HC, Pool 6, Round 4 Gloucester V Edinburgh

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Gloucester V Edinburgh
Sunday 15th December 2013, KO 15:00

Live on Sky Sports (red button and extra - online skygo apparently)

Kingsholm Gloucester

Referee: TBC

Head to Head:

3 Played 3
0 Wins 3
6 Losses 0
0 Draws 0
7 Tries 12
5 Conversions 8
1 Penalties 4
0 Drop Goals 1
48 Points 92

One winning Scottish 10 this weekend; Dan Parks kicks 11 points as Connacht beat Toulouse in France 14-16, great result for them, well done

MacKnocked-on wrote:One winning Scottish 10 this weekend; Dan Parks kicks 11 points as Connacht beat Toulouse in France 14-16, great result for them, well done

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Not desperate Dan - could he be our Saviour?

Chat from solomons seems to be of player fatigue leading to the flat performance. I did think a few of the players looked jaded and indeed Denton and de Luca have played almost every game for Edinburgh this season, plus the AIs.

Was disappointed with Rennie yesterday after promising outings in previous weeks - he carried poorly, missed tackles in defence (wasn't the only one) and gave away a lot of penalties.

Leonard was also poor.

RDW - I'm not sure that's right re: player fatigue. The best player for Edinburgh yesterday was David Denton, but a country mile. Yet he's also the player that featured most in the AIs.

The most disappointing players were VDW (shouldn't be fatigued), Rennie (again, nothing down to fatigue), Leonard (had a mixed game but had a long rest over the AIs) and Cuthbert (who is just not very good at playing rugby).

The team was certainly flat, but I don't think the AIs had anything to do with it. The best player would the guy with the most right to be jaded.

My view is that we came out of the traps quickly (we were excellent for the first 10 minutes), and then sat back. The first try was a great spot by Glaws who saw Tonks running up to prevent an overlap (we could have used Mike Blair sweeping for that one) and the second was extremely unlucky, NDL put his man into touch but the linesman completely missed it - Glaws then scored off that very phase. I also put the mockers on Laidlaw, who left 5 points off the table missing kicks. When you add that to that crucial period around the 65 minute mark when we laid siege to their line only to be kept out, this was actually a pretty winnable game. Not bad when you consider that the gulf between Burns, Twelvetrees and May on the one hand and Leonard, Atiga and Cuthbert on the other is about the same as the gulf between myself and Richie McCaw.

I actually thought our pack did ok, a couple of missed tackles on Ben Morgan aside (who played very well).

I thought Denton was OK, but Gloucester had done their homework and he was very much a marked man – they were right up on them before he got a chance to get some momentum. Off side most the time, but never mind!

The team was very flat and I just can’t help but think it was fatigue – he’s barely changed the team all season and a lot of those players have played a lot of rugby so far. Dickinson, Nel, Gilchrist, VDV, Denton, Laidlaw, Leonard, Atiga, De Luca, Cuthbert Fife and Tonks have all had a lot of rugby this season. Also worth remembering the AIs only gave the squad player a 2 week break, and a lot of them were on intensive conditioning during that period.

Maybe they weren’t fatigued, but the team definitely needed freshening up at some point – just a shame we’ve not got a lot of strength in depth.

Bearing in mind his comments on rotating players, I’m going to go with the following for the return leg:

1 Blaauw
2 Ford (should be fit)
3 Cross
4 Atkins
5 Cox
6 Baslaia
7 Grant
8 Du Preez

9 Hart
10 Leonard (no one else!)
11 Farndale (will never happen but he won’t do any worse than Cuthbert)
12 Atiga (no one else
13 Dominguez
14 Walker (if fit)
15 Brown

I appreciate that is wholesale changes, and an entirely new pack, but it is still not too bad a team. Decent pack, worryingly poor backs .

Still- - a lot of these guys have been sitting on the bench all season waiting on their opportunity – now is the chance to take it.

Oh to be able to sign Heathcoat, Taylor and Grove…

Updated the thread for the return leg.

RDW, I’d actually make more changes than you have to be honest, we’ve no hope of doing anything in the HK this year so why not give some other lads a chance.*

Essentially what I’m saying is I wouldn’t bring Ford back into this game.  Give him the time off and try out one of the thousands of other hookers we have.
Also I’d like to see Beard given a run out, as from what I’ve seen he looks promising.

Aside from that agree with your team.

*I suppose I probably should caveat this with, as long as the other players are listed in the HK squad.   Can’t see why they wouldn’t be, but you never know with Edinburgh.

Looks to me as if Edinburgh really need to bring in a couple more backs as soon as possible, obviously Visser and Scott being out makes a huge difference but the current lineup just isn't up to it, Cuthbert has been a poor signing and Walker hasn't featured. For whatever reason Alex Grove's previous spell at Edinburgh wasn't a success but he is playing well in a poor Worcester side, as Alan Massie mentioned in the Scotsman, I'd like to see him considered again for Scotland as well. Heathcote is needed asap and also a couple of extra backs please.

I don’t think we should give up on the HK entirely, especially with the current political element, but I’m pretty confident we could field an entirely new pack and it would still be very competitive. Indeed the pack I picked is an entirely new pack other than Du Preez.

The backs are the biggest concern – we can barely field 1 competitive back line just now, and I think it’s fair to say their backs were the biggest difference yesterday.

Changed days eh? Who would have thought Edinburgh would be in the position where they could field 2 decent packs but really struggle in the backs…

I'd personally throw the same XV at the return leg (and the Boxing Day clash) but then make wholesale changes for the Leinster game.

Totally agree that we should be taking a look at Farndale, and surely Walker must be fit by now. Cuthbert just isn't a winger. His only half decent game came at 15, and we should only use him as cover for Tonks (who I thought player pretty well yesterday incidentally given the conditions and the amount of pressure Glaws heaped on him). Some of his kicking had tremendous range, and his finish for the 1st try was nicely done.

Tonks has tremendous skill – one of their up and unders into our dead ball area where he caught it running while not even facing the ball was pretty good, especially since him and 36 were jostling with each other.

He has been prone to making one to high profile errors a game this season though – I know errors are very much accentuated when you’re at full back, but they are things he needs to drum out of his game.

If Leinster are likely to put their first team out I don’t think it will matter which team we pick, however if they rest their top players I think we really should be targeting it.

Agree with all of this.

I would rather the Sugar Plum Fairy (Lee Jones) returns than face the nausea from seeing Cuthbert's name shat onto another team sheet. How is Brown's fitness? Didn't he come off the bench?

Brown stayed on the bench.

RDW_Scotland wrote:Brown stayed on the bench.

Surely to god he's a better option than Cuthbert?

You'd think!

George Carlin wrote:

RDW_Scotland wrote:Brown stayed on the bench.

Surely to god he's a better option than Cuthbert?

He is, but to be honest he's another better from 15 than on the wing.

We need to find a couple of specialist wingers with pace. Glaws showed us the importance of having pace. The difference in speed between the backlines was obvious, regardless of the disgraceful Murrayfield "pitch" (aka ploughed field).

Farndale needs to be called-up now, and we need to scour the globe for a winger with pace looking for a new club.

Any of the Scotland 7s backs worth calling in currently to cover the shortage of decent backs; Robertson, Fleming?

Fleming is seriously quick and I wouldn't mind seeing him at Edinburgh at all.
Share and share alike, Mr Gemmell.

Fleming was much spoken of a few seasons back, but is another who seems off the radar these days. I really don't get it, especially when you recognise how poor the wing options are at Edinburgh.

isnt lee jones the messiah?

MacKnocked-on wrote:Any of the Scotland 7s backs worth calling in currently to cover the shortage of decent backs; Robertson, Fleming?

There's this guy called Lee Jones that seems to be doing pretty well...

As a moderator should you not be discouraging WUMs?

 

Good to see Martyn Thomas playing and scoring tries, I was sure he was on the verge of a Welsh call up before that horrific leg injury (which he then broke again on his return).

He did play well on Sunday, mind you even with a broken leg he'd have still probably had too much pace for the Edinburgh backline. I've rarely seen such a big mismatch in terms of pace and guile between two backlines.

It's a credit to the Edinburgh pack and Tonks that the match was any sort of contest.

Glaws have named their side, only a few changes. Knoyle is staring ahead of Cowan and we welcome Sila Puafisi to Kingsholm

Rob Cook; Martyn Thomas, Henry Trinder, Billy Twelvetrees (Capt.), Jonny May; Freddie Burns, Tavis Knoyle; Yann Thomas, Darren Dawidiuk, Shaun Knight; Elliott Stooke, James Hudson; Sione Kalamafoni, Matt Kvesic, Ben Morgan.

Replacements: Huia Edmonds, Dan Murphy, Sila Puafisi, Tom Hicks, Matt Cox, Dan Robson, Mike Tindall, Charlie Sharples.

Edinburgh team:

Tonks, Fife, Dominguez, Atiga, Cuthbert, Leonard, Hart, Blaauw, Ford (C), Nel, Gilchrist, VDV, Leonardi, Grant, Du Preez

Subs Dickinson, Lutui, Cross, Atkins, Rennie, SHC, Brown, Jones

Not as many players rested as I thought, but Denton, Laidlaw and De Luca not included.

Geoff Cross still has to sit on the bench!

We've gotta go for the TBP to have any chance of overtaking Munster.

ER, we'll just have to beat them at home to do that!

RDW, are Denton et al not included due to injury? My understanding was that Denton was one of the few who had a decent game last week, so his omission is interesting.

On more of a schadenfreude note I am delighted to see Cuthbert in the team. I used to always love seeing him play for Bath v Glaws, as he is just a gangly donkey and you could guarantee you'd be comfortably able to chip the ball behind him and beat him to the foot race.

It's good to welcome Dickinson back to Kingsholm. He never quite hit the heights with us, but you could never fault his effort.

Looks like Denton is being rested. That's a very average backline, and the centre combination of Atiga and Dominguez shouldn't cause you many problems.

At least we have Lee Jones as an impact sub. Looking forward to seeing him come off the bench.....

It really is an unexciting backline without Visser and Scott.

Laidlaw, Denton and De Luca have been rested - we've got 3 games in 11 days culminating in the derby with Glasgow, so he's decided to rest them for this game and concentrate on the Rabbo.

It is still a pretty good pack but most of that backline are barely Rabbo standard.

RDW_Scotland wrote:Laidlaw, Denton and De Luca have been rested - we've got 3 games in 11 days culminating in the derby with Glasgow, so he's decided to rest them for this game and concentrate on the Rabbo.

It is still a pretty good pack but most of that backline are barely RabboB&I Cup standard.

Fixed that for you, RDW, no charge in an independent Scotland - feic knows what'll happen in rUK

I think it's fair to say Edinburgh are going to have to go fairly route one to stand a chance in this game - that is a big front 5 and the backs can't exactly be described as exciting.

If Gloucester get parity up front their backs are going to run riot.

Just read in the Scotsman that Ross Rennie's mother died recently - commiserations to him, and fair play to him for playing the past few weeks.

Agree, that must have been tough. Great to have him back.

Leonard's out with a thigh injury so Tonks will play at 10 instead.
Our makeshift backline becomes even more makeshift.

What's up with Edinburgh and those last minute injuries? or should i say "injuries"?

Interesting to see how tonks gets on. Who will kick??

RDW_Scotland wrote:Interesting to see how tonks gets on. Who will kick??

No kicks everything to the corners and put Gloucester's forwards to the sword, well i would hope so   

So Brown or Cuthbert to FB ? And who comes onto the bench?

Cuthbert fullback, Brown wing, Kennedy bench

Surprisingly good kick by Cuthbert there! And we have the lead!

Brilliant kicking from tonks

Cuthbert can kick??

He's showing off now. CROSSBAR CHALLENGE!

Ross Ford is such a liability...

That was a truly awful throw from Ford

Good aggressive defence so far.

So far....

cracking battle between the hookers tho - and Ford thumped him in the tackle