European Club Rugby
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Well, with a choice between agonising over which player NZ missed most in November or who was the best player...and watching some actual rugby...I went with watching rugby.
Once again Victor Vito's La Rochelle on fire, great to watch, and now 15 points from 3 games. Didn't realise Rene Ranger had headed to France again, but he had a wee cameo off the bench.
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Last night, EPCR decided to postpone the Saracens v Clermont match due to snow on the roads to the stadium, mentioning safety reasons. I don't know whether that's the case, but it sounds like a terrible excuse for bad preparation because the snow was announced several days ago. While no attempt seemed to have been made to clear the pitch, Clermont players apparently still had to wait a long time in their hotel rooms before being informed that the game would not be played on Sunday. (Btw, the Harlequins v Leinster game at Twickenham went ahead as planned.)
Meanwhile, several groups of Clermont fans travelled all the way from Clermont-Ferrand to London to watch the game and had to return without watching any rugby. Also after waiting for hours to hear what would happent to the game.
Now, it's decided to play the game behind closed doors, without public, on Monday, 5.30pm UK time (6.30am Tuesday NZ time).
At least the Clermont players seemed to enjoy the snow with a forwards v backs snowball fight
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Harlequins v Ulster
Exeter v Leinster -
@stargazer said in NH club rugby:
Last night, EPCR decided to postpone the Saracens v Clermont match due to snow on the roads to the stadium, mentioning safety reasons. I don't know whether that's the case, but it sounds like a terrible excuse for bad preparation because the snow was announced several days ago. While no attempt seemed to have been made to clear the pitch, Clermont players apparently still had to wait a long time in their hotel rooms before being informed that the game would not be played on Sunday. (Btw, the Harlequins v Leinster game at Twickenham went ahead as planned.)
Meanwhile, several groups of Clermont fans travelled all the way from Clermont-Ferrand to London to watch the game and had to return without watching any rugby. Also after waiting for hours to hear what would happent to the game.
Now, it's decided to play the game behind closed doors, without public, on Monday, 5.30pm UK time (6.30am Tuesday NZ time).
At least the Clermont players seemed to enjoy the snow with a forwards v backs snowball fight
Not so sure you have the story right there @Stargazer
We had tickets to the Sarries game given to us and knew not to bother going in the morning. Being in South London we were surprised to see the pictures as we had only had a bit of sleet at that stage.
The decision was more to do with the roads and transport than the pitch. As you are probably aware, the transport infrastructure gets even more fragile with 'unusual' weather in these parts. One car accident can gridlock a large area.
The Quins game went ahead, the snowing was only for an hour or two down our way and was only settling on large exposed areas. Roads were fine. -
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@pakman said in NH club rugby:
Went to the Toulon match. Home crowd were not happy! Ashton is most definitely not a 15.
Very cold in first half. Bath 12, Ben Tuapai, looked very sharp.
Agreed, he's a winger and that's it. A shame though that the howler that led to Joseph's try for Bath was more the fault of the idiot that threw the quick line out. Shame because that will symbolise Ashton at 15 for evermore.
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Watching a Bristol game at the moment and it is a massacre. Quite obviously a Premiership team playing a level below where they should be.
Even with that they are probably the level of a good, but not really good NPC side.As an indicator, Tusi Pisi looks a star at this level.
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I'll do a Stargazer and this is the Bristol lineup
15. Jordan Williams; 14. Luke Morahan, 13. Siale Piutau, 12. Tusi Pisi (c), 11. Alapati Leiua, 10. Ian Madigan, 9. Rhodri Williams, 8. Jack Lam, 7. Dan Thomas, 6. Sam Jeffries, 5. Chris Vui, 4. Joe Joyce, 3. Gaston Cortes, 2. Jason Harris-Wright, 1. Soane Tonga'uiha.
Reserves: 16. Nick Fenton-Wells, 17. Ryan Bevington, 18. Sione Faletau, 19. Jordan Crane, 20. Andy Uren, 21. Callum Sheedy, 22. Mat Protheroe.
As you can see there are a few players that stood out in the NPC as well as being on the fringe of Super Rugby starting. I guess we will have too wait until next season to see whether Pat Lam can "do a Connaught" with them.Other names in the squad but not playing tonight that we might recognize include Steven Luatua (ribs), Joe Latta (ankle), Sione Faletua and David Lemi.
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@crucial said in NH club rugby:
Watching a Bristol game at the moment and it is a massacre. Quite obviously a Premiership team playing a level below where they should be.
Even with that they are probably the level of a good, but not really good NPC side.As an indicator, Tusi Pisi looks a star at this level.
To be fair to Pisi, he looked like a star for the Sunwolves in Super Rugby before he left for Bristol.
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@bones Doesn't look like it with the fullback Williams being Welsh and the first five Madigan an Irishman. Surprisingly reserve halfback Uren is a Pom but the other two reserves backs (Sheedy and Protheroe) are both Welsh.
There was an oops with Sione Faletua , he should have been named as Sione Faletau, the tighthead prop out of Patumahoe and Counties Manakau. -
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@tim said in NH club rugby:
Weird how that link in @Tim 's post only becomes visible once you try to reply to that post, but still doesn't appear when you actually post the reply. It doesn't embed, but at least the link becomes visibile when you remove the "http://www." bit.
stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/100164906/hurricanes-coach-chris-boyd-one-of-three-kiwis-eyeing-wales-job
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@stargazer Seems their is a problem with embedding stuff links at the moment.
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