Glasgow and Edinburgh 21st Century Banter

First topic message reminder :

Something is going on this year

Both Glasgow and Edinburgh are playing quite well!

Is it a dream, am I imagining it, am I going to wake up in a cold sweat and find out that we are really cr*p again?

Someone please reassure me!!

RDW wrote:He's probably played 4 or 5 times now due to the huge injury list - very athletic but also pretty lightweight.. When everyone's fit he's nowhere near the team so may struggle to have much of a future. He's also not an 8!

As far as I'm aware he's normally an 8, or least was when he was coming through.  Also when he's played for us, he's been very good.  Cockers commented after one of his games this season that he might have been harsh in letting him go to the 7s and Miller had proved him wrong.

With that said, I think he's only played 8 for us as a sub on one occasion (from what I can remember), and has generally been used at 6 or 7 to cover for injuries and internationals.

He'd likely have played more for us, if Cockers rotated a bit more, and we didn't have such depth in the backrow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkRLQ7iRT7o

Here are the highlights of the France v Scotland U20s last weekend. Blain scores a couple of tries in a decent performance. A good watch if you want to try out your French!

No 7's skills all round are fantastic. 14 has a v good all round skillset too.
10's running and distribution looks good, but awry with kicking. That was at least 8 points left out there.
Lots of good prospects for the near future. 4 looks a big lump. Is he any good?

So if you want to feel old, Blain was born in the year 2000...

RDW wrote:So if you want to feel old, Blain was born in the year 2000...

It's alright for me, I was still in primary school

https://www.rugbypass.com/news/the-gray-brothers-gilchrist-or-toolis-theres-none-you-would-class-as-hard-men

Someone must have piss#d in Jim Telfer's porridge that morning. Seems to be in a more grumpy mood than usual!

In fairness to him he raises a few good points Gee.

Eejit wrote:In fairness to him he raises a few good points Gee.

The whole idea of being a hardman/enforcer is outdated in rugby now. These days you need to be athletic and skilful.

I think it is a lack of mental toughness that Scotland lack these days, not necessarily the physical side.

Good start by Edinburgh, 3-0 up and look to have the edge in the scrums already

Backs to the wall stuff for Edinburgh, living dangerously but still holding onto the narrow lead.

Benetton looking dangerous though

3-3 at HT

Fairly turgid stuff, neither side looking after the ball, nor doing anything with it when in possession.

Still all to play for

Edinburgh need to pull this out the bag in the 2nd half

Shame it’s not on bbc radio Scotland. Some dire football is on instead.

They should put the football on the new bbc Scotland channel. That’s where the rest of all things shoite are being put

Benetton score from short range, Edinburgh need to get back into this game next score

Luckily McInaly misses an easy conversion

8-3 Benetton

Johnson scores another magical try, what feet he has got

10-8 Edinburgh

Benetton score a slightly iffy try, but one that they probably deserve through their pressure

15-10 Benetton

Edinburgh are really not helping themselves!

Miller hasn't done too well at the base of that scrum!

Looks like their inner Luvvie has got the better of them. Mind you Clownshoes really is an appalling ref.

Edinburgh give away a penalty in the last seconds, this will cost them their bonus point

A disappointing afternoon for them, but all they deserved really

18-10 Benetton at FT

VinceWLB wrote:Miller hasn't done too well at the base of that scrum!

He certainly is not a No.8 at this level, made two bad mistakes in that second half

Oh well. Here comes the abuse from the Weegies

BigGee wrote:

VinceWLB wrote:Miller hasn't done too well at the base of that scrum!

He certainly is not a No.8 at this level, made two bad mistakes in that second half

Thought he was ok in the first ball with decent physicality, but got exposed in the end.

Schoeman had once again a tremendous workrate but had 3 silly penalties against him which were very costly.

tigertattie wrote:Oh well. Here comes the abuse from the Weegies

Not from me Tattie, I never intrude on private grief.

Edinburgh can't blame anyone buy themselves if they don't qualify for the playoffs. They have lost to many soft games (this probably was not one of them, Benetton are no mugs at home these days).

I still think Cockers is paying the price for not developing his squad, he is stull very reluctant to use his bench. Bennett got 5 mins! Most of his subs were dictated by the SRU, who knew he would keep Watson and Nel on for the whole game if he was not told to get them off at 50 mins!

Sticking rigidly to his core group unless absolutely forced otherwise means that his squad players just have not developed. He is going to have to get used to that as he will always be giving up a lot of players to Scotland.

The squad is the big difference between Glasgow and Edinburgh, but you imagine that the Glasgow squad players always feel they have more of a chance than the Edinburgh ones!

Edinburgh season not looking great now! Anyway they can make finals still? Or are we hoping for other teams to slip up?

Really bummed that Edinburgh couldn't find the win although that doesn't reflect the reality of how bloody difficult Treviso now are to beat at home. Big focus on Europe now!

How did Nelly and the Mish get on?

Glasgow 5 tries up in the first half an hour, so I will stop being worried about them of an evening.

Are the conferences being mixed up next year or are Glasgow still getting the easy teams in theirs?

Morning gentlepeeps. I was up till gone half past bedtime polishing my crystal balls (one for every eventuality) and here are my predictions;

Glasgow will not meet the Luvvies in the Pro 14 semis,

Glasgow will not meet the Luvvies in the big cup semis.

Marl Palmer also floating the idea that Glasgow might be in the market for a statement signing and that a name that keeps coming up is Dave Rennie's 4th son, Aaron Cruden.

Cruden is on serious money in France but has hardly set the heather alight with Montpellier, who have also splashed on another FH, Goosen. He may also have a release clause in his contract at the end of this season.

Would he accept a pay cut to come to Glasgow? Well his market value has probably dropped, but maybe not enough to bring him into our price range. We would be relying on the DR factor to attract him on board.

Do we need an expensive NSQ FH as well is another question? Are there other positions, No. 8 and lock in particular, seem areas of obvious weakness, that could do with a big signing to strengthen the squad.

And yet, we are not completely settled at FH either. Hastings is far from the finished article and will also be away with Scotland more and more in the future one would hope.

Cruden may fancy a last couple of years playing a game of rugby he recognises and is comfortable with, in a club where he would likely feel appreciated.

If a journalist with the inside track like MP is speculating about it so openly, you do wonder if there may not be something in this!

We do not need someone like Cruden.  Blocks a place for a scot, costs too much for our shallow pockets.

Cruden is good...if he is healthy. Glasgow have struggled with some of the more marquee signings with the Big Aussie/Fijian, Masaga and Flynn all failing to really push us along. Admittedly Gibbins has been an exception.

If we do go down the marquee route, I would like to see back five player (such as S Fardy, one of the Du Preez twins that Sale are targeting or the NZer at Scarlets, Thomson?) as mentioned above or a FB (like Maitland). Hastings needs reps and Cruden would be a useful mentor, but the money he would be on would exceed a second choices salary.

I imagine it depends on the premiership. If Newcastle go down, what happens to Graham, Welsh, Harris, Dunbar and Hardie (or a guy like Hammersley or Goneva)? If Worcester go down, what happens to Weir (or Pennell)? If they ringfence, that is great news.

A lot of those players will simply go down with their teams as they are contracted.

Harris, Hattie and Weir have certainly recently signed on for 2 more years.

Not sure about Welsh, but his injury record, like Dunbar will stop him ever coming back to Glasgow.

The interesting one is Gary Graham, who might get his chance to establish himself internationally over the next couple of games. He would surely not want to jeapodise that by playing in Div 2. The others, I am not sure are genuine Scotland players these days.

Aaron Dryden though, not quite sure what to think about that. If Glasgow ever going to mount a decent run in Europe then maybe we do need a proper general at the helm!

tigertattie wrote:Are the conferences being mixed up next year or are Glasgow still getting the easy teams in theirs?

It doesn't really matter for Glasgow as they are a better team than anyone in Pool B barring Leinster.

jimbopip wrote:I was up till gone half past bedtime polishing my crystal balls

I'm assuming it takes a long time at your age these days?

RDW wrote:

jimbopip wrote:I was up till gone half past bedtime polishing my crystal balls

I'm assuming it takes a long time at your age these days?

There are some medical solutions than can assist any polishing required!

RDW wrote:

jimbopip wrote:I was up till gone half past bedtime polishing my crystal balls

I'm assuming it takes a long time at your age these days?

As opposed to at my age in those other days?

Anyhoo...Middle Fagerson and Stafford McD drafted into Toonie's Casino. Start them both against the Welshians, say I. At 12-13 or 6-7 either one would work.

BigGee wrote:

RDW wrote:

jimbopip wrote:I was up till gone half past bedtime polishing my crystal balls

I'm assuming it takes a long time at your age these days?

There are some medical solutions than can assist any polishing required!

As well as some Taiwanese outsourced solutions. Er, I've heard.

Gentlemen, stop talking such utter balls.

In other news; Keith Flint, former Prodigy frontman has died at his home in Essex. Police have yet to rule out arson.

Too soon?

jimbopip wrote:Gentlemen, stop talking such utter balls.

In other news; Keith Flint, former Prodigy frontman has died at his home in Essex. Police have yet to rule out arson.

Too soon?

Was it "Poison"?

I got the remedy

I got the pulsating rythmical remedy

In even more important news, Anne Lundon on landward.

Now Jimbo is polishing his balls again

https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/sport/1685092/time-for-townsend-to-point-the-finger-at-his-teams-failure-to-be-streetwise/

This article here pins the blame for Scotland's defeat on a lack of third professional team. I think the point has merit. If we had more depth we'd be better able to cope with this sort of injury crisis but I think it falls down on two reasons. Firstly we probably have enough professional players abroad to fill a third team (off the top of my head Reid, Stewart, Welsh, Gray, Skinner, Graham, Hardie, Denton, Laidlaw, Russell, McGuigan, Lang,Taylor, Visser, Harris/ there's almost certainly more I've forgotten or don't know about and players in the championship and extended squads that could provide depth), but that doesn't mean we have the money or the potential fanbase. Secondly, we see with South Africa and New Zealand what happens if you have more players than pro spots. It is hard to think of a professional team that hasn't got a a Kiwi and a Saffer in its ranks. If we had players coming through all over the place there's no way we'd be seeing our pro teams (and national side) full of imports. Lastly, not only would we see our teams full of players, the leading English clubs would be poaching the players from the top club leagues too.

The answer surely lies in more investments at the grass roots, a third side needs to be the solution when our pro teams are bursting at the seams with talented Scottish reared players. Not when we need to fill them with Fijians, Kiwis and Saffers to keep them competitive. I'm not saying this from a narrow xenophobic point of view. My accent is as southern English as they come yet I'm incredibly proud to be Scottish, and I imagine the same applies to Ryan Wilson and Ali Price. If players are Scottish qualified and talented I'd always pick them, even if they qualified on residency. Similarly players like Mata and Nakarawa improve any team and excite fans. My point is merely that if we are to make Scotland competitive in the long term, we need long term solutions. Not short term project players, or medium term pro teams at the elite level.

In other news my failure to keep up with Pro14 rugby in the new days of pay per view TV has cost me dear. I put on an accumulator last saturday, £5 with £60 return. I needed wins for Sarries, Cardiff, Glasgow, Racing, Quins and Edinburgh. Being fairly busy with work currently I factored I'd only watch one of the games. Identifying Quins-Bath as the dodgiest one I sat down to watch it and was absolutely delighted when they scored to win the game. Imagine my horror when I logged on that evening to enjoy my winnings and discovered that Cockerill's new and improved, European heavyweight, 1872 cup winning all round tough guys and rugby phenomenon managed to lose to Treviso. I mentioned this to a friend who pointed out with glee that I was a prize imbecile and Treviso were actually quite good now. The irony being that I could have bought a few months of the Pro14's new broadcaster with my winnings, or invested in a new Scottish pro team...

The argument about a third team has been done to death and it is not happening.

Despite the improvement in the SRUs finances, the cost of running a team properly, especially one that very few people are likely to support, is getting higher and higher. We are probably further away from it than we ever have been.

We have got two half decent sides now, that we are funding competitively, in the populated areas of Scotland. I think that is likely as good as it is going to get for us.

I think long term we need to get a third team and ideally a fourth, if you want to regularly compete at the top of the 6 Nations and the latter stages of the world cup you need to be able to weather injury crises like we have now. The important aspect of that is you need to have 3/4 squads capable to providing players not 4 teams with our best players spread out competing to stay off the bottom of the conferences, I don't even think having two decent teams and another at the bottom is worthwhile.
However we should ideally have four teams full of top players in front of packed crowds. We have found a blueprint for pro rugby in Scotland with Glasgow and now Edinburgh. A decent team that connects with the fans in a stadium they can fill (ie.6-10,000). The most crucial factor there is having a decent team, and that means we need more decent players. That means setting Theresa May esque red lines (i.e u20s routinely finishing in the top three of their six nations and being in touching distance of the winners). But if we can get the players there is no reason why in time (in decades rather than years) the same blueprint cannot be applied to Aberdeen for example. The population is four times that of Llanelli, three times that of Galway, twice Limerick, Treviso, Parma and bigger than Newport too. Once we have the players and the financial wherewithal that is; not just to start a team but the long term financial ability to sustain it. I agree with you we're quite far from it now especially as we are already struggling to keep our best around but long term it has to be the ambition.

I would love it if it happened as well, but still can't see it.

Aberdeen may have a bigger population but how many of them play rugby or are even that interested in it.

Llanelli and Newport may be smaller places but hey have a rugby heritage that we can only dream about.

For all its history of great rugby, look how hard they are struggling to make 4 professional teams work in Wales at the moment.

It would take a brave or foolish leader of the SRU to commit us to that without circumstances being very very different to what they are now.

The existing pro teams survive because of the high concentration of the population in the central belt. Aberdeen can’t get out to support their own football team nevermind rugby.

I'm not questioning that it would be difficult or even impractical but given we're talking decades down the line we need to discuss it in terms of ambition.
In 20 years do we want it to be the case that Rugby plays a much larger role in the natural consciousness, if so we cannot be bridled by talking of the problems faced now in terms of population. Aberdeen would be a challenge, with a population of around 200,000. If we wanted 10,000 people week in week out then it'd be 5% of the population; obviously hard to foresee in a city without an enormous rugby heritage. Obviously you have to factor in people from outside coming. The issue is that in the next five years it is unlikely that Scottish rugby will have the finances, playing personnel or support to put out three professional teams. In the next ten years it is still difficult to envisage. But in twenty years or even further away it would be silly not to aspire to another team. But if it is to work it has to come from the grass roots upward; fans clamouring for rugby, quality players looking for a team and money to spare/ investors with a long term commitment.
Wales' issue seems to be a large scale version of the Border Reivers; teams failing to overcome traditional rivalries in old rugby communities. In effect an uneasy coming together of an ancient rugby tradition with the practicalities of modern rugby. Wales is too small to cater for four professional teams unless the entire rugby community comes behind them which is unlikely whilst these old rivalries continue to exist. To get rid of these old rivalries then loyalty to the teams that helped foment them have to go. If those loyalties go then the old clubs go with them and the grass roots of the sport are eroded. In Ireland the provinces exist outwith and above the club game, and thrive because of that. Ulstermen support Ulster regardless of club, Munstermen support Munster regardless of club.

LOng term?  A 24 team pro 24 with two divisions with promotion and relegation.  That would allow a 3rd or even 4th Scottish team to be built from the ground up rather than trying to create a professional team from scratch in one year

Agreed that I can't see a 3rd pro team in the next decade never mind any time soon. It would be interesting to hear Dodson's take on it - I've never seen any interview when he's mentioned the possibility of a 3rd team in the future, and if it's no in his plans then it's just not going to happen.

I think part investment in a club outside of Scotland is the more realistic thing to happen - ideally it would be a top level club but that comes with its own difficulties, particularly if it is in England with the need to have EQ players. London Scottish was a real opportunity - the Championship is a big step down but still a decent level - so it's a shame that seems to have completely fallen through, albeit with the odd player still going down there.

They seem to be throwing all their weight and money at the Super 6 in an attempt to improve domestic rugby atm.

Let's hope that is successful and can maybe expanded a little bit in the future as well. It is probably worth noting that they could not get a franchise going in Aberdeen, or anywhere north of Stirling, despite a desire to make it country wide, which is an indication as to how hard it would be to set up a professional team up in the north.