Glasgow and Edinburgh 29 - Buckfast & Bollinger

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29 threads. There is officially something wrong with us.

https://www.606v2.com/t70624p1000-glasgow-and-edinburgh-28-and-counting-the-banter-goes-on?ns=7ndk62cdm0w%3D#4069230

See you GC!! I'll give you bowels!
On a rugby note... we all seem to be overlooking Jack Dempsey in our prognostications.
I think he's the sort of back rower who can stop us from being dragged into an arm wrestle.
Fagerson -Dempsey- Mbawza. For me.

NeilyBroon wrote:

jimbopip wrote:Neily, you have just evoked memories of Chuckles getting yellow carded at Twickers and the game being over before his 10 minutes were up. That was a horrible afternoon in saarf London.

Exactly the game I was thinking of!

My only ever Twickenham experience that game.

jimbopip wrote:See you GC!! I'll give you bowels!
On a rugby note... we all seem to be overlooking Jack Dempsey in our prognostications.
 I think he's the sort of back rower who can stop us from being dragged into an arm wrestle.
Fagerson -Dempsey- Mbawza. For me.

I'd like to see Dempsey getting a run of starts at 8. Like a whole tournament worth to see if he's got what it takes, however, its really difficult to overlook how good Crosbie has been on the flank for Edinburgh.

For the tournament, barring injury, i'd like to see either 6.Mbawza 8.Fagerson 7.Crosbie or 6.Fagerson 8.Dempsey 7.Mbawza

Either of those backrows is excellent but I want Townsend to stick with it for as long as possible and give a combination a shot with little to no change over the entire tournament

Quite a few players being sent back to Glasgow from the Scotland camp this week as well as the injury list looking a lot healthier. We are looking at a pretty strong team out for the Ulster game this friday you would imagine.



Seven of the club’s Scotland contingent have re-joined the squad at Scotstoun ahead of Friday night’s match; Jamie Bhatti, Fraser Brown, Simon Berghan, Jack Dempsey, Ali Price, Stafford McDowall and Ollie Smith each linked up with Franco Smith’s playing group earlier today as preparations continue for the fixture.

Scott Cummings has also returned to Scotstoun after being drafted in to train with Scotland last week, as has Assistant Coach Pete Horne following his work with the senior men’s national team during the opening rounds of the Guinness Six Nations.

Second-rower Max Williamson and FOSROC Scottish Rugby Academy back-rower Rhys Tait have both joined English Championship side Doncaster Knights on short-term loan deals, the pair looking to gain valuable game time to further their development.

Rory Darge and Oli Kebble have each returned to full training following their respective injuries as part of the next phase in their rehabilitation process.

Sintu Manjezi has undergone successful surgery on a knee injury, with the second-rower aiming to return before the end of the 2022/23 season.

Ryan Wilson (knee), Murphy Walker (neck), Ross Thompson (ankle), Domingo Miotti (back) and Enrique Pieretto (chest) all continue their rehabilitation on their respective injuries.

Ryan Wilson's knee is the least of his problems as a player.

Dempsey is one of those players whose proper role is as an impact sub. He's looked very dynamic in the last 15 minutes of our games. I think that this is entirely because he has't had a prop sitting on his face for the first 65 minutes.

There's also the worrying and almost certain prospect of Finn being asked to play a full 80 for Racing against Castres this weekend. If any Frenchman wants to be a hero and never have to buy a pastis in his local bar again, now would be the time to cop a red and break Russell's leg.

We could do with Russell being unavailable this weekend due to a short term 'injury'. Then back in camp with us fit and rested next Monday

Glasgow's, unlike Edinburgh's signings have been a bit of a slow burner this season, Franco seems to be taking his time to look at people and make up his mind.

Anyway, we finally get one today and definitely a good one for the future, Alex Samuels gets another couple of years at Scotstoun. A very talented player who is just breaking into the first team squad now, it would be surprising not to see him capped in the coming years.

Well you do get the feel that Ryan Wilson's time at Glasgow is coming to an end and this interview with Mark Palmer in The Times, does nothing to suggest otherwise.

Will he play on somewhere else as he suggests he would like to, or does a media career beckon?

Whatever he does next, he has been a part of the Glasgow fabric for such a long time, he will certainly be missed when he goes.



When Scotland defeated France in March 2021, it ended a 22-year wait for success in Paris. For Ryan Wilson, meanwhile, it was also the night he won the 50th cap which he had long feared would never come.

The Glasgow Warriors back-row forward had been stuck on 49 since the final game of the Scots’ ignominious World Cup campaign when Japan, the hosts, knocked them out. With a clutch of younger guns such as Matt Fagerson, Rory Darge and Luke Crosbie all ahead of him in the queue, Wilson’s half-century prospects were not looking great.

That was until Glasgow trained against the Scotland team at Oriam on the Wednesday of the French Test week, hours before Gregor Townsend and his squad were due to fly across for a game that had been postponed earlier in a Covid-affected Six Nations due to the Wafflegate farce.

“I did honestly think at that point that my time had probably been and gone,” admits Wilson over coffee near his home in Bearsden. “There wasn’t a lot of chance to get back in there, but I seized my moment with a bit of help from Fotu Lokotui [the Tonga flanker who played for Warriors back then].

“I’d actually driven him over from Glasgow that day and had been telling him that when the call went up for ‘shoulders on’ that’s full-on tackling. They won’t hold back, so you don’t either. He was absolutely melting people, and I’m thinking, ‘what the f*** have I done?’ He took Matt out, sadly for him [Fagerson was ruled out with an ankle injury].

“I had been winding the boys up at training — I know, it doesn’t sound like me at all. Me and Duhi [Duhan van der Merwe] had had a bit of a forwards and backwards, he was getting properly angry. At the end of the session, Toony [Townsend] asked for a word, and I thought, ‘he’s going to have a crack at me for winding the boys up.’ In actual fact, he wanted to know if I could get my passport because they needed me to fly out with them that afternoon.

“I phoned Bex [his wife] and got her to stick my passport, pants and socks in a plastic bag and jump in the car. She missed the school run which made me even more popular, then when I got to the team hotel, all the kit they had for me was odd bits and pieces of other people’s: I had Luke Crosbie’s trousers, Maggie’s [Magnus Bradbury’s] top.”

Wilson was later presented with a bespoke embroidered shirt to mark his 50th cap, but the one he actually wore at the Stade de France bore Nick Haining’s name. Wilson replaced the Edinburgh man for the final 14 minutes, just after Swan Rebbadj had crossed to put the hosts 23-20 ahead. Finn Russell would soon be sent off, but Scotland regrouped to score a match-winning try in the 85th minute. Wilson had a couple of important carries in the multi-phase move which ended with Van der Merwe crossing in the left corner.

“I always joke that I took it to within an inch of the tryline for Hasto [Adam Hastings] to pull it back for Duhi. Because me and Duhi had had that spat two days before, I was straight there jumping on him and saying, ‘I love you really mate’.

“My biggest worry had been not getting on at all. I’d had a chat with Finn [Russell] the night before. I said, ‘If it gets to five minutes before the end and I’m not on, no matter the score you’ve got to jog off and I’m going to sprint on’. Thankfully it didn’t come to that and I didn’t have to sub myself on. A few minutes later, there I am doing a John Terry with the trophy.”

In fairness, the Scotland captain Stuart Hogg had insisted Wilson lift the Auld Alliance silverware with him to mark his landmark appearance, while back in the dressing room, Bex and Wilson’s parents joined via Zoom to see him being presented with his commemorative cap.

Mid-morning on the Saturday, a rather dusty looking Townsend was on another video call with journalists back home, during which he boasted that he had managed to outlast even the famously thirsty Wilson in the celebrations, the player having gone to bed at the amateur hour of 7am.

“He only went longer than me because I had gone a lot harder than him,” Wilson clarifies. “I was determined to enjoy it, because I knew that this time it really was it for me with Scotland. Obviously it would have been nice to get a lot more [caps], but if you’re going to finish on 50, there’s not many better ways to do it than beating France over there for the first time in a long time.”

Almost two years later, Wilson is still going strong, or at least will be in the next month to six weeks when he is due to return to the field after the knee injury he suffered in the win over Bath at the Recreation Ground last December proved less serious than feared.

Wilson is due to return to the field in four to six weeks after he sustained a knee injury against Bath
Wilson is due to return to the field in four to six weeks after he sustained a knee injury against Bath
ROSS MACDONALD/SNS
“It was a croc [crocodile] roll,” he says. “It’s the 78th minute of the game, and me like a proper idiot is going in trying to win the turnover to win the match for us. As soon as I did it, I felt it snap, and I was like, ‘that’s my ACL [anterior cruciate ligament], that’s me done, I won’t play rugby again.’ You’re lying there with everything going through your head.
I got back up, with my hair all out, looking like Frank from Shameless, hobbling around. I tried to get in the line — I mean, I was an absolute hindrance to the team, but that’s how I’ve always played, trying to be a nuisance somewhere.

“I didn’t want to take the shine off the win so I found a corner of that tiny little Bath changing room, with everyone cheering, shouting, loving life while I’m sat there just trying not to bring the mood down. All the while with that scary thought it was over. It turned out I had actually torn my medial [ligament] and earlier in the game I’d dislocated my kneecap. Two injuries in one go. But I should be back soon.”

Wilson, who has been at Scotstoun since 2010, is out of contract in the summer and has still to hear whether Franco Smith plans to keep him on. Either way, three months short of his 34th birthday, he feels he has plenty more to give someone.

“Last year I signed a one-year deal and it wasn’t until the April or May that it happened. This year, I’m going to keep all my options open. I’ve always said I would love to do something like France or Japan for a couple of years. I’ve been here 13 years, a long time. It would be nice to retire as a one-club man, and if the time is right the time is right. But I still reckon I’ve got two, three, four years left easily. If something came up in France and Japan, I’d definitely have a look, but it needs to make sense for the whole family. It’s been a fresh start for the club this year.

“Those were a tough couple of years — Covid hampered everything and meant that Danny [Wilson, the previous coach] was dealt a pretty bad hand. It took a fresh lease of life when Franco came in. We are on the up and just need to carry it on.

“Franco demands a lot: on a Monday, it’s a harder review if you’ve won than if you’ve lost. When you’ve been beaten, had a Poopie game, most of the time the last thing you need is someone coming in and hammering you. Sometimes you need it, but that’s often when you need to step back. When you’ve done well and boys come in pumped up, that’s when you can go after them.


“I genuinely believe that Franco’s work with Glasgow has had an effect with the Scotland team as well. It’s definitely got something to do with it — the fitness levels, the way he allows boys to express themselves.”

Wilson sees “absolutely no reason” why Townsend’s men cannot make it back-to-back Paris wins a week on Sunday.

“The way the French played against Ireland [a 32-19 defeat last week], they were a lot looser. They weren’t the well-oiled machine that they have been. We can definitely go there and do it again. Their chance of a grand slam is gone, they’re a bit wounded, Scotland are thriving — it makes for an interesting game. I reckon it will be tight and Scotland will win.”

I know Batman gets some stick on here but increasingly whenever I see him play I can hear Max Miller telling his audiences, "Enjoy me while you can, love. There'll never be another."

We were behind the posts at the Rec and the ruck where Batman snapped his medial ligament was almost on halfway: we all heard him scream. Play continued for a good four or five minutes and once he had dragged himself onto his feet he hobbled back into the defensive line, between 13 and the winger and did his best to keep up with play. We were all dreading someone running straight at him but thankfully Bath weren't good enough to get the ball beyond 12.

He is genuinely a club legend, and the love he has for the club and fans is reciprocated.
As Andrew Marvell said, "But ever at my back I hear/ time's winged chariot drawing near".
Let's appreciate him while we can.

Batman, obviously, not the the slightly overrated metaphysical poet. Max Miller is not a slightly overrated metaphysical poet, tiger.

Ulster side named for the Weegies:

(15-9): Ethan McIlroy, Ben Moxham, James Hume, Stewart Moore, Jacob Stockdale, Billy Burns, Nathan Doak.
(1-8): Eric O’Sullivan, Tom Stewart, Jeff Toomaga-Allen, Alan O’Connor (Captain), Kieran Treadwell, Harry Sheridan, Jordi Murphy, Nick Timoney.
Replacements: John Andrew, Rory Sutherland, Andy Warwick, Cormac Izuchukwu, Greg Jones, John Cooney, Luke Marshall, Craig Gilroy

Glasgee are goin dooooooon!!!!!!

Ryan Wilson wrote:I mean, I was an absolute hindrance to the team, but that’s how I’ve always played

Couldn't agree more, Ryan!

Glasgow Warriors team to face Ulster at Scotstoun, Friday 17 February, kick-off 7.35pm. You can watch the match live on Viaplay Sports, or follow all the action in our Live Match Centre at glasgowwarriors.org.

1 Nathan McBeth (15)
2 Johnny Matthews (39)
3 Lucio Sordoni (10)
4 Lewis Bean (30)
5 Scott Cummings (95)
6 Thomas Gordon (60)
7 Sione Vailanu (10)
8 Jack Dempsey (32)

9 Jamie Dobie (43)
10 Tom Jordan (14)
11 Cole Forbes (31)
12 Sam Johnson (98)
13 Stafford McDowall (C) (48)
14 Sebastian Cancelliere (22)
15 Ollie Smith (25)

Replacements

16 Fraser Brown (134)
17 Jamie Bhatti (81)
18 Simon Berghan (24)
19 JP du Preez (14)
20 Alex Samuel (5)
21 Euan Ferrie (7)
22 Ali Price (122)
23 Duncan Weir (131)

Unavailable for selection: Sintu Manjezi (knee), Jack Mann (head), Domingo Miotti (back), Enrique Pieretto (chest), Ross Thompson (ankle), Murphy Walker (neck), Ryan Wilson (knee).

Good looking Glasgow side as well. Got the makings of a great game this one and both sides passage into the top 4 may well depend on it.

Quite a bit of heft on the Glasgow bench to come on later in the game, the weather forecast is not great for friday, so it may well be a war of attrition.

Charlie Savala signs a 3 year extension which is a real statement of intent from Edinburgh. They obviously see him as the future.

Likely bodes the end of VdW's time too.

RDW wrote:Charlie Savala signs a 3 year extension which is a real statement of intent from Edinburgh. They obviously see him as the future.

Likely bodes the end of VdW's time too.

Hmmmm. They've obviously seen something that I haven't.

Nice to see the youngsters Ferrie and Samuel involved. What do Warriors fans make of them?

Ferrie has appeared a few times. He seems to be in the General's Diddy Cup squad. Big, Harleyesque in size but carries better.
Samuel is a big laddie. Currently being drip fed into the first team. Looks a prospect.

Second time Glasgow have turned down the 3 points

Good plan?

It certainly was, Vialanu scores from the 5m lineout

5-0 Glasgow

I am not sure trying to run everything out of our 22 is the right tactics in this weather though!

Great defence there from Glasgow.

Ulster taking a leaf out of Ireland's book being held up over the line. Just go f**king wide.

A long period of Ulster pressure eventually gets the try

5 all

Great defensive set from Glasgow, the veritable brick wall

Doak kicks a decent penalty to end the half

8-5 Ulster at HT

Terrible kick from Tom Jordan

And eventually Glasgow pressure tells, Dempsey from a 5m lineout

10-8 Glasgow

The pressure from Glasgow is nearly overwhelming at the moment, one more score will kill this game

Glasgow dominance pays and another driving maul goes over

17-8 Glasgow, that should be the game at 77 mins

Glasgow bench has made a big impact. As it should have!

What an impact the Glasgow bench has had, they have the Ulster scrum on toast now

Terrible game management from Glasgow to close out the game. If Glasgow get a LBP Franco should be raging.

Cooney kicks a pen to get Ulster a BP but they have been well beaten tonight

17-11 Glasgow, a great win in awful conditions

Dempsey MoM

Dobie and Johnson were really good as well and Scott Cummings looks like he wants to go straight back into the Scotland team, you do feel that Toonie might let him get another game back in SA first though, which will certainly help Glasgow

A very fine win. Big second half and big bench impact. Glasgow looking really good.

How many games in a row are the Weej unbeaten now?

10 on the bounce

Did not see that coming after the Benetton game!

Ten games unbeaten GC, but I'm not sure if thatalso includes the Diddy Cup.

Dear God Edinburgh are making a hash of this. Dreadful start.

Well Edinburgh been generally dreadful so far, but finally woken up and score a try

14-7 Scarlets

Every time Sheil box kicks you worry he'll be charged down.

It's those nuts and bolts of his game that stop him from being a really good SH

My point exactly, what was Sheil thinking!

Well he got away with one there, but needs to be quicker!

This is truly awful from Edinburgh, 35-7 now and just about everything coming from poor Edinburgh play.

Scarlets been clinical, but they are having it handed to them atm!

What a depressing game. Can't believe we've agreed to pay more money to Savala for playing rugby. His agent is a genius. Still, not sure any Edinburgh players should collect a wage for this garbage. This is the worst I've seen for a very long time.

Defence and tackling are not optional in rugby. Should Blair resign over this? I'm starting to wonder.

Sheil was woeful. I think he's been spending too much time learning from pyrgos. Any promise that was once there has been completely crushed. I also think it's fair to say Blair is on very thin ice now.

It is all wrong for Edinburgh at half back.

Neither Sheil nor Vellacott really look up to it, flashes of brilliance but they just don't have a steady game to build on.

Healy will certainly help next season, but won't sort things out by himself.

The one positive thing from today, and I had to look hard to see it, was some of the yongsters off the bench, Boyle, Skyes and Harrison in particular looked a lot more hungry and better than those they replaced

Not much to go on, but it was that sort of an afternoon

I agree on the replacements being a step up. I'd start Harrison every time personally. Watson is so far off his game this season, possibly third choice at Edinburgh on form behind Crosbie and Boyle.

Shiel was dire but I don't want Pyrgos back under any circumstances. Vellacott should start the next game. Savala hasn't once impressed me, and was dreadful again today. Lang and Bennett are supposed to be our first choice duo. Both poor. Goosen has been a complete waste of money.

I'm starting to wonder if we ought to be shopping for a new coach this summer. Just look at what Franco has done for the Warriors. Blair gave us a massive boost when he started, but things are fairly rapidly regressing now, and we don't appear to have the basics sorted at all.

WTF was that Edinburgh. When I saw the score I just assumed we'd had an early red card - apparently not!

This sums up Scottish rugby.

The cream at the top can be very competitive but the layer below that is that horrible watery red bottle pish that you’d not even put in a cup of tea.

Edinburgh go from going toe to toe with sarries to being spanked by Llanelli