Premiership Round 11 - The Halfway Point

FRIDAY 22ND DECEMBER 2017
19:45 Worcester v London Irish (BT Sport)

SATURDAY 23RD DECEMBER 2017
15:00 Newcastle v Harlequins
15:00 Northampton v Exeter (BT Sport)
15:00 Sale v Bath
15:00 Wasps v Gloucester

SUNDAY 24TH DECEMBER 2017
15:00 Leicester v Saracens (BT Sport)

Apparently any team can beat another as demonstrated below:

London Irish beat Harlequins
Quins beat Saracens
Sarries beat Worcester
Wuss beat Northampton
Saints beat Bath
Bath beat Leicester
Tigers beat Sale
Sale beat Gloucester
Glaws beat Exeter
Exeter beat Wasps
Wasps beat Newcastle
Falcons beat London Irish

My predictions:

Wuss
Falcons
Chiefs
Sale
Wasps
Draw (Meaning neither side manage to win in December)

Falcons beat London Irish

My local girls team could beat them...

You could have said we beat.. Saints etc... although...the same girls team could probably beat them as well at the moment.

GeordieFalcon wrote:

Falcons beat London Irish

My local girls team could beat them...

You could have said we beat.. Saints etc... although...the same girls team could probably beat them as well at the moment.

Yeah but to complete the full circle the twelve matches had to feature every team winning and losing once only.

Ok ill let you have that one

Hey!

London Irish can be an outstandingly good side when playing at Twickenham. Few teams could beat them there...

When I saw the line-up of games for the weekend, I wanted to pick the home teams to win each match starting with Worcester this evening and Newcastle Saturday.

Then I saw:
Northampton v Exeter
Sale v Bath
Wasps v Gloucester
Leicester v Saracens

Oh well. Leicester might win. But, the rest...........

doctor_grey wrote:When I saw the line-up of games for the weekend, I wanted to pick the home teams to win each match starting with Worcester this evening and Newcastle Saturday.  

Then I saw:  
Northampton v Exeter
Sale v Bath
Wasps v Gloucester
Leicester v Saracens

Oh well.  Leicester might win.  But, the rest...........

With a Wasps being run by Cips I can see that being a Home win more than an away win. Sale might beat Bath, but even as a Sale fan I am realistically hoping for a losing bonus point. Saints and Tigers however from form should be away wins, but always getting things wrong I am.

Leicester vs Saracens might be a case of who can mess up least. Sarries on an unprecedented losing run whilst Tigers were completely ineffectual vs Munster and have bizarrely maintained numbers 4 to 8 despite them coming off second best (don't get me started on our refusal to play an openside).

Well Sale did get the bonus point I hoped we would....just did not expect the 4 other points. Amazing 2nd half from us.

If it wasn't for the likes of Brown, Robshaw and Care, quins would be fighting it out to avoid relegation.

We've got a fantastic squad these days...blame has to fall on the coaching staff.

For all Easter's service as a player I don't think he's up to the coaching role. Evans, jury's out, Smith is certainly developing nicely and our attacking coached plays are generally good. Forwards are getting schooled at the breakdown every week, though carrying is improved.

Going to be a job hanging onto our top player if this malaise continues.

englishborn wrote:Well Sale did get the bonus point I hoped we would....just did not expect the 4 other points. Amazing 2nd half from us.

Backline seems to have found a nice balance at the mine and that's a good backrow. Sale are a few tight five additions away from Champions Cup Rugby.

Another week another terrible Quin's performance

Big win for Falcons, seen this one as super close with Quins a bit better but home advantage being key. Surprised with the low score but I'll take it.

I had Falcons to win by 1 on Superbru

Incredibly harsh red. 2 knock ons.

What a harsh red card for May. What I did not like was the Sarries player asking the ref for a red card. that is extremely poor.

I don't like the new way that refs are calling advantage over then changing their minds. It was Rhodes with his football antics of calling for a red.but it was ben youngs mistake leading to it

I've been a bit peed off with the reffing displays of recent. How on earth it took vunipola to be penalised 6 times before being binned I will never know.

Didn't see mays first knock on, but in the second he clearly hit the ball upwards.

Just getting fed up of weak refs

I would rather not talk about the ref, as that could distract from our failings. An in form Sarries would have thrashed us.

Fully admit we have many failings

Weren't the refs meant to be clamping down on back chat and players asking for cards/tmo etc? I'm sure at the start of the season only the captain's were allowed to talk to refs

It's just the continuation of mixed messages from refs, its ruining the game.

Carley was embarrassingly weak in dealing with Saracens big names. The football like antics should have been dealt with early and then we wouldn't have seen the ugly scenes near the end. Sadly the lawmakers don't have the testicles to reprimand Sarries publicly and threaten a fine.

Having said that the best team won. For the third week in a row O'Connor got the pack selection and tactics horribly wrong. No point in having a stellar backline if they spend that long defending. Fitzgerald I'd happily pay to return to NZ especially when we have a better homegrown lock on the bench and this continued moronic non-selection of an openside is infuriating. The Saracens team won this game because they could fall back on their structures they were on the ropes and there for the taking if we'd had a backrow with any balance to it.

As an outsider, a couple of points.

I've told a Tigers friend of mine a few times that signings like Toomua are fairly pointless if your pack is constantly going backwards. We have the same problem at Ulster, Charles Piutau - wow brilliant. Christian Lealiifano - fantastic. But two or three forwards who are international class and a lot of guys who are barely journeyman....you could have Dan Carter at 10 and you will still lose more than you win.

Secondly, O'Connor is a distinctly average coach. He was considered a massive disappointment at Leinster. He succeeded Joe Schmidt's back to back HC/CC winning side. Since he has left and Cullen has taken over, Leinster are now favourites for this years CC. Tigers are likely to regress under him he is a steady eddie of a head coach.

It's a tough bag, how many signings can you make after April that are top class players most players are signed up by jan (even between prem clubs).
TBF Toomua was signed at a time the pack was still pretty strong.

Tigers priority will be for next season forwards and from what i gather they have been very busy on that front so far, trouble is not many if any players are available mid season.

doctor_grey wrote:When I saw the line-up of games for the weekend, I wanted to pick the home teams to win each match starting with Worcester this evening and Newcastle Saturday.  

Then I saw:  
Northampton v Exeter
Sale v Bath
Wasps v Gloucester
Leicester v Saracens

Oh well.  Leicester might win.  But, the rest...........

Merry Christmas One & All.

Mmm bit off there doc. I did think all the games would be closer except Saints who are in a hole. I was disappointed with Bath & Tigers performances, however, Wasps blew Glaws away in the fourth quarter.

I think with all our injuries mounting to key players we will do well to keep our (Wasps) unbeaten run going.

Artful_Dodger wrote:As an outsider, a couple of points.

I've told a Tigers friend of mine a few times that signings like Toomua are fairly pointless if your pack is constantly going backwards.  We have the same problem at Ulster, Charles Piutau - wow brilliant.  Christian Lealiifano - fantastic.  But two or three forwards who are international class and a lot of guys who are barely journeyman....you could have Dan Carter at 10 and you will still lose more than you win.

Secondly, O'Connor is a distinctly average coach.  He was considered a massive disappointment at Leinster.  He succeeded Joe Schmidt's back to back HC/CC winning side.  Since he has left and Cullen has taken over, Leinster are now favourites for this years CC.  Tigers are likely to regress under him he is a steady eddie of a head coach.

I think we have the players to do the job which is the frustration. If we'd started with a balanced pack of Logo, Youngs, Cole, Wells, Kitchener, Williams, Evans and Kalamafoni I think we win that game. Sarries love a physical battle and that's all we offered up, we spent the first 15 minutes defending and Sarries didn't make a tackle. Not one! That's because if they knocked the ball we had to clear out lines back to them and we had no one who was going to get over the ball and force a defensive penalty. Wells and Evans are more abrasive at the breakdown (well Wells is abrasive everywhere) and would have offered us the opportunity to get some field position and our hands on the ball as opposed to giving Sarries a 10 point head start.

There's a lot made if big ball carriers but we started with two international number 8's and a backrow with an average weight of about 18 stone. There's was an all international front row that demolished Sarries at scrum time (normally a ref doesn't allow a player to commit two or three penalties and concede a penalty try after a final warning). We just don't play to their strengths with our game plan nor do we have any forward that can link the play with the backline.

My issue is that Sarries looked better drilled. They coughed up a few chances with poor skills, but they looked like a team that knew what they were doing. This was most noticeable when dealing with high kicks (chasing and receiving g, kick offs and from breakdown). We often misjudged the flight of the ball when receiving, only sent one chaser when kicking while they always had multiple people. Sarries subtle way of blocking g chasers was so obviously coached.

There were plenty of other things, including the off the ball organisation that just seemed to make Sarries look a much better coached team. Man for man I believe we had the better players, but the Sarries coaching, team culture and attitude elevates them to being a much better team.

How did you tigers fans feel that Tuilagi went? From what I saw, he looked leaner but has not lost any power in the contact. I thought he looked very good with ball in hand.

Sadly dropped too many balls, otherwise from end on looked promising

Manu looked in fantastic physical shape but several games away from being match sharp. Game time will help him tighten up his skills and we'll see better passing, offloads and less dropped balls. He's been running the right lines and challenging the gain line in all the right ways and his big hit on Goode probably stopped a try.

LT I agree 100% on Sarries organisation. Their scrum half and flyhalf never had to look they knew they'd have runners available and where they'd be.put 9 and 10 were constantly looking for forwards who were jogging into position and then not able to take the ball at pace.