Gallagher Premiership 2020/21

First topic message reminder :

That's not a high tackle. Heyes initial contact is the chest. If you're going to review it, review it properly. It's a legal tackle.

How did the assistant miss that the LI player knocks the ball out of JVP's hands and into touch before the Joseph break. It was right in front of him FFS. Lineout Tigers.

Anyway, Tigers blow what should have been a straightforward win and only get 4 instead of 5 points. LI manage to snatch 2 league points with a TBP at the death. Probably a fair result as LI were the better side in the first half but didn't really show up in the second. Hassell-Collins is looking like a really classy player, shame Parton went off.

GeordieFalcon wrote:

doctor_grey wrote:To me this means there is a very low chance of promotion of a Championship club.  So the league is 90%+ ring fenced.  

First off, I think the chances of the best Championship team beating a Premiership team in a playoff, regardless how poorly they performed in the Premiership, is not good.  Plus I wonder if any Championship clubs have a combination of the financial backing, stadium and other infrastructure which is required for promotion?

So the Premiership can tell everyone they have promotion/relegation, but I think it will be a rare occurrence.

Well in one positive, it does safeguard against another London Welsh fiasco.

Promotion chasing teams will need to have their house in order, and going forward (Ealing excepted) will need a good support base.

I thought tightening the promotion requirements and having them thoroughly vetted by a legal group was supposed to have happened already. But the way things are written makes it look new. Does every club have primacy at their ground? The only question mark I can think of might be London Irish. And if Ealing crash the top flight where would they play and would they have primacy?

formerly known as Sam wrote:

GeordieFalcon wrote:i wonder what impact have 15EQ in a matchday of 23 will have.

Kolpack is ended so it'll be any nationality....

What if you lose 5 / 6 English players to the national teams. You then need to replace them with more EQ players.
Is that no an issue or could it become an issue?

I imagine it will become an issue as KC has pointed out. Happy times for EQ journeymen who will now be in ever increasing demand as you don't want to be in a position where you are facing academy tight five player or dropping a star non-EQ name so that you can put in some experienced cover to the tight exchanges.

As said in a previous post I think it will significantly hamper the league and hence the England team. My worry is that we wont see that big an increase in opportunity for youngsters who might push onto international standard but instead see a massive increase in game time for solid Premiership standard EQP players.

Taking the Tigers example again. When our back row options had Brendan O'Connor and Mike Williams we likely had more EQP players in the back row than having Liebenberg and Wiese as locked on first choices. Whilst I think O'Connor and Williams were briefly in England training camps they were never going to suddenly revolutionise England's back row play. Liebenberg and Wiese on the other hand have made Tigers an incomparably better side and the Premiership a stronger league for it.

I think with these rules we will see more O'Connor's and Williams at the expense of players such as Liebenberg and Wiese at Tigers, Ross and the du Preez twins at Sale, formerly Jacques Burger at Sarries, etc. That to me doesn't benefit the England team or the Premiership.