Diddy Cup Semi: Llanelli Scarlet O'Hara's V Glasgow Warriors

First topic message reminder :

The small boy inside me just loves putting the words "diddy and Semi" in the same sentence
The old man that I am loves hearing Stacey say , "Gav , it's not the BIG cup is it? That's not my big cup?"

Anyhow, it's a european competition and it is the semi-final. Someone's fans will be one step closer to glory and someone's will be crying in their Brains/Tennants delete as applicable.
Scarlets have home advantage and they get to play on the green green grass of home rather than be tortured by the biohazard wasteland that Glasgow are unbeaten on this season.

I shall allow our Welsh cousins to fill us in on the Scarlets likely line up; hopefully Fifita will have a day off as he is a real threat and a classic south sea island second row in the Nakarawa mould.

A couple of weeks ago I posted the side I thought might feature in this match for Glasgow;

I'll have a stab at mine; Shocked

Bhatti-Turner-Ragnar Berghan-Mattews-McBeth

Gray-Cummings Groot-Squaddie

Fagerson-Dempsey-Darge Big Shona

Hornito House Elf (post Lions malaise for Aldi Sad)

Miotti Jordan

Wee Shona
Shug

Seaman-Smith-Seba

All fit and firing that's the side that would start against Scarlets for me. With the General there is no point looking beyond the next battle.



In the backs Shug' House Elf, Forbes and Seba are very doubtful. Wee Shona is also carrying a knock.
In the pack both Gray and Cummings took knocks against the Craggies.
There has been no medical updates from Scotstoun as yet.

One thing that has stood out like a Hassidic Jew at a Jeremy Corbyn rally is that Tom Jordan doesn't cope to well with a blitz defence. He has a tendency to try to run through trouble, great if he breaks the line, and this often leads to him being stopped at the gain line and our attacks losing momentum. Both Scarlets and Connacht put Glasgow under a lot of pressure here. Miotti takes the ball deeper and has a better kicking game which can take the sting out of a rush defence. However, Miotti hasn't really convinced as our starting 10. Sadly, Meatball hasn't forced himself into the reckoning and Ross Thompson has had to sit out the season through injury. I think Miotti will start. Or Jordan.

If Shug is injured then the problem isn't who plays at 13: Lord Stafford is having a great season, or Wee Shona goes to 13 and Sam Johnson starts at 12. No, the problem is more about which pairing is the better balanced. Arguably Johnson-McDowall have played as a unit more often and could be trusted to put in a performance. I think Johnson-Shona

The back three is a nightmare. The General has been losing wingers faster than Sunak loses Cabinet Ministers. I believe Ollie Smith and Seaman are fit and that's it.
Seba was supposed to be "about a week away from playing" a fortnight ago. If he is fit to play is he match fit?
I think Smith was rested against the Scarlets in order to see how Shug coped at 15 in case Smith had to play on the wing this weekend. Unfortunately the weather meant Shug never touched the ball so he played 15 against The Craggies....and got crocked. So Smith hasn't played in three weeks now.
So, if Seba isn't fit and Smith goes to wing then it's most likely Lord Stafford or Miotti at 15 with Seaman and Smith on the wings.

As for the pack....if Gray and Cummings are injured then we really are Friar Tucked.

Christ, Scarlets really not helping themselves now. A few minutes ago they had a sniff of a chance but the game is long gone now.

TAFKA The Oracle wrote:Not even a penalty?!!!

Genuine attempt to catch hence just a knock on

if its not then its a YC and pen - cannot be just a pen

Wow, what a second half from Glasgow

I genuinely thought it was going away from us at the end of the first half, what character to win as comfortably as that in the end, a try count of 5:1 can't really be argued with even if we got the rub of a couple of calls

I anm off to look at flights to Dublin

I agree with TJ Smith went for the interception but knocked on.
I wonder why Glasgow refuse to kick. Are they trying to tire the opposition fatboys out?
Groot was superb today: really spoiled the Scarlets lineout.
I think the injuries affected Scarlets but over the 80 the better side won.

BigGee wrote:Wow, what a second half from Glasgow

I genuinely thought it was going away from us at the end of the first half, what character to win as comfortably as that in the end, a try count of 5:1 can't really be argued with even if we got the rub of a couple of calls

I anm off to look at flights to Dublin

Apparently hotels are costing an arm and a leg that weekend. However if you have any Irish relatives with spare rooms let me know.

TJ wrote:

TAFKA The Oracle wrote:Not even a penalty?!!!

Genuine attempt to catch hence just a knock on

if its not then its a YC and pen - cannot be just a pen

Pretty much all one-handed intercepts are genuine attempts to catch the ball, or at least the vast majority that I’ve seen. Very few are slap downs. The player feels they can catch and run the length of the pitch. Yet the officiating of them is so inconsistent. Often a yellow card and pen given when someone is one handed with an intercept attempt but knocks it on, especially close to the line.

Not why scarlets lost though. Glasgow were very good and just a bit too powerful for the Scarlets.

Scarlets had enough ball but didn’t do enough with it. Some poor decisions at times when close to the line.

Great result for us, the final scoreline is definitely flattering. Scoring so easily at the start, the players seemed to try for everything rather than settling into passages of play. When we reset in the second half, we looked much better

Think the ref was probably favoured us slightly on the whole. Smith was lucky to avoid conceding the penalty try and yellow, but it was not a ridiculous interpretation with the slap up and missing the resulting catch by half a foot. We probably should have had a yellow for the persistent infringing in that passage of play.

Matthews was excellent coming on, I think he probably deserves the start next week against Munster.

One handed is not the reason for genuine attempt to catch or not - its if the ref thinks you have made a reasonable attempt to catch and as he hit it up and then almost caught it before it hit the ground thats what the ref decided Its a judgement call

Scarlets could easily have had a red card as well. Another ref another day

It all works both ways

You can't really argue with a try count like that

We were lucky with the knock on, Scarlets with the head shot, on another day both could have gone the other way.

Can’t believe there was fighting in the Scarlets crowd. Poor show

Apparently the stewards were intent on keeping the Scaaalets fans in the ground till the end and some had formed anvescape committee.

Apparently the stewards were intent on keeping the Scaaalets fans in the ground till the end and some had formed an escape committee.

It was a very good team performance from Glasgow with a few standouts as well. Dempsey was rightly MoM but I thought Zander Fagerson had a very good game as well. Noy only did we get the scrum dominance we hoped, but he made serious yards in the heavy traffic every time he carried the ball. He is the one player in the team that is near irreplicable for us just now. How he is managed in the next few weeks with the tough series of games we have coming up will be crucial to how they go I think. Surely he can't play 70 mins in each of the games?

Pretty much every other position than TH can be rotated for Glasgow with no massive drop off in quality.

Franco keeps telling us there is a plan, so I look forward to seeing what it is.