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

Seen a photo on Instagram showing Sam Rockley training with Edinburgh. Assume he's on trial or has got an academy contract.

Big powerful wing playing LI U18s last season and just finished school. Turned out for Scotland U18s in the 6N after previously being involved in a few Eng age grade camps.

Margin_Walker wrote:Seen a photo on Instagram showing Sam Rockley training with Edinburgh. Assume he's on trial or has got an academy contract.

Big powerful wing playing LI U18s last season and just finished school. Turned out for Scotland U18s in the 6N after previously being involved in a few Eng age grade camps.

I don't think he was announced in the academy intake for this year, but maybe they are having a look at him and will maybe feed him into the futures team that will play in the Super 6 this summer. Big powerful wings are always something that we need in Scotland and LI have a good record of producing them!

Glasgow sign Logan Trotter ftom London Irish as well.

This one had been previously touted but is good to see it on paper. As we lost 2 wingers last season and have looked a bit short there at times, we should be in a better place this coming season now.

LT has looked like a decent player and was just breaking through last season when he took a bad injury. He seems to be a good fit for Glasgow.

He looked solid in his limited game time before his injury. Definitely worth a look and glad he picked up a contract.

Well Edinburgh get their new 'Senior Coach' Sean Everitt, who has been involved with the Sharks in SA for many years.

Can't say I know a great deal about him, but he seems an experienced coach.

A one year contract though, which suggests a bit of a try out for him and he will have to prove himself.


I guess the Franco Smith appointment did not really set the heather on fire last summer at Glasgow, but that worked out pretty well. Let's hope it is the same for our pampered cousins down the M8.

What's the whole 'senior coach' thing about?

Bizzare

RDW wrote:What's the whole 'senior coach' thing about?

Bizzare

Might be a reaction to the Mike Blair fall out - his biggest gripe being having to do the dual role of head coach and team manager, maybe they've split the roles? so they might announce another signing as "head coach" or team manager who, rather than on field stuff, will deal with the larger picture of squad management, contracts management etc

Tramptastic wrote:

RDW wrote:What's the whole 'senior coach' thing about?

Bizzare

Might be a reaction to the Mike Blair fall out - his biggest gripe being having to do the dual role of head coach and team manager, maybe they've split the roles? so they might announce another signing as "head coach" or team manager who, rather than on field stuff, will deal with the larger picture of squad management, contracts management etc

SD seems to be still hanging around as 'lead rugby consultant', do we think he is going to stay on in that role?

If so why not just call them DoR and Head Coach just like everyone else does!


Is re-inventing the wheel an Edinburgh thing?

Interestingly, Mark Palmer still seems of the opinion that the 'Senior Coach' moniker might yet mean that Brad Mooar comes in as head coach post WC.

There is a little transcript in Dodson's statement about adding others to the coaching group during the course of the season.


I guess there has to be some significance to it.

Brad Mooar would be a great option but equally happy to see how Everitt gets on. Having a SA coach probably means more SA signings incoming.

Also positive to see a Scottish coach in Rob Chrystie promoted to assistant attack and skills coach. Got to keep the Scottish coaches coming up the ranks.

So Prem Sports and now Viaplay gone. When will the URC find a decent broadcaster to show off the league? I loved having the games on BBC Alba back when I was at University. How can we grow the league when it is locked behind an obscure streaming service?

It doesn't feel like there's much in the way of a long-term plan or direction. Which is perhaps not a surprise given Mike Blair disappeared halfway through his deal.

Shirt term deals, interim consultants, mass changes in coaches etc.

I fear that we're not going to be seeing Edinburgh making a step forward any time soon!

Margin_Walker wrote:Seen a photo on Instagram showing Sam Rockley training with Edinburgh. Assume he's on trial or has got an academy contract.

Big powerful wing playing LI U18s last season and just finished school. Turned out for Scotland U18s in the 6N after previously being involved in a few Eng age grade camps.

Named in the Stirling Wolves Super 6 squad and obviously pushing on for an U20s squad place next year.

Being promising enough for Edinburgh to bring him in for some squad time is a good sign that he is getting developed despite not being in the academy.

Lovely interview with Duhan

https://youtu.be/GUPyvVKViJk

I see Fraser Brown has done his knee playing in that end of season BaaBaas game.

Likely an ACL as he is apparently out for most of next season. That could be the end for him, I see he is getting involved with coaching one of the Super 6 teams, that might be his future.

It does make you wonder why pro players do these games, or even are allowed to!

Hastings got injured in the same game I think!

That is gutting and a real shame for Brown.

This was maybe his last season before deciding whether to go the Harley route or into coaching. Fraser and Hiddleston are coming through at Glasgow and should get a good amount of time to bed in behind Matthews during the early part of the season.

Well the lesser spotted Domingo Miotti, who recently signed a contract extension of unspecified length with the Warriors, is going to become even more scarce.

He has apparently signed for Oyannx in France.

This may be a good move for him, but it definitely leaves us a bit short of FHs. Maybe there is more to this story still to run.

Weird that he'd sign a new Glasgow deal then sign for someone else soon after!

Very far down the list of interest but I see Murray McCallum and Cameron Hutchinson are keeping their careers going having signed for Newcastle Falcons.

Newcastle is basically the 3d Scottish pro team!

I see both teams seem to be back in proper pre season training now after a pretty long summer break, which will hopefully do all of the players and coaches a bit of good.

Both teams have brought in a few extra players to bump up the numbers while the WC players are away.

Glasgow have dished out 4 partnership contracts, going for youth as a solution to their logistics, Gregor Hiddleston (Hooker), Ritchie Simpson (FH), Ben Afshar (SH) and Duncan Munn (Centre) all recent graduates of our poorish U20s program but players that look like they have got a bit of promise. Hopefully they will get some game time and show their worth.

Edinburgh have gone for the old stagers approach and given temporary contracts to Tim Swiel and Mitch Eadie, a couple of journeymen coming towards the end of their careers.

Swiel, a FH, has played under the new coach before and as the only other FH on the books currently is Charlie Savala, they may well need him until Healy gets back.

Steve Diamond has now officially left the building as well and Sean Everitt has properly taken over.

I saw Glasgow have only just come back. Edinburgh have been at it for weeks and even had a practice game against Newcastle!

Edinburgh will be worn out by the time the season starts!

Edinburgh want to extend that golden time between the heady optimism of pre season training and the soul crushing realisation that this season will be just like all the others.

Modern technology amazes me, but then again, I am very provincial.

Am lying on my bed in Riyadh using the rapid mobile wifi I bought on Amazon to watch Watsonians v Heriot's live pn my Mac Book. Crystal clear resolution. Watsonians getting spanked 0-24 if anyone is interested.

Contract news from Glasgow.

Not one we were expecting but welcome all the same as Franco extends his stay at Scotstoun to the end of the 2026 season.

He has esrned that for the turnsround in form he produced last season and now really has the chance to recruit and shape the team more in his own image.

If he continues in the same vein, you could easily see him slipping into the Scotland job at the end of his Glasgow tenure.

Amidst all the World Cup hoo-ha life goes on

Glasgow Warriors will continue their pre-season training with a hit out against Zebre tomorrow. Here's the line up;

1 Nathan McBeth
2 Angus Fraser
3 Lucio Sordoni
4 Alex Samuel
5 Euan Ferrie
6 Gregor Brown
7 Ally Miller
8 Henco Venter Not a bad back row.
9 Jamie Dobie (C)
10 Ross Thompson
11 Kyle Rowe
12 Tom Jordan
13 Duncan Munn
14 Sebastian Cancelliere
15 Facundo Cordero From9-15 doesn't look too shabby.

16 Corey Tait
17 Tom Banatvala
18 Callum Norrie
19 Ruaraidh Hart
20 Jonny Morris
21 Ben Afshar
22 Duncan Weir
23 Ben Salmon
24 Kerr Johnston
25 Luca Bardelli
26 Ollie Horne

Lots of youngsters in there, including a prospect at 22.
Ollie Horne is not Wee George's wee brother. A saffer...or kiwi...some kind of Outlander.
It's early in the season to have an injury crisis but if being without Turner, Scouse Jonny and Chuckles wasn't bad enough Groot looks like he'll be missing most of the season.

Another crisis....The Scout Hut is made of RAAC concrete and will be closed for the foreseeable.
I'm fairly certain Scottish Life won't have the spondulicks to demolish it and build something much more suited to our needs.
So, does this mean Glasgow could buy the stadium at a knockdown price OR will it hasten the move to another stadium?

Without getting too carried away I wonder if Healy is a signing that can turn Edinburgh's fortunes around. He looks a top class player who has fitted in comfortably at international level. He really should be regular starter for Edinburgh for the whole season which is what he needs after stop start runs of games for Munster.

It's long been said that Edinburgh needed a top class 10 and I reckon we've got him. It's great that he's SQ too.

It does also make Boffelli an expensive luxury we probably don't actually need anymore given how good a goal kicker Healy is and the fact that Kinghorn has reverted back to fullback.

Edinburgh have a long history of ruining talented 10s. It remains to be see if Healy can break the duck.

The Jersey Reds going bust has left Wynne, Bain, Nicol and Grahamslaw without clubs. Wynne might be a good buy low signing for Glasgow and Nicol could be a good signing for Edinburgh. Certainly need depth and both players have had plenty of gametime to develop the last 2-3 seasons.

I've heard a rumour that Leicester might be looking at bringing Grahamslaw back to WR. He got really good write ups with Jersey last season. Tigers need LH depth at the minute so it could make sense for both parties.

I also heard from a usually reliable fan that Sutherland had signed with Tigers though. So it might be utter guff.

Sutherland would be a good pick up for any team and the market being whst it is atm it would probably not cost them a fortune either.

Hazel Sapling wrote:Edinburgh have a long history of ruining talented 10s. It remains to be see if Healy can break the duck

I couldn't make the game but Matt Currie apparently looked like he could have something about him in the game against Connacht. Hopefully with Healy, Currie and Savala at least one of them comes good.

Currie has been considered a prospect for a while now, without ever really breaking through.

Toonie had him over training with the Scotland swuad in France recently, so he must see something in him.

He has had some injuries over past 2 seasons and he really needs to start getting some regular oro team game time this season if he is to push on.

Let's hope we see that from him.

I'm hopeful this is his year, he seems to have bulked up quite a bit so is hopefully better suited to pro rugby. Not saying he's going to come in and make the shirt his own or take the world by storm, but if he can play the odd game and provide cover during the 6n that would be a real boost.

Edinburgh pick up D'Arcy Rae until the end of the season. He was with Montpellier as a WC joker and joins immediately.

A solid TH prop with plenty of experience, he should do a decent job for them with Nelly and Sebastian still going to be away for a while.

EWT Spoons wrote:I'm hopeful this is his year, he seems to have bulked up quite a bit so is hopefully better suited to pro rugby.  Not saying he's going to come in and make the shirt his own or take the world by storm, but if he can play the odd game and provide cover during the 6n that would be a real boost.

Highlights here from the recent friendly. Edinburgh were comfortably ahead at halftime withbl their senior team out. They then got humped in the 2nd half with a bunch of kids.

Young 10 with a few nice touches here - he definitely looks an attacking 10

https://twitter.com/EdinburghRugby/status/1709226237896384856?t=LSL6qfI1D3pTMfCX262zlg&s=19

Well, here's the Glasgow team for the pre-season furore against Ulster.

1 Nathan McBeth
2 Angus Fraser
3 Lucio Sordoni
4 Max Williamson
5 Alex Samuel
6 Gregor Brown
7 Ally Miller
8 Henco Venter

9 Jamie Dobie (C)
10 Duncan Weir
11 Kyle Rowe
12 Tom Jordan
13 Duncan Munn
14 Sebastian Cancelliere
15 Josh McKay

Replacements

16 Gregor Hiddleston
17 Oli Kebble
18 Enrique Pieretto
19 Ruaraidh Hart
20 Thomas Gordon
21 Ben Afshar
22 Ross Thompson
23 Facundo Cordero
24 Corey Tait
25 Ben Salmon
26 Kerr Johnston
27 Ollie Horne

That starting Xv looks very good, possibly a bit inexperienced in the second row and at 13. The back row looks decent though.
And a back 3 of Seba-McKay-UglyMullett looks pretty pacey.
Afshar is getting a lot of attention and Ross Thompson is looking sharp.

However, the most positive thing about the match is that Ulster are playing at a GAA ground for the first time ever.

Glasgow bring back Big Greg Peterdon to Scotstoun on a short term contract covering JP du Preez, who has done his knee in prd season and looks like he will miss the whole campaign!

Big Greg is a good steady work horse, who knows the set up well and so should fit in without any problems, he could end up here for the whole season.

Russell and Redpath both in the matchday 23 vs Newcastle. I suspect both will be pretty keen to get stuck into the new Premiership season.

Bath have a solid team this season and I’ll be watching with interest to see how they go. My sister lives in stinchcombe so I might have to fly down sometime this season and watch a match at the Rec.

Finn Russell on the bench for Bath against Newcastle this weekend.

Redpath starting. Nice to get back to proper matches.

Yes, domestic rugby kicks off for us this weekend again.

Probably just as well to give us Scots some distraction from events in France!

Glasgow starting off with Leinster. Oh great!

BigGee wrote:Yes, domestic rugby kicks off for us this weekend again.

Probably just as well to give us Scots some distraction from events in France!

Glasgow starting off with Leinster. Oh great!

Edinburgh have the tougher start, by a mile

Will be interesting to see which Scotland players return. Some of the fringe players should be good to go after a week off. I suspect the core players will be given another week or two given how much has been invested in the last few months, and it's a long season.

Get Sebastian, Healy and Crosbie in the Edinburgh squad!

Glasgow had an open training day yesterday, over a 1000 fans turned up to watch which is a decent turn out.

In the socisl media pictures released, it was noticable that Darge, Steyn,, Jones, Vialanu and a few others were all there.

I thought they would all be given a few weeks off, but that does not seem to be the case.

It will be interesting to see what team we put out this sunday!

Rory Sutherland's deal is only for 1 year in France, so it could be that he is looking for a move back to Scotland at the end of it.

The situation with some of the other contracted LHs might be a little bit clearer then and there could be space and budget for him at that point.

Shows the realities of being a pro rugby player. He's spoken a lot about the upheaval for his family moving to Worcester then them going out of business. They moved back to Scotland's when he was in Northern Ireland.

Can't imagine living in eastern France will help that situation!

Some of our NSQ props will likely be out of contract by next year so hopefully he can set up his retirement back in Edinburgh. He's got several years left in him yet. At 31 he's only just becoming a proper grown up as a prop!

Happy that Sutherland got a year's contract. I assume he will evaluate whether he wants to stay after the year is up.

Of the NSQ props in Scotland:
- Luan de Bruin has underwhelmed so far and is in the final year of his deal. Considering he probably was not cheap, I suspect he will be gone
- Venter is also in the final year of his deal. He has played well, was not too expensive and is only 26. With 18 months left after his deal expires before he qualifies for Scotland (at age 28), he is likely to be kept.

- Pieretto did well in his first year but don't think he has settled under Franco. If he is in the final year, he likely will be gone
- Sordoni is in the final year of his deal and is a young prop (25). He seems to be liked

If Sutherland comes in, it will likely be Luan De Bruin's spot. In terms of SQ's, Glasgow have Dell and Edinburgh Hislop who might not get renewed but neither have the salary to be replaced by Sutherland.

He might be a better fit at Glasgow

I am not sure Dell has to much left in the tank and Keeble struggles to string more than a couple of games together without getting injured. We'll see how they go this season but both of them need to show up if they are going to hang around.

And as predicted by the founder, Healy, Sebastian, Crosbie and Skinner all included in Edinburgh training squad for this weekend.

The rrst of the internationals to be eased back in over the next few weeks

Edinburgh seem to have had a decent pre season, giving Bath a going over. They should be able to get a reasonable side out for their game against the Drags this saturday.

Which reminds me, I better get my Viaplay subscription sorted out!

Hazel Sapling wrote:Luan de Bruin has underwhelmed so far and is in the final year of his deal. Considering he probably was not cheap, I suspect he will be gone

This has surprised and disappointed me as Edinburgh are my second club team. When de Bruin was at Tigers he impressed on his weaker LH side. In brief opportunities on the TH he looked like a beast. It just hasn't quite happened at Edinburgh though. It's not like he's playing with weak props around him either. Schoe, Nel, Venter and de Bruin looks like a strong group on paper.

king_carlos wrote:

Hazel Sapling wrote:Luan de Bruin has underwhelmed so far and is in the final year of his deal. Considering he probably was not cheap, I suspect he will be gone

This has surprised and disappointed me as Edinburgh are my second club team. When de Bruin was at Tigers he impressed on his weaker LH side. In brief opportunities on the TH he looked like a beast. It just hasn't quite happened at Edinburgh though. It's not like he's playing with weak props around him either. Schoe, Nel, Venter and de Bruin looks like a strong group on paper.

He has been injured pretty much the whole time he has been there, so hard to know what he is really like.

He needs to show a bit of form this season or he will be off in the summer with a poorer reputation than he arrived with.

I have just reactivated my Viaplay subscription; MrsPip was very pleased. If I keep the ice pack on my upper lip for another 40 minutes I'm sure no-one will notice.
A home match against the Dubs thirds! Losing that ( which is very likely) would do no good to the squad's morale.

Rowe- McKay- Cancilliere should have destroyed Ulster last time out. Let's hope they click this week.

Jordan- Stafford need to be stepping up. Neither should be settling for squad player status, if not now when?

Ditto with Dobie and Thompson.

The starting pack v. Ulster looked handy, except for a lack of experience in the second row. Perhaps Bigmanjessie and the Sears Tower might address that.

Stopping Leinster having a 5 point lead after the opening weekend would be a good way to start the season.