Category: Magners League

Pro Teams for the Weekend

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Glasgow Team to face Scarlets: Stortoni, O’Hare, Murchie, Morrison, Van Der Merwe, Jackson, Cusiter; Tkachuk, Hall, Low, Muldowney, Ryder, Eddie, Vernon, Beattie

Percentage of these players who will not be in the Glasgow team next year: 30%.
Watch it: Firhill or BBC Alba, Friday night, 8pm.

Edinburgh Team to Face v Dragons: Paterson, Webster, Thompson, De Luca, Visser, Laidlaw, M Blair, Traynor, Kelly, Cross, MacLeod, Lozada, McInally, Rennie, Denton

Watch it: at Murrayfield.

Teams for the Weekend

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Mossy returns to the squad for the first time since the Six Nations, and with Hugo Southwell in try scoring form for Stade Francais Chris’ll be looking to reassert his hold on the Scotland 15 shirt ahead of the summer. In-form inside centre James King keeps Nick de Luca on the bench.

Edinburgh (to face Aironi): Jim Thompson, Simon Webster, Ben Cairns, James King, Tim Visser, Greig Laidlaw, Mike Blair, Kyle Traynor, Andrew Kelly (captain), Geoff Cross, Scott MacLeod, Esteban Lozada, Fraser McKenzie, Roddy Grant, David Denton. Replacements: Alun Walker, Lewis Niven, David Young, Steven Turnbull, Stuart McInally, Nick De Luca, Lee Jones, Chris Paterson.

Live TV Coverage: Friday 15th April 1945 BBC Alba

Meanwhile Chris Cusiter is back for Glasgow after almost a year out of action (unless you count twitter and the BBC Pundit’s box).

Team to follow.

Who’d Be An Edinburgh Fan?

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Things are set to get tougher for Edinburgh next year with the news that Fraser Mackenzie is leaving the club to join up with Richie Vernon at Sale Sharks. It seems that no longer is it a case of Edinburgh and Glasgow developing young players until they are established test players, now the bigger clubs are swooping to sign folk after just a season (or less) of decent performances. At the moment it really feels a bit like a closing down sale, and clubs with money are scrabbling for whatever bargains they can find left on the shelves.

“I Want The Bigger Half…!”

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Before we focus completely on ‘The Italian Job’ (yeah, you’re gonna be reading that headline. A lot!) perhaps I should look at the recent developments at Glasgow and Edinburgh. Development is in fact the key word here because, as we acknowledge that this season has been very poor for Scottish rugby, I am forced to ask “will at least one of Scotland’s pro sides be turned into a development team?”

Friday Night Frights

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Here are the teams for tonight in the unlikely event you missed them. Glasgow travel to Connacht with both Jackson and perhaps Weir looking to lay down a Scotland marker after Dan Parks’ return to his “mercurial” ways – and not mercurial like Gregor Townsend used to be. Edinburgh travel to Thomond Park (weatherman Tim Visser reports weather is “rubbish”), giving us a first look at Nick Scrivener’s approach to the under performing capital men/dark knights/gunners/shower, unless you went to Newport last weekend which may actually have been a better plan than going to Murrayfield, in hindsight.

Glasgow: B Stortoni, H O’Hare, F Aramburu, P Murchie, D van der Merwe, R Jackson, C Gregor (capt), R Grant, F Thomson, E Kalman, A Muldowney, T Ryder, R Harley, C Forrester, J Beattie.
Replacements: F Gillies, J Welsh, K Tkachuk, R Wilson, C Fusaro, H Pyrgos, D Weir, P Horne.

Edinburgh: Chris Paterson, Lee Jones, Ben Cairns, James King, Tim Visser, David Blair, Greig Laidlaw (capt), Kyle Traynor, Andrew Kelly, Geoff Cross, Scott MacLeod, Steven Turnbull, Fraser McKenzie, Netani Talei, Ross Rennie.
Replacements: Alun Walker, Lewis Niven, David Young, Alan MacDonald, Roddy Grant, Nick De Luca, Simon Webster, Jim Thompson.

Munster vs Edinburgh, live on BBC Alba ko 1950. Coverage also on BBC Radio Scotland 810MW.

Don’t You, Forget About Milk(/Glasgow)

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Yup, amidst all the Six Nations excitement there is still some Magners League action on this weekend. Usually this is the point where the Scottish teams take a dip with all our top guys on International/A-Team duty, but with two A games already out of the way and no official A Six Nations, this weekend a few of the boys have been released back to their club allowing Sean Lineen to field a decent side including form openside Rob Harley, Johnnie Beattie and the returning Duncan Weir. Also involved will be longtime Glasgow servant Bernie Stortoni who is departing at the end of the season and new face Tom Ryder, who while still technically signed to Saracens will be eligible to play until the end of the season at which point he will join Glasgow full time.

Glasgow Team to face Cardiff: Stortoni; O’Hare, Aramburu, Murchie, Van Der Merwe; Weir, Gregor (capt), Grant, Thomson, Kalman, Muldowney, Ryder, Harley, Forrester, Beattie

This game will be shown on BBC Wales, live from Firhill, kick off 1935.

Looking To The ‘A’ Team

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Monday morning: a time to take stock.

Has your football team made that sensational transfer? Have you won a monumental Grand Slam? Are you still in charge of a whole nation?

If the answers to your bleary Monday morning questions are ‘Yes’ then congratulations: you are either a Russian Billionaire, a skilful Serb or a delusional Egyptian. You are most likely not a Scotsman.

Do not despair, though!

(now with update)

Sifting through the scrums

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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’.