The Dew Drop Inn Virtual Rugby Pub

First topic message reminder :

Welcome to the virtual rugby pub - a place where you can come in for a sly beverage and discuss whatever's on your mind, or just eavesdrop on the regulars if you fancy a break from all the rugby chat.

The only rule in this pub is one of mutual respect for everyone in it, oh and no defacing the Tommy Bowe photo on the bar. That's a banning offence

So pull up a chair....what'll it be?

As, providing that it doesn't clash with Leinster you will have a guest for the Chiefs V Dragons game

Stag - some of the tries they scored during the 6N's period were brilliant as were many they scored against the Scarlets (which I hate to say!). They do however seem to kick too much though, just think what they could do if they kept the ball in hand more?

red_stag wrote:Rodders, why would we ignroe it. Yours is just as valid an opinion.

Because obviously my opinion was misinformed. I wasn't trying to stir up debate on who the top Welsh provinces are or wind anyone up. It was just a throw away comment based on my perception that in recent times the Ospreys and Blues have been the most high profile Welsh regions with the most resources.

The point I was trying to make was that from the outside Welsh rugby looks in a bit of a mess.

Rodders - Welsh rugby looks a bit of a mess on the inside too!

roddersm wrote:

red_stag wrote:Rodders, why would we ignroe it. Yours is just as valid an opinion.

Because obviously my opinion was misinformed. I wasn't trying to stir up debate on who the top Welsh provinces are or wind anyone up. It was just a throw away comment based on my perception that in recent times the Ospreys and Blues have been the most high profile Welsh regions with the most resources.

The point I was trying to make was that from the outside Welsh rugby looks in a bit of a mess.

I agree its in a mess and I wouldn't have said its a misinformed view. I can fully understand why you'd think that way.

rugbydreamer wrote:Rodders - Welsh rugby looks a bit of a mess on the inside too!

Ha ha great now we're back on topic!

Asbo, what I will say is that, as much as the Scarlets' intention to keep ball in hand is commendable, it doesn't always work for them. The Dragons have scored plenty of tries this season from Jason Tovey kicking through for Aled Brew to chase. That variety of attack might be what Notch is referring to.

hughie1986 wrote:As, providing that it doesn't clash with Leinster you will have a guest for the Chiefs V Dragons game

OK assuming that I wasn't totally wrong that Ospreys and Blues aren't in a great place right now and the Dragons and Scarlets are one the up, do people feel that these two side have enough quality to form the backbone of a successful National side?

Will the exodus of big names to France hurt Wales in the coming seasons? Will the pattern continue?

Have Wales reached their peak under the current coaching regime?

Stag I definitely think Ospreys are at times the best Welsh region with ball in hand, but the fact it seems to only happen for 10/20 minutes in a game counts against them

When they really get motoring, they are hard to stop. That big mobile pack of theirs drives forward, draws defenders in, commits men to the breakdown and they can be pretty clinical in finishing off their chances- if they played like that all the time it would be hard to envisage them being anywhere but the top Three. Unfortunately they don't, they often lack direction and intent. As someone said earlier... an enigma. I think they could easily finish sixth or seventh this year, or they could break into the Top Two.

My thing with the Scarlets... in the Magners last year, a lot of teams countered them effectively in defence, not many numbers in the breakdown and fanning out across the park That makes them look lateral and ineffective as they try and find a way through. Dragons tend to be more consistently effective.

For me, the single most important part of attack is drawing in defenders to create the space for your strike runners. That can be by punching the ball up the middle, or a rolling maul, or a dummy runner- or launching a move off your set piece. Sometimes it felt like the Scarlets didn't commit defences. In a loose, broken game they could be absolutely spectacular.

In fact, they seemed to vary between spectacular rugby and very poor, insipid lateral rugby. You always know they can hurt you though, as if someone like Jonathon Davies gets past the first tackler they can be lethal in finishing off the break but as team they seem to have a lot of untapped potential in terms of their attacking play. There are certainly games where I felt very frustrated watching them trying to attack.

Dragons are superb at counter-attacking, offloading the ball and their support play is second to none. For that reason I think they play the best attacking rugby of any Welsh side. And lucky is completely correct. Scarlets seem to know one way; Dragons with Tovey at the helm are a threat in a lot of different ways. His kicking in attack can be very dangerous.

AsLongAsBut100ofUs wrote:

hughie1986 wrote:As, providing that it doesn't clash with Leinster you will have a guest for the Chiefs V Dragons game

What we really want is for them to schedule Exeter vs N-G Dragons at Sandy Park for the Friday night and then Bath vs Leinster at the Rec for the Saturday afternoon of the same weekend 8)

Morning again all,

As, (subject to timing) put me down for that Exeter vs Scarlets game.


I've just agreed to play for FallingTP's cricket team next Sunday. 1st proper game in quite some time!

Notch wrote:Stag I definitely think Ospreys are at times the best Welsh region with ball in hand, but the fact it seems to only happen for 10/20 minutes in a game counts against them

When they really get motoring, they are hard to stop. That big mobile pack of theirs drives forward, draws defenders in, commits men to the breakdown and they can be pretty clinical in finishing off their chances- if they played like that all the time it would be hard to envisage them being anywhere but the top Three. Unfortunately they don't, they often lack direction and intent. As someone said earlier... an enigma. I think they could easily finish sixth or seventh this year, or they could break into the Top Two.

My thing with the Scarlets... in the Magners last year, a lot of teams countered them effectively in defence, not many numbers in the breakdown and fanning out across the park That makes them look lateral and ineffective as they try and find a way through. Dragons tend to be more consistently effective.

For me, the single most important part of attack is drawing in defenders to create the space for your strike runners. That can be by punching the ball up the middle, or a rolling maul, or a dummy runner- or launching a move off your set piece. Sometimes it felt like the Scarlets didn't commit defences. In a loose, broken game they could be absolutely spectacular.

In fact, they seemed to vary between spectacular rugby and very poor, insipid lateral rugby. You always know they can hurt you though, as if someone like Jonathon Davies gets past the first tackler they can be lethal in finishing off the break but as team they seem to have a lot of untapped potential in terms of their attacking play. There are certainly games where I felt very frustrated watching them trying to attack.

Dragons are superb at counter-attacking, offloading the ball and their support play is second to none. For that reason I think they play the best attacking rugby of any Welsh side. And lucky is completely correct. Scarlets seem to know one way; Dragons with Tovey at the helm are a threat in a lot of different ways. His kicking in attack can be very dangerous.

Notch, agreed, and if you look at who scores tries for the Scarlets, it tends to be their big strike runners - Davies, North, Lamont, Stoddard, Edwards. The Dragons seem quite reliant on Brew.

Kiwireddevil wrote:Morning again all,

As, (subject to timing) put me down for that Exeter vs Scarlets game.


I've just agreed to play for FallingTP's cricket team next Sunday. 1st proper game in quite some time!

Kiwi, do you mean the Dragons game in the Amlin or the Scarlets pre-season game? If the latter, I'll be in Turkey, but you are welcome to the house and my tickets. Good luck on the cricket - think I agreed last night to go practice with Gibbo's mate's cricket team here in de Dam on Tuesday evenings, but I can't be too sure!!!

Are you a bowler or a batsman, Kiwi?

Yeah a lot of their play centres around getting the ball to Brew out on the wing. Kicking through for him to chase, he gets his hands on the ball a lot. Not a problem; if he stays fit that is

As, I didn't realise there was a pre-season game (oops), was thinking the Amlin.

Lucky, I used to be a pretty handy leg spinner (1st XI at school, trialled for Central Districts Under17) before I messed up my bowling action to deal with back problems and became rubbish. I played a few years of club cricket in Christchurch as a middle-order batsman.

I'm really pretty annoyed; I wanted to get some stats on last year's competition- try scorers, total try count, average tries per game etc. but the old Magners League site is gone and the new 'RaboDirect PRO12' site is nothing but a husk right now;

http://www.rabodirectpro12.com/

They should get their finger out, eh?

roddersm wrote:OK assuming that I wasn't totally wrong that Ospreys and Blues aren't in a great place right now and the Dragons and Scarlets are one the up, do people feel that these two side have enough quality to form the backbone of a successful National side?

Will the exodus of big names to France hurt Wales in the coming seasons? Will the pattern continue?

Have Wales reached their peak under the current coaching regime?

Good questions there, Rodders. On the first, it remains to be seen how a Welsh team / squad comprising more Scarlets and Dragons players would fare; whether Gatland would be willing to ditch old favourites to make room for them is a major question, as is whether he's likely to get the best out of them when his favoured gameplan won't necessarily play to those players' strengths.

On your second question, I see no problem with Welsh players playing in France, as long as the experience improves them and their places at the regions are taken by young welsh players and not NWQ players.

Question three: our peak under the current coaching regime was three seasons ago.

Notch wrote:I'm really pretty annoyed; I wanted to get some stats on last year's competition- try scorers, total try count, average tries per game etc. but the old Magners League site is gone and the new 'RaboDirect PRO12' site is nothing but a husk right now;

http://www.rabodirectpro12.com/

They should get their finger out, eh?

Try this: Statbunker

We sometimes play good rugby red. Its just in fits and starts. Blistering passing and line breaks in a flash then ponderous and predictable the next. Biggar kicks far to much ball away and the forwards sometimes are clueless at the breakdown. Watching the O's kick their way into the play offs against Aironi and seeing the Scarlets playing fantasy stuff v Blues made me almost feel sorry for them! Still, like i mentioned earlier, with changes to the team next season maybe the O's can create more consistency.

Exeter v Dragons on the Friday.
Bath v Leinster on the Saturday.

That would be savage!

Left arm or right, Kiwi? I used to be a half-decent left-arm medium pace bowler. My philosophy was to bowl wicket to wicket - if they missed, I hit

Right arm Lucky. I was a chubby blonde leggie before some Aussie bloke made it fashionable ...

(Note, he took to "sexting" all on his own ...)

AsLongAsBut100ofUs wrote:

AsLongAsBut100ofUs wrote:

hughie1986 wrote:As, providing that it doesitn't clash with Leinster you will have a guest for the Chiefs V Dragons game

What we really want is for them to schedule Exeter vs N-G Dragons at Sandy Park for the Friday night and then Bath vs Leinster at the Rec for the Saturday afternoon of the same weekend 8)

That's exactly what I was thinking, that would be a superb weekend

Mickado wrote:Exeter v Dragons on the Friday.
Bath v Leinster on the Saturday.

That would be savage!

Mick have you given thought to what games you want to go to next season?

mickyt wrote:

Mickado wrote:Exeter v Dragons on the Friday.
Bath v Leinster on the Saturday.

That would be savage!

Mick have you given thought to what games you want to go to next season?

It all depends on the timing Mick.

Would love to get to Bath and Montpellier, but if either of them is round 3 or 4 (in December) I might not make them. Hope we get Glasgow in the back to back. If I can only do one it has to be Bath, which ideally would be in round 1.

The bloody fixtures won’t be announced for ages though…

I've just been asked if I can send a parcel to a customer on next day delivery...
They're in Australia.

I'm not sure whether to or

Is it too early in the day for a brandy?

Notch wrote:
Dragons are superb at counter-attacking, offloading the ball and their support play is second to none. For that reason I think they play the best attacking rugby of any Welsh side. And lucky is completely correct. Scarlets seem to know one way; Dragons with Tovey at the helm are a threat in a lot of different ways. His kicking in attack can be very dangerous.

That could exactly be applied to the Scarlets, our offloading game is brilliant at times and I feel that we are one of the best counter attacking sides around.

Also I think maybe you should watch the Scarlets play again. We've scored a fair few tries by cross field kicks ourselves for North and Lamont to gather on the wings this season.

For Tovey at the Dragons, we have Priestland at the Scarlets. We also have the extra option of Jones at the helm, which I think gives us a huge variety in attack, even if we don't always use it to our best advantage.
You raise very good points about the Scarlets often looking clueless in attack, and we don't use the likes of Lamont, Stodd, Morgan enough to punch holes up through the middle but we certainly started to do this a lot more by the end of the season.

The Scarlets also do sometimes get blown away by oposition, but this season this only happened on 3 occasions. Away against the O's, Leicester and Perpignan. Against everyone else we were very, very competitive. So whilst I see your points about the Dragons, and agree with a lot of them, I just don't think they are better at attacking play than the Scarlets. But then, I wouldn't, would I?

I'm sorry dreamer... maybe I'm coloured by the fact Scarlets performed quite poorly against us. Whenever we kicked loosely or let Scarlet have the ball I never felt at all worried. We were always comfortable. When Dragons got the ball against us I was terrified.

The stats show there isn't much between the teams in terms of try scoring, except that Scarlets scored a lot of their tries away and Dragons were much more prolific at home. Only a few tries between them overall which is hard to make a case either way.

Just seems to me like the Dragons had more variety in their game and often more direction. Scarlets have the potential to be better in attack but... not quite there yet. Sorry.

The good news, for you, is I think you have scope for improvement

Notch - ah you know I don't know whether to laugh or cry at what you just said. Just...

Notch, if you're referring to the Ulster - Scarlets match at Ravenhill, it helped that the referee allowed your forwards to come in from the side and have hands in the ruck but penalised the Scarlets for the same offences...

littleswannygirl wrote:I've just been asked if I can send a parcel to a customer on next day delivery...
They're in Australia.

Lucky you little !

Notch wrote:I'm sorry dreamer... maybe I'm coloured by the fact Scarlets performed quite poorly against us. Whenever we kicked loosely or let Scarlet have the ball I never felt at all worried. We were always comfortable. When Dragons got the ball against us I was terrified.

The stats show there isn't much between the teams in terms of try scoring, except that Scarlets scored a lot of their tries away and Dragons were much more prolific at home. Only a few tries between them overall which is hard to make a case either way.

Just seems to me like the Dragons had more variety in their game and often more direction. Scarlets have the potential to be better in attack but... not quite there yet. Sorry.

The good news, for you, is I think you have scope for improvement

True of the ML to some extent, Notch, altho the Scarlets marginally have the upper hand for most attacking stats - however, absolutely not true of the Heino - Dragons scored 5 tries in total (3 at home, 2 away), whereas the Scarlets racked up 12 (10 & 2)

As - the Scarlets scored more away tries then that in the Heineken, didn't we? I'm sure we did, will go look now...

luckless_pedestrian wrote:Notch, if you're referring to the Ulster - Scarlets match at Ravenhill, it helped that the referee allowed your forwards to come in from the side and have hands in the ruck but penalised the Scarlets for the same offences...

I'm talking about both games. Our defence had figured them out and they were relatively ineffective. The Dragons on the other hand... they are a serious handful! And caused us all sorts of problems, as they always do.

AsLongAsBut100ofUs wrote:

Notch wrote:I'm sorry dreamer... maybe I'm coloured by the fact Scarlets performed quite poorly against us. Whenever we kicked loosely or let Scarlet have the ball I never felt at all worried. We were always comfortable. When Dragons got the ball against us I was terrified.

The stats show there isn't much between the teams in terms of try scoring, except that Scarlets scored a lot of their tries away and Dragons were much more prolific at home. Only a few tries between them overall which is hard to make a case either way.

Just seems to me like the Dragons had more variety in their game and often more direction. Scarlets have the potential to be better in attack but... not quite there yet. Sorry.

The good news, for you, is I think you have scope for improvement

True of the ML to some extent, Notch, altho the Scarlets marginally have the upper hand for most attacking stats - however, absolutely not true of the Heino - Dragons scored 5 tries in total (3 at home, 2 away), whereas the Scarlets racked up 12 (10 & 2)

Dragons were just dominated in the Heino this year- I wasn't even really thinking about that competition at any point to be honest.

red_stag wrote:Breadvan, lead and we will follow. You've got to get in early with a discussion. Maybe about English rugby. Bath are a team who will make Premiership playoffs and Heineken Cup quarter finals. Gloucester will have a poor Premiership. Discuss

How dare you stag

Prop - convince me

Lack of established test players especially in key positions. I think London Irish, Northampton and Bath have all improved and will have over taken Glaws. Possibly Harlequins too.

Mickado wrote:Exeter v Dragons on the Friday.
Bath v Leinster on the Saturday.

That would be savage!

And Glos vs Connacht on the Thurs or Sun??

Stag I will do when I finally have time on my hands to write an article!! Maybe Saturday morning?!

Yeh true Mick.

Bath is the one I want to make as well.

hopefully it falls good for us.

I miss Rugb.

was wathing a bit of the Nations Cup last night.

what way does the format work? the Southern Kings where playing Romania. (Clint Newland plays for the Southern Kings)

Also the Argie Jaguars where playing in it as well. do they not usually play the churchhill?

aha yes we did, Scarlets scored 6 away tries in this years Heineken! 1 against Leicester, 4 against Treviso and 1 against Perpignan.

Our home tries: 4 against Perpignan, 4 against Treviso, 2 against Leicester.

I saw that Romania V Kings game. Fairly enjoyable match, and a heartbreaker of a finish.

Got to be said, the Scarlets performance against Perpignan was perhaps the best attacking display of the season in Europe.

I missed the end Grey, what way did it finish? It looked like the Kings where going to see the game out.

rugbydreamer wrote:aha yes we did, Scarlets scored 6 away tries in this years Heineken! 1 against Leicester, 4 against Treviso and 1 against Perpignan.

Our home tries: 4 against Perpignan, 4 against Treviso, 2 against Leicester.

Even better, dreamer, further proof!!

I hate not having the summer tests this year, is normally be all geared up to loose against the allblacks again by now

Mick, the Churchill cup is an invitational comp. Only England, USA and Canada play every year.

Aren’t the Southern Kings a Saffer team? wonder why Newland is playing for them… he’s muck anyway.

Aye Notch, it was also probably a shocker of a defensive display too, seeing as they outscored us 5 tries to 4 I don't care though, it's the sort of rugby I like and the rugby that gets applauded in the S15 all the time.

One of the best matches I've ever seen live, so glad I got to be there for it