Ospreys 2015/16 Season

First topic message reminder :

Never done one of these here before, yet cannot do any worse than last years idiot.
Head Coach Steve Tandy
Backs Coach Gruff Rees
Forwards Coach Chris Gibbes
Squad Alphabetically
TYLER ARDRON 24 Back Row                  Rhodri Hughes 20 Lock
Dimitri Arhip 26 Prop                              PAUL JAMES 33 Prop
Lloyd Ashley (Peers) 24 Lock                   AARON JARVIS 29 Prop
Dan Baker 23 Back Row                          Ben John 24 Centre
SCOTT BALDWIN 27 Hooker                    ALUN WYN JONES 29 Lock
Adam Beard 19 Lock                              JAMES KING 25 Back Row  
Joe Bearman 36 Back Row                      Brendon Leonard 30 S/H
Ashley Beck 25 Centre                            DAN LYDIATE 27 Back Row
Rynier Bernardo 24 Lock                         JOSH MATAVESI 24 Centre
Ryan Bevington 26 Prop                          Scott Otten 21 Hooker
DAN BIGGAR 25 OH                               Sam Parry 23 Hooker
Andrew Bishop 30 Centre                        Kristian Phillips 24 Wing
Jordan Collier 20 Back Row                     Martin Roberts 29 S/H
Olly Cracknell 21 Back Row                     Nicky Smith 21 Prop
Sam Davies 21 O/H                                Johnathon Spratt 29 Centre
Gareth Delve 32 Back Row                      De Kock Steenkamp 28 Lock
Hanno Dirksen 24 Wing                          Dan Suter 23 Prop
Mathew Dwyer 30 Hooker                       Gareth Thomas 23 Prop
Dan Evans 26 F/B                                  Marc Thomas 25 Prop
Lloyd Evans 24 Back Row                       Rory Thornton 20 Lock
Richard Fussell 31 F/B                            JUSTIN TIPURIC 26 Back Row  
Tom Grabham 24 Wing                           Eli Walker 23 Wing
Cai Griffiths 31 Prop                               RHYS WEBB 26 S/H
Tom Habberfield 23 S/H                         The following 2 are either temporary
JEFF HASSLER 24 Wing                          or with feeder clubs
Dafydd Howells 20 Wing                         Sam Underhill 19 Back Row
                                                           Oliver Tomaszczyk 28 Prop
The players in CAPITALS will not be available until after the first 3 games of the Guinness League due to WC call ups
The past 5 seasons we have finished 3, 5, 3, 3 and 4 at the end of the regular season, I envision us finishing around the same position this season.
We will also be without Bernardo and Suter for a while early season, we have recruited Tomaszczyk to cover Suter, Underhill came on as a substitute in the Saracens friendly and there were favourable reports about him. If we have injuries in a few key positions especially early season, that prophecy above could be out the window. There has been talk we have signed a T/H from NZ, who had a serious ankle ligament injury, we are still waiting on his rehab. It needs to be soon or we will have to rely on Jarvis, which is not a good thought.
Just to add we won our first 7 matches last season, against most peoples and my expectations, and it will be more of a shock to me if we win either of our first 2 matches this season. Too many missing through injury and International call ups.

bedfordwelsh wrote:Lydiates reasons were a bit more than just that Wayne

Bedford, the reasons behind his decision is a bit like the Ruddock reasons for leaving the Wales job, there are so many different stories doing the rounds, who knows.
What we do know is that he opted to play for us, and as I said at the time, I would not have gone in for him, we were in need of the 40% of his wages in more important positions, we were more in need for an extra 2nd row and if you remember we were down to at least our 5th choice loose head prop just before and during the Christmas period last year.

Lydiate chose Ospreys as they were playing in the Champions Cup and the Dragons weren't. Easy choice. I would have done the same.

Griff wrote:Lydiate chose Ospreys as they were playing in the Champions Cup and the Dragons weren't. Easy choice. I would have done the same.

Griff he also said in another interview, that he wanted to be down West because his wife's family lived down there and they wanted to be close to them.

wayne wrote:

Griff wrote:Lydiate chose Ospreys as they were playing in the Champions Cup and the Dragons weren't. Easy choice. I would have done the same.

Griff he also said in another interview, that he wanted to be down West because his wife's family lived down there and they wanted to be close to them.

Yet he also pined for his family farm in Llandrindod Wells, which is much easier to get to from Gwent than Swansea. I say 'much', but anywhere is easy to get to in Wales from anywhere really (in relative terms), so maybe a bit of a smoke screen. It's 45 minutes drive from Swansea to Newport. Not like the the end of the earth to get to training.

Lydiate says a lot of things mind. Like when he said they treat players like pieces of meat in France, before he then had an unsuccessful crack at it himself.

wayne wrote:

Griff wrote:Lydiate chose Ospreys as they were playing in the Champions Cup and the Dragons weren't. Easy choice. I would have done the same.

Griff he also said in another interview, that he wanted to be down West because his wife's family lived down there and they wanted to be close to them.

Wow. Hilarious.

Griff wrote:

wayne wrote:

Griff wrote:Lydiate chose Ospreys as they were playing in the Champions Cup and the Dragons weren't. Easy choice. I would have done the same.

Griff he also said in another interview, that he wanted to be down West because his wife's family lived down there and they wanted to be close to them.

Yet he also pined for his family farm in Llandrindod Wells, which is much easier to get to from Gwent than Swansea. I say 'much', but anywhere is easy to get to in Wales from anywhere really (in relative terms), so maybe a bit of a smoke screen. It's 45 minutes drive from Swansea to Newport. Not like the the end of the earth to get to training.

Griff I've just read 2 other articles, where one says he selected us because of personal reasons, and the other said he selected us over you because he felt his game had stagnated at the Dragons and it has now started to move forward again.
As I said initially, we'll never know the full reasons for his decision exactly the same as the Ruddock passage of time

Stone Motif wrote:

wayne wrote:

Griff wrote:Lydiate chose Ospreys as they were playing in the Champions Cup and the Dragons weren't. Easy choice. I would have done the same.

Griff he also said in another interview, that he wanted to be down West because his wife's family lived down there and they wanted to be close to them.

Wow. Hilarious.

Why do birds suddenly appear,

Good win for Ospreys today. I didn't know it was the same time as ours. Today's win is just what was needed before next week. How did Fia go?

Excellent win out in Italy, didn't see the first 2 tries, but some fine Rugby played by us, Tips as usual exceptional, his range of skills is phenomenal, the Canadians a breadth of fresh air, good to see them back, Sam Davies's kicking brilliant, perhaps best of all neither Biggar or AWJ played more than 20 minutes, Biggar didn't come on at all, a bonus point win cannot be sniffed at out in Italy, especially with the results they've had recently.

mikey_dragon wrote:Good win for Ospreys today. I didn't know it was the same time as ours. Today's win is just what was needed before next week. How did Fia go?

If you are really interested, he struggled in one scrum and then more than held his own in the next 2, the streaming feed was buffering when he came on, so not sure if there was any other scrums in that period, Jarvis would have struggled in all of them IMO, watched nearly all of the 2nd half and we were very good. I think it was 5 or 6 tries. Well made tries.

Yes that was a very good win, as good as i have seen O's play for a year.

Fia struggled at the scrum, lost one against the head which resulted in a Zebre try.

wayne wrote:

mikey_dragon wrote:Good win for Ospreys today. I didn't know it was the same time as ours. Today's win is just what was needed before next week. How did Fia go?

If you are really interested, he struggled in one scrum and then more than held his own in the next 2, the streaming feed was buffering when he came on, so not sure if there was any other scrums in that period, Jarvis would have struggled in all of them IMO, watched nearly all of the 2nd half and we were very good. I think it was 5 or 6 tries. Well made tries.

Interested to see you do well as a Wales supporter. If he is as good as made out you'll need guys like him to play the big French teams. A bit of good luck to come your way as of this weekend is that Slade of Exeter may miss your teams return fixture to them.

mikey_dragon wrote:

wayne wrote:

mikey_dragon wrote:Good win for Ospreys today. I didn't know it was the same time as ours. Today's win is just what was needed before next week. How did Fia go?

If you are really interested, he struggled in one scrum and then more than held his own in the next 2, the streaming feed was buffering when he came on, so not sure if there was any other scrums in that period, Jarvis would have struggled in all of them IMO, watched nearly all of the 2nd half and we were very good. I think it was 5 or 6 tries. Well made tries.

Interested to see you do well as a Wales supporter. If he is as good as made out you'll need guys like him to play the big French teams. A bit of good luck to come your way as of this weekend is that Slade of Exeter may miss your teams return fixture to them.

Mikey, a good weekend for all the Welsh Teams, 2 home wins against the Irish, and 2 away against the Italians, us with a BP, yes noticed that about Slade, although it wasn't him that impressed me when they played us, Nowell was their danger man, and as for Fia I think he needs some conditioning or game time, I think Tandy will go for Jarvis as replacement against BB, it'll be a bit of a risk for him to select Fia IMO, between this and my Football team winning an away Lancastrian derby against a team well above us in the League a great weekend.

wayne wrote:

mikey_dragon wrote:

wayne wrote:

mikey_dragon wrote:Good win for Ospreys today. I didn't know it was the same time as ours. Today's win is just what was needed before next week. How did Fia go?

If you are really interested, he struggled in one scrum and then more than held his own in the next 2, the streaming feed was buffering when he came on, so not sure if there was any other scrums in that period, Jarvis would have struggled in all of them IMO, watched nearly all of the 2nd half and we were very good. I think it was 5 or 6 tries. Well made tries.

Interested to see you do well as a Wales supporter. If he is as good as made out you'll need guys like him to play the big French teams. A bit of good luck to come your way as of this weekend is that Slade of Exeter may miss your teams return fixture to them.

Mikey, a good weekend for all the Welsh Teams, 2 home wins against the Irish, and 2 away against the Italians, us with a BP, yes noticed that about Slade, although it wasn't him that impressed me when they played us, Nowell was their danger man, and as for Fia I think he needs some conditioning or game time, I think Tandy will go for Jarvis as replacement against BB, it'll be a bit of a risk for him to select Fia IMO, between this and my Football team winning an away Lancastrian derby against a team well above us in the League a great weekend.

Assumed your footy team would be Swansea, since the Os are your rugby team.

Cardiff Dave wrote:

wayne wrote:

mikey_dragon wrote:

wayne wrote:

mikey_dragon wrote:Good win for Ospreys today. I didn't know it was the same time as ours. Today's win is just what was needed before next week. How did Fia go?

If you are really interested, he struggled in one scrum and then more than held his own in the next 2, the streaming feed was buffering when he came on, so not sure if there was any other scrums in that period, Jarvis would have struggled in all of them IMO, watched nearly all of the 2nd half and we were very good. I think it was 5 or 6 tries. Well made tries.

Interested to see you do well as a Wales supporter. If he is as good as made out you'll need guys like him to play the big French teams. A bit of good luck to come your way as of this weekend is that Slade of Exeter may miss your teams return fixture to them.

Mikey, a good weekend for all the Welsh Teams, 2 home wins against the Irish, and 2 away against the Italians, us with a BP, yes noticed that about Slade, although it wasn't him that impressed me when they played us, Nowell was their danger man, and as for Fia I think he needs some conditioning or game time, I think Tandy will go for Jarvis as replacement against BB, it'll be a bit of a risk for him to select Fia IMO, between this and my Football team winning an away Lancastrian derby against a team well above us in the League a great weekend.

Assumed your footy team would be Swansea, since the Os are your rugby team.

No Dave, I've been a supporter of this team since the 1950s, actually seen them live about 20 times, the best footballer I've ever seen played for this team, have a go at guessing them?

wayne wrote:

Cardiff Dave wrote:

wayne wrote:

mikey_dragon wrote:

wayne wrote:

mikey_dragon wrote:Good win for Ospreys today. I didn't know it was the same time as ours. Today's win is just what was needed before next week. How did Fia go?

If you are really interested, he struggled in one scrum and then more than held his own in the next 2, the streaming feed was buffering when he came on, so not sure if there was any other scrums in that period, Jarvis would have struggled in all of them IMO, watched nearly all of the 2nd half and we were very good. I think it was 5 or 6 tries. Well made tries.

Interested to see you do well as a Wales supporter. If he is as good as made out you'll need guys like him to play the big French teams. A bit of good luck to come your way as of this weekend is that Slade of Exeter may miss your teams return fixture to them.

Mikey, a good weekend for all the Welsh Teams, 2 home wins against the Irish, and 2 away against the Italians, us with a BP, yes noticed that about Slade, although it wasn't him that impressed me when they played us, Nowell was their danger man, and as for Fia I think he needs some conditioning or game time, I think Tandy will go for Jarvis as replacement against BB, it'll be a bit of a risk for him to select Fia IMO, between this and my Football team winning an away Lancastrian derby against a team well above us in the League a great weekend.

Assumed your footy team would be Swansea, since the Os are your rugby team.

No Dave, I've been a supporter of this team since the 1950s, actually seen them live about 20 times, the best footballer I've ever seen played for this team, have a go at guessing them?

Ooh I love a quiz.
Preston North End. Tom Finney.?

Cardiff Dave wrote:

wayne wrote:

Cardiff Dave wrote:

wayne wrote:

mikey_dragon wrote:

wayne wrote:

mikey_dragon wrote:Good win for Ospreys today. I didn't know it was the same time as ours. Today's win is just what was needed before next week. How did Fia go?

If you are really interested, he struggled in one scrum and then more than held his own in the next 2, the streaming feed was buffering when he came on, so not sure if there was any other scrums in that period, Jarvis would have struggled in all of them IMO, watched nearly all of the 2nd half and we were very good. I think it was 5 or 6 tries. Well made tries.

Interested to see you do well as a Wales supporter. If he is as good as made out you'll need guys like him to play the big French teams. A bit of good luck to come your way as of this weekend is that Slade of Exeter may miss your teams return fixture to them.

Mikey, a good weekend for all the Welsh Teams, 2 home wins against the Irish, and 2 away against the Italians, us with a BP, yes noticed that about Slade, although it wasn't him that impressed me when they played us, Nowell was their danger man, and as for Fia I think he needs some conditioning or game time, I think Tandy will go for Jarvis as replacement against BB, it'll be a bit of a risk for him to select Fia IMO, between this and my Football team winning an away Lancastrian derby against a team well above us in the League a great weekend.

Assumed your footy team would be Swansea, since the Os are your rugby team.

No Dave, I've been a supporter of this team since the 1950s, actually seen them live about 20 times, the best footballer I've ever seen played for this team, have a go at guessing them?

Ooh I love a quiz.
Preston North End. Tom Finney.?

You're too good for me, spot on, he started for England on the right wing, then Stanley Mathews came along and Finney being equally good on both feet went over to the left, and before he finished he played at centre forward for England, he started for England before Mathews, finished after him and won many more caps than him and yet to many Mathews was the better. Never in a million years, and a good win over Burnley yesterday.

wayne wrote:

Cardiff Dave wrote:

wayne wrote:

Cardiff Dave wrote:

wayne wrote:

mikey_dragon wrote:

wayne wrote:

mikey_dragon wrote:Good win for Ospreys today. I didn't know it was the same time as ours. Today's win is just what was needed before next week. How did Fia go?

If you are really interested, he struggled in one scrum and then more than held his own in the next 2, the streaming feed was buffering when he came on, so not sure if there was any other scrums in that period, Jarvis would have struggled in all of them IMO, watched nearly all of the 2nd half and we were very good. I think it was 5 or 6 tries. Well made tries.

Interested to see you do well as a Wales supporter. If he is as good as made out you'll need guys like him to play the big French teams. A bit of good luck to come your way as of this weekend is that Slade of Exeter may miss your teams return fixture to them.

Mikey, a good weekend for all the Welsh Teams, 2 home wins against the Irish, and 2 away against the Italians, us with a BP, yes noticed that about Slade, although it wasn't him that impressed me when they played us, Nowell was their danger man, and as for Fia I think he needs some conditioning or game time, I think Tandy will go for Jarvis as replacement against BB, it'll be a bit of a risk for him to select Fia IMO, between this and my Football team winning an away Lancastrian derby against a team well above us in the League a great weekend.

Assumed your footy team would be Swansea, since the Os are your rugby team.

No Dave, I've been a supporter of this team since the 1950s, actually seen them live about 20 times, the best footballer I've ever seen played for this team, have a go at guessing them?

Ooh I love a quiz.
Preston North End. Tom Finney.?

You're too good for me, spot on, he started for England on the right wing, then Stanley Mathews came along and Finney being equally good on both feet went over to the left, and before he finished he played at centre forward for England, he started for England before Mathews, finished after him and won many more caps than him and yet to many Mathews was the better. Never in a million years, and a good win over Burnley yesterday.

Maybe you are older than Allty? I remember Keegan just about.

DAN BIGGAR WELSH SPORTS PERSONALITY OF THE YEAR 2015

FANTASTIC DAN

Ospreys sold out all of their Bat Jerseys. Wonder what the profit margin was?

GavinDragon wrote:Ospreys sold out all of their Bat Jerseys. Wonder what the profit margin was?

What time was that, if it was yesterday, I think there is a new small influx of jerseys becoming available soon, with a 33% reduction on the normal shirt during the WC and still making a profit I would assume there is a mark up of at least 40%, and don't forget there is donation to charity for the batshirt sales.

Tweet appeared on my timeline about an hour ago. They do have small children's size left.

Either way it is just another example of how the spreys marketing is beyond that of any other region

GavinDragon wrote:Tweet appeared on my timeline about an hour ago. They do have small children's size left.

Either way it is just another example of how the spreys marketing is beyond that of any other region

Yeh, just went back on the website and there is another 100 jerseys available that you can only buy online, this went up yesterday, and there is no further news updated.

The part-time fans in Caerphilly sporting their Ospreys' tops again are they Gav?

GavinDragon wrote:
Either way it is just another example of how the spreys marketing is beyond that of any other region

They just copy what the WRU do with their merchandise. The other regions don't particularly have the pedigree to do so. You can bank on the Ospreys using Biggar's achievement for promotional activity seeing as they aren't flying high this season (unless they already have, I haven't really paid attention to regional news lately other than transfers).

They are far ahead of the WRU IMO. And tbh who cares who buys them. In all honesty I hear they only made 1000 at what £40? Lets say 40% profit is accurate, it means they only made £16,0000. Probably enough to pay 16 academy boys for a month.

In all fairness the Blues and Dragons are getting better. The Dragons now have a fully sponsored marquee for pre and post match entertainment like Newport used to have pre regionalisation.

I see the Blues offering deals to their considerable student population and discounts for clubs in their region.

I know the Scarlets make good use of their barn for pre and post match stuff.

Just need some sustained success now and hopefully crowds will increase

I think the WRU makes more profit from it though? And I know, the company that sponsors that area is pretty wealthy although far from ethical.

As there is no specialist thread for the Ospreys v Bordeaux/Begles match on the forum, I thought I'd put something up here.
Hoping for the following team
Evans, Hassler, Spratt, Matavesi, Walker, Biggar, Habberfield, James, Baldwin, Arhip, AWJ, Thornton, Lydiate, Tipuric, Ardron with Parry, Smith, Fia, King, Baker, Leonard, Davies and Dirksen on the bench, but probably Ashley and Jarvis in instead of Thornton and Fia and wouldn't be surprised if the scrum halves are changed around.
This has to be our best chance for a number of years of qualifying for the Q/Fs of this competition, I know BB have signed some big players who will be available for this game who didn't feature against Exeter, Adam Ashley Cooper in particular, hope he doesn't show up too well.

Agree with your team their Wayne, hope the spreys do well.

AAC first game will be next week though. Shame as he would be needed at 13. kepu could be in the team although his first appearance last weekend was not impressive: 4 times penalised in the scrum, a yellow card and a penalty try... in less than 40 minutes!! Looked good in the loose though. With the exception of a FH injury crisis (down to 3rd choice) and lack of options at centre there is quality and depth in all positions. Since the Exeter game, UBB went up a gear and started scoring tries again so should be a good game.

wayne wrote:As there is no specialist thread for the Ospreys v Bordeaux/Begles match on the forum, I thought I'd put something up here.
Hoping for the following team
Evans, Hassler, Spratt, Matavesi, Walker, Biggar, Habberfield, James, Baldwin, Arhip, AWJ, Thornton, Lydiate, Tipuric, Ardron with Parry, Smith, Fia, King, Baker, Leonard, Davies and Dirksen on the bench, but probably Ashley and Jarvis in instead of Thornton and Fia and wouldn't be surprised if the scrum halves are changed around.
This has to be our best chance for a number of years of qualifying for the Q/Fs of this competition, I know BB have signed some big players who will be available for this game who didn't feature against Exeter, Adam Ashley Cooper in particular, hope he doesn't show up too well.

Totally agree with that team Wayne, this is the team i would select with the possible exception of Dirksen in for Walker who is imo a total liability in defense. Interesting that you leave Ashley out of the 23 altogether but thats the harsh reality of where he actually is, as a player. I hope your coaches doesn't make the mistake of playing Ardron or King in the 2nd row. Ardron in particular would be totally wasted there as i think he is a great 8.

wayne wrote:As there is no specialist thread for the Ospreys v Bordeaux/Begles match on the forum, I thought I'd put something up here.
Hoping for the following team
Evans, Hassler, Spratt, Matavesi, Walker, Biggar, Habberfield, James, Baldwin, Arhip, AWJ, Thornton, Lydiate, Tipuric, Ardron with Parry, Smith, Fia, King, Baker, Leonard, Davies and Dirksen on the bench, but probably Ashley and Jarvis in instead of Thornton and Fia and wouldn't be surprised if the scrum halves are changed around.
This has to be our best chance for a number of years of qualifying for the Q/Fs of this competition, I know BB have signed some big players who will be available for this game who didn't feature against Exeter, Adam Ashley Cooper in particular, hope he doesn't show up too well.

Going by the TV preview on our website I think Habberfield will be in the 15 as first choice and I'm sorry to say it appears as though both Ashley and Jarvis will both be starting and probably Fia on the bench, as I put in previous postings when we preview our game they interview 2 players who in all instances have been in the selected team, this week the 2 interviewed were Matavesi and Habberfield, Tom's last few games has seen him in the best form IMO of his career, if selected it is well deserved.

Any ideas why Arhip wouldn't be starting? Personally I'd always have him in the squad when the opposition is a French club. Jarvis as 2nd/3rd choice is a good bit of depth I guess.

mikey_dragon wrote:Any ideas why Arhip wouldn't be starting? Personally I'd always have him in the squad when the opposition is a French club. Jarvis as 2nd/3rd choice is a good bit of depth I guess.

I don't know Mikey, I'm only going by the preview they showed 2 scrummaging sessions against the barriers, they were the 2 tight heads shown and Ashley was also seen in a rolling maul sequence and one of the scrummaging tryouts, although Dmitri came off early last week I didn't think he was seriously injured, I hope I'm wrong about those 2, and the team is as I selected yesterday.

Ospreys Premiership Select XV to play Munster A away on 11/12/15
Fussell (C), Williams, Thomas, Watkin, Giles, Matavesi, Aubrey, Thomas, Dwyer, Suter, Beard, Hughes, Underhill, Evans, Boladau, with Lewis, Rogers, Bernardo, Jones, Williams, Price and Gage on the bench.
Good to see both Beard and Bernardo back from injury, and Dwyer with Boladau returned from Army duty, a smattering of experience Fussell the front row with a load of youngsters, there are a few on the bench I've never heard of, should either make or break a few I'd imagine.

There's a few I haven't heard of either, but good news that you're getting some of your locks back. This will be a tough reintroduction for them. Is Boladau any good? I'm unfamiliar with him.

mikey_dragon wrote:There's a few I haven't heard of either, but good news that you're getting some of your locks back. This will be a tough reintroduction for them. Is Boladau any good? I'm unfamiliar with him.

Yes it is good for both Beard and Bernardo, we'll need at least one of them around the 6N period, just to save having a back row in the boiler house, I think Boladau played for the Army and the United Services recently, he hasn't shown up to now that he is of Regional standard, just a good squad filler. I think if I started googling I could find out about some of those on the bench, Gage and Price are good prospects, the latter has to step up now, he was really rated before he had a bad leg break about this time last year.

UBB travelling without a few key players : Lesgourgues, Guitoune, Rey, Marais, Avei, Goujon, Talebula all being rested apparently replaced by players returning from injury. Will be very difficult with some rather inexperienced players starting specially in the backs.

whocares wrote:UBB travelling without a few key players : Lesgourgues, Guitoune, Rey, Marais, Avei, Goujon, Talebula all being rested apparently replaced by players returning from injury. Will be very difficult with some rather inexperienced players starting specially in the backs.

Do you think they have given up already whocares?

Wayne, how's Matavesi Jnr coming along? Do you think he will make it to his brothers standard?

ScarletSpiderman wrote:Wayne, how's Matavesi Jnr coming along?  Do you think he will make it to his brothers standard?

SS, in a way it is a funny sort of time, when we played the Dragons in the LV around this time last year Luke Price was down to play in that match, but the previous weekend he broke his leg in a WP match, I think he was on the bench in the last B&I match against London Scottish, Joel is holding him out, I haven't actually seen him live, although I will in the return fixture against Munster at the Brewery Field next weekend, I did speak to someone who said he does try to do too much, I would prefer that in an O/H than someone who just ships the ball on, you have to keep the loosies on their toes.

Cheers, I remember seeing him in the sevens and thinking he was similar in style to Josh (make sense I guess).

wayne wrote:

whocares wrote:UBB travelling without a few key players : Lesgourgues, Guitoune, Rey, Marais, Avei, Goujon, Talebula all being rested apparently replaced by players returning from injury. Will be very difficult with some rather inexperienced players starting specially in the backs.

Do you think they have given up already whocares?

I honestly do not think so! Some of the above players did play a lot in the last few weeks though as the last few games were very important to stay in the top half of the T14 and with injuries of others it was difficult to rotate earlier. Unfortunately this game didn't come at the right time, still hope they show up and give a game to the Ospreys.

Team Evans, Dirksen, Spratt, Matavesi, Walker, Biggar, Leonard, James, Baldwin, Arhip, AWJ, Ashley, Lydiate, Tipuric, King with Parry, Smith, Jarvis, Thornton, Baker, Habberfield, Davies and John on the bench. Surprised but pleased that Dmitri is there, disappointed  that Ashley is there at all, but hopefully Thornton will make an early introduction, perhaps they (coaches) think that Fia hasn't the right conditioning for this match, a precedent has been set with Habbers not in the 15 when interviewed in the preview, and unfortunately Hassler has an injury setback

This seems obvious to me but if Fia isn't conditioned well enough then it's the coaches job to sort it out. Having Fia either on the bench or in the premiership select would be a good start! Managing a players game time rather than giving them zilch is perhaps one of the most effective ways to bring them up to the required level. If I was a fan I would be hoping that Tandy is off at the end of this season and would be happy if somebody like Gibbes took his place.

Wayne do you rate King at 8? I've seen him there only a few times and he wasn't very noticeable.

mikey_dragon wrote:This seems obvious to me but if Fia isn't conditioned well enough then it's the coaches job to sort it out. Having Fia either on the bench or in the premiership select would be a good start! Managing a players game time rather than giving them zilch is perhaps one of the most effective ways to bring them up to the required level. If I was a fan I would be hoping that Tandy is off at the end of this season and would be happy if somebody like Gibbes took his place.

Wayne do you rate King at 8? I've seen him there only a few times and he wasn't very noticeable.

Mikey I said in one of the earlier posts that the 2 tight heads shown in the preview were Fia and Jarvis, was Dmitri doubtful? I don't know. I would have had him playing somewhere this weekend to help with his conditioning. Tandy is just fine in my eyes. As for King you wouldn't have seen a lot of him at 8, as I think this is his first season there, we always like at least a 3 man lineout option and with him and Tips there it makes it 4, which we've used in the past, he's not as destructive a tackler as Dan but doesn't let us down there and is a more than decent ball carrier, not as good as Ardron or Baker in heavy traffic, but much quicker in loose play.

You're going for an extra work horse then by the sound of it - that's exactly what you need against a big French pack. I've seen King at 8 for Wales, though he has surely covered there for Ospreys before this season - I was under the impression he has played at 6, 7 and 8 - 6 for most of his career obviously.

mikey_dragon wrote:You're going for an extra work horse then by the sound of it - that's exactly what you need against a big French pack. I've seen King at 8 for Wales, though he has surely covered there for Ospreys before this season - I was under the impression he has played at 6, 7 and 8 - 6 for most of his career obviously.

He's primarily a 6, because of Ianto's antics (Ian Evans) a few years ago, he filled in as a 4 and 5, he actually played 7 against the Dragons last year, I don't think he has been selected at 8 for us before this season, he might have come on as an injury replacement there, but not selected as such.
To edit I would have had Tyler Ardron before him at 8

BB Team JM Buttin, JB Dubie, F Le Bourhis, C Brousse, N Ducuing, P Bernard, H Adams, J Poirot, L Maynadier, S Kepu, B Botha, A Jaulhac, M Clarkin, H Chalmers, M Tauleigne with R Chambon, JB Poux, P Toetu, C Cazeaux, L Madaule, B Serin, R Lonca and P Riva on the bench, does anybody on here know much about these players as there are only 4 or 5 I've ever heard of.