Scarlets vs Tigers in the LV Cup

Cockers has already hinted much the same team as beat Wasps will be playing this weekend but with no Price (concussion) and with Waldrom, Croft and Murphy on the bench. I'd expect:

1. Stankovitch
2. Hawkins
3. Mulipola
4. Andrew
5. Wells
6. Noone
7. Thorpe
8. Deacon
9. Harrison
10. Bowden
11. Goneva
12. Cornwall
13. Forsyth
14. Morris
15. Tait

Bench - Harris, Chuter, Balmain, Croft, Waldrom, Young, Symonds, Murphy.

I would prefer to see the likes of Lewington, Purdy and Stevens come in to grab some first team game time at the expense of Tait, Morris and Chuter as the Scarlets team is set to be fairly young.

Ajy Scarlets fans feeling confident about this one?

NO.

Come on Glas Tigers are giving your lot a fair crack by playing Noone at 6, 14 vs 15 should even it up. Nt to mntion a retired fly half at lock.

I do agree its a pity Tigers arent using this as a chance to bring a few more guys through, but its does appear they hae started to almost take this vaguely seriously now. The bench is very strong

Have you seen our team! Never mind the coaches...

I am a bit disappointed that Leicester are not coming here with the same team/attitude as they did last time, as the team could do with a repeat of that game to get out of this rut (Glibert and Murphy both setting PYS alight on their debuts).

Personally I have a feeling that we will be feilding as strong a side as we can, probably something like the following, as we really need to get some continuity into the team leading into the RABO.

Owen, K Phillips, Maule, Warren, Fenby, O Williams, G Davies
R Jones, E Phillips, Lee, Ball, Snyman, Timani, Eager, Murphy
(bench-: Myhill, John, Adriaanse, Kelly, Vallejos, A Davies, AN.Other, N Reynolds)

PSW that's the team that has been hinted at in the media. I'm still hoping we'll see a couple more youngsters given a go. Balmain starting would also be good to see. Saw Lewington play for Notts against Bedford on Sky at the weekend. He looked electric in the first half, would like to see him given a go.

How has Noone been going with Leicester? There is a good deal of hype surrounding this guy. He scored a try last week didn't he?

He made his debut last weekend off the bench after Croft's early withdrawl. Looks set to play on Saturday. He scored a simple walkover try but got decent reviews on the offy which isn't always easy given some of the miseries on there.

He'll have to go some to be considered more than squad cover with Tigers have two internationals at both 6 and 8 as well as club stalwart Brett Deacon. Be interesting to see if he gets a contract for next season.

Scarlets

15. Gareth Owen
14. Kyle Evans
13. Nick Reynolds
12. Adam Warren
11. Andy Fenby
10. Owen Williams
9. Aled Davies

1. Rhodri Jones
2. Emyr Phillips (capt)
3. Jacobie Adriannse
4. Jake Ball
5. Johan Snyman
6. Sione Timani
7. Lewis Rawlins
8. Kieran Murphy

Replacements - Kirby Myhill, Shaun Hopkins, Deacon Manu, Richard Kelly, Duane Eager, Gareth Davies, Aled Thomas, Dale Ford

Leicester Tigers
15 Mathew Tait
14 Scott Hamilton
13 Andy Forsyth
12 Matt Cornwell
11 Vereniki Goneva
10 Dan Bowden
9 Micky Young
1 Boris Stankovich
2 George Chuter
3 Logovi'i Mulipola
4 Rob Andrew
5 Harry Wells
6 Brett Deacon (c)
7 Richard Thorpe
8 Thomas Waldrom

Replacements -: Rob Hawkins, Ryan Bower, Fraser Balmain, Matt Hubbart, George Oliver, Sam Harrison, Andy Symons, Geordan Murphy

Is this being televised?

Will be interesting to see how Balmain goes if he gets on.

S4C at 12.45pm

ScarletSpiderman wrote:S4C at 12.45pm

cheers mate

That's a fairly strong team, good mix of youth and experience. Would have liked us to start a few more youngsters but I suppose we are chasing a LBP away from home.

Sam - the Scarlets have a few lads in there with very little experience, Evans on the wing is making his debut and Rawlins at openside is normally a lock and playing his second game for us.

I think the Tigers should have the edge on us, especially given our forwards and backs coaches are both off on welsh duth (wilson coaching u20s, and jones wales attack coach). I am really hoping that the carrot of being able to say they beat the Tigers will be enough to squeeze a good performance out of the Scarlets.

Also out of intrest whats happened to Portnoy? I haven't seen him post on here for a while.

Dunno about Portnoy. Maybe he's grabbing some winter sunshine.

There's some inexperienced Tigers lads there as well. Wells, Forsyth and Symons probably have about twenty appearences between (only Forsyth has played outside of tye LV Cup) them whilst Oliver made his debut this season and Hubbard has never been in a match day squad before.

Interesting that have named two academy tighthead props on the bench though both have covered loosehead previously.

ScarletSpiderman wrote:

Also out of intrest whats happened to Portnoy? I haven't seen him post on here for a while.

Why dont you ask GreyTiger, I think they sit next to each other in the Crumbie stand bar

Result of the game now meaningless with Sale securing all 5pts at Adams Park, so will be interesting just to see how some of the fringe players do.

As an aside should Sale win the LV and be relegated do they forfeit the HEC spot they gained?

I'm not sure but it was amusing to see that their first team nearly lost to a bunch of Wasps youngsters and Stephen Jones.

Can a Welshman explain why Tigers are described as Caer on the scoreboard?

First try of the game is a rolling maul pushover with Waldrom dotting it down. The Scarlets half backs are looking handy but aren't being given much by their pack.

formerly known as Sam wrote:Can a Welshman explain why Tigers are described as Caer on the scoreboard?

First try of the game is a rolling maul pushover with Waldrom dotting it down. The Scarlets half backs are looking handy but aren't being given much by their pack.

Leicester is Caerlyr in Welsh.

Ta muchly.

Good game. Scarlets are well up for it and the crowd is vocal. Tigers have given some soft penalties away, at least 9 for the defence coming up to early and being offside. Two ycs for Scarlets one for collapsing a maul two metres put and another for a deliberate knock on denying Tigers a try. Penalty try for Tigers at the scrum and then Bowden put Forsyth over in the corner with a looping pass.

Changes at props helping Scarlets. Ryan Bower playing out of position at loosehead is being shunted all over the place. Not helped by Gardner having no idea what's going on. He's even given the warning to the wrong prop for an offence (standing up) which was all to do with the Scarlets hooker standing up.

Wow tigers replacing tighthead is way out of his depth.

Actually he isn't. Gardner pinged him for standing up without looking at why. The Tigers loosehead was going back rapidly whilst the tighthead side was barely moving this was causing the scrum to fracture and the tighthead side to slinter and rise. Sadly the ref lost the plot entirely in the second half including giving a penalty for the Tigers captain asking a question when the game had stopped.

Ruined a good game as there's no quick ball, players being taken off the ball and all sorts going on at the breakdown. I've given up on it.

formerly known as Sam wrote:Actually he isn't. Gardner pinged him for standing up without looking at why. The Tigers loosehead was going back rapidly whilst the tighthead side was barely moving this was causing the scrum to fracture and the tighthead side to slinter and rise. Sadly the ref lost the plot entirely in the second half including giving a penalty for the Tigers captain asking a question when the game had stopped.

Ruined a good game as there's no quick ball, players being taken off the ball and all sorts going on at the breakdown. I've given up on it.

So I suppose u think he was fine in the 1st half when he was letting Tigers get away with things. He penalised your Captain for shooting his mouth of, repeatedly I must add, that time was just after he had been warned for it, might not of been visible on the tv but was plain to see when it is right in front of you in the stand..
He was not the best of ref's but was more than tolerant with Leicester.

Never mind. Back to the real business!

Fair play to the ref never seen him before, but he took some heckling well. After the Tjgers last try in the first half one of the fans was loudly shouted at the goal kjcker not to waste time cos he was going to miss and the was loudly letting the ref know 40 seconds had gone etc. As the con sailed over the ref was laughing at the fan.

All in all it was a dead rubber match, both teams were out already, but I was proud of the Scarlets effort, and prey it will kick us on for our play off chase.

Gotta applaud the effort there. I didn't see the game, but there was plenty of talk about the ref in that first half, something to do with the sin-bin decisions? If so, then Scarlets are pretty unlucky getting two bent english refs in the past two games.

First sin bin we were warned about collapsing the maul, they kicked to touch won the line, started a maul. We colllapsed it. Totally fair to be carded.

Second card mins late a long miss pass, four men outside with only Fenby there, he jumped up and hit the ball forward hoping to catch it before it hit the ground, but didn't. Unlucky, but in hiindsight fair. Also probably could have been a pen try, but wasn't.

At the time it seemed harsh to bin two men minutes apart, but the same happened to the tigers in the second half. I think there's were a lock for taking the jumper out in the line and collapsing the scrum. Seeing as it worked both ways I don't think the ref was overly harsh.

Other than the fact he binned the wrong prop I wouldn't complain with either sinbinning. On another day I'd say the Andrew yc was harsh and not even a penalty, he didn't even interupt the players catch or delivery to the 9 falling backwards as he tried not to concede the penalty, but the ref had told the Scarlets earlier not to even rest a hand on players in the air. Not that we missed Andrew he was one of the worst players on the park.

I enjoyed large portions of the game as the teams went end to end with Tigers playing stupidly fast and loose whilst the Scarlets had pace to burn and free reign to show what they could do (the Scarlets 10 particularly impressed). For all of Gardners ycs he never controlled the breakdown and we saw scuffles break out, in the second half that started to bore me. The game went niggly instead of the end to end and I switched over to watch Italy vs France, a good call.

Well in that case I really hope Owen Williams replaces Sam Davies in the U20s team!

I thhink Andrews little pushing contest with Gareth Davies may have lead to his actions in the line later, cos it must have bruised his confidnce lmost being put on his rump by a scrum half.

I prey Williams is left with the Scarlets as we could do with him for the rabo.

ScarletSpiderman wrote:I thhink Andrews little pushing contest with Gareth Davies may have lead to his actions in the line later, cos it must have bruised his confidnce lmost being put on his rump by a scrum half.

I prey Williams is left with the Scarlets as we could do with him for the rabo.

I believe he is 21 this month so should not be called into the u20's

2nd Time - thank god, he has played well in the last two games, and is able to kick well out of hand and off the tee.

Williams was named in the U20s squad. They wouldn't have named him if he wasn't eligible. Looks like Patchell will be playing against Leinster so Wales U20 could really do with a proper fly-half. Sam Davies was gash last year and he still is.

Morgannwg wrote:Williams was named in the U20s squad. They wouldn't have named him if he wasn't eligible. Looks like Patchell will be playing against Leinster so Wales U20 could really do with a proper fly-half. Sam Davies was gash last year and he still is.

If the Blues are allowed to take Patch back, but are realistically out of the playoff chase, then surely the Scarlets should be allowed to keep hold of Williams as we are still in the hunt for a playoff spot.

Their regional teams get priority. It was more 'hope' that Williams would be released to the U20s, and I don't see the Blues doing it.

2ndtimeround wrote:

ScarletSpiderman wrote:I thhink Andrews little pushing contest with Gareth Davies may have lead to his actions in the line later, cos it must have bruised his confidnce lmost being put on his rump by a scrum half.

I prey Williams is left with the Scarlets as we could do with him for the rabo.

I believe he is 21 this month so should not be called into the u20's

As I understand it you have to be U20 on the 01/01 of the year to be eligible for competitions that year. I thought it was U20 though so it would mean he was 20 on the 1st Jan and therefore ineligible.

According to the WRU website

Wales Under 20 Six Nations squad

Forwards: *Ellis Jenkins (capt, Blues / Cardiff), *Nicky Smith (Ospreys / Swansea), *Dan Suter (Ospreys / Bridgend), *Nicky Thomas (Ospreys / Swansea), Bradley Thyer (Pontypridd), Ethan Lewis (Blues / Cardiff), *Elliot Dee (Bedwas), Carwyn Jones (Scarlets / Carmarthen), *Jack Jones (Ospreys / Rovigo), *Rhodri Hughes (Ospreys / Swansea), *Ieuan Jones (Dragons / Newport), *Daniel Thomas (Scarlets / Llanelli), *Sion Bennett (Scarlets / Carmarthen), *James Benjamin (Bedwas)

Backs: *Rhodri Williams (Scarlets / Llandovery), Joshua Davies (Dragons / Bedwas), *Rhys Patchell (Blues / Cardiff), Ethan Davies (Bedwas), *Cory Allen (Blues / Cardiff), Steffan Hughes (Scarlets / Llanelli), *Jack Dixon (Dragons / Bedwas), *Thomas Pascoe (Blues / Pontypridd), Ashton Hewitt (Dragons / Newport), Dion Jones (Scarlets / Llanelli), *Harry Robinson (Blues / Cardiff), *Ashley Evans (Ospreys / Bridgend), *Hallam Amos (Dragons / Bedwas)

*Indicates National Academy member

Prop Gareth Thomas (Scarlets / Carmarthen), outside half *Sam Davies (Ospreys / Swansea) and full back *Jordan Williams (Scarlets / Llanelli), who were all part of the Junior World Championship squad last season, are currently unavailable due to injury but will return to the squad injury permitting during the course of the tournament.



Maybe it was Rhodri Willimas (scrum Half) or Jordan Williams (fly half) that you were thinking of?

I get the two brothers mixed up. And although Jordan is a full back, I thought he also played at 10? Was it Owen Williams who played in this Tigers fixture?

Yes Owen Williams was 10 this week, not aware of any of the Williams's been brothers incidentally. Owen is from Neath, Rhodri is from Swansea and Jordan is Llanelli. or at least thats how the squad list has them.

I thought it was Owen and Jordan who are the brothers.

No. Try these links if they work.
Owen Williams -
http://www.scarlets.co.uk/eng/rugby/squad.php?player=88081&includeref=dynamic
And Jordan Williams -
http://www.scarlets.co.uk/eng/rugby/squad.php?player=88230&includeref=dynamic

And to add to the fun owen williams at the dragons is a prop and owen williams at the blues is a wing-centre

I think it amusing that the standard of English refereeing is being questioned when the standard of refereeing in the RABO12 is quite frankly, embarassing. Maybe you're all so used to garbage Refereeing, that when a decent one comes along, it takes you by suprise and you cry 'foul'.

Anyway, congratulations to Scarlets, unfortunately you wont progress but take heart from a hard fought victory.

Jimpy wrote:I think it amusing that the standard of English refereeing is being questioned when the standard of refereeing in the RABO12 is quite frankly, embarassing. Maybe you're all so used to garbage Refereeing, that when a decent one comes along, it takes you by suprise and you cry 'foul'.

Anyway, congratulations to Scarlets, unfortunately you wont progress but take heart from a hard fought victory.

Jimpy nobody has had a pop at the ref, I thought he was good. And so did the majority of the Scarlets fans who were at the game.

ScarletSpiderman wrote:

Jimpy wrote:I think it amusing that the standard of English refereeing is being questioned when the standard of refereeing in the RABO12 is quite frankly, embarassing. Maybe you're all so used to garbage Refereeing, that when a decent one comes along, it takes you by suprise and you cry 'foul'.

Anyway, congratulations to Scarlets, unfortunately you wont progress but take heart from a hard fought victory.

Jimpy nobody has had a pop at the ref, I thought he was good. And so did the majority of the Scarlets fans who were at the game.

Are you sure, read back a few posts...

The original comments on the ref came from Sam, I'm pretty sure he's an English poster actually jimpy.
The reply came from myself and just points out he was giving decisions both ways but was easier on 1 team 1st then changed around later in the game.
Incidently I don't believe the quality of refereeing is any better your side of the bridge than ours and the only way this will change is to simplify some of the more unfathomable rules, when professional players need to ask a ref what his interpretation of the rules are it makes a mockery of the game. There needs to be clearer guidlines available to all and then we would not have refs accused of cheating for different interpretations.

Jimpy - one post by someone who didn't see the game doesn't really count. The second yellow card for the scarlets mins after the first got the same reaction as it would from any home crowd, but Garner was consistant and as I said most fans thought he was pretty decent.

Jimpy wrote:I think it amusing that the standard of English refereeing is being questioned when the standard of refereeing in the RABO12 is quite frankly, embarassing. Maybe you're all so used to garbage Refereeing, that when a decent one comes along, it takes you by suprise and you cry 'foul'.

Anyway, congratulations to Scarlets, unfortunately you wont progress but take heart from a hard fought victory.

Another stupid post Jimpy. If you're referring to me, then I only enquired about it. The people on this thread that watched the game cleared it up for me. The reason why I asked is because I was reading the updates on the Scarlets Facebook page and there were numerous outcries from the fans about the ref. Even the admin left one sarcastic update. Before you point it out, I know that is not a good source. The Facebook fans of the Regions and WRU are always the dumbest. And yes; most of the refereeing in the RABO is garbage. But that doesn't mean there are no poor Anglo refs from the Aviva Premiership. I can't comment on this particular official as I didn't watch the game. The yellow cards in the second half at least tell me he was consistent though.