Premiership Round 11

Well that was stupid by Wiese

Too many errors and poor discipline from Tigers today. Bristol looking like they are getting some form back.

Well spoke too soon there ... fair play to Tigers for not giving up.

Good game....Tigers roll on despite Weise's idiot act.

Tigers were very much hindered by the late withdrawal of Snyman, Green came into the side and had a shocker. Chessum came on and added a lot in the row, definitely the impact Borthwick wanted when he kept him on the bench and brought Green in from outside the 23.

Weise, well it's Weise. He was brilliant after coming on for the concussed can Staden and then ruined it with a dumb yellow card which is 100% par for the course with him. If he could engage his brain a bit more and stop the cards he'd be the stand out 8 in Prem easily. As it stands he's always good for a couple of penalties and probably a card.

That final Tigers try was brilliant patience from Ford to stretch Bristol side to side and then exploit the hole when it came. Top quality offload by Steward and then Dolly works the 2 on 1 perfectly with Porter.

Really good game that. But error strewn but couldn't look a way for a minute.

Tiger's belief got them over the line, don't think many other sides would have won that.

Sgt_Pooly wrote:Tiger's belief got them over the line, don't think many other sides would have won that.

Agreed. The level of belief is huge, momentum is something that you can't understate. Bristol maybe lacked some of that belief whereas Tigers never deviated from their game plan because they have total faith in it and themselves coming good.

Shame - LI miss out on a LBP by 1 point after missing 4 out of 5 conversions and also having a try chalked off for obstruction ...

Whoever looks after the Premiership website needs to get their act together - they show Tigers losing 26-23 ...

What a finish.

Tigers really didn't play well. Lots of penalties and unforced errors. Once again they get over the line though.

If Wiese had a brain he'd be prime challenger replace Vermuelen. As it stands the dumb mistakes and indiscipline might hold him back from being an international.

I thought Reffell was very good as he always seems to be. Losing van Staden was a big blow that hit the Tigers bench impact having to bring Wiese on early but Reffell mitigated losing van Staden in defence.

Downside for Tigers is seeing our locks struggle a bit. I think Wells, Snyman and Green are good club players (with Wells pushing a past that at times) but all have a ceiling. They can sometimes struggle to impose themselves on the game, ranging from being a bit anonymous or downright poor (Green today). Chessum looks a fantastic player but ideally I think Tigers will need a decent signing at lock to win big games at the business end. The top European lock partnerships such as Itoje/Isiekwe, Gray/Hill, Ryan/Baird, etc could really dominate a pairing with Green or Snyman starting would be my fear in knockout games.

Heaf wrote:Whoever looks after the Premiership website needs to get their act together - they show Tigers losing 26-23 ...

Fixed now ...

I know what you mean with lock. I suppose the issue is we have five senior locks, two of which are talented youngsters that we'll want to keep hold of and then three players of which two are academy graduates. I think only Green is out of contract this summer so do we sacrifice him and try to attract someone better? I don't think that will be easy with the cap.

Chessum looks like he'll be mustard of he keeps improving like he has been. I'd like to see him combine with Henderson when he returns from injury. Could be a very handy combination.

Another pasting for Bath. I know I should be over it by now but it's hard to feel sorry for them after years of plundering the best players from LI

Seems the officials had some sympathy though - what looked like a clear offside to me wasn't clear to them.

Ollie Lawrence liking half a dozen tweets about Tigers win at the same time as Wuss are getting pumped...

formerly known as Sam wrote:I know what you mean with lock. I suppose the issue is we have five senior locks, two of which are talented youngsters that we'll want to keep hold of and then three players of which two are academy graduates. I think only Green is out of contract this summer so do we sacrifice him and try to attract someone better? I don't think that will be easy with the cap.

Chessum looks like he'll be mustard of he keeps improving like he has been. I'd like to see him combine with Henderson when he returns from injury. Could be a very handy combination.

Kruis would be the dream. An ideal player to immediately improve the starting XV and mentor young Chessum, Henderson, Martin and Chessum the even younger still.

king_carlos wrote:Ollie Lawrence liking half a dozen tweets about Tigers win at the same time as Wuss are getting pumped...

Sadly he also came out recently and said he's happy where he is despite there being an option in his contract to leave in the summer. Ted Hill is rumoured to have similar.

I don't see how we can realistically afford someone like Lawrence unless Lavanini was a marquee and his lack of replacement meant we just never needed to use the second marquee spot to remain under the cap. Then you'd look at the likes of Brink, Genge, Taute and Kobus van Wyk (maybe T Youngs to) plus the loaned squad players leaving and think we've got some cap space to play with.

Kruis would be the ideal signing, won't be a like for like cap space swap with Green though.

The other good option would be to see if we could reunite the Weise brothers at Tigers. Younger Weise is a pretty handy lock and would fit right in.

By my understanding Lawrence didn't come out and say he was staying put. The Malvern Gazette (Worcester equivalent of the Merc) ran a piece saying "recent reports suggest Lawrence and Hill will stay" without any quotes at all. So all rumours at this stage.

Tigers centres all depend on if we can keep Moroni and Scott. If we can retain both then I'd rather keep the current group together. If either goes then we'd need a replacement and Lawrence would be a fantastic signing. I don't think Lawrence would be a huge wage either. He's extremely talented but if he wants to stay in the Prem then wherever he goes will be dealing with the lower cap, if he went to France for instance I do think the weaknesses in his all round game would prevent him drawing top end wages. He's already a dangerous runner with a very high ceiling but he has limitations currently that will naturally need time to improve.

Moroni is one of the best defensive 13s in the game and also offers plenty in attack. If the rugby world is fair he should be attracting big offers. I desperately hope Tigers keep him as he's fantastic but I expect there will be very tough competition.

Cobus Wiese would be a step up on Green and Snyman to be fair. Given he also plays 6 someone like that could be a good fit if Martin shifts to lock as well. Then Cobus could shift to back row more.

If think there will be a lot of player movement in the Premiership due to the cap changes.

I expect a lot of movement as well. Agents will be looking to wrangle deals all over the place and French clubs in particular will be watching with interest given their obvious spending advantage.

On a Tigers point of view I'd hope we'd keep as much of the current first team together as possible. I'm not counting the fringe players that need offloading, the ones that are in the 23 most weeks (rotation allowing). Prop may be an area of issue given Ellis is off and Leatigaga is a little bit of a luxury option given he's only a viable sub option but teams in France would certainly go for him in that role.

If all we end up needing is a loosehead and a lock then that would be pretty good. I expect us to go hunting for some more age grade talent that's at lower league clubs.

Ruck reporting another top 6 club being investigated for salary cap breaches, not Sarries so that leaves Tigers, Gloucester, Saints, Quins or Chiefs.

Also a very good bit from Joe Marler on law changes that he would like to see introduced and consistency with punishments most of which I am in agreement with.

WELL-PAST-IT wrote:Ruck reporting another top 6 club being investigated for salary cap breaches, not Sarries so that leaves Tigers, Gloucester, Saints, Quins or Chiefs.

I wonder to what level the breaches are. There has been fines for minor breaches before I think Quins and Wasps in recent years and Tigers in Manu's first season. Not massively unusual where an academy player ends up being counted towards the cap after breaking into the first team. Small amount over, quick fine and move on. I suspect it could be something like that being blown out of proportion after Sarries colossal cap breach.

Interesting to see what it is and what the punishment is. They have set the bar now with Sarries, unless it is very minor it will have to be serious punishment or Sarries will have them in the court faster than Radwan can run the length of the pitch.

WELL-PAST-IT wrote:Interesting to see what it is and what the punishment is. They have set the bar now with Sarries, unless it is very minor it will have to be serious punishment or Sarries will have them in the court faster than Radwan can run the length of the pitch.

Not really I think they actually capped the Sarries fine. The Sarries breach was always a major one, if I remember correctly the punishments are banded depending on the severity of the of the breach.

Sarries were basically sanctioned for 5 consecutive seasons as well I believe. They were just taking the p*** basically.

There were the two years when Sarries and Bath were found to be way over, both got big fines and it was swept under the table a bit with the cap then being raised to help Premiership clubs compete in Europe. Then Sarries broke it 3 more seasons in a row. Plus they didn't want to open their books to a mid-season investigation for a 6th season.

I believe a fair few clubs have had fines for trying to stretch the injury dispensation or academy rules for instance. There's a difference between indiscretions such as that (for which a fine, albeit a bigger one than they used to be, is a reasonable punishment IMO) and the Sarries situation where their squad was clearly farcical for years.

With the reduced cap and dropping to one marquee player the rules got more complicated as well. If a club had two marquee players already in contract then they can keep two marquee players until the first of those contracts expired. Likewise when the cap dropped to £5m if clubs had existing contracts signed before a certain date only 75% of those wages would count towards the cap.

It wouldn't surprise me at all if a club has tried to fudge the date around when contracts were signed to take advantage of keeping two marquee players or only having 75% of wages count to the cap.

The Quins vs. Northampton game is shaping up to be a cracker, five tries in under 20 minutes!

The Quins Saints match is crazy so far ...

2 teams that enjoy attacking. Shame Smith is out but the 2 9s are having a good game as are Ribbans and Dombrandt.

Yep unfortunate for Smith as this would have suited him down to the ground ...

Cumbrian wrote:The Quins vs. Northampton game is shaping up to be a cracker, five tries in under 20 minutes!

Discipline is optional, attacking rugby is not.

formerly known as Sam wrote:

Cumbrian wrote:The Quins vs. Northampton game is shaping up to be a cracker, five tries in under 20 minutes!

Discipline is optional, attacking rugby is not.

True enough, it wouldn't win a 'normal' game, I'm enjoying the endeavor anyway.

Sounds like it's Quins who are the club being investigated.

I wish Lol would shut up about the post lighting up (mind you, I generally wish he would just shut up).

king_carlos wrote:Sounds like it's Quins who are the club being investigated.

That's what I've heard as well.

Historically, when. Quins have gone over (the time I remember it was due to a player on a pay per game bonus playing more matches than expected, I think), they have been very up front about fessing up and paying the fine .

It would be a big surprise if they have breached it in a major way, or even not come clean about a minor breach. But I guess we will see.

When the cap reduction was announced, they were quick to sign a lot of key players to long term contracts. They've also got several players on academy contracts who might now expect to be on senior ones. But as far as I know, both of those tactics are allowed under the cap.

Barnes got that wrong ...

Poorfour wrote:Historically, when. Quins have gone over (the time I remember it was due to a player on a pay per game bonus playing more matches than expected, I think), they have been very up front about fessing up and paying the fine .

It would be a big surprise if they have breached it in a major way, or even not come clean about a minor breach. But I guess we will see.

When the cap reduction was announced, they were quick to sign a lot of key players to long term contracts. They've also got several players on academy contracts who might now expect to be on senior ones. But as far as I know, both of those tactics are allowed under the cap.

If it is Quins I'd expect it to be a minor breach and probably an academy/development player(s) ending up counting towards the senior cap by being involved with the first team more than expected.

I presume they are reviewing last season so could it be the emergence of Lynagh?

I can't see Quins being at the Sarries antics. Was there any injury dispensations for them last season?

Will Evans was the big one, but we replaced him with Kenningham from the academy

Wayne is allowing some unorthodox entry points to the ruck from Saints, including jumping sideways over the tackled player and from behind the back feet of the opposing team. Have there been law changes that I've missed?

Brain dead from Care to get himself sin binned there. Game is in the palm of Quins hand, not a time you want to lose your 9.

Poorfour, could be that Kenningham wasn't included in the cap calculation by the club initially. If that's the case it'll be a small fine and move on surely.

What on earth was the Saints' winger doing there? I reckon he's probably cost his team a LBP there, all through a lazy bit of play.

Stupid handbags twice from both teams - Quins have ended up with the worst of the deal however as the first one should not have been reversed as Saints started it not Quins as Barnsie said ..

Cumbrian wrote:What on earth was the Saints' winger doing there?  I reckon he's probably cost his team a LBP there, all through a lazy bit of play.

Yep what a shocker ...

I dunno, as a neutral (slightly favouring Quins), I think they did alright out of the referee, the penalty count in the second half was certainly in quins' favour.

Overall yes - it was just the handbags sanctions that Barnsie messed up a bit

Before the handbags in the first half he was actually reaching for a card against Saints, then forgot all about it

After you all watched Saints today you will have witnessed one of the most amazingly consistent team play of all time. Saints ALWAYS give up a try either right before halftime or at the end of the second half. So what do we see today? A try right before the end of both halves.

It also didn't help Saints were outscored by 34-6 in the second half.....

You think a coaching change is in the cards???

Scrum coaching change maybe. Surely with their front rows they could be doing better. Live Harelquins starting props but Walker hasn't previously looked that could there. Though could be Jones working his magic?

No 7&1/2 wrote:Scrum coaching change maybe. Surely with their front rows they could be doing better. Live Harelquins starting props but Walker hasn't previously looked that could there. Though could be Jones working his magic?

Walker has always had masses of potential he just never realised that after the move from Leeds to Bath. At Quins with the constant flow of game time and the coaching of Jones and Flannery he seems to be coming good. I suspect a good proportion is probably confidence from the coaches backing him.

Jesus my typing is appalling on this phone.love and good should be in there somewhere.