Oh, what might have been.
It’s not unusual to start an Edinburgh match report with such a sentiment, but in this case the one that got away was the 4 try bonus point. Referee Roman Poite twice went upstairs to the TMO for tries that on other days we’ve all seen given (usually against Scottish teams) and came back with a no try ruling, thus making this game a lot closer than it really had any right to be.
“We dont play rugby for the money, we play rugby because we love it.”
When the first European weekend comes around it normally serves as the perfect time to kick back and forget it all. Those lovely, fluffy ERC guys even delayed the Heineken Cup and Amlin Challenge Cup by a few weeks so that World Cup heroes were well rested and ready to reaffirm themselves as fan favourites. We should all be able to throw our cares away, partake in the oncoming feast of Northern Hemisphere rugby and thank our sporting stars for giving us the joys of Union…
Of course forgetting about it all is easier said than done.
In which Rory takes a look at the opening weeks of next season’s Heineken Cup fixtures. With Sean Lineen looking to prove his underperforming squad has not been destroyed by further departures, and Michael Bradley looking to make an instant impact at the helm of Edinburgh, it should make an interesting return to high intensity rugby following all the World Cup madness.
At the weekend I spent a lot of time with a good friend of mine who is almost exclusively obsessed with his image. He likes to control what people see in him.
For rugby teams this can also be true.
What do you mean we haven’t rounded up last season yet? Okay, we are working on it! The rugby world has of course already moved on, with several squads already back in training and the draw for the next season’s Heineken Cup announced today.
The 6 Nations are over and the hard slog towards New Zealand begins. But before we kick-off against Romania on the 10th of September in Invercargill there are a lot of things that will happen on our own shores.
Like an overheard conversation, we all have some nagging doubts in our mind about how Edinburgh and Glasgow are going to progress next season.
Despite my earlier piece on this weekend’s rugby being of little interest to Scottish fans, the Gods of Rugby have seen fit to water my fire by serving up several good performances, including Glasgow’s first away win of the season and some good play from Edinburgh’s centres for the try in their losing performance against Dan Parks and Cardiff. Most heartening though, was the try count from Scotland’s senior squad backs who obviously felt this a last chance to put a marker down for the Six Nations. Nikki Walker, Simon Danielli and Rory Lamont all crossed for five-pointers but the performance of the weekend was surely Saints’ Man of the Match Joe Ansbro, who scored one try and created another for Northampton as they topped the qualification table for the Heineken Cup. Joe’s runs displayed power, awareness and good hands – all qualities that should see him well placed when the Scotland squad comes together shortly.
If you ask Charlie Hodgson about former Scotland Forwards coach Mike Brewer he will probably throw a string of expletives at you. Those two just didn’t get along, did they?!
In the last few months there has been a lot of press about the scrum. In more than one medium we hear the same lines: the scrum goes down too often; it is boring; there is too much match time wasted. Former internationals have had their say. Purists are pitted against fans of free-flowing rugby. Hundreds of solutions have been offered.
Yet covertly the IRB seem to have chosen their way of dealing with the ‘problem’.
…For Scottish pro-team fans, at any rate. But there is still plenty of rugby to be played in the tournament and some of the teams (Leinster, Scarlets, even Aironi!) so far have shown that there may be something of interest for the neutral to watch. Yes, that’s you now…
Glasgow Warriors: B Stortoni, H O’Hare, M Evans, G Morrison, DTH van der Merwe, R Jackson, C Gregor, J Welsh, F Thomson, M Low, R Gray, A Kellock (capt), R Harley, J Barclay, R Vernon.
Replacements: P McArthur, R Grant, K Tkachuk, A Muldowney, C Fusaro, H Pyrgos, P Murchie, F Aramburu.
Note due to sitting on a plane tweeting all day yesterday in bad weather, Glasgow’s game has moved back to 2pm GMT tomorrow (Sunday).
Edinburgh : C Paterson, L Jones, B Cairns, J Houston, T Visser, D Blair, G Laidlaw, A Jacobsen, R Ford, G Cross, S Turnbull, C Hamilton, S Newlands, S McInally, R Grant (captain)
Replacements: A Kelly, K Traynor, D Young, E Lozada, A MacDonald, N De Luca, J Thompson, S Webster.
Sunday, Murrayfield, 2pm GMT. Good to see Nick De Luca back!
Don’t forget to check out our competition in the post below this one to win a copy of the IRB Yearbook for 2011 – thanks to everyone who has posted so far!
UPDATE: Edinburgh will go ahead at 2pm today (Monday) at Murrayfield behind closed doors, in another rather ludicrous example of Health and Safety gone mad. Apparently there will be a radio commentary available online via BBC Scotland, keep an eye on this page. Glasgow will go ahead tomorrow (Tuesday) at 6pm GMT in Toulouse if the Warriors kit shows up in time. Hopefully they can get back hope in time for Christmas, along with the 20 hardy souls who have travelled in support. Sale vs Brive has also been moved to Netherdale in Galashiels tonight at 5pm, so there is plenty on – if only we could see it!
As the Heineken swings into the post-November run of back to back home and away fixtures, our Scottish pro-teams skate the usual line between “campaign over” and mindless optimism that they can still get somewhere, having failed to get off to the required good start.
As Robbo prepares to stop being in the crowd at every single Heineken Cup game on Sky and actually name his 33-man squad on Wednesday, he must have a few headaches. Even the distraction of B & I Lions manager Andy Irvine claiming Robbo is in the running for Lions head coach will take some heat away from the fact that some key injuries, poor performances and the inescapable need to select Dan “I’m enjoying the Leek and Mutton pies a bit too much” Parks could make selection a stingy issue.
All of the questions will be answered tomorrow
