URC Round 10

Round 10 (ish) is here and the last round before the European break so important for teams who may not have played in a few weeks to get out there if they can.

All matches on Premier Sports, URC TV and Supersport amd all times UK/Ireland  time zone.

Saturday 8th January 2021

Edinburgh v Cardiff - The DAM Health Stadium, Edinburgh – KO 15.00- BBC Wales

Glasgow Warriors v Ospreys- Scotstoun Stadium, Glasgow – KO 17.15- S4C

Munster v Ulster- Thomond Park Stadium, Limerick – KO 19.35 - RTÉ 2

Scarlets v Dragons- Parc y Scarlets, Llanelli – KO 19.35

The rest of this round of games involve South African teams and are currently scheduled to be played in late February.

Big game for us this weekend against the Dragons, we were understandably rusty in our win against the Ospreys but managed to sneak a BP win in the end.

Not sure what Dragons squad will look like. I'd expect Scarlets to be heavy favourites regardless, especially after that win last week.

Some good news for Dragons, is the return of Bertranou. Hopefully he comes straight in at 9.

Will be interesting to see how teams that haven't played in a few weeks go, especially if they are playing some of the teams who did get a game in last week. Might that extra match sharpness make the difference

Three games with four Welsh teams involved, may test my not drinking for a couple of weeks resolve. Especially if the Dragons play like twits.

The Munster/Ulster derby will be interesting. Can Munster be as unambitious and poor as last week? Will the Covid issues have disrupted Ulster's cohesion? Both teams really need good outings in preparation for the European fixtures. I'm hoping for Ulster squeezing out a narrow win, but really know what to expect.

Ah well. Scarlets v Dragons is off, due to cases in our camp. Might not be the last game to be postponed.

Munster v Ulster should be interesting, perhaps Munster have blown away the rust of last week and will Ulster be rusty, I should imagine if theres been enough cases to stop games that training won't have been fluid in the last few weeks either so how would that affect things

One thing about this edition of the URC is the SA teams will at least know what they have to do to qualify for the top eight having only played half the matches

Yeah thats tue, by the time they start playing thier matches again they should have a good idea how it is playing out. Also the fact that some of those games will happen during 6 nations should give them a bit of an advantage too which is good considering the disadvantage they have been at early in the season with none of their internationals

Lets hope

Unclear wrote:The Munster/Ulster derby will be interesting.  Can Munster be as unambitious and poor as last week?  Will the Covid issues have disrupted Ulster's cohesion?  Both teams really need good outings in preparation for the European fixtures.  I'm hoping for Ulster squeezing out a narrow win, but really know what to expect.

Can munster be as bad.. yes they can. Keith Wood and others are calling for van Graan to go immediately. That's the state of Munster at the moment.

Good build up to both games on Premier. Didn’t need to see the Dragons v Edinburgh game again though ha.

Three home wins for me. With the last game my only possible doubt.

Last Edinburgh pass looked a little forward to me. Nice break though and good support.

Oh heck.

Edinburgh have been good, to be fair. But this isn’t great. Cardiff seem pretty narrow a fair bit.

Cardiff showing the effects of the layoff and not really up to pace

Edinburgh have been good though!

Think Cherry is lucky with that earlier head contact on Botham.

Nice integrity by Bradbury there, to bail Murphy out.

Slightly harsh on Cardiff that. They have been better second half.

Ah, good spot.

Cardiff taken a bit of a battering on and off the pitch

The injury toll may hurt them as much as the score

hard to know what to make of that game really.

Edinburgh will be happy enough with the points but went off the boil in the second half.

Cardiff, once they got up to game speed looked a bit better, but won't really beat many good sides by playing chuckabout. They look like a team who need a bit more steel up front.

The injuries could cost them as well, especially losing 2 hookers.

Why do Premier have to keep showing Dragons get a walloping

RiscaGame wrote:Why do Premier have to keep showing Dragons get a walloping

They really have to trawl the archives to find them

BigGee wrote:hard to know what to make of that game really.

Edinburgh will be happy enough with the points but went off the boil in the second half.

Cardiff, once they got up to game speed looked a bit better, but won't really beat many good sides by playing chuckabout. They look like a team who need a bit more steel up front.

The injuries could cost them as well, especially losing 2 hookers.

Wonder who’s next off the rank at hooker? Can’t see Belcher being fit for a while. Not sure what’s happening with Dacey and whether he is available.

Agree, for all Cardiff did improve, Edinburgh also must’ve switched off for a while. Cardiff looked better when Summerhill came on for Morgan. Was surprised to see Arhip struggle in the scrums, to be honest.

Love the Rocky IV music.

Ah, why don’t Glasgow come out to The Captain now?

Good finish. Think he’d have possibly got a penalty try for the seatbelt otherwise.

These two look like well matched teams, should be a tight old game if Ospreys can maintain that defensive intensity for the whole 80

What a try from Tuipolotu!

Glasgow appear slightly stronger in terms of breaks, but Anscombe keeping Ospreys in it. Ospreys backs seem a little pedestrian, especially the centres and Dan Evans.

RiscaGame wrote:Glasgow appear slightly stronger in terms of breaks, but Anscombe keeping Ospreys in it. Ospreys backs seem a little pedestrian, especially the centres and Dan Evans.

Stuffy side Ospreys - we need to open up some daylight on the scoreboard to put them away

Wasn’t sure on that lineout call. It doesn’t really matter.

That’s why Dan Evans didn’t call up for Wales very often. He’s an absolute coward in defence.

Looks like we have got Ospreys in the scrum now as well

Ospreys will have to give Francis a whiff soon, I think.

BP try from Turner, or is it?

Mmm - a bit tight!

Touchy bailed him out there.

Think he has reffed pretty well though. That touchy has redeemed himself for that lineout call.

Botha good scrummager (hope I don’t jinx him), so may sort this out.

Poor lineout error there though. Just back under pressure now. Have to exit.

Ospreys did well to get the ball back there and have some reasonable territory. Let’s see how Botha goes.

Poor tackle height again.

Glasgow have really upped the pace and intensity this second half, Ospreys have not even looked like scoring.

Ospreys are a little way behind Glasgow in the rebuilding phase it seems

When I saw the teams I thought ospreys had the better forwards, Glasgow the better backs (by far). Watkin, Morgan, Dan Evans are very average and extremely overhyped by their fans.

Think 5-1 is a little harsh, but ospreys have been second best this half.

I was a little surprised to see Ospreys score though.

Not a good weekend for the Welsh sides up in Scotland.

Glasgow and Edinburgh both played well and came away with BPs. The layoff does not seem to have dented their form.

Welsh rugby still dying then.

mikey_dragon wrote:Welsh rugby still dying then.

Not so sure about that. Both sides on the up really, hard to expect anything from Cardiff really after their past couple of months and Ospreys just need to add an attacking dimension to their game. making yourself hard to beat is always the first step.

Zebo off in The Munster v Ulster game, shoudler to the head tackle in Lowry and it's red

Cashed out my treble on 7-0 Ulster and that red. Should’ve known Munster would find a win. Sounds like Ulster played the game all wrong and box kicked a lot etc?

Yeah the second half especially they were kicking far too much, handing posession back to Munster and allowing them to build up a head of steam. A lot were not even good kicks either, very dissapointing

mikey_dragon wrote:When I saw the teams I thought ospreys had the better forwards, Glasgow the better backs (by far). Watkin, Morgan, Dan Evans are very average and extremely overhyped by their fans.

Totally agree, I am also yet to see any fuss about Michael Collins too.

Thought Glasgow did a good job of keeping Jac Morgan quiet too, I barely heard his name mentioned on comms.

BigGee wrote:

mikey_dragon wrote:Welsh rugby still dying then.

Not so sure about that. Both sides on the up really, hard to expect anything from Cardiff really after their past couple of months and Ospreys just need to add an attacking dimension to their game. making yourself hard to beat is always the first step.

I think the telling thing is that most of the Welsh Teams big earners just are not performing.

Anscombe for the Ospreys has to go down as possibly the worst signing in the history of Welsh Rugby. I believe he's on like 400K with them and a given the games played for that money since joining he has been horrible value for money. Granted he has had a long term injury for most of his time there and currently is finding his way back to match fitness.

The issue here is that Welsh Regions have a massive amount of salaries tied into these types of players. Meanwhile when you look at Edinburgh they let their star winger go in the off season and have been really smart with their signings. Reckon they probably paid both Argentinians the same as DVM. Its just about being smarter with their cash which the regions have a terrible record with.

There's going to be further problems down the road when most of the current generation of internationals retire as they really haven't done as well on development as either the Irish or Scottish. No doubt at that point they will bemoan the fact that there is a non welsh cap limit on players.

Bottom line is most of the regions need to strengthen their packs in the front 5 and most of them really need to look at their backlines. It's clear the sides who are doing well in the URC are all able to score a high number of tries in a game. Welsh sides currently don't look like they can score 4/5 tries per game.

Looking at the redrafted schedule for the rest of the season South Africa sides must be happy.

Looks like they will now have week in week out fixtures against teams (assuming no more Covid cancellations happen which they might).

It's kind of turned my predictions around as now essentially they will be playing a lot of those sides during periods when those internationals will be away, greatly increasing their odds of wins.

Could end up with 2-3 making the top 8 in the end. Could be a disaster for the home nations given some of them will be losing out on HC rugby next year.

Welshmushroom wrote:

BigGee wrote:

mikey_dragon wrote:Welsh rugby still dying then.

Not so sure about that. Both sides on the up really, hard to expect anything from Cardiff really after their past couple of months and Ospreys just need to add an attacking dimension to their game. making yourself hard to beat is always the first step.

I think the telling thing is that most of the Welsh Teams big earners just are not performing.

Anscombe for the Ospreys has to go down as possibly the worst signing in the history of Welsh Rugby.  I believe he's on like 400K with them and a given the games played for that money since joining he has been horrible value for money.  Granted he has had a long term injury for most of his time there and currently is finding his way back to match fitness.

The issue here is that Welsh Regions have a massive amount of salaries tied into these types of players.  Meanwhile when you look at Edinburgh they let their star winger go in the off season and have been really smart with their signings.  Reckon they probably paid both Argentinians the same as DVM.  Its just about being smarter with their cash which the regions have a terrible record with.  

There's going to be further problems down the road when most of the current generation of internationals retire as they really haven't done as well on development as either the Irish or Scottish.  No doubt at that point they will bemoan the fact that there is a non welsh cap limit on players.

Bottom line is most of the regions need to strengthen their packs in the front 5 and most of them really need to look at their backlines.  It's clear the sides who are doing well in the URC are all able to score a high number of tries in a game.  Welsh sides currently don't look like they can score 4/5 tries per game.

I am debating doing a thread on the value of the league to Argentinan and PI players (and obviously the value of them to the league.

With no games during the AIs it's easy for the players to join up with their team earlier and no pressures on the teams to keep them.  Add in the rest periods for the Argentina players during the 6 nations allowing them to re-charge.

While wage caps play a role there must be more to the influx of players.  Having players in the RC also allows teams to try out younger players at the start of the season which seems to be a bit of a problem compared to before.

Good value players there