Ireland v Scotland: Saturday 19th March @ 1645.

First topic message reminder :

I thought I'd be the one to start the match thread this week seeing as I haven't started one in a while and I'm trying to contribute to the forum more I'm future .

Before this test, there is a massive Scottish Derby in the URC which I'm definitely going to watch, let's hope these pesky train drivers aren't causing mischief again lol.

Regarding Saturday, everyone knows we will need to be MUCH BETTER than we have been this tournament to have any chance so hopefully Stuart and Gregor are rallying the troops all week in training etc.

I keep saying this as its true but, our rough record HAS to come to an end one day so why can't this weekend be that day just as last year were the days our rotten record was finally broken at Twickenham and Stade Francais.

As for the team I'd go:

Schoeman
Turner
Z. Fagerson
Gray
Gilchrist
Darge
Watson
M. Fagerson
Price
Hastings
Graham
Johnson (though GT won't drop Harris as he's our best defender)
Bennett
Kinghorn
Hogg

I am struggling to pick the bench so I'll let you guys help me out there, I would put Harris there but that means dropping Steyn completely and expecting BK to go the full 80mins. The other thing I'm struggling with is, do I put in Nel or Dell and Christie or Bayliss because my plan was to go with the 5:3 split.

Anyway, I'm expecting a good, tight and open game , hopefully with less errors from both than we saw from the round 4 matches.

My prediction: Ever the optimist and bearing in mind my original point regarding hoodoos eventually being broken, I say Scotland by 2, coming from behind .

By the way. does anyone have a spare centre who can run (forward) with an EQ grandparent?

Hastings definitely had the chance to move out of FR shadow and cement himself into the starting FH role at Glasgow but he choose not to persue that.

Time will tell if that turns out to be a good career move or not, being further away from the eye of the Scottish coaches does not seem to have helped him in the short term.

Jimbo is right though in that he has never really been missed at Glasgow. A bit like Huw Jones he never really showed his best form on the Scotstoun pitch.

A good player though, who i don't think has reached his ceiling yet and will hopefully go on the summer tour and show that he has become more rounded.

Kinghorn was felt to be a generationsl plsyer when he came onto the scene so young, but has not quite lived up to his billing yet. Some of that might be lack of opportunity at FB and wing for Scotland and the move to FH was talked about right from the begining. Perhaps with a coach other than Cockers at Edinburgh. It might have happened sooner.

doctor_grey wrote:

jimbopip wrote:On the Blarehorn- Haircut debate....

I still can't forgive Haircut for feccin up a 2 on 1 five metres from the Leinster line in the Pro-14 final at Parkhead. Secondly, when he left Scotstoun the reaction from the fans was very muted, to say the least.
In short, he hadn't won a place in our heats like others who left.
Blarehorn? Surely he should serve his time at club level? It is a rare player who arrives on the international stage a master of his trade with practically no experience.
Just so you don't think me deliberately unclear....I'm trying to be diplomatic.

Ireland 3 Scotland 42.

I presume you have Ireland scoring first?

Doesn't everyone?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/60796440

And just to make things worse in the build up to the game, some of the senior boys went out on the lash after the Italy game!


What was Hoggy, in particular thinking?

hmmmm bit of an odd one that. On the one hand Hoggy clearly takes his role seriously and maybe just saw the value in a bit of time out of the environment just shooting the sh*t with some of his pals.

Carrot or stick? bit of light team bonding vs self flagellation? I know at amateur level we put an emphasis on the team staying out after a loss and having a few pints otherwise everyone goes home and becomes a martyr, overthinks it, tries too hard and it goes even more wrong.

To follow up, if townsend doesn't deal with that carry on in a players court session/fines night then it'll only make things worse. They'll need to go through a friendly, light humiliation to let the other players accept them again. If it's treated like a work disciplinary then that'll fester amongst the players.

Careful player management needed by Toonie on this one!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/60796440

FFS

Tramptastic wrote:hmmmm bit of an odd one that. On the one hand Hoggy clearly takes his role seriously and maybe just saw the value in a bit of time out of the environment just shooting the sh*t with some of his pals.

Carrot or stick? bit of light team bonding vs self flagellation? I know at amateur level we put an emphasis on the team staying out after a loss and having a few pints otherwise everyone goes home and becomes a martyr, overthinks it, tries too hard and it goes even more wrong.

Rules are rules though at the end of the day and the team leaders, Hoggy, price and Russell no doubt amongst them, would probably have been involved in agreeing those rules in the first place.

Does not really give a great message to the younger members of the squad if the senior players are breaking the rules that they made themselves - sounds like the sort of thing Boris Johnson and our government would do!

BigGee wrote:

Tramptastic wrote:hmmmm bit of an odd one that. On the one hand Hoggy clearly takes his role seriously and maybe just saw the value in a bit of time out of the environment just shooting the sh*t with some of his pals.

Carrot or stick? bit of light team bonding vs self flagellation? I know at amateur level we put an emphasis on the team staying out after a loss and having a few pints otherwise everyone goes home and becomes a martyr, overthinks it, tries too hard and it goes even more wrong.

Rules are rules though at the end of the day and the team leaders, Hoggy, price and Russell no doubt amongst them, would probably have been involved in agreeing those rules in the first place.

Does not really give a great message to the younger members of the squad if the senior players are breaking the rules that they made themselves - sounds like the sort of thing Boris Johnson and our government would do!

You think Hoggy invited people to a garden party?

doctor_grey wrote:

BigGee wrote:

Tramptastic wrote:hmmmm bit of an odd one that. On the one hand Hoggy clearly takes his role seriously and maybe just saw the value in a bit of time out of the environment just shooting the sh*t with some of his pals.

Carrot or stick? bit of light team bonding vs self flagellation? I know at amateur level we put an emphasis on the team staying out after a loss and having a few pints otherwise everyone goes home and becomes a martyr, overthinks it, tries too hard and it goes even more wrong.

Rules are rules though at the end of the day and the team leaders, Hoggy, price and Russell no doubt amongst them, would probably have been involved in agreeing those rules in the first place.

Does not really give a great message to the younger members of the squad if the senior players are breaking the rules that they made themselves - sounds like the sort of thing Boris Johnson and our government would do!

You think Hoggy invited people to a garden party?

He was probably convinced it was a work do and someone just forced a beer into his hand for a photo op

There really does seem to be something amiss in the Scottish camp.
The team are out of sorts, they have discipline issues on and off the pitch and are not currently playing cohesively.
My understanding was that Hastings and Townsend had a disagreement and he asked to called upon only in an emergency as he wanted to cement his spot at Gloucester. Think tackle bag holder.
Kinghorn couldn’t travel due to covid protocols and hence Hastings was drafted in for Italy and released for this game. It might explain why he was only given 5 mins off the bench too.
Having been in Italy for the game, their covid regulations are way more strict than ours and enforced with vigour. So that, at least, makes some sense.
It seems that Townsend is losing the dressing room. No way his captain, two vice captains and other senior players would go off the reservation if all was well within the camp.
Timing couldn’t be better with the World Cup looming.
Having said all this Scotland, are still liable to rock up pee in the punch and spill cider and blackcurrant all over Ireland’s title celebrations. .

BigGee wrote:https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/60796440

And just to make things worse in the build up to the game, some of the senior boys went out on the lash after the Italy game!


What was Hoggy, in particular thinking?

Not exactly a sign of a happy and united camp, is it? Personally I think players should be allowed to display some common sense in situations like this, we don't know for sure that they went out on the lash - they could have just been having a few beers and mulling over the game? Maybe it's a reaction to Toonie imposing schoolboy rules on a group of men?

Is it not the players leadership group who set the standards. That has been my understanding of these things.

Heuer27 wrote:Is it not the players leadership group who set the standards. That has been my understanding of these things.

I know in some sporting organisations that's what happens, and following the Finn saga the intimation was that he broke squad set rules....I have no idea what the situation is now in the Scotland camp, could easily have changed since then.  It strikes me as unbelievable that the captain would blatantly disobey rules he himself imposed.

Agree with Heuer. It is never top down management for stuff like this.

In Finngate, it was the players that made the 2 beers rule. It won't have been any different about this.

Problem is, if you make a rule, then it gets so blatantly broken, what do you do?

Am not sure anyone wanted this to come out. It was dealt with in house and no one got sent home, as has happebed with other squads when similar has happened. But it has presumably been leaked just at the worst possible time in terms of preperation for the team.

It's pretty cr#p all round really.

BigGee wrote:Agree with Heuer. It is never top down management for stuff like this.

In Finngate, it was the players that made the 2 beers rule. It won't have been any different about this.

Problem is, if you make a rule, then it gets so blatantly broken, what do you do?

Am not sure anyone wanted this to come out. It was dealt with in house and no one got sent home, as has happebed with other squads when similar has happened. But it has presumably been leaked just at the worst possible time in terms of preperation for the team.

It's pretty cr#p all round really.

I agree it's likely, but we have no way of saying with certainty if that statement is true Gee. Price, Russell and Hogg are all almost certainties to be in the leadership group, it beggars belief that they would all flaunt their own rules.

I absolutely agree with the last point though - we either have our three best players revolting against the coaches rules, or breaking rules they set themselves.

I wonder how it got out, particularly given no player has been dropped because of it.

Maybe. Thought it was best to go public instead of a picture of one of them turning up on social media.

Also, the Covid risk in a night out in Rome was high too, which makes it even more of a stupid thing to do.

It was when they got back to Edinburgh, presumably on the sunday evening, not in Rome, though they would pissibly have had less chance of getting caught in Rome, as everyone has to wear a mask going into a bar!

The covid risk, is of course the other thing that made it a really stupid thing to do. Apparently 1 in 14 people in Scotland had covid last week, so if one of them had caught it and brought it back into the camp, how would thst have looked!

You can understand why management did not think it was a very good idea for them to go out!

Right right right. Ya ready?

Here we go

Ireland 23

Scotland 27

There. I’ve done it. You heard it here first.

Scotland to win with a MOTM performance from blairhorn.

RDW wrote:I wonder how it got out, particularly given no player has been dropped because of it.

Maybe. Thought it was best to go public instead of a picture of one of them turning up on social media.

Also, the Covid risk in a night out in Rome was high too, which makes it even more of a stupid thing to do.

From what I saw in Rome. They had more chance of getting it here.

There were rumours of the night out and who was there on the warriors forums, so I suspect the the players were seen or it was common knowledge.

My understanding of Finngate 1 was that he turned up at the team hotel a bit relaxed already, having shared a plane ride with Maitland after a European game with sarries. Maitland went straight to his room as he could see the graffiti on the wall. Finn was approached by Hogg, Gilchrist, McInally and others who told him of the two pint rule made in his absence . He told them to multiple and headed straight for the bar. It all kicked off from there.
Townsend was not even present and was summoned to calm things down. By the time he got to the lounge Finn had called his dad to pick him up and would not listen to reason. The whole thing was a done deal by the time the coaches got involved and Finn was too tired and emotional to listen.
I have had very little time for Russell since this as he was most definitely the architect of his own downfall.

I have been reluctant to retell this previously as It was relayed to me by a player in the squad.

To quote Ulysses Everett McGill: ‘Damn! We’re in a tight spot’.

Optics on this are bad. The team hasn’t looked right, effort levels felt below par, handling Hastings poorly and now pint-gate. Bayliss in his media parade made a point of saying how good things in camp are I would guess something is amiss in house. Beating England was a crack paperer.

We really should not be able to achieve much tomorrow. BK has a lot to prove, refs don’t like our ruck or scrum methods and the second row is Jarndyce and Jarndyce in terms of play style. Clearly it will be a famous win, i have the uneasy feeling townsend may not make the world cup.

On the plus side i passed my FRCS exams this week so in theory anything is possible.

takethelongroad wrote:To quote Ulysses Everett McGill: ‘Damn! We’re in a tight spot’.

Optics on this are bad. The team hasn’t looked right, effort levels felt below par, handling Hastings poorly and now pint-gate. Bayliss in his media parade made a point of saying how good things in camp are I would guess something is amiss in house. Beating England was a crack paperer.

We really should not be able to achieve much tomorrow. BK has a lot to prove, refs don’t like our ruck or scrum methods and the second row is Jarndyce and Jarndyce in terms of play style. Clearly it will be a famous win, i have the uneasy feeling townsend may not make the world cup.

On the plus side i passed my FRCS exams this week so in theory anything is possible.

Congrats on the exam results TTLR, some good news for the week won't go amiss!

BigGee wrote:

takethelongroad wrote:To quote Ulysses Everett McGill: ‘Damn! We’re in a tight spot’.

Optics on this are bad. The team hasn’t looked right, effort levels felt below par, handling Hastings poorly and now pint-gate. Bayliss in his media parade made a point of saying how good things in camp are I would guess something is amiss in house. Beating England was a crack paperer.

We really should not be able to achieve much tomorrow. BK has a lot to prove, refs don’t like our ruck or scrum methods and the second row is Jarndyce and Jarndyce in terms of play style. Clearly it will be a famous win, i have the uneasy feeling townsend may not make the world cup.

On the plus side i passed my FRCS exams this week so in theory anything is possible.

Congrats on the exam results TTLR, some good news for the week won't go amiss!

Welcome to the club, boyo!  This is a hell of an achievement.  Everything is possible, if you want it to be.  
Now, let's go out and find some people on which to practise.  That is, unless you are one of those modern guys who frown on such things.

Maybe this “bar-gate” is a piece of psychology genius from hogg and co?

They’ve thought that something needed to happen to galvanise the team into a siege mentality. The squad will then rise to adversity and put in an absolute epic performance against the shamrock growers.

Rugby players drink beer Shock horror!!
Mr Road, well done

Ireland are red hot favourites and we are as unfancied as tigertattie on Valentine's Day.
Scotland to win.

tigertattie wrote:Maybe this “bar-gate” is a piece of psychology genius from hogg and co?

They’ve thought that something needed to happen to galvanise the team into a siege mentality. The squad will then rise to adversity and put in an absolute epic performance against the shamrock growers.

Yes, that will be it!


I was really struggling to work out the reason

Some speculation about this event on the warriors forum.

Someone there who also has access to inside info suggests that the 6 of them were told not to head out by the team manager, who they ignored. Toonie was then forced to call Hoggy to tell them to be back in half an hour.

Everyone came back bar Finn, who stayed out on the lash, went to his parents and returned the next morning!

That may or may not be true, but might explain Finn warming the pine this weekend and maybe why Toonie feels he needs other choices at FH!

Understandable as well, that he did not want to cause havoc by sending players home prior to the last game when this would then become the media story all week.

I wonder if we might not hear a bit more about this once the match is over!

For all that I would like to do the 'nudge nudge wahaaay', 'give-them-a-break-they're-just-a-bunch-of-cheeky-chappies' thing, I'm in my 40s now and cannot be arsed with extending them any rope. The truth is that this just looks terrible.

Maybe this goes on with other international teams and we just don't hear about it. Maybe it doesn't. However, the fact that it happened at all suggests that at the very best the camp is deeply unhappy. They obviously felt that they would beat Wales with a bit to spare and when that just didn't happen, it seems that the senior players simply didn't know what to do. That much is obvious.

However, and whilst I'm aware that comparisons are largely pointless and academic, I cannot see this kind of thing ever having happened under Vern Cotter. This group of people needs a Paul O'Connell/Martin Johnson figure to lead by example and ground everyone very, very badly. Hogg is a wonderful player but I don't think he's captain material in the same way that those guys are. That's not really a criticism as they're very different people but he doesn't seem to be what the whole squad needs at the moment to sooth what is clearly a lot of internal hurt and general bewilderment.

I just find it strange / worrying that we apparently need to set such stringent rules on drinking. In a well functioning team environment these type of things should be unsaid and just known what is right and what is wrong.

I'm sure other teams have similar things, but other than perhaps England you just don't hear about these things happening.

It's not like it was a team bonding event either - it was a clique of 6 people nipping out for their own entertainment. Other players may be disgruntled (and relieved!) That they weren't asked.

The 6 must have known what they were doing was breaking the rules yet still did it. What does that say about team/coach harmony?

I suspect there will be more to come from this, and if Toony had any hair left he would have lost it this week. What must he be thinking about all this? It's like looking after a crèche!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/60799103

Tom English as always painting the stark reality!

Win or lose (by far the more likely option) we need a new captain for next season and jnto the WC.

It would be Jamie Ritchie for me, someone who does seem to be made of the right stuff.

He was saying when he was punditing on the 1874 last night that he hopes to be back in training for pre season.

We will need someone else to cover the summer tour as well j guess.

The prospect of taking some fresh younger and keener players away, untainted by the influence of some of the 'senior pros' is probably looking quite an attractive prospect to Toonie!

RDW wrote:https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/60799103

Tom English as always painting the stark reality!

The main point from this. Even taking the late night drinking out of the equation is the covid risk that it imposed on the squad.

Whatever agreement was made about what the could and could not drink, you csn be sure thst none of it was to be in a public place.

That was irresponsible in the extreme.

Just think back to the Baabaas gsme when the whole match ended up being cancelled because the players fancied a few beers.

An outbreak of covid through the whole team could easily have csused a similar episode tomorrow.

The more i think about it, the more jncrefibly stupid it seems.

They should have dropped the lot of them!

BigGee wrote:

RDW wrote:https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/60799103

Tom English as always painting the stark reality!

The main point from this. Even taking the late night drinking out of the equation is the covid risk that it imposed on the squad.

Whatever agreement was made about what the could and could not drink, you csn be sure thst none of it was to be in a public place.

That was irresponsible in the extreme.

Just think back to the Baabaas gsme when the whole match ended up being cancelled because the players fancied a few beers.

An outbreak of covid through the whole team could easily have csused a similar episode tomorrow.

The more i think about it, the more jncrefibly stupid it seems.

They should have dropped the lot of them!

Shows the average intellect on social media that the majority of responses on this was "what's wrong with players going for a few beers, they didn't break any Covid regulations"

My brother just sent me an audio clip of someone describing what happened - not sure of the source.

Apparently there were meant to be drinks laid on for Ali Price getting his 50th cap which didn't materialise so when they got back to Edinburgh a large group decided to go into town. One of the team managers heard it was happening and said to the group it wasn't a good idea (they were in single rooms and had other Covid measures in place). A load of players agreed and didn't go out, but the 6 disagreed and went out to Whynot in Edinburgh (an underground nightclub).

Toonie found out and called Hoggy and lost the plot with him saying they'd all be dropped kf they didn't return, and Hogg, Price and Darcy came back but the other 3 stayed out. Sam and Sione got back to the hotel at 4am but Finn went back to his folks and didn't turn up back with the squad until late afternoon the next day.

They're all very lucky to be involved at all, and you can see why Finn was dropped!

That was the one i referred to on the Warriors forum.

If it is true, then FR should never play for Scotland again imo

Makes you wonder why SJ is starting this weekend if it is true though, so not completely convinced about it

If that's true I take back my comments about it maybe being team bonding.

Drop all of then. Not on, and, as biggee says, not smart in covid times. Didn't even cross my mind how stupid that could with regards to covid (doh).

We don’t know if Finn was dropped for drinking or just being crap at the moment.

If he was dropped for drinking then hogg and price should have been dropped too?

I know we are supposed to support the team and all that jazz but the longer this 6ns tournament goes on the more I think that at least a large core of this “once in a generation” group of players have bought into their own hype. I really do think that after the England game they genuinely thought they were world beaters and with Ireland the only team they hadn’t beaten recently they really thought that they were going to be going to Dublin to fight it out for the grand slam.

When we then failed against a poor wales side, the ground was landed on heavily and the hype train blew apart. The players who were strutting about as the mutts nuts then didn’t know to process this and it’s been a car crash ever since

MOTM last week and our captain shouldn’t stop price and hogg being dropped.

There’s going to be some soul searching required for this team going forward. And I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. There is a serious lack of mental strength and professionalism in this Scotland side that needs to be addressed

If only we had a scotland 23 made up of Jamie Ritchie clones we'd unbeatable

Lads, lads!
I agree with everything that has been said about stupidity and unprofessional behaviour.
HOWEVER...
Lockdown has fecced with all of our minds one way or another. I think we'll all be feeling the psychological effects for some time.
I think the 6 Nations is a long time to be in camp and the emotional and psychological pressures must be very difficult for all involved. Perhaps being ancient gives me a slightly different perspective but I remember Johan Cruyff refusing to play for Holland in the 78 World Cup. Holland had been the outstanding team in 74 and lost to the hosts, despite playing them off the field to a ridiculous degree, in the first 45 minutes. Their team in 78 was reckoned to be better and Cruyff was the best player in the world. He withdrew from the tournament and said that the constant emotional pressure was "almost physical...like being in a submarine always pressing in on you." Even after Holland narrowly lost in the final to the hosts he still had no regrets, he knew what it would have doe to him to go.
I shall give the Whynot 6 the benefit of the doubt here. I don't think they're idiots. I'm not an idiot but I have done countless idiotic things in my life. We all have.
There should be consequences. I think the players' group should have decided what was most appropriate. Toonie should also look forward and ask himself who in this squad will cope with the pressures of the next World Cup camp/media scrutiny/public expectations and all the other hooha and make a quick decision about who stays and who goes.
Aldi Price's 50th cap? An away win? No organised letting down of the collective hair? The management should have thought about the need to let off steam.
As John Lee Hooker said, "Let the boy boogie...if it's in him it's gonna come out."

jimbopip wrote:
There should be consequences. I think the players' group should have decided what was most appropriate. ."

As most of the players group were likely implicated, that would be like asking Boris Johnson to judge himself over partygate and I think I know what the outcome of that would be!

I shall, respectfully, disagree with you on that one Gee.
A load of players agreed and didn't go out, but the 6 disagreed and went out to Whynot in Edinburgh (an underground nightclub).

When working with SEBD kids we always knew that letting the kids judge the harshness of sanctions (a) it helped them take responsibility (b) they were usually more draconian than the adults would be and (C) being sanctioned by your peers means more than being sanctioned by an external group.
Being told off by management can perpetuate the "naughty schoolboys" fantasy and can also inculcate a sense of injustice about any sanctions, thus preventing the culprits from accepting responsibility. Or enabling future irresponsible behaviour.
If there was a players' meeting and someone, Darge or ADHD Kid for instance, stood up and said "You know how hard we've all worked to be here and Saturday's game could be cancelled because you fancied a bevvy. I could miss the last chance I have of playing for Scotland because you decided going for a drink was more important. Tell me how that's fair!" It would require cojones of solid stell t stand up and say it, mind. But, it would have a massive impact; or I like to think it would.
It's not like Johnson judging himself over Partygate it's more like the Tory backbenchers having the backbone to judge Partygate. Which they so far have lacked.

Good points Jim.

It is hard to work out whether we are dealing with children or adults here at the end of the day.

I see it as personal responsibility though. I am sitting here in the house and not going out because I have covid, even though there is no legal obligation on me to do so now, not because i have to, but because it is the right thing to do!

That is generally a good starting point for making decisions!

BigGee wrote:

jimbopip wrote:
There should be consequences. I think the players' group should have decided what was most appropriate. ."

As most of the players group were likely implicated, that would be like asking Boris Johnson to judge himself over partygate and I think I know what the outcome of that would be!

He will throw another party??? Maybe I receive an invite this time. Strippers, too.

Remember the other players changed their minds after the SRU management team said they shouldn’t be going out.

The whynot6 chose to ignore the request of the management group and the players that stayed to stay in. It is this act that for me has them up on the “I’m untouchable” hype buying brigade.

So no sympathy from me for them

The 3 amigos standing next to each other at the anthems

Well it is clearly going to be a chuckabout!

Exciting start!

Great start Scotland

Scotland finding some hole in the Ireland defence.

Scots up for this, can they keep it up though