Gallagher Premiership - Round 2

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Fixtures

Friday 7th September

19:45 Northampton v Harlequins (BT Sport)


Saturday 8th September

14:00 Wasps v Exeter (BT Sport)
15:00 Leicester v Newcastle
15:00 Saracens v Bristol
16:30 Bath v Gloucester (BT Sport)


Sunday 9th September

15:00 Sale v Worcester



Exeter and Quins will be looking to back up large home wins when they hit the road this week. Last season's table toppers travel to Coventry to face a Wasps side that, with an under-strength and under powered side sneaked past relegation favourites Worcester last week. We can expect more from Dai Young's side this week and they will be much harder to beat that the inept opponents Chiefs faced last week. Quins will be hopeful of securing points from their trip to the Gardens. Northampton made too many errors last week, but showed enough to suggest that they will be better than last season. They will certainly provide more of a challenge to Quins and should secure a first win of the season.

Tigers, Falcons, Sharks and Warriors all lost last week. The two sides that traveled were pathetic and fully deserved the large defeats they suffered. Worcester will be unable to understand quite how they lost to Wasps, while despite a lot of noise about the ref, Falcons need to look at their own performance first. Leicester will kick the ball a lot less this week and showed last season that when they look to play rugby they have the measure of Falcons. However if they revert to kicking the leather off the ball then Falcons will run the ball back and cause major issues for a disorganised defence. Sale should be better at home securing a win that will see Worcester's relegation odds shorten.

Saracens did the business last week, and will be too strong for Bristol. Ackermann is developing a good looking team at Gloucester but home advantage for misfiring Bath may prove crucial.


For me 6 home wins this week.

TightHEAD wrote:It was only against a 14man Championship team.

Bath were playing Glaws not Saracens.

lostinwales wrote:Just silly season scores at this time of year. All sounds fun though

There's normally more tries at the start and end of the season when the weather is good.

As a Tigers fan I'm much happier with this week's try fest. We actually got some and more importantly won! Still think we need an experienced defence coach as currently three quarters of our coaching team have only coached at one professional club and it's Tigers.

Eddie Jones will be happy to see Ford, May and Manu all scoring and looking dangerous ball in hand as well.

Sounds like Quins did well in patches but were too sloppy overall. Still we're doing better then last season and sounds like improvements are happening.

yappysnap wrote:Sounds like Quins did well in patches but were too sloppy overall. Still we're doing better then last season and sounds like improvements are happening.

I think it's a little difficult to judge either team form that match. Both has their good moments and both had bonehead moments. Saints had more good moments than Quins. But not great either way.

Yea that's how it sounded to me Doc,to be honest I bet they're happy to have got the LBP. Last season we would have crumbled.

Well flying high at the bottom of the league.

Wuss, Exeter and wasps up next....Wonderful.

Just need to find out feet and we'll be ok.

Worcester looked woeful against a Sale side missing most of their big names. You'll batter them. Chiefs look good at the mo so that will be tough but dominate Wasps up front and they are very beatable.

formerly known as Sam wrote:

lostinwales wrote:Just silly season scores at this time of year. All sounds fun though

There's normally more tries at the start and end of the season when the weather is good.

As a Tigers fan I'm much happier with this week's try fest. We actually got some and more importantly won! Still think we need an experienced defence coach as currently three quarters of our coaching team have only coached at one professional club and it's Tigers.

Eddie Jones will be happy to see Ford, May and Manu all scoring and looking dangerous ball in hand as well.

Not to this extent though. The Saturday games were pretty extreme scores for any part of the season.

There was some talk of Eddie Jones wanting to change the refereeing in the premiership around the breakdown as he felt it currently favours the attacking team far more than it does at international level. Whilst this might help drive up excitement for the highlight packages and sell more beer to repl;ace that spilt every time theres a try it does become problemtic when Premiership players translate the way they play to Europe and test rugby.
It may just be an element of excuse making from EJ but it would partly explain why England have so consitently struggled at the breakdown regardless of who they select in the back row, and also why English clubs have for teh most part underperformed in Europe recently.

Its also giving a false impression of just how good our (Tigers/England) backs are. Im still far from convinced that Tuillagi has the accelration and flat out pace he once had, but gets the space to play and flatter himself in this sort of fast flowing open game. Regardless though its good to see him get through two games in row.

And yes a huge step forward for Tigers. Shows just how badly MOC had lost the dressing room.

Newcastles worst fears about these season seem to be coming true, fine line between last seasosn over acheivinga nd this seasons under performance. I cant see them being genuine relegation candidates though unless morale really drops.

Early days yet, but there was a sense that Newcastle perhaps over achieved last season. Top 6 would be a brilliant finish for them especially with saints, Tigers and Quins potentially improved this season.

The reffing in the AP definitely seems different to international reffing, we've looked lost at the breakdown at times.

Tbf, Saracens then Leicester away was always going to be a tough start for Newcastle, wouldn't be reading too much into it at this stage

Exeter - Wasps was a great game to watch

Bam, Im not really concerned. We look rusty but will come good.

My concern is that Flood just doesn't look like a 70 cap former England International.

We 100% over achieved, I doubt many (including Richards) would argue against that.

I'm hoping Tigers was a blip, as generally our defence as been very good. Worcester looked pretty average against Sale but it's not a place we normally do well at....fingers crossed this will kick start our season.

I assume there's a panel of overall lead for refs in the prem so for a 1st it would be nice for them to all have the same understanding and review of the breakdown as well as other areas. Too much to hope world rugby could do the same thing.

I think its pretty clear that we have a problem with the breakdown. Its the constant talk at international level for England...the breakdown.

It can only be that our domestic league is not up to speed...or that its being reffed differently.

It needs to be sorted out once and for all.

As to the falcons we just look very rusty..not the "team that more than the sum of its parts" that normally do look like.

Ive said top 6 for us this season would be great and ill stick with that. We over achieved last season. But we have a very good squad and I think we will get over this start and come good.

(sorry for derailing this thread)

Heres the article :
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/aug/30/eddie-jones-england-breakdown-problems-referees-head

It seems that Spreadbury is the issue here, he seems adamant that the referees in the Premiership are getting it right (and by implication other competitions wrong)

George Smith cleared of foul play by the RFU disciplinary panel. While the red card is now revoked, it should be noted that scores were level when he was sent off.