Glasgow and Edinburgh: Ongoing Banter Thread XII - Twelve Monkeys

[A Simply Mesmeric Try]

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A Brief History of Time-Wasting


https://www.606v2.com/t48240-glasgow-and-edinburgh-ongoing-banter-thread
https://www.606v2.com/t51313-glasgow-and-edinburgh-ongoing-banter-thread-ii
https://www.606v2.com/t53119-glasgow-and-edinburgh-ongoing-banter-thread-iii
https://www.606v2.com/t54519-glasgow-and-edinburgh-ongoing-banter-thread-iv
https://www.606v2.com/t55409-glasgow-and-edinburgh-ongoing-banter-thread-v-the-fun-continues
https://www.606v2.com/t56913-glasgow-and-edinburgh-ongoing-banter-thread-vi-banter-boogaloo
https://www.606v2.com/t57946-glasgow-and-edinburgh-ongoing-banter-thread-vii
https://www.606v2.com/t58659-glasgow-and-edinburgh-ongoing-banter-thread-viii
https://www.606v2.com/t59409-glasgow-and-edinburgh-ongoing-banter-thread-ix
https://www.606v2.com/t60764-glasgow-and-edinburgh-ongoing-banter-thread-x-rated
https://www.606v2.com/t61904-glasgow-and-edinburgh-ongoing-banter-thread-xi-the-undiscovered-country

Edinburgh

1872 Champions

Edinburgh's Fixtures & Results (click to show):

Glasgow

1872 Runners-up

Glasgow Warrior's Fixtures & Results (click to show):

Ladies and Gents, Girls and Boys, it's season finale!

Guinness PRO12 Play Offs
Fri 20 May 19:45 - Semi Final
Leinster Rugby 30 - 18   Ulster Rugby - RDS Arena 19,100

Sat 21 May 18:30 - Semi Final
Connacht Rugby  16 - 11   Glasgow Warriors - Galway Sportsground 7,800

Sat 28 May 17:30 - Grand Final
Leinster Rugby  10 - 20  Connacht Rugby  - BT Murrayfield - 34,550

Cinderella story or what?! Congrats to the Galway posse who were the form team of the season!

[George Carlin]

Who the fihak is Fihaki?

[RDW]

http://www.edinburghrugby.org/news/16/07/15/tongan-internationalist-fihaki-signs-edinburgh-deal

[George Carlin]

http://www.edinburghrugby.org/news/16/07/15/tongan-internationalist-fihaki-signs-edinburgh-deal

I actually knew that. I just wanted to do the 'fihak' joke.

[EWT Spoons]

Anyone going to the open training session?

[RDW]

It was a good joke to be fair – I almost actually LOL’d.

In other news if Edinburgh’s rumoured signing of the Fijian 7s player Viliame Mata is correct then based on his 7s performance in the Olympics he’s a hell of an exciting player!

Wasted at Edinburgh then…!

[RDW]

Looks like Anton Bresler is set for a period on the sidelines having tweeted a picture of him post-op from surgery on a groin injury.

Good thing Gilchrist and McKenzie are back fit then - let's hope they stay that way!

It probably means young Carmichael will probably see some gametime too.

[George Carlin]

Edinburgh have an open training session this afternoon and are putting on an inter-squad game - there are some interesting head to heads!

Black

Sutherland
McInally
Berghan
McKenzie
Toolis
Fihaki
Watson
Manu

Kennedy
Weir
Helu
Burleigh
Tofilau
Brown
Scholes

Red

Beavon
Ford
Nel
Charmical
Gilchrist
Turner
Ritchie
Bradcury

Hidalgo-Clyne
Tovey
Fowles
Rasolea
Dean
Fleming
Kinghorn

Some key points

- Long terms absentees Gilchrist, McKenzie and Manu are back, which is very good.  Gilchrist particularly surprising - hopefully he can get through a feckin training game without breaking his arm again!

- All our signing seem to have arrived, including Rasolea.  Usually SR players don't come until at least October

- Hopefully they are just minor injuries to other players, but we're having to play a 9 on one wing, a 7s player on the other and a hooker at 6!

My money is on Black!

Anyone know what the jessies v bufties score was in the end?

[RDW]

They didn't actually say - after lots of 'so who do you think will win' tweets they never told anyone!

[TheMildlyFranticLlama]

Just had a quick search on twitter and couldn't find the score, can only assume it was a 0-0 draw!

[RDW]

I hear the scrums were brilliant though, and that the box kicks were perfectly executed.

[TheMildlyFranticLlama]

The wingers were given plenty of practice at chasing aimless hoofs upfield. That being what they are there for and all

[George Carlin]

Apparently Sam Hidalgo-Clyne got a note from his mum excusing him from games so the match had to be abandoned.

[RDW]

The outraged brigade are out in force

http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/opinion/helen-martin-cruelty-allegations-need-sru-response-1-4203441

What they ignore to comment on is the fact that Jim Hamilton tweeted saying his story was grossly exaggerated and there were no bunny throwing or kill orders, and he apologies for getting carried away trying to tell a funny story.

So they are either a lazy journalist or one that deliberately only shows one side of the story to cause outrage! Probably both.

[funnyExiledScot]

I'd assume Black won by 30 points, unless someone accidentally gave the ball to Duncan Weir, and they're all still out there waiting for it to land.

[funnyExiledScot]

One way or another, the reputation of the Scotland team and particularly Cotter, is damaged beyond repair. And until this allegation is admitted and Cotter sacked or else denied, Scottish Rugby remains under a bloody cloud of suspicion and disgust.

I am lost for words. Best thing is for Hamilton to reiterate that he made most of it up (I honestly don't care whether he did or not). As for the suggestion that he should face some sort of punishment for embellishing his story for comic effect, I'd suggest to the Edinburgh Evening News that this ought not to be criminalised, particularly during Festival season.

[funnyExiledScot]

But let’s suppose for a moment, it was true. Imagine the outcome if the alleged perpetrators were not Cotter and the Scotland squad in France, but a bunch of thugs in Edinburgh. They’d be arrested and in court before you could say Beatrix Potter.

Whilst I'm not sure this statement is entirely true (i.e. that the police and judiciary would leap into action if non-rugby playing civilians had killed a rabbit), the Beatrix Potter reference in the article is particularly insensitive given my assumption that this journalist still wets the bed.

[RDW]

It really is a gross overreaction to what was clearly a rugby player having a bit of banter on a talk show podcast (that very few people usually listen to) and embellishing a story like he would when at the pub with his mates - something Jim Hamilton has clarified since the story came out and apologised for.

Some people may say that you should never make jokes about animal cruelty but Hamilton is hardly the first person in human history to make an insensitive joke that may offend some people.

People really need to get off their high horses and chill the feck out and stop getting so OUTRAGED!!!!!!!!!! and DISGUSTED!!!!!!!!!! about everything.

Luckily the coverage hasn't actually been as widespread as she seems to make out, and the Edinburgh Evening News isn't exactly a national establishment.

He's certainly going to have his knuckles wrapped by the SRU PR person and top brass, as it is bringing the SRU into disrepute (which I am sure he had no way of envisaging when he was telling the story)

[funnyExiledScot]

I couldn't agree more. What's particularly silly about this is that the "outraged" don't actually know what happened.

[RDW]

I tend to stay away from comment sections from online articles or those posted on Facebook as they are usually full of the outraged brigade of the worst kind.

I couldn't help but post links to Jim Hamilton's apology tweets on the EEN's Facebook article though.

[funnyExiledScot]

The thing is, the "outraged" won't care about his climb down or his apology - for them, heads will need to roll. The article is already hounding to SRU to punish him in some way (perhaps he should come out of retirement and then they can force him to retire again) and there will no doubt be continued calls for a full scale excavation at the scene of the alleged crime, to see whether there are little distressed thumper bones lying around (although Cotter probably made the squad eat the bones as well).

[RDW]

From memory the actual account at the time (from various sources) was:

They had a long treck up the mountain, but from picture on Twitter they all had appropriate footwear and water (of course they did – this was preparation for the world cup FFS they aren’t going to jeopardise player health)

At the top there were a load of (dead) rabbits that they had to skin and cook themselves.

They then slept in the open around a fire, with sleeping bags

They walked down the mountain the next morning and carried on their training.

But obviously that wouldn’t have made a good podcast!

[RDW]

Here's Tommy Seymour's account from the Herald at the time - a lot less dramatic than Hamilton's version of events certainly!

"We had a couple of hours' rest to recharge the batteries after an early-morning flight and then were straight into it with the commandos," Glasgow Warriors winger Tommy Seymour said. "We went down to their base and were split into four groups, and did team-building army exercises, things like getting through different obstacles as a team, not leaving a member behind and making sure that everything was done.

"Then we went on an hour-and-a-half hike up into the mountains. I think our base camp up there was about 1800 metres above sea level, and then we spent the night outdoors. The entire night.

"We just slept. We had food around the campfire, but we really did just sleep up there. I'm not leaving any details out. It was as simple as that, we were told to pack a bag with warm clothes and we hiked up a mountain, were told to find a comfortable spot and bed down. We had a fire and obviously there were some pleasantries, boys around the fire having a bit of craic, but it was about finding a spot and bedding down, and keeping body heat to try to keep warm.

"The SRU were kind enough to give us fleece blankets to keep us warm, but we were exposed to the elements and it was certainly not as warm as it is during the day. So it was an experience, but I think we played it quite well because now the beds seem like we're in the Ritz.

"At 6am we were up walking an hour back down the mountain to pick up the bus and go for breakfast. It was as simple as that - 'spend a night up the mountain'."

Asked if he had enjoyed the experience, Seymour admitted that it was the sort of thing you tend to regard more fondly in retrospect. But he has no doubt that, while not exactly enjoyable, it was a serious exercise and one that should prove beneficial.

He said: "It was one of those things that at the time, when you've been hiking up a mountain, you're trying to sleep, you're cold, you have a pine cone in your back and Jon Welsh snoring in your ear, that you're not really fond of it, shall we say.

"But it served a good purpose. Looking back on it I think boys might now say they enjoyed it, or that it was an 'experience'. But with things like that, the whole purpose is to be tough, to push you a little bit. They don't want you comfortable all the time, so I think that was to set the bar.

"You can do a lot of training and fitness work, but doing something like that, all the exercises we did and not giving people a lot of sleep, can hold a really high value. So it was a bit of craic, but nobody's kidding themselves that we had a great night's sleep and it was all great, but that wasn't the point of it. It was definitely a hard night."

Most of the coaching and support staff were also on the trek, emphasising the message that the whole squad are in this together. And, with four days left in France before he and his team-mates return to a more predictable, rugby-orientated regime at BT Murrayfield, Seymour knows there may be more bonding sessions in the offing - even if he would not readily volunteer for another night up a mountain.

"They're not trying to create hidden messages for you to work out," he said when asked if the players knew why they were put through such unorthodox activities. "It's all about trying to get you to dark places, and to then allow you to develop skills to get out of those dark places as a team. So when you find yourselves in similar places - albeit obviously not the exact same - in terms of being mentally tired on the pitch, you have the capacity to get out of them and know what each other has to do.

"The point's not lost. Boys definitely get it and it's useful because there's only so much that physical preparation can do.

"You have to work on the mental side of things to develop a different edge, so it's certainly been a worthwhile exercise - though I wouldn't push it too hard, because I don't want to be doing more of that stuff. One night was enough."

That literally took 60 seconds to find on Google - something that journalist apparently failed to do.

[des]

It really is a gross overreaction to what was clearly a rugby player having a bit of banter on a talk show podcast (that very few people usually listen to) and embellishing a story like he would when at the pub with his mates - something Jim Hamilton has clarified since the story came out and apologised for.

Some people may say that you should never make jokes about animal cruelty but Hamilton is hardly the first person in human history to make an insensitive joke that may offend some people.

People really need to get off their high horses and chill the feck out and stop getting so OUTRAGED!!!!!!!!!! and DISGUSTED!!!!!!!!!! about everything.

Luckily the coverage hasn't actually been as widespread as she seems to make out, and the Edinburgh Evening News isn't exactly a national establishment.

He's certainly going to have his knuckles wrapped by the SRU PR person and top brass, as it is bringing the SRU into disrepute (which I am sure he had no way of envisaging when he was telling the story)

I'm not so sure about that.
http://www.planetrugby.com/news/whos-hot-whos-not-262-7/

The written word can easily lose the tone of a conversation but the words that Hamilton came out with made it as clear as day that it was a joke.

[RDW]

I saw that Planet Rugby article but no one really picked up on it or expressed any outrage about it - it was hardly even noticed in the comments section or on Facebook.

The EEN is the first place that someone has kicked up a fuss about it.

[RDW]

In other news.

THE target of the Scottish rugby team winning the World Cup has been scrapped in the latest version of the governing body's strategic plan.

Instead of being told that nothing other than the trophy would do, Vern Cotter's team has been told that in 2019 the target has been scaled back to the the semi finals – equalling Scotland's best-ever World Cup performance in 1991.

The Scottish Rugby Union are bound to point to how close the current side came to achieving the new target last year, and will claim that makes it a realistic ambition if the side keep making improvements.Herald Scotland: Finn Russell (centre) trains with team-mates at Murrayfield on Friday. Picture: SNS

The new strategic plan is a significant climbdown by the SRU, who spent a lot of time in the years between the release of the last strategic plan and the World Cup trying to play down the ridicule being heaped on them after claiming that a side that had failed to make the knockout stage in 2011 could be champions just four years later.

In fact the whole document, hidden away in the middle of the annual report, which has been released ahead of the Annual General Meeting on Saturday, represents a winding back on the all far-fetched ambitions spelled out in 2012. Some of the goals they have retained, such as winning the Six Nations in the next four years, are unlikely but are not fantasy.

As a result of scaling the targets back from Cloud-Cuckooland to real world, we see the world ranking goal dropped from top six to top eight, the European dimension to the Glasgow and Edinburgh targets being axed altogether – possibly a recognition of the financial gulf that is growing between the Guinness PRO12 clubs and the ones in France and England – and there are no specific numbers on the general drive to get more people involved with the game.

The sevens team, which, despite the success of rugby at the Olympics, still faces an uncertain future, is also dropped from the targets but the women's game is added to them, with an ambition for the national team to reach the top 10 in the world by 2020 – they are currently 13th but a long way behind the top 10.

The report paints a mixed picture of the success of the last set of strategic targets. Most of the business ones have been achieved, with the union reporting that they have increased turnover by £3.2m and have made a profit of £836,000 with the average debt dropping to £8.5m.

So the union is basically in a sound state financially and though they missed their targets on attendance at Edinburgh and Glasgow games, there has still been a healthy increase in both and all the goals have been hit when it comes to the cash cow of paying spectators at Test matches.

On the downside, they are a rugby organisation as well as a business and on their core function of breeding rugby success they hit only three of 15 individual targets – the passes coming from Glasgow's PRO12 successes, Edinburgh's European Challenge Cup final and the recruitment of 3834 club coaches, well ahead of the predicted 2658.

Despite all the optimism that is included in the annual report, there is also a warning from. Mark Dodson, the chief executive, echoing his counterparts in Wales and Ireland by warning that the growing financial strength of club rugby in France and England is going to put pressure on the Celtic nations to recruit and keep top players.

"We must be creative in finding ways to generate new income streams and still fund the domestic game appropriately," he writes in his report. "This will be one of our biggest challenges in the coming years."

[Hazel Sapling]

If they need to generate greater income, EXPAND SCOTSTOUN. The demand is there. Also that new hotel at Murrayfield may help.

[RDW]

So the front line figures for the next 4 years:

World cup semi final
Win 6N
Expand Edinburgh and Glasgow crowds
Top 10 for woman's team

And that's it. Sounds like there are no performance objectives for Edinburgh or Glasgow - not publicly anyway.

[George Carlin]

So the front line figures for the next 4 years:

World cup semi final
Win 6N
Expand Edinburgh and Glasgow crowds
Top 10 for woman's team

And that's it. Sounds like there are no performance objectives for Edinburgh or Glasgow - not publicly anyway.

My focus would be different if I were in charge of the SRU.

Short term local goals would include:

1. Take steps to make Ed Crozier stop looking like a creepy uncle at a Christmas party.
2. Stop making Greig Laidlaw say the word "BT" every time he says the word "Murrayfield".
3. Make Alan Solomons rotate his matchday 23 once per season.
4. Give Andrew Cotter nasal surgery to stop him sounding like he's talking through a toilet roll tube.
5. Putting complementary hot tubs into BT BT BT BT BT BT Murrayfield.
6. Giving supporters their money back at internationals if we lose by more than 3 scores.
7. Stop p!ssing around with Glasgow's home shirts. How many emblems can you stick in there?
8. Change the name of the stadium to McBumfertie Murrayfield Public School Tuck Shop.
9. Borrowing a ludicrous amount of unmanageable debt and then giving all of it to the 2 pro teams to have chance of competing for new signings.
10. Clone Jonny Gray 25 x times, pretending throughout that this is not what we're doing.

I've got a million of them.

[RDW]

11. Provide screening of Glaswegians at Edinburgh and Scotland games to ensure they are sufficiently reputable to be allowed near civilised folk.

[RDW]

New Glasgow kit



Apparently the names of all the previous players are written on the sides of the kit.

They surely could have done better than Pat McArthur and Ryan Grant as the leading poster boys?

[Hazel Sapling]

Looks alright. They should have had Al Kellock, Jonny Gray and Scott Cummings with that tagline.

Alternatives would be just having Favaro with the tagline I am Legend

[RDW]

Looks alright. They should have had Al Kellock, Jonny Gray and Scott Cummings with that tagline.

If you don't already work in marketing then you should do!

[funnyExiledScot]

New Glasgow kit



Apparently the names of all the previous players are written on the sides of the kit.

They surely could have done better than Pat McArthur and Ryan Grant as the leading poster boys?

Grant and MacArthur look really silly, plus the tagline leads me to ask which of the four featured players are the past, present and future?

There will be some pretty ropey players stitched onto those jerseys if it really does include all the previous players!

[Manky-Flanker]

Looking at the White kit, I gotta say the enlarged Warrior emblem being placed in the lower abdominal area is a bit unfortunate, particularly as he is wearing a pointy helmet.....

Can't unsee....

[RDW]

Breaking news - Townsend to replace Vern Cotter in 2017!

[GLove39]

WOWZERS!

[RDW]

Deserves its own thread

https://www.606v2.com/t63798-gregor-townsend-to-become-scotland-head-coach-in-june-2017#3417806

[RDW]

In other news, today is my last day working in the land of the great unwashed before moving to London this weekend!

[George Carlin]

New Glasgow kit



Apparently the names of all the previous players are written on the sides of the kit.

They surely could have done better than Pat McArthur and Ryan Grant as the leading poster boys?

Grant and MacArthur look really silly, plus the tagline leads me to ask which of the four featured players are the past, present and future?

There will be some pretty ropey players stitched onto those jerseys if it really does include all the previous players!

I told a girlfriend once that I had a Warrior in my pants. If only I had one of the away shirts to make that claim real.

[funnyExiledScot]

[RDW]

So apparently Glasgow's next coach will be announced in the next few weeks!

[BigGee]

There is a bit of tantalisation going about this and some serious hints that it is going to be an external choice that will be potentially exciting and in keeping with the Glasgow style.

Trying very hard to think who that might be and Ben Ryan does certainly tick a few of the boxes, could it be him?

Dobson's interview does suggest that VC was cut loose and that Toonie would have walked if he did not get the Scotland job. He is not short of confidence and clearly sees it as his logical next step.

Exciting times!

[Hazel Sapling]

If that is the case BFG, I feel bad for Cotter. Did not deserve this at all. If it is Ryan and he is taking a year as an assistant, that could be excellent news.

[BigGee]

It is a brutal business professional sport, but Dobson is right to say that there was already interest in VC and it is hard to say if he would have stayed on anyway.

He is now open to offers and the SRU don't sound like they would stand in his way if one came along immediately. He will get offers from France and maybe back home, there is also the Lions gig coming up and he could do a very good job out there.

Don't feel to sorry for Vern, he knows the game and he is not going to be out of pocket.

[Tattie Scones RRN]

See that Dodson has opened up the possibility of external investment...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/37128384

Need the results first before anyone with that kind of money will even be remotely interested.

[TheMildlyFranticLlama]

I don't buy the SRU spin Gee, you don't go all out to get a coach of Cotter's standing only to shove him out the door 3 years later for a coach who is completely unproven at International level, no matter how much of a hot property he is perceived as being . I don't agree with the notion that allowing Toonie to go and coach elsewhere for a spell to gain more experience before bringing him back for the Scotland job would be seen as a failure, something Tom English is arguing in his latest BBC article

They couldn't leave themselves open to a poach from a suitor. The aesthetic of that would have been horrific. You could employ a battalion of heavyweight PR people and none of them would be capable of dressing up a Townsend exit as anything other than a nightmarish scenario.

Honestly I think thats nonsense, for the very reason he then goes on to identify; Toonie is vastly less experienced then any other International coach at this level. Had he gone away for 4 years to coach in France or England, lets be honest he would have walked into the Scotland job at that point anyway. The SRU know that and Toonie himself would know he wouldn't turn the job down at that stage.

I stand by my belief that this has all happened entirely because Cotter made it clear he would be moving on, and the SRU are trying to spin that to their advantage, which is fair enough.

[Welly]

What a signing by Glasgow Dave Rennie WOW.

I mean how did they so that!!!!!

[Tattie Scones RRN]

Holy sh*t!!

That is outstanding.

[Hazel Sapling]

Chiefs are fantastic to watch. McKenzie has been unbelievable this year under Rennie. Looking forward to seeing what Rennie can do with Hogg and Russell.

[TheMildlyFranticLlama]

So apparently Glasgow's next coach will be announced in the next few weeks!

Did they actually mean the next day by any chance?

Good appointment, a statement of intent!

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