NH club rugby
-
@mikethesnow said in NH club rugby:
So it's
Champions Cup semi-finals - 21/22 April
SF1: Leinster v Scarlets - Aviva Stadium, Dublin
SF2: Racing 92 v Munster - Stade Chaban-Delmas, BordeauxNo English side for quite some time
Que?
-
@catogrande said in NH club rugby:
@mikethesnow said in NH club rugby:
So it's
Champions Cup semi-finals - 21/22 April
SF1: Leinster v Scarlets - Aviva Stadium, Dublin
SF2: Racing 92 v Munster - Stade Chaban-Delmas, BordeauxNo English side for quite some time
Que?
Just pointing out that after Saracens dominance the past two seasons and losing finalist 4 seasons ago not to have an English team in the last 4 is a big change
-
@mikethesnow said in NH club rugby:
@catogrande said in NH club rugby:
@mikethesnow said in NH club rugby:
So it's
Champions Cup semi-finals - 21/22 April
SF1: Leinster v Scarlets - Aviva Stadium, Dublin
SF2: Racing 92 v Munster - Stade Chaban-Delmas, BordeauxNo English side for quite some time
Que?
Just pointing out that after Saracens dominance the past two seasons and losing finalist 4 seasons ago not to have an English team in the last 4 is a big change
Ah, I read it that you thought that there hadn't been an English team for some time.
Nope, we've underachieved by a long way this season both domestically and internationally.
-
Report from English Times today:
The future stability of the leading club in English rugby has been thrown into question after the South Africans who own 50 per cent of Saracens told The Times that they want to sell their stake in the club.
Saracens have been England’s top club in recent seasons. In a poor year for English teams in Europe, they were the last side left in the Champions Cup until they were knocked out by Leinster in the quarter-finals on Sunday. The success of the English club model will come under further scrutiny as Saracens join a number of others either up for sale or seeking investment.
Eleven of the 12 Premiership clubs operated at a loss last year, with Exeter Chiefs the exception. Saracens recorded losses of £2.74 million, which was a considerable improvement on previous years. Other clubs for sale, such as London Irish and Worcester Warriors, have struggled to find buyers.
Nigel Wray, the chairman and owner of the other 50 per cent of Saracens, said that his co-owners’ decision to sell will have no immediate effect as he can step in to buy them out. However, Wray is looking to the longer term and wants to persuade other investors to come forward because he cannot indefinitely be the club’s sole financial foundation.
The South Africans’ arrival at Saracens ten years ago triggered the most successful period in the club’s history. The north London side have won the Premiership three times since 2010-11 and were European champions for the past two seasons.
The investment was led by Johann Rupert, a businessman rated by Forbes, the business magazine, as the third wealthiest man in Africa with a net worth of $6.9 billion (about £4.9 billion).
The investment caused controversy due to the large number of South Africans who joined the club. Rupert wanted the ownership to provide a home for South Africans wishing to play abroad and yet maintain their links with the Springboks. However, the players who came tended, instead, to be cut off from the Springbok system. Therefore, for two reasons, the original justification for the investment no longer holds: because the number of South Africans has dwindled and because of the continuing operating losses.
When Rupert walks away, he will be writing off debts of about £25 million. However, it was not personal debts that have persuaded him to sell. The 50 per cent share is not owned by him but by a public company, Remgro, of which he is chairman and a 7 per cent shareholder.
“Remgro is a public company,” Rupert said. “Is it therefore right to support a rugby club? One should not be using public shareholders’ money for your own loves.”
The club management has always been more closely operated by Wray. “The club is really Nigel’s baby and everyone knows that,” Rupert said.
It therefore seems to make sense for Wray to buy back the 50 per cent that he sold to Remgro ten years ago. The South Africans may retain a smaller stake, though Wray has indicated that he could go back up to a short-term holding of 100 per cent.
The club are looking for two backers. One would be a property investor to help to finance the rebuilding of the west stand at Allianz Park, the club’s ground in north London. The intention is that the new west stand will generate its own income, some of which would offset the club’s losses.
That would make it a more attractive investment for a second (or more) investor(s). The Saracens ownership comes under the name of a holding company, Premier Team Holdings, whose losses in the past four financial years were £5.31 million, £3.99 million, £3.27 million and £2.74 million. The intention, with money generated by the new west stand, is that the losses will shrink to the point where the club will start to break even.
The question for Saracens is therefore twofold: will they be able to find a new buyer? And, until they do, is Wray happy to continue covering the losses required to keep a squad that can compete at the top of the game together? For now at least, Wray insists that he will stand by the club that he has done so much to build.
-
And this one from the Guardian about ring fencing Premiership and "downsizing" the European Cup. https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/apr/02/champions-cup-rugby-premiership-wrangle
Downsizing the European Champions Cup has been proposed as a way to protect player welfare if the Premiership is ring-fenced with more than 12 teams. Twenty clubs – including up to seven from England – currently take part in Europe’s elite competition but streamlining is among the suggestions made by powerbrokers of the English game in the event of an expanded Premiership.
Both the Premiership and the Rugby Football Union are in favour of removing promotion and relegation to and from England’s top flight but the major sticking point is how big it will be. There are 13 Premiership shareholders – the current 12 teams plus Bristol – and a handful of Championship clubs who have the ambition to join the elite.
It is understood the Premiership clubs do not want to expand beyond a 12-team ring-fenced league and as a result suggested a play-off between the bottom club and the winners of the Championship – to take place as early as next May – but the Guardian understands it has been rejected out of hand. The Championship’s heads of agreement with the RFU runs until the summer of 2020 so any structural changes before then would have required unanimous approval from the 12 second-tier clubs.
Nonetheless, there is an expectation that ring-fencing will be pushed through to start from the 2020-21 season when that agreement has ended. At present the Championship clubs receive in the region of £550,000 and that is likely to increase in the event of ring-fencing. As the current deal will have ended, only a majority vote will be required and it is hard to imagine that not happening considering most Championship clubs are so reliant on the funding that comes from the RFU and Premiership Rugby Ltd.
But while ring-fencing seems increasingly inevitable, the issue of how to fit at least 13 clubs into a 12-team league remains. With relegation looming for London Irish, some clubs have looked into buying their shares from them but the Exiles have no intention of selling. Ealing Trailfinders, second in the Championship behind Bristol, have demonstrated the ambition – and significantly possess the requisite finances – to join the top flight and it is understood the RFU has not ruled out a 14-team league, even if PRL is digging its heels in. Yorkshire Carnegie, who had their own Premiership shares until the end of last year, and Cornish Pirates have also demonstrated their ambitions with new stadiums planned, while Doncaster Knights have expressed an interest in joining the Premiership. Coventry, who will join the Championship next season, are also thinking big.
And if a 13- or 14-team Premiership were to materialise, it may be the European competitions that feel the pinch. There is a feeling that the Champions Cup has lost its aura with more than half of the Premiership taking part this season and fewer European matches would allow for an expanded top flight in England without adding to player workload.
While truncated European competitions could help solve the problem of determining how many teams occupy a ring-fenced top flight, there remain fears over how accessible it will be in the long term. Rather, access to the Premiership after either a four- or five- year hiatus would depend on certain criteria, including things such as supporter base and playing budget, exceeding that of one of the existing Premiership teams.
-
I've just watched a recording of SF1 between Leinster and Scarlets. Leinster were too good winning 38-16 but my interest was to see James Lowe in action. Unfortunately due to an injury to halfback Luke McGrath, Lowe couldn't play due to the two non-EU players rule. Gibson-Park started at halfback as the second non-EU player, and looked a much better player than when he was in NZ. He did have an armchair ride behind the Leinster pack. Fardy was MOTM.
Racing 92 v Munster tomorrow morning NZT.
-
@bovidae said in NH club rugby:
I've just watched a recording of SF1 between Leinster and Scarlets. Leinster were too good winning 38-16 but my interest was to see James Lowe in action. Unfortunately due to an injury to halfback Luke McGrath, Lowe couldn't play due to the two non-EU players rule. Gibson-Park started at halfback as the second non-EU player, and looked a much better player than when he was in NZ. He did have an armchair ride behind the Leinster pack. Fardy was MOTM.
Racing 92 v Munster tomorrow morning NZT.
Both semi-finals were pretty one-sided. Leinster gave close a masterclass IMHO, they would do very well in Super Rugby. International class pack, and their 10, 12, 13 are also excellent. They basically dominated from start to finish.
Munster were awful, especially in the first 40, and Racing were all over them too.
Kiwis on display
Leinster - Gibson-Park, Nacewa, (Carbery)
Scarlets - Parkes
Racing - Carter, Rococoko
Munster - Marshall -
@billy-tell
Sigh - Carbery is hardly a Kiwi developed player.
Was at the Leinster match watching end on. Scarlets didn’t know which day was Sunday at various stages in the match with the never ending waves coming at them. Lancaster, Dempsey and Fogarty have them singing and humming in triple-part harmony with Cullen’s selections during the season proving fit for purpose most of the time. Relentless was the most used word amongst commentators and media reporters.They missed McGrath at the base of the scrum and his ability to snipe but Gibson Park had one of his better days. As did McFadden despite a howler of a dropped catch from a high ball. He made up for it with his well taken try.
Munster were abysmal and Racing well worth their victory. Should be a brilliant weekend in Bilbao for the two finals - looking forward to it.
-
@pot-hale said in NH club rugby:
Sigh - Carbery is hardly a Kiwi developed player.
Imagine how good he could have been if he went to high school here...
-
@pot-hale said in NH club rugby:
@billy-tell
Sigh - Carbery is hardly a Kiwi developed player.I think he knows that, hence the brackets. Brackets are the international symbols for that.
-
As went the 6 Nations so went the 1st semi.
Leinster just too good, and smart, and accurate.
Fancy them to win it all.
Again.
-
@rapido said in NH club rugby:
@pot-hale said in NH club rugby:
@billy-tell
Sigh - Carbery is hardly a Kiwi developed player.I think he knows that, hence the brackets. Brackets are the international symbols for that.
I see what you mean. (Not)
-
Isa Nacewa is having his second retirement with an announcement from Leinster that he and Richardt Strauss are retiring from the club at end of May.
Nacewa will hoping to add a fourth gold star to his club jersey in two weeks. Each star represents European Cup wins he and some other players at the club have won since 2009.
Top, top player and one of the all-time best club men. The archetypal glue player. A great captain and a modest grounded guy.
Thanks for the memories Isa.
-
@bovidae said in NH club rugby:
Nacewa did look his age in the SF, where his only tactic seemed to be to kick ahead and hope someone chased.
No doubting what impact he had at Leinster though.
Yep - he knows he’s flagging too. He’ll get a rest for the final league match next weekend - interpro away against Connacht. Then 3 matches left he’ll want to be in - back to back. Euro final in Bilbao, PRO14 semifinal in the RDS and hopefully the Grand Final being hosted this year in Lansdowne Road. It would be some season and career sign off if they did the double.
-
Jono Gibbes leaving Ulster after he took over from fired Les Kiss. Heading back to NZ.
Former Connacht player, coach, and Emerging Ireland and Ireland Wolfhounds head coach, Dan McFarland taking over the reins for next season after the interview process. He’ll have a job on his hands but has a lot of respect within the Irish game. And he may have a new 10 to replace sacked Paddy Jackson - Leinster star Joey Carbery if current IRFU rumors come true.Kieran Keane fired/leaving his 3 year contract early at Connacht after a poor season out west. A lot of people think he wasn’t given enough time. It’ll be interesting to see if IRFU decide to appoint an Irish/UK based coach in his stead as part of the ongoing IQ Rugby strategy launched last year.
SH exodus 2018 so far from IRFU
Kiss (London Irish)
Gibbes (NZ)
Erasmus (SA)
Nienabar (SA)
Keane (NZ)
Lealiifano
Piutau (Bristol)
Isa Nacewa (ret)
Gerbrandt Grobler (Gloucester)
Jake Heenan (Bristol)
Pita Ahki (Toulouse)
Andrew Deegan (Brumbies)
Naulia Dawai (released)
Stacey Ilii (Released)
Richardt Strauss (ret)
Robbie Diack (ret)Incoming 2018
Johan van Graan Head Coach Munster
JP Ferreira asst coach Munster
Kyle Godwin Connacht next season
David Horwitz Connacht next seasonQuota player slots and end contract date
LH Schalk van der Merwe NIQ May 2019
H Rhys Marshall NIQ May 2019
TH Vacant
L Scott Fardy NIE May 2019
L Jean Kleyn NIQ May 2019
BR Chris Cloete NIQ June 2020
BR Jean Deysel NIE May 2019
BR Marcel Coetzee NIE May 2019
SH Jamison Gibson Park NIQ May 2019
OH Vacant
W James Lowe NIQ June 2020
12 Jaco Taute NIE May 2019
13 Vacant
W Isa Nacewa NIE May 2018
15 Charles Piutau NIE May 2018 -
Didn't know where to put this one but, Irishman in potato addiction shocker!
Ireland prop Furlong battling 'potato addiction'
Irish tighthead Tadhg Furlong is said to be battling a potato addiction - according to his team's nutritionist at least.
-
@machpants said in NH club rugby:
Didn't know where to put this one but, Irishman in potato addiction shocker!
Ireland prop Furlong battling 'potato addiction'
Irish tighthead Tadhg Furlong is said to be battling a potato addiction - according to his team's nutritionist at least.
He’s not the first, nor the last.
Fierce problem out here. Worse than the drink.
-
The European finals are on next weekend and the senior comp features Racing 92 v Leinster - neither of them English teams to Stephen Jones chagrin. But it does provide him with an opportunity to have a poke at two of his favorite targets and display his glorious grasp and understanding of irony. From his Times column:
“*One preview of the action in Bilbao on Saturday proclaimed that Leinster were meeting “Dan Carter’s Racing 92” in the Champions Cup finaI. I recall Carter being paid an enormous amount of money following the 2015 World Cup to leave New Zealand to play for Racing, but I don’t recall him buying the club as well.
Icons. They are just, well, iconic. It is a status conferred in rugby which is above world-class and which makes you untouchable. Shovel manure and it comes up smelling of roses.
One account of a previous European match this season recorded that Carter, arriving as a replacement, “immediately . . . showed his true class with a glorious long pass”. The truth is that the pass in question could have been thrown by about 95% of professional fly-halves currently playing the game.
But an icon is an icon, and is always an icon, and that status does not depend on form or fitness or reality — just as, for example, Brian O’Driscoll discovered on the 2013 Lions tour, and yet there are still thousands of Irishmen who cannot accept that he was over the hill by then and had no business playing in a Lions Test.
Carter was a great player for the All Blacks but it is important to note the platform on which he played. It would be too much to say that your old grandmother could have played fly-half for the All Blacks, so dominant were they throughout two World Cups, and Carter was sublime at each end — in 2005 against the Lions and a decade later in the World Cup final — if inconsistent in between.
That is why the likes of Jonathan Davies, Juan Martin Hernandez and John Rutherford, plus one or two others, would lie above Carter in my all-time list in terms of individual greatness. Davies, for example, spent most of his career playing for Wales while waiting in vain for a decent morsel of possession which he could run on to.
Whisper it, but Carter has not been a runaway success for Racing. Decent yes, willing yes, but not dazzling at all. It is also too easy to say that his marvellous approachability and example to youngsters has shone through, but he was convicted for drink-driving in Paris, an incident which caused Jacky Lorenzetti, Racing’s owner, to finally lose patience with the player and bemoan the fact that Carter had added to his repertoire the one talent that he had not yet demonstrated throughout his outstanding career — the ability to enjoy a party.
And whisper it even more quietly, but he may not even start in Bilbao. Pat Lambie, a Springbok, has been favoured lately at fly-half and insiders believe that he will also start in Bilbao, leaving Carter, in one of those needle-sharp witticisms for which Kiwis are not famous, “riding the pine”.
It is quite remarkable how variable in performance All Black imports have been. One fascinating piece of research from the New Zealand Herald reckons that of the 119 players who have appeared for the All Blacks since 2008, 60 of them have played overseas. Sometimes, the greater the all Black, the worse they have fared. Some of the true greats — Richie McCaw, Kieran Read, Tony Woodcock and others — never tried it. They had reputations to protect and such reputations do not always survive the intensity of a northern hemisphere winter.
Carter, Chris Jack, Ian Jones, Conrad Smith, Carlos Spencer and around a score more players regarded as greats have created barely a ripple compared to what they were expected to achieve. Yet fringe All Blacks, those who rarely started in Test matches — the likes of Victor Vito, Ben Blair, John Afoa, Jimmy Gopperth, Nick Evans, Charles Piutau and Greg Rawlinson — have been simply wonderful. Strange.
Whether Lambie or Carter play on Saturday is far less relevant to the eventual result than the withdrawal of the injured scrum-half Maxime Machenaud, easily Racing’s player of the season, one of the few Frenchmen to show international form consistently over the last few years. Teddy Iribaren, the replacement, has a slicker service but not the all-round strength and match gravitas of Machenaud.
Carter, whether he is Carter the starter or Carter the bencher, is unlikely to add Bilbao and Europe to the list of his conquests. Racing have been improving, they have reduced the number of dodgy foreign players in their ranks quite significantly, and indeed, most of the team in Bilbao will be homespun. A French club comprising largely French players? Whatever next?
Yet you would wish Carter the very best. He is one drinking session short of a perfect career as an example to everybody. Nothing indicated his status in the eyes of the New Zealand public better than the day he was injured and had to withdraw from the 2011 Rugby World Cup. It was as if some desperate natural catastrophe had struck the whole nation.
It is a good few years since Carter has truly been in his pomp — in the 2005 series against the Lions, he appeared to be walking on water and it probably took him until 2015 to regain those heights.
Also at stake in Bilbao, it is said, is a supremacy battle between the Pro14 and the Top 14. In a week when the Top 14 announced a stitched-together television deal — or, rather, a series of mini-deals which in the end adds up to a mini-deal — it was proudly stated that Leinster were proving the mighty worth of the Pro14 with their dominant performances in Europe.
The fact is that Leinster’s team in Europe have very little to do with the Pro14, a tournament in which they have coasted through with ease. They are in the final of the Champions Cup partly because the Pro14 allows them to field weakened sides so often and still thrive. The true indication of the strength of the Pro14 would be if Leinster started to struggle.
It is unlikely that the struggle will begin on Saturday, and unlikely that Carter at his best would have had much of a say. Leinster, like the march of time which even creeps up on the iconic, appear to be unstoppable.”*
-
@pot-hale said in NH club rugby:
That is why the likes of Jonathan Davies, Juan Martin Hernandez and John Rutherford, plus one or two others, would lie above Carter in my all-time list in terms of individual greatness. Davies, for example, spent most of his career playing for Wales while waiting in vain for a decent morsel of possession which he could run on to.
This where I stopped reading this ridiculous pile of horse shit.
