The Rugby Thread

[Dinowolf]

Davies and Liam Williams, man. Just dross (on current form).

Crusaders have won 13 out of 13 in Super Rugby, they're going to batter us.

Crusaders had a bit of a shock, losing to a Lions side that is still giving everyone a game. Crusaders haven't failed to score a try since April 2015, and considered the '4th Test' by NZ pundits, so much better by the Lions now players are settling-in and getting used to each other.

No tries for the Lions but superb defence, something definitely to build on.

 

[Tredman]

Fantastic game between Argentina and England. England won with a brilliant last minute try from Danny Solomona.

 

[Nando]

Awesome game. Brilliant that it was on at prime time on terrestrial.

Solomona had a horror start, so fair play to turn that in at the end.

 

[Donegal Wolf]

Team for tuesday

Jared Payne; Jack Nowell, Jonathan Joseph, Robbie Henshaw, Tommy Seymour; Dan Biggar, Rhys Webb; Joe Marler, Rory Best, Kyle Sinckler; Courtney Lawes, Iain Henderson; James Haskell, Sam Waburton, CJ Stander.
Replacements: Ken Owens, Jack McGrath, Dan Cole, Alun Wyn Jones, Justin Tipuric, Greig Laidlaw, Owen Farrell, Elliot Daly.

With a big game against the Maoris on Saturday likely to be close to the test side, then the starting players here know that they are behind in the race for test places. Interesting with Warburton at the moment I would think he is behind Tiperic and O'Brien on form

 

[Jabbawolf]

Hogg out of the tour - hadn't really shown his quality so far, or cemented a test spot, but looked a sure starter when the squad was announced. 15 is up for grabs now. Watson is probably the closest to Hogg in style, but Gatland might see him as a bit less secure defensively than he wants for the opening Test.

 

[Nando]

6 is looking like a bit of an issue. I thought Stander would have been nailed on after the 6N, but he's been sluggish so far. We're not as blessed on the blindside as we are on the openside. POM and Moriarty are the natural 6's, but I envisage we'll move one of Tipuric or SOB across, or perhaps Itoje will step back to alleviate the conundrum at lock.

 

[Donegal Wolf]

Team for Saturday, probably looking at 12-13 of the starting test team in that side depending where Farrell comes in (unless they play really badly).

L Halfpenny (Wales); A Watson (England), J Davies (Wales), B Te'o (England), G North (Wales); J Sexton, C Murray (both Ireland); M Vunipola, J George (both England), T Furlong (Ireland), M Itoje, G Kruis (both England), P O'Mahony (capt, Ireland), S O'Brien (Ireland), T Faletau (Wales).

Replacements: K Owens (Wales), J McGrath (Ireland), K Sinckler (England), I Henderson (Ireland), S Warburton (Wales), G Laidlaw (Scotland), O Farrell, E Daly (both England).

 

[Tredman]

About as good a team as we can put out I think, though with the obvious swap of Farrell for Sexton. Good looking bench too.

 

[Dinowolf]

Farrell has suffered a grade one quadriceps strain in training and is not fit for Saturday, so replaced by Biggar on the bench.

 

[Dinowolf]

England team to play Argentina

15. Mike Brown; 14. Marland Yarde, 13. Henry Slade, 12. Piers Francis, 11. Jonny May; 10. George Ford, 09. Danny Care;
01. Ellis Genge, 02. Dylan Hartley, 03. Harry Williams, 04. Charlie Ewels, 05. Joe Launchbury, 06. Robshaw, 07. Underhill, 08. Nathan Hughes.

Replacements: Jack Singleton, Matt Mullan, Will Collier, Nick Isiekwe, Mark Wilson, Jack Maunder, Alex Lozowski, Denny Solomona

Piers Francis gets a start. Return for Robshaw and a first cap for Sam Underhill.

No place for Tom Curry.

 

[Tredman]

Another 4 Welsh players added to the lions squad [emoji848]

Grey, launchbury? No I fancy Cory Hill, said no one ever but Gatland.

Cheapening the lions shirt.

 

[jd1981]

Sounds like they'll be used only for the midweek teams, but looks like he's picking players because they don't have to travel as far. Looks like Finn Russell will be added after today to.

 

[Tredman]

It's the lions though, plus Grey is already there.

I get the odd geographical pick like Williams or Nicholls, but not this. This is just extremely poor, if the lions are not the best of the best what are they? The mid week team are there to slot in if one of the Saturday team is injured. None of these, bar Davies, should be anywherw close. It's utterly disgraceful.

 

[Tredman]

Moriaty out of the tour, apparently no replacement, but that's probably only because Gatland has already picked the entire welsh back row.

 

[jd1981]

It's a selection of convenience not quality if anyone is seriously suggesting the like of Launchbury and Hartley are 5th or 6th choice in there position then they are deluded.

 

[Tredman]

Why not pick more from Scotland then? Regardless of convenience the lions are special, we shouldn't have unworthy players.

 

[jd1981]

Agreed Ian Mcgeechan talking a lot of sense regards this situation, pretty much agrees with what we've been saying.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

If you'd asked me to parody what Gatland would pick, I couldn't have come up with that. Total spoofer these days.

Scotland have just beaten Australia in Sydney, almost as if they're a better team than Wales...

 

[Donegal Wolf]

Disgraceful decision, plenty of players better then 3 of them called up. its not as if Australia, Japan and Argentina are that far away, super 15 players travel every week from there to new Zealand to play.

 

[Jabbawolf]

Russell great today - he should be called up before Ford.