Aviva Premiership Season 1 - Homepage

First topic message reminder :

Welcome to the New Aviva Premiership.....Teams & Tactics 8pm Saturday......Predo's 8pm Monday......

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Bath Rugby	Bathite
Exeter Chiefs	Ballbag
Gloucester	Prop
Harlequins	Driver
Leicester Tigers	Pooly
London Irish	Pull
London Wasps	Nick
Newcastle Falcons	Flux
Northampton Saints	Johnny
Sale Sharks	Ollie
Saracens	Luke
Worcester Warriors	ITFL

PREM R2 - https://www.606v2.com/t22456-aviva-premiership-round-2-week-6#886054


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WAITING LIST:
1. HERSH

Where's this at??? Thought that one on Park road was the only Chinese buffet

It's on a Monday nights mate , do you know where the premier inn is at the marina? Think Tuesdays and Thursdays are curry nights , Wednesdays are mexican and Friday is fish shop buffet.

They give you vouchers so you get free deserts and bottles of wine. It's a sure thing if you go there!

Unless she decides she has to go to work the next day and go to bed early lol

Ahhhhh I know it, was there Friday lol.

Got 30mins for predo's soft lad

It's ok nothing special , hasn't got a patch on Valintinos!

Done them!

Good lad lol

Usually take the missus to Durham, canny night out there. She enjoys driving me back too when I'm half cut and horny

Haha , She tells me off if i'm too drunk after i fell asleep in the garden the other week lol

Flux can you knock up new page asap???

I'm out of the country this week so will post team early

League table:
https://www.606v2.com/t20671-aviva-premiership-league-table

Has anybody here been under the knife if so can you drop me a pm?

Driver- that video you posted on FB got my pecker up and I spent the rest of the evening watching the 2009 Lions tour - living with the pride.

What a tour - and so unlucky. ROG

Need to buy that DVD, 2001 still my favourite though, such epic DVDs.

Why 2001?

1997 is by far the best. Obviously they won, but they were such a tight knit group and set their standards early on, something that clearly didn't happen on the England RWC 2011. They had such great squad depth as well.

The court room has been adopted on our tours, always a laugh.

2001 - Because I love that generation of players, its the one I grew up idolising, 97 was a bit before my time, so can't really identify with it as much. Also because so much happened, they were so close to winning the series, ROG got his McRaed, Austin vs. Plank.

The emergence of Jason Robinson from nowhere is incredible. That in out in about 3 yards of space on the touchline on Joe Roff in the first test is one of the greatest bits of skill i have ever seen. Looks so easy, is so difficult to get right, especially against a defender that good.

The 2009 one is fantastic , Geechs has such passion with the Lions and for me he is one of the reasons which makes the British and Irish Lions so special as a team and event. I love Lions tours as every game is a display of attacking intent as well as being a massive fixture in the context of the tour.

I still remember watching the 05 series with my Dad and deciding that that's how i'd want any team to be involved with to play like. Play like the All Blacks of 2005 - Awesome team.

We've all been in the same position before a big game at any level , we lost in the Durham Junior cup final last year and i didn't even go out on the night to celebrate getting there i felt like garbage. Mainly because i was injured and felt i could of contributed in the game.

On the topic of losing / celebrating, I always loved Woodward's mantra and try to stick to it. His approach was to kurb the culture of going out and getting hammered after a game, but still allowed the players to let off steam. He said that after a win, we focus on the next game and get better, not get complacent and stay professional and ruthless. But if we lose and/or play badly, we go out, enjoy ourselves and wipe the slate clean for the next game, no point sitting festering over a loss.

Carter was immense in 2005, loved his running style, that cutting with his non ball carrying foreram, that prevents playing grabbing on to his shorts and tackling him is very clever. Made Wilko look very silly a few times, even gave him a samoan sidestep at one point i think?

I think that's the right attitude to install. When i used to play on a Saturday i would get absolutely bollocked by the coach more times then not for turning up hungover and could not see why they were bothered by it. But now i'm in the coaching side of things i can see why as people do so much less when hungover.

I'm torn about going out after a loss.

In the past month I've been made skipper and we've lost 3 out of 5 in my reign. After the first loss I felt like absolute turd - mostly because I felt I played crap but also you take it closer to heart.

On Saturday we had our biggest defeat of the season and played so Poopie. I made it clear it was unacceptable, but then had to go out and booze all night with the lads, was difficult.

In general I'd rather go out and get smashed after a win, stay in and eat Poopie after a loss!

It's a tough one , after losing i feel shiote , but i feel even worse after a win where i'v had a mare because it's as if they have won with out you.

But after a 49 point Darby day win i just went out and got wrecked and fell asleep in the garden! lol

Didn't get predos done, because of power cut, so internet was down

Whats everyone's thoughts on Robshaw being named captain???

I think its definelty the wrong decision, lets face it if he plays poorly and Croft plays well, he might only be on the bench for the 3rd game. Fair enough he's a leader, but Hartley for me would have been the right choice.

Looking at the team Scotland picked it doesn't look like it will be a classic. Cussiter and Parks at halfback. Edinburgh halfbacks, Blair and Laidlaw who got them a home Heineken QF only on the bench. Too much conservatism from Robinson. Parks should be the option on the bench to sure everything up, for the last 20. Cussiter's delivery is too slow, as well.

I'm not against the decision to make Robshaw skip, but I don't like the way it suggests Croft will be second choice. I hope that's not the case, I think Croft is one of the few potentially world class players England have - they should be building around the likes of Croft.

When fit, would 6. Croft, 7. Wood, 8. Robshaw be an option? All a bit similar perhaps.

Robshaw is average at 8, I'm for playing a specialist there

I still have a feeling they will pack down Croft , Robshaw and Clark. Lancaster is looking his team to play at a high tempo and will want 80 minute players which Croft , Robshaw and Clark are.

He's also highlighted the lack of leadership on the field when England are down in the dumps and peddling back. They didn't have anyone to grab the game by the scruff of the neck and say follow me. Robshaw and Clark are these type of players.

I think that's what he's trying to do anyway.

Come the 2013 6Ns i'd like to see a England pack along the lines of Corbisero , Hartley (c) , Doran Jones , Lawes , Clark , Haskell , Wood and Morgan. The bench would be something like Grey , Marler , Attwood and Robshaw

Driver - RIP 606 wrote:Come the 2013 6Ns i'd like to see a England pack along the lines of Corbisero , Hartley (c) , Doran Jones , Lawes , Clark , Haskell , Wood and Morgan. The bench would be something like Grey , Marler , Attwood and Robshaw

Again, no Croft... how come?

As much as i like Tom Croft for me a 6 has got to be able to make the yards which Haskell and Robshaw will. If he was Australian he'd be there 6 because he just seems to hang in the wide channels and is pretty hard to keep hold of.

Croft is world class but needs to be played in a way to utalise his skill set. He is a fantastic lineout op and a great linking player. If we play a fast paced, offloading game he is ideal. If we play slow temp, phased rugby he's not ideal as he isn't as physical as other 6's.

He's got a massive future for England but only if we play the brand of rugby that he suits.....it's also the type of rugby that we beat Aus with last year.

The tour to SA Croft will be one of the first names on the team sheet as he suits the hard grounds and has such a big engine.

I don't know why people get fixated about the number on his back - it doesn't really matter apart from at set piece time. What he lacks in 'hard yards' he makes up for elsewhere.

I also think he'll be key to this high tempo game England are looking to play.

Right lads....I'm out of the country from tomorrow with work so Johnny is stepping in.

All selected match day squads in the 6N's won't be available for the next round of matches.

So does this mean that.....say Adam Jones isn't selected to play Ireland, then I can pick him?!

If not in match day squad mate he's yours

Ok cool!! Is that the same in other a.p?

Think so

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/tomfordyce/2012/01/why_scotland_are_better_than_e.html

Well worth a read, shows the complete and utter waste of resource in England, well done the RFU

That article is pants Bathite, it just picks specific stats to reinforce the chaps argument. He also skips past major assumptions like 'Consider the following stats a fuse under pre-tournament arguments and pub discussions rather than scientific fact' and 'I've used total wins by each nation over the last 10 seasons of the Six Nations'

The six nations is one tournament a year, the article fails to highlight that England won a RWC and were runners up in the next RWC during that period. Scotland didn't get out of the group stages.

By his argument, if the Vatican City won a game they would be the best rugby nation in the world, because they spend £0. Furthermore, if England won every game in the six nations in the past 10 years they'd still be behind Scotland and Italy because they spend so much.

Read on mate, not just about expenditure, also about number of registered players as well.

The registered player thing is the biggest load of balls I've ever seen. Read somewhere we have 3 times the amount of registered players than any other nation.

Thing is, rugby is not a primary sport in England. It's miles behind football and challenging with Cricket as a secondary choice for kids. It's not played as a primary sport at schools, I didn't touch a rugby ball till I was 12 and was once a month a best.

We will never have the talent depth of SA or NZ. Wales as a percentage have a much higher product ratio as it's their bread and butter.

England will NEVER be as big a rugby nation as SA or NZ

We can't compete on a similar level at all sports as football takes the cream of athletes on a whole.

Look at the other top nations football teams and generally we are much stronger, France is a good compare as similar population (I suspect more in France) and we both produce similar outputs at a sporting level across the board

I know it could be a bit undercooked but we could compare ourselves to say Argentina in that respect Pooly.
Just that we got lucky in one generation and that the right coaching was in place for us to suceed in one world cup.

Agree totally, we basically over done ourselves for a 3 year period. We will never compete for a sustained period because the talent pool is just not there.

Kids in NZ breath rugby and throw a ball around from year dot. It's an after thought in English culture to be a rugby player. The money isn't great and football is a much bigger pull. When NZ and SA compete with us on football terms then we should worry about being up there as a rugby nation.

At best we should be aiming at a top 3 side.

Notice that Australia have been left out of this counter argument, tiny population, most obese in the world per capita and world domination at Cricket, Rugby League, Rugby Union, Hockey, Aussie Rules (obviously), Rowing

Aus a little bit of a freak nation tbh but the basics are there with NRL and Aus rules huge sports.

Think you guys are being far too kind on England to be honest. Blaming football is an easy option. You could use that as an excuse for Union suffering in the North, but not for the whole country

Totally disagree, we punch above our weight. I think half of the England set up are from the North....Webber, Sheridan, Palmer, Parling, Flood, Ashton, Foden etc etc so imagine the talent rugby is missing out on with football

Not saying in terms of players, I meant in terms of competing with football. That Sale and Newcastle have been at the bottom for a very long time and have the worst attendances. I'm fully aware of how many northern monkeys there are in the lineup, but none of them play there anymore and thats kind of proved my point.

Callum Clark , Ian Mcgeechan , Ian Balshaw - All west park leeds lads

Micky Young is from Pool , Wilson from Shields , Deacon from Leicester , Dickson grew up in the north.

Charlie Hodgson is from yorkshaire , Farrell from Wigan , JSD from Yarm.

Graham Rowntree is from Hartlepool aswell - was at my uncle shauns 1st wedding.

produce loads of talent

Thats a typical southern attitude to northern rugby. Players playing for Sale & Newcastle need to move on as they don't get Int coverage. Don't think MJ ever went to Kingston.

To be fair Pooly why would he want to lol!

I'm not opening up North vs. South debate and i'm not for a minute saying the North don't produce the players, of course not.

Brian Ashton was the classic Northern coach as well and much respected, was nicknamed yoda.

To say players have to leave to get international coverage is ok, but ask yourself why Sale and Newcastle don't get int coverage? The better playing teams get more exposure, more TV games, more games that England coaches watch and therefore get more representatives. Sale and Newcastle have been some of the worse teams in the prem for the last 5 years and for the reasons above are why, not because England coaches ignore them. Players have left those teams for more successful clubs and because more successful clubs have a better chance of producing international players

Sgt_Pooly wrote:Don't think MJ ever went to Kingston.

How on earth could you verify that he or any of his coaches didn't go? I'm sure I saw Wells up there quite recently. You say yourself on this very board how poor a lot of Falcons players are, so who is it that these coaches have missed? Hudson? If you were coach, wouldn't you spend your time looking at form teams?

Its not a geographical thing, its a form thing. For arguments sake, I wouldn't have focused on Bath and Wasps players if I was an England coach looking to pick an EPS a month ago.