2017/18 Aviva Premiership Round Five

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Friday 29th September

Newcastle vs London Irish (19:45)
Worcester vs Saracens (19:45)
Sale vs Gloucester (20:00)

Saturday 30th September

Leicester vs Exeter (15:00)
Northampton vs Harlequins (15:00)

Sunday 1st October

Wasps vs Bath (15:00)

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May as well get the thread up early.

At the start of the season, London Irish might have had targeted fixtures against Newcastle but the Falcons have been in good form, so Irish will need to show their first match form to come away with anything. Worcester have shown some fight but it'd be a surprise if Saracens don't handle them comfortably. A resurgent Gloucester would fancy their chances at Sale. However, it's not clear they are resurgent, and Sale can turn up at home.

Looking forward to the game at Welford Road. Don't know if they'll all be available, or selected, but Youngs, Ford, Slade, May and Nowell could be most of the England back line. Leicester will need alot of  home grit to hold off the reigning champions, who looked good at the weekend.

Unsure if Marcus Smith is clear to play at the weekend. It will hurt Quins' chances if not, and, anyway, Saints have picked themselves up very well after that disastrous opening match.

Wasps vs Bath promises a lot of attacking intent. In truth, though, both sides have flattered to deceive. Wasps had little to offer going forward last weekend, and Bath have relied on Rokodoguni to get them over the line. The injury count seems high, so we'll see who actually gets named.

Irish 9 lucky again

nathan wrote:Irish 9 lucky again

Lucky not to be dragged off and given a rollicking by his coach. The opposition were in a defendable position. Dumb and needless penalty results in 5m attacking lineout and try.

I've manged to miss every bloody try between choppy streams and a toilet break! Good to see Falcons playing like this though.

Sale are tuning Glos too. The North is going well tonight.

TBP again, albeit a little controversial. Good performance so far without fully clicking. Irish look poor, it's going to be a long season for them.

Looked like a clear try to me.

Which one?

The last falcons one

The 4th.

Nice try from Irish, Lewington the shining light for them.

Ah right, thought you were talking about the Irish disallowed one!

Irish coming back, interesting next 10.

Ref is annoying me now, he seems the most grumpy ref in the world

Much better from Irish. Falcons have took their foot off the gas and allowing them back in.

Geneva has been fantastic.

Oh Frak off ref, you made a Poopie decision

Goneva mom for me

nathan wrote:Goneva mom for me

And me. Scored two and saved two. Lewington will be waking up in the night and looking over his shoulder expecting to see Goneva. Lewington was very good, on another day he'd have got those tries.

Agree on the ref he isn't great. Tigers had him the other week and he was crap then as well.

The ref was crap but we lost because Falcons were better than us. What was pleasing was that we kept going, but we need to play with that tempo from the start.

There needs to be some personnel changes next week with Paulo, Meehan, Tonks and Fowlie all starting.

Agree Pete, I didn't think much of your halfbacks and Bell. Pack looks pretty good and in Lewington you have a real threat out wide.

Steele was shocking at 9, as McKibbin has been the last 2 games. Marshall did a few good things at 10 but did more bad things.

Nick Kennedy needs to make some big decisions.

Glous lose 57-10 WOW

Guess that first game was a fluke.

Frak Gloucester, did they send the pub side by mistake?

Who knows but they will be worried if Worcs and Irish wake up.

These first half performances from LI are so frustrating. As was the lack of a held in the tackle call from the ref at the end. Would have been a consolation to nick a bonus point at the end. Fair play to Newcastle though. Definitely the better team.

Ref was rubbish again like he was for the Tigers game last week and may have cost LI a LBP which could end up being important the way things are going atm ...

I thought the ref was ok. We got pinged a fair bit in the 2nd half but no major complaints.

I think he needs a lesson on when a tackle has been completed and I need to have another look at the try where the ball just scraped the line - or maybe didn't - I missed the replays ...

Sgt_Pooly wrote:I thought the ref was ok. We got pinged a fair bit in the 2nd half but no major complaints.

He doesn't favour one side he just makes bad errors. Not calling held in the second half when the LI 9 had both hands on the player that got back to his feet and carried on running being a prime example.

He's hopeless - he made a complete shambles of the scrums at Quins/Tigers last week ...

formerly known as Sam wrote:

Sgt_Pooly wrote:I thought the ref was ok. We got pinged a fair bit in the 2nd half but no major complaints.

He doesn't favour one side he just makes bad errors. Not calling held in the second half when the LI 9 had both hands on the player that got back to his feet and carried on running being a prime example.

Thought the ref was mostly fine to be fair. A few debatable calls overall, but nothing out of the ordinary. Was just that one crucial call that was annoying as it was clear as day and a LBP would have been in reach.

That's the problem though - some calls are debatable or subject to interpretation etc but some are just plain wrong and that's what makes him a poor ref as he shouldn't be getting those types of calls wrong ...

nathan wrote:Just reading about Scott Baldwin lol

Just read it - cheered me up a bit

Heaf2 wrote:That's the problem though - some calls are debatable or subject to interpretation etc but some are just plain wrong and that's what makes him a poor ref as he shouldn't be getting those types of calls wrong ...

They can't be expected to get every single call right, a few will always slip the net. No calls he made today had a major bearing on the outcome imo.

Yep get that - but calls that are so obviously wrong shouldn't happen at this level ... as to what effect they may have had or not is impossible to say really as nobody can know how a game would play out after a different call.

Ok I thought we played about 10 minutes of high class rugby the rest was workmanlike efficenicy nothing more than we had to do........until we switched off in the last 20.

Irish came back and no disrespect but they should never have been in the game.

I think I saw about 3 strings of play that matches what  I saw at bath .. and THAT'S the frustrating part!

We're 4 from 5 which is unreal as a falcons fan, yet I come away dissatisfied

Heaf2 wrote:Yep get that - but calls that are so obviously wrong shouldn't happen at this level ... as to what effect they may have had or not is impossible to say really as nobody can know how a game would play out after a different call.

There's always going to minor calls that go both ways though. If I was an Irish fan I'd be more annoyed at the leaky defence and losing the ball in the opposition 22.

I have calmed down enough to post. I have genuinely never seen a performance like it. We had over 60% of territory and possession but we consistently rushed the final pass, dropped the ball or messed up the key lineout. We gave away 28 points to interceptions!! Sale were very clinical picking us off, but it was our total lack of game management that cost us the game. We panicked and tried miracle offloads rather than recycle and build momentum. Bizarrely we genuinely could have won that game if we'd kept our heads, instead I witnessed the strangest and probably worst performance I've ever seen from Glaws.

This is going to be a long season...

Sgt_Pooly wrote:

Heaf2 wrote:Yep get that - but calls that are so obviously wrong shouldn't happen at this level ... as to what effect they may have had or not is impossible to say really as nobody can know how a game would play out after a different call.

There's always going to minor calls that go both ways though. If I was an Irish fan I'd be more annoyed at the leaky defence and losing the ball in the opposition 22.

I think you're getting the wrong end of the stick here. No one is saying it was a one off poor performance and that had a bearing on the game. More that Tempest has been making odd gaffs this season that a ref shouldn't be making at this level. It's odd because he is generally a consistent referee, which is what I like, but then he'll make a terrible call out of the blue.

Sgt_Pooly wrote:

Heaf2 wrote:Yep get that - but calls that are so obviously wrong shouldn't happen at this level ... as to what effect they may have had or not is impossible to say really as nobody can know how a game would play out after a different call.

There's always going to minor calls that go both ways though. If I was an Irish fan I'd be more annoyed at the leaky defence and losing the ball in the opposition 22.

That too

formerly known as Sam wrote:

Sgt_Pooly wrote:

Heaf2 wrote:Yep get that - but calls that are so obviously wrong shouldn't happen at this level ... as to what effect they may have had or not is impossible to say really as nobody can know how a game would play out after a different call.

There's always going to minor calls that go both ways though. If I was an Irish fan I'd be more annoyed at the leaky defence and losing the ball in the opposition 22.

I think you're getting the wrong end of the stick here. No one is saying it was a one off poor performance and that had a bearing on the game. More that Tempest has been making odd gaffs this season that a ref shouldn't be making at this level. It's odd because he is generally a consistent referee, which is what I like, but then he'll make a terrible call out of the blue.

And this

. duplicate post

It's the first time I've seen him this season and I thought he did well. He seemed to be in control and no side got the rub imo. If you're going to analyse every ref performance you're going to see errors, it's the way it is.

He was a bitt ott with the telling off though.

As I said he's a consistent referee that just needs to keep his concentration and cut out the gaffs.

Biggest gaff this season is still Craig Maxwell-Keys failing to spot a deliberate knock on so bad that the player who committed it had his head in his hands ready to receive the yellow card.

Nowell out with a dead leg for exeter

Ellis Genge pulls put late on. Bateman to start.

Three soft penalties and inability to capitalise on dominant collisions. Do we need a breakdown coach or an openside on the pitch?

formerly known as Sam wrote:Three soft penalties and inability to capitalise on dominant collisions. Do we need a breakdown coach or an openside on the pitch?

Both

3-0 to Chiefs ATM but it feels like it's only a matter of time before the floodgates open. Tackle count piling up and the gaps will come, Exeter are fantastic at stringing phases together.

That looked a diving headbutt in Tigers 22.

Tigers close to getting a breakaway there though ...

Well taken try - Tigers lead against the run of play so far.