Premiership Rugby Round 16 in the Land of Hope and Glory

Here we go:
  

Match	EDT		BST	Where
Bath Rugby v Saracens	2:45 PM		7:45pm	Recreation Ground, Bath
Leicester Tigers v Bristol	10:00 AM		3:00pm	Mattioli Woods Welford Road Stadium, Leicester
Harlequins v Saints	10:05 AM		3:05pm	Twickenham HQ, London
Gloucester v Exeter Chiefs	10:00 AM		3:00pm	Kingsholm, Gloucester
Newcastle Falcons v Sale Sharks	10:00AM		3:00pm	Kingston Park, Newcastle

Playoff and/or Europe implications in every match.  The way it is supposed to be.

STARTING XV

15 Freddie Steward [85]
14 Mike Brown [25]
13 Matt Scott [77]
12 Dan Kelly [78]
11 Ollie Hassell-Collins [19]
10 Handré Pollard [30]
9 Jack van Poortvliet [70]
1 James Cronin [32]
2 Julián Montoya [57]
3 Dan Cole [320]
4 George Martin [63]
5 Ollie Chessum [55]
6 Hanro Liebenberg [104]
7 Tommy Reffell [111]
8 Jasper Wiese [76]

REPLACEMENTS

16 Charlie Clare [92]
17 Francois van Wyk [51]
18 Will Hurd [40]
19 Harry Wells [196]
20 Olly Cracknell [40]
21 Tom Whiteley [27]
22 Jamie Shillcock [25]
23 Phil Cokanasiga [17]

Bar Brown on the wing the starting side looks good. The bench looks mightily weak though. Still quite a few players out though having Martin and Liebenburg back is a big help.

Bristol Bears team to face Leicester Tigers at Mattioli Woods Welford Road on Saturday (3pm KO):

15. Max Malins (31 apps), 14. Siva Naulago (32 apps), 13. Benhard Janse van Rensburg (22 apps), 12. James Williams (39 apps), 11. Gabriel Ibitoye (38 apps), 10. AJ MacGinty (35 apps), 9. Harry Randall (123 apps); 1. Ellis Genge (41 apps), 2. Gabriel Oghre (14 apps), 3. Kyle Sinckler (58 apps), 4. James Dun (31 apps), 5. Joe Batley (60 apps), 6. Steven Luatua (127 apps), 7. Fitz Harding (c) (69 apps), 8. Magnus Bradbury (42 apps).

System players: 16. Harry Thacker (112 apps), 17. Jake Woolmore (147 apps), 18. Max Lahiff (84 apps), 19. Josh Caulfield (21 apps), 20. Jake Heenan (108 apps), 21. Kieran Marmion (21 apps), 22. Virimi Vakatawa (16 apps), 23. Rich Lane (33 apps).

Bristol look pretty loaded for this one.

That is a Saints backline I have not seen before, some interesting match ups. Tom Litchfield vs Andre Esterhuizen could be a make or break contest, I wonder if Esterhuizen remembers Furbank flattening him a couple of times in the reverse fixture. Litchfield is a lot bigger than Furbank (about 2.5 stone) but also a lot less experienced, especially at 12. Powerful combo though with Freeman outside of him and very pacy for big centres.

CCS vs Lawes will be interesting, Lawes having just been inducted to the RPA Hall of Fame is still good enough to teach the young whippersnapper a lesson or two.

Really looking forward to the game.

WELL-PAST-IT wrote:That is a Saints backline I have not seen before, some interesting match ups. Tom Litchfield vs Andre Esterhuizen could be a make or break contest, I wonder if Esterhuizen remembers Furbank flattening him a couple of times in the reverse fixture. Litchfield is a lot bigger than Furbank (about 2.5 stone) but also a lot less experienced, especially at 12. Powerful combo though with Freeman outside of him and very pacy for big centres.

CCS vs Lawes will be interesting, Lawes having just been inducted to the RPA Hall of Fame is still good enough to teach the young whippersnapper a lesson or two.

Really looking forward to the game.

I think Saints probably have the edge in the back row, especially with subs, but Quins will probably have an advantage in the scrums. The weather forecast is for intermittent showers, so if the ball is slippery Quins may benefit.

Two exceptional backlines and I think it will come down to which clicks better on the day, and whether Quins can tighten up their defence enough to contain Saints.

Poorfour wrote:

WELL-PAST-IT wrote:That is a Saints backline I have not seen before, some interesting match ups. Tom Litchfield vs Andre Esterhuizen could be a make or break contest, I wonder if Esterhuizen remembers Furbank flattening him a couple of times in the reverse fixture. Litchfield is a lot bigger than Furbank (about 2.5 stone) but also a lot less experienced, especially at 12. Powerful combo though with Freeman outside of him and very pacy for big centres.

CCS vs Lawes will be interesting, Lawes having just been inducted to the RPA Hall of Fame is still good enough to teach the young whippersnapper a lesson or two.

Really looking forward to the game.

I think Saints probably have the edge in the back row, especially with subs, but Quins will probably have an advantage in the scrums. The weather forecast is for intermittent showers, so if the ball is slippery Quins may benefit.

Two exceptional backlines and I think it will come down to which clicks better on the day, and whether Quins can tighten up their defence enough to contain Saints.

Final score will be 50-49.

doctor_grey wrote:
Final score will be 50-49.

Ah, but to whom? That's the real question!

Poorfour wrote:

doctor_grey wrote:
Final score will be 50-49.

Ah, but to whom? That's the real question!

Exactly

I know you get 'one for the purists', but that was a dire half. I quite often dislike watching Saracens play because they drag it down to a street fight and it just isn't good viewing as a neutral. Here's to a better second half...

So far...Nope!

In my clinical opinion, this game is vomitus. You know the game is not exactly hitting on all cylinders when the commentators are doing everything short of boring. Counting the number of kicks must have required a Cray Super Computer (51 reported in the first half).

Second half was a bit better, but what was Redpath thinking when he carried that ball over? Could be a really crucial moment in Bath's season...

Cumbrian wrote:Second half was a bit better, but what was Redpath thinking when he carried that ball over? Could be a really crucial moment in Bath's season...

I don't think he knew how far away the defender was.  That said, it looked to me like he could have run the ball a few yards out of the in-goal but panicked instead.  

I agree this could be a real significant moment for Bath.

doctor_grey wrote:

Cumbrian wrote:Second half was a bit better, but what was Redpath thinking when he carried that ball over? Could be a really crucial moment in Bath's season...

I don't think he knew how far away the defender was.  That said, it looked to me like he could have run the ball a few yards out of the in-goal but panicked instead.  

I agree this could be a real significant moment for Bath.

It looked like it was dying on Redpath on the replay. I think we was concerned about how quickly it would go over the line. He needed to pick and kick a lot quicker but maybe didn't get the call from his teammates. Poor really as picking and turning to his right made kicking off his preferred foot harder, if he's turned to the left the kick comes far more naturally.

hmmm - Saints maybe a bit lucky with that last pass

For England would it be a case of Sleightholme or Murley as they're similar or would you have them both in the squad if they're at top form?

Rubbish decision there...nothing wrong with that try....

Makes up for the forward pass maybe?

Ah another rubbish decision...Dicksons awful....

Deserved try for Saints...but quins should be down to 14

Yep - and also missed Saints pulling back Lynagh at the other end before that when he was going for the loose ball .... Typical Dickson shambles all round

So I guess really Quins should have had a pen in front of the posts at that point so what followed wouldn't have happened ...

Dickson is the worst ref in the league by a mile..awful awful referee...

Absolutely ...

Good little player rhat Porter mind.

Uphill for Saints now ...

Dombrandt MOTM

Crazy match ... still can't understand how Dickson keeps getting gigs.

Oh dear Tigers..19-0 up abd lose .

Heaf wrote:Crazy match ... still can't understand how Dickson keeps getting gigs.

Nah I can't...he's just awful for both teams whenever he's there. We hate him up here in Newcastle ..

Geordie wrote:Oh dear Tigers..19-0 up abd lose   .

I had Bears by 4 on Superbru so I'm happy

Heaf wrote:Crazy match ... still can't understand how Dickson keeps getting gigs.

I have been a supporter of his but he had a bad game today. Missed some stuff he shouldn't have , Saints got two tries and a yellow card out of him missing blatant interference on a player chasing his own kick.

Heaf wrote:

Geordie wrote:Oh dear Tigers..19-0 up abd lose   .

I had Bears by 4 on Superbru so I'm happy

Glad you are, I was at the game and the final try was a gut punch. Bristol barely threw a proverbial punch for the first hour and were rather lucky Carley was in a lenient mood. Mike Brown got two unnecessary yellows for him play and with less than 2 mins on the clock Whiteley decides to box kick in Bristol's half and spoons it. From the inevitable carnage Bristol break and ultimately score.

Yep sorry about that. One of the silver linings with LI going bust is I don't have the stress of watching them - small compensation though ...

i think my views on Dickson's abilities have been made very clear, just above schoolboys U13s level.

But how can a ref be assigned a game of such importance when one of the sides is his old club and and a number of his old mates are playing or on the management team. Assigning him to this game is like assigning him to ref England Vs France at Twickenham in a 6N decider.

I have not seen the game but I have seen some of the controversial footage, I cannot see any mitigation for the hit on Lawes, Care did not bend down at all, I can understand that he thought his lack of height would make him okay, but it didn't and it was a clear h2h, without a mitigating factor. Straight red for me. Then, there is a promising attacking position for Saints, he dives over the ruck to take the ball out of Mitchell's hands, a straight and obvious yellow. But, thinks Dickhe*d wait hasn't he been carded before, he is my old mate, if I card him again it's red! What do I do, I'll pretend that I forgot my law book and just give a penalty.

He is appalling as a ref and worse, he is starting to officiate in lower level international matches. Who has he get incriminating evidence on?

You might want to read the head contact protocol again WPI. There was head contact, and it was foul play (because Care was too upright) but it was a medium degree of danger - it wasn’t an aggressive tackle at all.

There was also clear mitigation in that Lawes received the ball late and dipped into the tackle, so that Care had a sudden change in the picture (I don’t actually think he was expecting to tackle at all). That would have reduced it from a YC to a penalty, if applied.

However, refs have been instructed not to apply mitigation if the tackler was always too high, so no mitigation was applied.

I think that makes the framework overly harsh in situations where a player has to react to sudden unexpected contact, and in practice we’ve seen evidence that mitigation sometimes is applied (as with the example of Etzebeth’s YC in the RWC QF, which would have been red if the same standard had been applied as was applied to Farrell’s almost identical tackle). The directive not to apply mitigation makes a bit of a nonsense of the framework, which explicitly asks about mitigation after it has asked about foul play.

But it is what it is, and yellow was probably strictly the right call.

Feyi Waboso is some player...glad England got him and not Wales...

Geordie wrote:Feyi Waboso is some player...glad England got him and not Wales...

Sam Warburton made the point in a RugbyPass interview recently that Waboso is only at Exeter because Cardiff rejected him for medicine… and he chose England because he wanted to complete his studies rather than move back to Wales to be eligible. While I’m not a fan of the old (and happily largely defunct) “go to Cambridge on a Land Economy ticket to play rugby”, I can see his point that the WRU may need to liaise with its academic institutions and have some flex on grades if they want to keep their players.

Feyi-Wasobo is an amazing athlete. So powerful in carry and breaks so many tackles. Unlucky not to score there, it was worthy of try.

I think Tom Cairns is looking a prospect at 9 aswell

Poorfour wrote:

Geordie wrote:Feyi Waboso is some player...glad England got him and not Wales...

Sam Warburton made the point in a RugbyPass interview recently that Waboso is only at Exeter because Cardiff rejected him for medicine… and he chose England because he wanted to complete his studies rather than move back to Wales to be eligible. While I’m not a fan of the old (and happily largely defunct) “go to Cambridge on a Land Economy ticket to play rugby”, I can see his point that the WRU may need to liaise with its academic institutions and have some flex on grades if they want to keep their players.

Yes it was mich publicised PF ....the Welsh set up totally f'ed up...and lost huge talent. Its clear how I feel about eligibility etc...but meh I'll have this one...he's some player....

It's a good week for Premiership first-hand accounts on podcasts.

On his show, Max Lahiff talks about his brace of tries in Bristol's comeback. Meanwhile, on the BBC, Danny Care gives his view of the non-yellow card incident. Both are worth a listen.

Itoje escaped a ban, and is clear to play.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union/2024/05/01/maro-itoje-saracens-not-banned-dangerous-tackle-bath/