Random Stuff!!

[Jerry]

Don't look beyond New Zealand?

New Zealand will be favourites by far, but Ireland have to be contenders now as they seem to be building nicely and no one can ever right off Australia and no doubt England will be contenders but i do wonder if with them they peaked under Eddie Jones to soon and if the Aviva Premiership will take it's toll as the players won't be managed as well as the New Zealand team or the Irish or even the Welsh team. One good thing for European rugby is that Spain qualified for the Rugby World Cup today as well, so it'll be good to see a different team in the tournament especially as the Champions Cup final is in Bilbao this year.

 

[superking]

The England round up of the game was England players looked tired. The round up team all blamed it on the recent lions tour as they said they don't play as well as they can in games afterwards.
Is it not the same for other country players or have I missed some thing here.

 

[Jerry]

Many of the English players went on the Lions tour but didn't get the break when they got back that the Welsh based and Irish players did as most of them didn't start back to October whereas the English based players went straight back on the pitch. The irony of that is the English clubs refused to let the Lions tour be extended for a week on player safety grounds yet chucked their players straight back into league matches. There was a stat at the beginning of the Six Nations that Owen Farrell had already played 800 minutes of rugby for Saracens while Johnny Sexton had played 450 minutes of rugby for Leinster. The Irish players and Welsh based players are much better managed.
There may also be the Eddie Jones factor to take into account. He has a reputation of doing well for the first 2 or 3 seasons and then it's downhill from there. England have a gruelling 3 test tour of South Africa in the summer so there will be a lot of pressure on them.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

I wonder if England will take a shadow squad to South Africa. Where are Wales playing this summer?

 

[aviatorconcorde]

I wonder if England will take a shadow squad to South Africa. Where are Wales playing this summer?

In possibly one of the most bizzare places. They are playing South Africa in Washington DC. I think they're playing Argentina too.

 

[Jerry]

I wonder if England will take a shadow squad to South Africa. Where are Wales playing this summer?

If they were going to they can't now Eddie Jones will need to win the tour for the sake of his job I'd say.
Wales have South Africa in Washington DC which I'm starting to have doubts about whether they've made a wise move with that and then 2 tests against Argentina in San Juan and Sante Fe.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Do you think England would ditch him just over a year before the World Cup in Japan?

In what way are the Welsh and Irish players better managed at club level? I always think the English Premiership is strange because the clubs play through the Six Nations when many clubs are going to be noticeably under strength. I suppose that's one reason why they have the play-offs to decide the champions even though one club tops the league after a gruelling league season.

I note that there are 14 teams in the Pro14 as opposed to 12 in the English Premiership. The latter play each other home and away (22 matches each) in the regular league season. Does that happen in the Pro14? If so they will be playing 26 matches each per season plus longer distances to away games. If that is the case then managing top players game time must be even harder than for Premiership players but apparently the latter aren't managed as successfully.

 

[Jerry]

Do you think England would ditch him just over a year before the World Cup in Japan?

If he keeps losing games then yes it's possible. In a way he might have a little bit of luck in that South Africa aren't the force they used to be so i think England have a strong chance of winning the series in South Africa. If they don't especially if it's a whitewash then there is the possibility as for England to lose 3 games in a row but 6 is unthinkable .

In what way are the Welsh and Irish players better managed at club level?

The Irish players are all central contracted to the IRFU so they decide if a player is to play or be rested.
With Wales it's slightly more complicated but there is an agreement that the Dual contract players only play 16 regular season games a season and it's calculated in playing minutes rather than actual games i believe and the Welsh squad members are managed the same as well. Whereas the English clubs don't have that sort of agreement with the RFU. The Aviva premiership and Top14 are considered more grueling leagues for players.

I note that there are 14 teams in the Pro14 as opposed to 12 in the English Premiership. The latter play each other home and away (22 matches each) in the regular league season. Does that happen in the Pro14?

The Pro 14 is split into two conferences each with 2 Welsh 2 Irish and then 1 each of Scottish Italian and South African teams. They'll play 19 regular season games and then 2 play-off rounds and the final which is in Dublin again!

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Thank you for all that, Jerry.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

One good thing for European rugby is that Spain qualified for the Rugby World Cup today as well, so it'll be good to see a different team in the tournament especially as the Champions Cup final is in Bilbao this year.

I read this morning that Spain lost to Belgium in a qualifying match and there were disorderly scenes at the end of the game because of the performance of the Romanian referee. According to that report Spain's defeat let in Romania to the Finals. If true how on earth could the authorities have appointed a referee from a country with a clear interest in the result?

 

[Jerry]

I read this morning that Spain lost to Belgium in a qualifying match and there were disorderly scenes at the end of the game because of the performance of the Romanian referee. According to that report Spain's defeat let in Romania to the Finals. If true how on earth could the authorities have appointed a referee from a country with a clear interest in the result?

Yeah i thought they had already qualified!
From what I've read online Rugby Europe who run that competition said the referees were appointed pre tournament by an independent panel. Problem for them is that their CEO is Romanian so he'll now be accused of being biased and the penalty count against Spain is proportionally high i think in penalties it was 25 penalties against Spain and 9 against Belgium. Spain are not happy and the Spanish coach has accused the ref of deliberately slowing the game down. It's not exactly what World rugby will want in the build up to the World cup! Spain can still qualify but they have to beat Portugal and then Samoa through playoffs.
Definitely something to keep an eye on!

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Yeah i thought they had already qualified!
From what I've read online Rugby Europe who run that competition said the referees were appointed pre tournament by an independent panel. Problem for them is that their CEO is Romanian so he'll now be accused of being biased and the penalty count against Spain is proportionally high i think in penalties it was 25 penalties against Spain and 9 against Belgium. Spain are not happy and the Spanish coach has accused the ref of deliberately slowing the game down. It's not exactly what World rugby will want in the build up to the World cup! Spain can still qualify but they have to beat Portugal and then Samoa through playoffs.
Definitely something to keep an eye on!

Natural justice should have dictated that the ref be changed when the significance of the match became obvious. It's not a case of thinking a referee might be biased but one of ensuring that there can be no suggestion of that being the case, which by the look of things is now being suggested.

Changing the ref would be a simple process. Why are so many sports ruled by 'old farts' as Will Carling once said of the RFU?

 

[Jerry]

Changing the ref would be a simple process. Why are so many sports rules by 'old farts' as Will Carling once said of the RFU?

From what I've read Spain did object about the Romanian referees before the match why Rugby Europe didn't change the refs i don't know as they would've saved themselves a lot of hassle!

 

[TheLocalYokel]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-43520301?ns_mchannel=social&ns_campaign=bbc_wales_news&ns_source=Social Media&ns_linkname=wales

Jerry posted this link in the CWL General thread as Plaid Cymru say they would set up a national carrier for Wales if they were in government. They also say they would hold an Independence referendum for Wales.

We know that when a political party is never likely to have to make good on his promises it can say it would do almost anything if it gained power. However, I wondered if there is any real appetite in Wales for Independence.

In 1997 Welsh voters only voted for an Assembly (as it was then) by the tiniest of margins - 6,721 votes (0.6%) - which was a big turnaround on the previous vote in 1979 when devolution was rejected by 4 to 1.

Perhaps the vote would be more clearcut in favour of devolution if it was held today, but even so would that extend to an enthusiastic call for Independence amongst a significant proportion of the population if not an overall majority?

Britain once had the largest empire the world has ever seen. Gradually over the last 100 years the empire has gone, we are now retrenching from Europe, there are continuing calls from many in Scotland for independence and the UK currently has a crazy, quaisi-federal system of government where three of the four constituent countries have their own government but the fourth, and by far the largest, hasn't.

A natural progression would be for the UK to diminish even further with the four home countries all going their own way. I wonder if that will happen and if so at what point in the future.

 

[Jerry]

At the moment I don't think there is much appetite for independence except in certain parts of the country but i don't think people would want to see the assembly be abolished either and would probably want it to gain more power's in the future.
With Plaid i think they are hoping that they can get into government and do the same as the SNP but Wales is vastly different to Scotland and i wonder sometimes if Plaid Cymru fail to realise that.

I suppose time will tell if the UK stays together in its current form, becomes a federal country or splits up altogether.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Rugby

hhttps://www.bristolpost.co.uk/sport/rugby/rugby-news/plans-ring-fenced-premiership-puts-1389052

I note the English Premiership is talking about ring-fencing again with nor promotion into or relegation out of the Premiership for five years. Is there any relegation/promotion out of and into the Pro14? Given that two South African sides have recently joined I suspect not.

 

[Jerry]

Is there any relegation/promotion out of and into the Pro14?

No relegation or promotion. It's a locked in league. The Pro 14 teams are more like Super rugby or NFL franchises than they are the English clubs. Most were created specifically for the competition or it's predecessor. There wouldn't be anywhere to relegate them to or promote them from.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Thanks for that, Jerry. I'm not keen on the principle of no relegation/promotion in the English Premiership. With football, a lot of the interest in the league season is in promotion and relegation.

I do recognise though that apart from the 12 clubs currently in the English Premiership there are realistically probably two other clubs outside (ie in the Championship) with the potential to make a go of competing in the top league - Bristol and Yorkshire Carnegie, and possibly Nottingham if they could get their act together. It's a great pity that Cornish Pirates aren't in a position to put themselves in contention with Cornwall such a hotbed of rugby but a suitable ground is likely to prove an obstacle. The only one would be Home Park the ground of Plymouth Argyle but (a) it's not in Cornwall and (b) there is Plymouth Albion to consider, albeit they are currently in the third tier of English rugby.

It's actually quite monotonous with the relegated Premiership club returning from the Championship after one season with the previous season's Championship promoted club swapping places. I think the argument for ring-fencing the Premiership is to improve the financial stability of clubs in it who will be guaranteed five years at the top level.

 

[Jerry]

I do recognise though that apart from the 12 clubs currently in the English Premiership there are realistically probably two other clubs outside (ie in the Championship) with the potential to make a go of competing in the top league - Bristol and Yorkshire Carnegie,

I've always wondered why they just don't have a 14 team league locked in and maybe be open to expansion along the way. The league could be split up into conferences like thr Pro14.

It's a great pity that Cornish Pirates aren't in a position to put themselves in contention with Cornwall such a hotbed of rugby but a suitable ground is likely to prove an obstacle.

If i rember correctly there was a plan to build a 10,000 seater staduim in Truro i think a while back but as the owner of the Bedford Blues said before any owner could put in a lot of money and then have to rely on the lottery of the play off and if you did get promoted you'd get a fraction of the money the other teams did. I think London Welsh management described it as having 1 hand tied behind your back and look what happened to them.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

I've always wondered why they just don't have a 14 team league locked in and maybe be open to expansion along the way. The league could be split up into conferences like thr Pro14.

The newspaper article that I linked earlier reckons there are currently 13 clubs who could be classed as Premiership clubs - the 12 current ones plus Bristol. The simple solution would be to increase it to 13 and then ring-fence it. However, the linked report says the extra two weeks to the season that would entail was not agreeable to the clubs. So it looks as though that at the end of season 18-19 the bottom club in the Prem will play off against the top club in the Championship to decide which one is the unlucky number 13 and out in the cold for the next five years.

About ten years ago I read Martin Johnson's autobiography and then he was a firm advocate of the ring-fencing idea. Of the established Premiership clubs he reckoned Bristol (they've actually been in the Prem for 20 of the seasons since the Prem began in 1987) would be the one to lose out because they were currently in the Championship when he wrote his book. I doubt that he would have taken the same line had Leicester been in the Championship at that time. (trivia question: what have Leicester and Bristol rugby clubs got in common?)

If i rember correctly there was a plan to build a 10,000 seater staduim in Truro i think a while back but as the owner of the Bedford Blues said before any owner could put in a lot of money and then have to rely on the lottery of the play off and if you did get promoted you'd get a fraction of the money the other teams did. I think London Welsh management described it as having 1 hand tied behind your back and look what happened to them.

Yes, I'm pretty sure that a few years ago the Premiership demanded a higher minimum capacity than 10,000 or said they were going to. There was talk that Bath RFC who play on The Rec which is actually a recreation ground right in the middle of Bath would have to increase their ground capacity. it's now 14,500. There used to be a lot of temporary seating but I'm not sure whether the 14,500 is now permanent. Bath wanted to construct a purpose-built ground in the city but I think the latest idea is to develop The Rec into a proper stadium although there are lots of objections from people who say it should be left as a rec for the people of Bath.

However, it seems that 10,000 is now acceptable for a Premierhsip ground as Saracens moved to Allianz Park from the Watford Football Club ground and Allianz Park only has a 10,000 capacity, with Newcastle similar. In fact, the only Prem clubs who have ground capacities above 17,000 are London Irish 24,161 (they play at Reading FC's ground), Leicester 25,800 and Wasps 32,600 at the Ricoh Arena. Bristol will have 27,000 assuming they are in the Prem next season.