Glasgow and Edinburgh ongoing banter thread 24 - Covid funtimes

[RDW]

First topic message reminder :

Previous gibberish

https://www.606v2.com/t69038p1050-glasgow-and-edinburgh-banter-thread-no-23-new-season-new-thread

Fixtures

Glasgow - none

Edinburgh - none

Scotland - none

[king_carlos]

No-one talking about Murray McCallum, but he's only 24 and has looked handy at times.

Has McCallum settled at tighthead for good these days? He played both coming through age grade from memory.

Fagerson and Sutherland are a very talented pair as starters.

If Pierre Schoeman opts for the residency route he could certainly be an impressive international in my opinion.

[tigertattie]

He focused on TH as there was less compitition there.

I think hes a decent player but I dont think he'll be getting many internatioal caps. If anything he'll be the travelling extra front rower to cover both sides if theres a last minute prop injury on match day!

[funnyExiledScot]

Schoeman is definitely on the radar for international rugby. He's only 26 which is ridiculous considering how good his is.

[tigertattie]

Good posters of the Edinburgh vs Glasgow banter thread(s)

Vote for BigGee

An arguement needs settled. Could you be so kind as to go to the below thread an vote for who you would most like to spend Lockdown with.

You can vote for BigGee (option 4)
or
Me (option 19)

https://www.606v2.com/t69587-the-covid-19-culture-cup-round-seven-606v2-poster-you-would-most-like-to-meet-and-why

Vote for BigGee

I'm not allowed to influence your decision but there really is only one viable choice for you all!

Vote for BigGee

[jimbopip]

Zounds ! Forsooth but thou art a scurvy knave. You gerrymandering anti democratic rapscallion son of a slatternly scullery maid.

Lads!Lads! You can't condone his underhand vote buying. I refuse to be Nixon to his JFK. Do you want Tigertattie sidling up to your womenfolk and whispering, " You sing Happy Birthday Mr President and I'll explain the Unit Rule while my majority increases"?

I realise that some patronising dullards (tigertattie) would provide footnotes to explain the historical and political references in the above but I know you are a highly intelligent and well educated fine group of manly men.
Vote Jimbo. You know it makes sense. Well compared to STAY ALERT it does.

[RDW]

Sorry lads is got to be Biggee - the overlords need to stick together in times like these. Don't want you scoundrels holding anti-lockdown demonstrations and 5G burning on here if you get too ahead of yourselves.

[tigertattie]

Sorry lads is got to be Biggee - the overlords need to stick together in times like these. Don't want you scoundrels holding anti-lockdown demonstrations and 5G burning on here if you get too ahead of yourselves.

Vote for BigGee

Wise Flounder, very wise!

Did you see the Anti lockdown demo in Glasgow? Jesus wept! It was hillarious veiwing though.

Vote for BigGee

[jimbopip]

Infamy!Infamy!
The Luvvies have all got for me.
Will no-one rid me of this troublesome tattie?

Vote tattieBaldrick

You'll feel more righteous than a Righteous Brother droning on about time going by so slowly.

[jimbopip]

On a much sadder note Rhuaridh Jackson is hanging his boots up at the end of the season.

A superb club player it's just a pity he never really made the step up to the international stage.

[tigertattie]

Your election campaign has more holes in it than the titanic.

You flip and flop more times than Donald Trump at the Young Asian Women of America convention!

Your message is like the go to work but only sometimes stay in but you can go out dont mind the virus as long as you are alert but maybe dont stay in or out slogan that Boris came up with last week.

One minute you want people to vote Jimbo. Then you say you want them to vote Tattie!

My message on the other hand is clear. Just vote BigGee!

I thank you!

[jimbopip]

Obviously there are frustrations at the easing up of voting .
I share the public's justifiable anger that complicated messages require more subtly nuanced instructions. And yes although last Sunday we may have thought we heard the Adulterer In Chief explain that Stay Home had been changed to Stay Alert so we could all go out as long a we didn't drink bleach Mr Sharma helpfully told us yesterday that what Boris actually said was Stay Alert means Stay At Home for the overwhelming majority of you.
In the same spirit of transparency Vote Jimbo means Vote Tigertattie.

Anyway, I deliberately ran a p*sspoor campaign just to save you from coming last.
You owe me a drink...not bleach...not after last time.

[funnyExiledScot]

On a much sadder note Rhuaridh Jackson is hanging his boots up at the end of the season.

A superb club player it's just a pity he never really made the step up to the international stage.

He won 30+ caps, so hardly did that badly. He was our best 10 for a while, but because he could run, catch and pass a rugby ball he didn't fit in with the Scotland game plan for much of his career.

He's done a very decent job helping Glasgow fit a Hogg shaped hole at 15. Plenty recruitment needing to be done at Glasgow, otherwise they'll slip even further behind Edinburgh.

[jimbopip]

Fes, I agree that 30 caps is an achievement to be proud of but Jacko was always either/or with Meatball. There was never the sense that he was the 10 and the game plan was designed to accommodate his skills. I know sometimes I may be slightly obtuse so just for clarity;
He played 10 for Scotland but I never really got the sense that the Scotland 10 jersey was his.
Mind you, at Wasps and Quins the same thing happened. At both clubs people spoke very highly of his talent but he never really nailed the starting spot.
His late career renaissance as Glasgow's back up 15 was impressive though.

Ruaridh would vote to have Tigertattie as his house Baldrick that's for sure.

[tigertattie]

Jacko was a bit, well, Paterson-esque???

He was a good player but he just didnt get a solid run in the one position either for club or country and the personel around him were constantly changing also.

One day he was getting ponderous service from Wee Grieg or the next he was having to make a backline move that consisted of Nick De Luca, Graeme Morrison and Max Evans.

[tigertattie]

Ha

Jimbo, we could end up being joint "winners" of this round of the culture club as posters such as the great FES have rocked up and voted for us both.

Completely defeats the purpose I intended of stopping you getting more votes than me, but such is life I suppose.

Who says there's Scottish Bias on this site? Not I................

[funnyExiledScot]

The real hope with Jackson was that he would end the turgid slop that we had to endure when Parks vs Godman rumbled on season after season (with Paterson at 10 ignored by successive coaches). I would agree that he was an "unstructured" 10 in comparison with Parks and Weir, and these were the days when fans could make a cup of tea in the time Scotland would take to recycle the ball, but nevertheless he was the start of better things to come; a 10 with pace and an appreciation that the ball could be passed as well as kicked. He's had a decent if unspectacular career.

[jimbopip]

Lads, have you noticed Gee seems lacking these last couple of days? Has anyone heard from him?

[BigGee]

Don't worry about me Jim.

I have just moved on from working in Covid hell, into DIY hell at home and truth is I would probably prefer to be back at the hospital!

We started a major house renovation, which was a bit of a retirement project for me, just as we went into lockdown. The electrician came in to rewire the place and gave the house a general trashing in the process, so I am slowly trying to put it back together again.

I would probably come into the category of keen, rather than competent at DIY, so it is all taking me a long time. Not helped by the fairer member of the family assuring me that the only wall papers that they can live with are all out of stock and they can't possibly settle for anything that does not come from John Lewis or Laura Ashley.

We are still on the first room, so it may be a long long summer. I can't wait for some rugby to come back and distract me!

daughter number two, who is the travelling wanderer, who stressed us considerably by almost getting marooned in El Salvador just as thing s were kicking off is still living at home with us and despite it being her bedroom that I am trying to renovate, gets very arsey if I use a drill or any other power tools any time before about 2pm which seems to have become her normal time to surface.

She has just become nocturnal, which means we don't see so much of her and may acgtually add to family harmony in these tough times. We kind of occupy the house in shifts!

Strange times indeed!

[jimbopip]

Young Pipetto has also gone over to the dark side. We only see him if there's food on the table.
Tigertattie has shamed you by hijacking your good name in the most embarrassingly hagiographic manner just to try and win some votes in the culture cup. His behaviour is embarrassingly cringeworthy.
Astonishingly, the Luvvies on here colluded with him and voted on bloc. Speaking as one Warriors fan to another... in the name of natural justice get over there and vote option 9 " You would like to share lockdown with Tigertattie....": read the rest and you'll see why he's fillibustering to stop democracy prevailing.

[BigGee]

Shame to see Jacko go as well, he has actually done really well for Glasgow since coming back up the road but just seemed to have lost a yard of pace this season and it was probably time for him to move into the Gin business full time.

Glen Bryce probably had the legs on him this season but seems unlikely to be the answer to our longer term needs as a post Hoggy FB, though he likely did enough to remain as a squad filler for the meantime.

Jackos departure also adds to our pressing need for another FH as well, as he could also provide decent cover there.

All been a bit quiet on the signings front for the warriors, but hard to believe stuff not going on behind the scenes. I think that maybe we need to get DR formally off the payroll and get DW properly established before we really hear what he has in mind for next season.

[tigertattie]

Nonsense Jimbo

Gee with his shiny badge sees through your attempt a wool pullerdownery.

I’m still trying to figure out who the three weirdos are that genuinely voted “tigertattie” in the culture club before someone enacted Baldrick’s revenge.

What strange times we live in

[jimbopip]

Tattie! You obviously never saw Francie and Josie in pantomime at the Glasgow Pavilion. Otherwise you'd remember the Good Fairy intoning
"No games lost till the final whistle
Unless you play for Partick Thistle"

[tigertattie]

Ya dancing?

[jimbopip]

Ye askin?

[RDW]

Get a room.

[tigertattie]

Ye askin?

Ahm askin

[tigertattie]

Ahhh still funny

https://youtu.be/k45uSUi8AI0

[jimbopip]

Thanks tattie, funny and so prophetic "Wan in a million!" "Aye so's yer chances" How did they know about the Culture Cup?

[funnyExiledScot]

Ahhh still funny

https://youtu.be/k45uSUi8AI0

That is exactly how I picture Jimbo and Schizoid in my head....

[tigertattie]

Ahhh still funny

https://youtu.be/k45uSUi8AI0

That is exactly how I picture Jimbo and Schizoid in my head....

FES wins the internet today!

[tigertattie]

This is how I picture Jimbo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cinocue5Ljc&t=204s

[tigertattie]

And in the interests of East/West balance

Here's FES

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

[funnyExiledScot]

LOVE the Rev IM Jolly. Classic stuff.

"Met my wife, Ephesia, outside the ladies toilets. I was coming out and she was going in. It was a Christmas party and she kissed me under the mistletoe. I kissed her back, as I didn't want to kiss her face...."

[jimbopip]

Loved the wedding speech.

[funnyExiledScot]

The sketch about Rangers signing a Roman Catholic is also a favourite of mine.

[RDW]

Ahhh still funny

https://youtu.be/k45uSUi8AI0

That is exactly how I picture Jimbo and Schizoid in my head....

[tigertattie]

The sketch about Rangers signing a Roman Catholic is also a favourite of mine.

https://youtu.be/A1zH2x1-7LA

Ta Daaaaaaaaaa

[tigertattie]

Also, a polite reminder

https://www.606v2.com/t69587-the-covid-19-culture-cup-round-seven-606v2-poster-you-would-most-like-to-spend-lockdown-with-and-why

Vote BigGee

If you dont then you are a tory voter! Just saying!

[jimbopip]

Just to say, yet again, that highjacking Big Gee our very own Lady With The Lump Lamp just for votes in a nonsensical beauty contest is immoral and socially irresponsible. Would you let your wife or servant vote this way?

The only safe, socially distant yet sensible way is to vote....

.tigertattie...I have always wanted to have my own Private Baldrick to tidy up after me and reinforce my sense of intellectual superiority.

I'll give free pints of Belhaven Hydroxychloroquine shandies to all who vote sensibly. Your country needs you.

[tigertattie]

Hydroxychloroquine you say?

If it's good enough for Trump.............

[BigGee]

Sorry to bring the conversation back to rugby, but more announcements from the warriors and unfortunately it is on the departure and not arrival front.

Gibbins is off as well, again, it has been expected and he has maybe lost a yard this season as well compared to his first two seasons in Glasgow. He is an extremely solid squad member though, who brings a lot on and off the pitch.

DW is certainly going around the re-building task and this will have released a few quid to help with that process.

It would be nice to see who might be coming in to replace some of these players though.

[jimbopip]

Gibbins' departure was no real surprise. I think his time at Scotstoun will be seen in pretty much the same way as DR's. there were lots of good things but there is also a sense, an uneasy nagging doubt, that things could have been better.

Gibbins is a whole hearted player and he really put his body on the line very time he pulled the jersey on. Was he the best 7 at Scotstoun? Did the team play better when he played? I'm not sure that the answer to those questions is an unequivocal YES! Fusaro, Wilson, Smith and Fagerson all put in convincing performances at 7. In particular, pre injury, Matt Smith was looking like the best 7 at the club. I can understand the club "doing a Dunbar" and sending Smith on loan in order to get some form and fitness if he can't get in the 23...but to keep him out of the team in favour of a player who would be off at the end of the season baffles me. But that seemed to be part of DR's modus operandi; pick your 23, play them every week till you're forced by injury or rest protocols to replace an individual. If the replacement doesn't hit the ground running throw him to the wolves. If the story of DR shouting at McDowall "You're not a rugby player: you're an imposter" after the Sarries' match is true you do wonder if he went in for scapegoating on a regular basis.

Maybe it was overinflated expectations. DR was going to take the club to a whole new level: he mismanaged the euro campaign in his first season and last season's defeat in the QF at Sarries was embarrassing. Still, we could have won the Pro 14 last season. We played some excellent rugby over the season and won shed loads of Bonus Points. But had we moved on from Toonie's reign?

DR, a very good coach. We won a lot of games under him. I'm not as sad to see him go as I might have been.
Calumn Gibbins a hard as nails flanker, a very good player. I'm not as sad to see him go as I was when Simone Favaro left.

[bsando]

I feel like DR did everything he could as a coach and was just missing that Pro14 title. Gibbins did a good job for 3 years, I think him moving on is the perfect time really, time to let Wilson rebuild. I'm hopeful Wilson can do well but he's got a big job ahead of him.

Jale Vakaloloma. What's going on with him? I saw he was injured but he looked a handy back row player and still quite young.

[BigGee]

It is true that CG was very much Rennie's go to guy and the one he would always pick if fit regardless of the form of the others.

I think Jimbo is very much right that their fates were intertwined and it is probably the right time for him to move on as well.

Rennie has actually added very few players of note to the Glasgow squad. Other than CG his best signing was almost certainly bringing DTH back into the fold. Admittedly a few youngsters have come through on his watch but the spine of the side was largely the one he inherited from Toonie.

Maybe not such a bad time to come in as Glasgow coach and have the chance to build a new team. A few decent youngsters have been well bloodied now and there should be a few quid in the bank to bring in some new players to compliment them.

The challenge will be staying at our current level while he goes about that.

[jimbopip]

The highly regarded football writer, Brian Glanville, once said that football managers should primarily be judged on whether the players they bought were better than the ones they sold.

Under DR's management Glasgow Warriors paid a salary to Nick Frisby....as a professional scrum half.
Should we mention Lelia Massaga. if you're in doubt as to how underwhelming he was consider this, at Parkhead before the Pro14 final there was a group of players handing out Warriors' flags to the fans. Matt Smith and D'Arcy Rae chatted with Bru and I for a while, Lelia Masssaga was on the periphary of the conversation, lots of Warriors' fans patted backs or said hello as they were passing, took flags posed for selfies....no-one said anything to Mr Massaga. it occurred to me that they weren't ignoring him they just had no idea who he was.

Every signing is a gamble but those two were special.

[123456789.]

I think Dave Rennie's stated objective was to take Glasgow to another level. He was in effect tasked with managed decline. In his tenure many of Glasgow's workhorses over the last decade have aged or not kicked on; Fusaro, Harley, Wilson, Swinson, McArthur, Ashe. Many of the stars of the great Glasgow team have moved on and not been adequately replaced either early in his tenure or before. If you think back to the great Glasgow squad they had Seymour, DTH, Maitland, Lamont, even McGuigan available. DTH and Maitland moved on, they've never been able to replace him properly. Big T didn't quite click, Masaga was fairly useless, Hughes wasn't quite up to scratch. Finn Russell is good enough to be one of the best paid players in Europe, Hastings isn't quite at that level yet. It's easy to forget how good a partnership Dunbar and Bennett were, Bennett has moved on since then. Dunbar lost his form and moved on. Sam Johnson is a rare bright spot in coming in since then. Huw Jones hasn't kicked on in the way anybody hoped. Hogg's been unavailable for much of Rennie's tenure. Even Pyrgos leaving hasn't been replaced effectively with Frisby not being quite up to scratch. Nakarawa was a once in a generation player who we simply couldn't hold on to.

Some of that you can pin on Rennie to an extent, players not kicking on has been a hallmark. Adam Ashe could have been Scotland's number 8 but now he seems disinterested. Huw Jones has gone from Europe's best finisher at 13 to a frequent dud. Matt Fagerson seems to be treading water. McDowall also. Perhaps New Zealand can afford a sink or swim environment with their player pool but we can't. But for every one of them there's been an Adam Hastings or a Cummings who has really improved. There's the wider issues too. Wages have increased in England and France making it harder for Glasgow to kick on. Edinburgh needed much of the SRU's attention at the same time. Saracens artificially inflated wages across the rugby world. There's also the natural life cycle of a team. Glasgow's stars in 2015 were offered more than Glasgow can afford elsewhere. Teams have to replace them with players asking for less. So it's always a gamble to find someone who can become the player they are replacing.

To think he had that to contend with and Glasgow were within a whisker of winning the Pro14 last year. Glasgow's big achievements under Townsend were Champions Cup qualification and league success. Rennie has very nearly matched that with a squad shorn of Townsend's ageing charges and less successful replacements.

[TheMildlyFranticLlama]

You’re a remarkably forgiving lot you Weegies, particularly for a bunch that like to think of yourselves as ‘future champions’. DR came to the club with the reputation as one of the great club coaches in the game and had done nothing at all while here to back that up. Yet you all seem pretty happy with what he hasn’t achieved. Fair play to you!

[RDW]

I'm quite worried about Glasgow's future for the next season or two - I suspect weegies are going to have to get used to not having the same highs they've been accustomed to. That Glasgow squad needs major surgery done to it and it's just not going to happen in one go. It has been very quiet on the signing front and I can't image the dam is going to burst with 10 new international class players arriving.

Add to that a new coach and it could be difficult times.

Glasgow still have a decent starting 23 so will be competitive on their day, but there's probably few occasions in reality that they'll be able to put that team out. Back 3 is a clear area of weakness as is back row, and they need more depth at lock past R Gray and Cummings if Nakarawa isn't staying (I'll assume he's not for the purpose of below).

1 Kebble
2 Brown
3 Fagerson
4 R Gray
5 Cummings
6 Wilson
7 Fusaro/Gordon
8 Fagerson

9 Horne/Price
10 Hastings
11 Tagive
12 Johnson
13 Jones
14 Steyn
15 Bryce

Subs - Seiuli, Turner, Nichol, Davidson, Flockhart, Horne/Price, Horne, Grigg


Take out those likely to be involved with Scotland a lot (in bold) and they're really struggling.

[BigGee]

I think is a bit unfair to say Glasgow did nothing on DR watch.

We could certainly have done more, but there were plenty of highs along the way, coming within a gnats of winning the title at home against an exceptional Leinster side is not to be sniffed at.

We also played a fantastic style of rugby that when it came off, was just a joy to watch.

Its been a bit of a mixed three years and we have on balance, continued to punch above our weigh. Both Scottish sides need to do thst to achieve good results in this game.

Still, i am not unhappy to move on, maybe DR is not the best coach to undertake a major rebuilding project.

[NeilyBroon]

I'm quite worried about Glasgow's future for the next season or two - I suspect weegies are going to have to get used to not having the same highs they've been accustomed to. That Glasgow squad needs major surgery done to it and it's just not going to happen in one go. It has been very quiet on the signing front and I can't image the dam is going to burst with 10 new international class players arriving.

Add to that a new coach and it could be difficult times.

Glasgow still have a decent starting 23 so will be competitive on their day, but there's probably few occasions in reality that they'll be able to put that team out. Back 3 is a clear area of weakness as is back row, and they need more depth at lock past R Gray and Cummings if Nakarawa isn't staying (I'll assume he's not for the purpose of below).

1 Kebble
2 Brown
3 Fagerson
4 R Gray
5 Cummings
6 Wilson
7 Fusaro/Gordon
8 Fagerson

9 Horne/Price
10 Hastings
11 Tagive
12 Johnson
13 Jones
14 Steyn
15 Bryce

Subs - Seiuli, Turner, Nichol, Davidson, Flockhart, Horne/Price, Horne, Grigg


Take out those likely to be involved with Scotland a lot (in bold) and they're really struggling.

I expect Ollie Smith to be pushing for fullback next season so perhaps that's the plan there to get him on pro contract, he looks very much like Kinghorn did at the same stage. Also on the wing I reckon that England-Newly Scottish 7s player will feature (can't be as expensive as still relatively unknown). It's going to be a lot of academy U20s. Dobie will definitely feature a lot more so SH may not be such a big problem. FH God knows, maybe Thompson from the academy? Haven't heard much about him recently, has he been playing much for Ayrshire? Nairn may finally kick on too given the opportunity and hopefully no more injuries. Backrow will be a problem unless Glasgow plan to nick some of the youngn's from Edinburgh, which to me would make the most sense.

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