the good and the bad at the moment. 4 missed kicks isn't helping, we should be about of sight.

There is a swirling breeze, I was down in the marina this morning and the wind was shifting 180 degrees. Can't make it easy.

Patch is trying to counter the wind but he can't quite second guess it.

Gotta say Tavs is playing a blinder at nine

Knoyle has been fantastic

Think Fish dropped the ball as he was trying to ground it though.

This is turning into a pretty good performance from the Blues.

You can see the changes Wilson is going for, will be interesting to see them develop over this season.

Yes

I know that this is not the greatest team they will play this season but I like their attitude...

Fish is looking great. Hasn't lost his pace...

Best game Knoyle has played for the Blues,

Patchell has his confidence back and is trying a lot, and a lot of it is coming off.

Fish having a surprisingly good game.

The packs work at the breakdown and mauls is almost unrecognisable from the shambles of last season.

Loving some of this offloading play!

There are holes everywhere and Patch and Fish are running through them, great heads up rugby playing from everywhere!

Poor old patch needs to change his boot sponsor

Jesus, never seen Patchell kick this badly though, this should be a cricket score

Like I said the wind is blwdi horrid in Cardiff today, just strong enough to make a difference and a swirling breeze.

maestegmafia wrote:Like I said the wind is blwdi horrid in Cardiff today, just strong enough to make a difference and a swirling breeze.

Still, the Zebre kicker managed okay and the kicking from hand has been good.

He is clearly just have a very off day, i'm sure he will work on it and be back to normal next week. If he is going to have an off-day, this is the best time.

Ooooh, that was more like last seasons defence :/ big hole.

Interesting to see Wilson saying he isn't happy they aren't being ruthless enough for the last 10 minutes,

as they score another try...

wales606 wrote:Interesting to see Wilson saying he isn't happy they aren't being ruthless enough for the last 10 minutes,

as they score another try...

Definitely

By the way

Who is Danny Wilsons buddy sitting next to him???

maestegmafia wrote:

wales606 wrote:Interesting to see Wilson saying he isn't happy they aren't being ruthless enough for the last 10 minutes,

as they score another try...

Definitely

By the way

Who is Danny Wilsons buddy sitting next to him???

Don't know. Paul John is in the box, could be the new defence coach?

Love the attitude at the moment, some awesome defending when they are already out of reach for Zebre, then another great try from turnover ball.

Best performance from the Blues for many, many years, even if it is against weak opposition.

And that is the fourth try scored from quick tap penalties, they have kept a fast tempo and the Italians have buckled in this second half (basically what Wales tried and failed to do yesterday)

wales606 wrote:

maestegmafia wrote:

wales606 wrote:Interesting to see Wilson saying he isn't happy they aren't being ruthless enough for the last 10 minutes,

as they score another try...

Definitely

By the way

Who is Danny Wilsons buddy sitting next to him???

Don't know. Paul John is in the box, could be the new defence coach?

Aye or a stats guy...? He has a laptop he keeps playing with... He is not cross eyed with bottle glasses so it's not Paul John

There is normally a stats guy about

wales606 wrote:Best performance from the Blues for many, many years, even if it is against weak opposition.

And that is the fourth try scored from quick tap penalties, they have kept a fast tempo and the Italians have buckled in this second half (basically what Wales tried and failed to do yesterday)

Clancy was always going to ruin the game yesterday... Whenever he referees the ball is in play nearly half as long as with most referees

Turnball gets his hat-trick!

Ruthless by the Blues

And that is 5 tries from quick-taps

9 missed kicks and we still score 60. Ridiculous

I agree it was an unusual day with the boot today but great work getting over the truly line.

Good result for the blues to kick off their season with

wales606 wrote:Best game Knoyle has played for the Blues,

Patchell has his confidence back and is trying a lot, and a lot of it is coming off.

Fish having a surprisingly good game.

The packs work at the breakdown and mauls is almost unrecognisable from the shambles of last season.

That's Wilson. He is known to drastically improve those areas in the teams he coaches.

Anyway, not a bad start to the season .

Got Josh Turnball and Tom James in my fantasy team so I'm happy with this

Tom james looked good, pity he went off injured, hope it's not serious.

Not sure what the back line was at the end, patchell, knoyle, evans and james were off I think, so we must have been missing a back somewhere

wales606 wrote:Tom james looked good, pity he went off injured, hope it's not serious.

Not sure what the back line was at the end, patchell, knoyle, evans and james were off I think,  so we must have been missing a back somewhere

Did anyone say what was wrong with Tom james?

I don't speak much welsh so I dont have a clue!

He looked back to his best on the field. Could prove to be a very valuable acquisition this season.

Ellis Jenkins was playing in the backs at the end apparently!

maestegmafia wrote:He looked back to his best on the field. Could prove to be a very valuable acquisition this season.

Will probably be solid and unspectacular. As long as Blues are good up front and have centre's that can execute then guys like James and Cuthbert should score tries.

The guy next to Wilson has been sat next to every Blues head coach for the last 8 years or so. You armchair fans make me laugh! Good win though, the crowd (small as it was) particularly enjoyed Tom James try. Few tough away games now, it will be interesting to see how we fair in those.

11 tries. What a dreadful competition.

Don Blues wrote:The guy next to Wilson has been sat next to every Blues head coach for the last 8 years or so. You armchair fans make me laugh! Good win though, the crowd (small as it was) particularly enjoyed Tom James try. Few tough away games now, it will be interesting to see how we fair in those.

Who is he then...?

For us armchair fans

Last year in AP...let me see.....

Saints 53 - Gloucester 6 - (8 tries to Saints)
Wasps 71 - LondonWelsh 7 - (11 tries to Wasps)
Saracens 78! - London...Welsh again 7 - (11 tries to Saracens)
Chiefs 74 - LondonWelsh 19 - (8 tries to Chiefs)
London Welsh 17 - Saracens 68 - (10 tries to Saracens)

There seemed to have been a bit of a pattern there but that's not why I picked those games. They were merely the most lopsided ones a quick look-up found for me.

But there you go. Dreadful AP.

Maes - Rhodri Manning

Blues head analyst

Cheers Don

[quote="Chunky Norwich"]11 tries. What a dreadful competition.

Yep because the AP is so much better

Saints 53 - Gloucester 6 - (8 tries to Saints)
Wasps 71 - LondonWelsh 7 - (11 tries to Wasps)
Saracens 78! - London...Welsh again 7 - (11 tries to Saracens)
Chiefs 74 - LondonWelsh 19 - (8 tries to Chiefs)
London Welsh 17 - Saracens 68 - (10 tries to Saracens)

[quote="bedfordwelsh"]

Chunky Norwich wrote:11 tries. What a dreadful competition.

Yep because the AP is so much better

Saints 53 - Gloucester 6 - (8 tries to Saints)
Wasps 71 - LondonWelsh 7 - (11 tries to Wasps)
Saracens 78! - London...Welsh again 7 - (11 tries to Saracens)
Chiefs 74 - LondonWelsh 19 - (8 tries to Chiefs)
London Welsh 17 - Saracens 68 - (10 tries to Saracens)

Sorry but there's a quite obvious difference there and an equally obvious solution to such aberrant results in the AP.

There is no such solution for the O'12

Stone Motif wrote:

bedfordwelsh wrote:

Chunky Norwich wrote:11 tries. What a dreadful competition.

Yep because the AP is so much better

Saints 53 - Gloucester 6 - (8 tries to Saints)
Wasps 71 - LondonWelsh 7 - (11 tries to Wasps)
Saracens 78! - London...Welsh again 7 - (11 tries to Saracens)
Chiefs 74 - LondonWelsh 19 - (8 tries to Chiefs)
London Welsh 17 - Saracens 68 - (10 tries to Saracens)

Sorry but there's a quite obvious difference there and an equally obvious solution to such aberrant results in the AP.

There is no such solution for the O'12

I don't think any AP game has 2 sides missing a combined 20+ internationals at one time.