Champions Cup Knockouts thread

[thebandwagonsociety]

First topic message reminder :

Semi Final Fixtures
Champions Cup
The semi-final fixtures, which will be played on the weekend of 30 April – 1/2 May, are confirmed as follows:
La Rochelle v Leinster Rugby, Stade Marcel Deflandre
Toulouse v Bordeaux-Bègles, Stade Ernest Wallon

CHALLENGE CUP
Leicester Tigers v Ulster Rugby, Mattioli Woods Welford Road
Bath Rugby v Montpellier, The Recreation Ground

Quarter Final Fixtures
Champions Cup

Saturday
La Rochelle  v Sale (15:00)
Exeter v Leinster (17:30)

Sunday
Bordeaux Begles v Racing 92 (12:30)
Clermont Auvergne v Toulouse  (15:00)

Challenge Cup

Friday
Bath v London IRish (20:00)

Saturday
Leicester v Newcastle (12:30)
Montpelier v Benetton (21:00) (is this local time?)
Northampton v Ulster (20:00)
Sunday

[Collapse2005]

Its been entertaining though

[formerly known as Sam]

Connacht just need to stop making errors. Three tries they've conceded all because of poor lapses and Tigers being oddly clinical. Tigers need to work on getting the ref back on side as he's not giving us the 50/50 calls at the minute and we'll have another in the bin soon.

Tigers bench only has one player over the age of 22 so this game could get interesting in the second half.

[Collapse2005]

I reckon Tigers have been fortunate not to get a card

[westisbest]

C’mon Connacht. Back in it now.

[westisbest]

Cracking try from Wootton.

Healey saying the pass was forward. Thought it looked good to me.
We’ll take it anyway.

[formerly known as Sam]

Cracking try from Wootton.

Healey saying the pass was forward. Thought it looked good to me.
We’ll take it anyway.

Not only forward but he crawls more than 5m which in itself is a penalty in any other area of the pitch. Beautiful line from the winger though.

[formerly known as Sam]

That's a clear try though. Refs made a big error there.

[formerly known as Sam]

Doesn't matter Tigers score from the lineout. Good job they did or it was a penalty try and yellow card for the Connacht 8 which would have been a blow as he's had a blinder.

[Collapse2005]

Doesn't matter Tigers score from the lineout. Good job they did or it was a penalty try and yellow card for the Connacht 8 which would have been a blow as he's had a blinder.

If Connacht got a yellow for that after infringment after infrimgment and unpunished warnings for the Tigers it would have been pretty unfair.

[Collapse2005]

Game on, he has good pace Boyle

[westisbest]

C’mon Connacht.

[formerly known as Sam]

Doesn't matter Tigers score from the lineout. Good job they did or it was a penalty try and yellow card for the Connacht 8 which would have been a blow as he's had a blinder.

If Connacht got a yellow for that after infringment after infrimgment and unpunished warnings for the Tigers it would have been pretty unfair.

Difference between crap discipline and cynically killing a try scoring opportunity. Tigers did have a man sin binned in the first half.

[westisbest]

Not good enough tonight. Fair play Leicester.
Frustrating all the same.

[formerly known as Sam]

Unlucky end for the Connacht 15, silly yellow card. He's been running some good lines today.

I feel sorry for the poor replacement back that got left to mark Weise at that scrum. Angry 18 stone South African with acceleration isn't anyone's idea of an easy tackle 5m from the line.

Surprisingly entertaining game. From a Tigers point of view that's an awesome result given the number of Tigers Cubs in the 23.

[nathan]

Am I right in thinking that if you pick the ball up from the base of a ruck, both feet have to be behind the ball else it's offside?

[formerly known as Sam]

Am I right in thinking that if you pick the ball up from the base of a ruck, both feet have to be behind the ball else it's offside?

I think one foot behind and not bound in.

[Geordie]

So its Falcons v tigers...

Well lets see which Falcons decide to turn up...

[nathan]

So its Falcons v tigers...

Well lets see which Falcons decide to turn up...

Probably the decent one.

[Brendan]

With the games that have happened biggest disappointment from a Pro14 point of view has been the drop off in the last 10-15 minutes.

Not sure if it is tired players or phyisicallity issues but disappointing.

Well done to Irish, Tigers and Saints for digging out results when it looked like the tide had turned against them.

Benetton is the only Pro14 team currently to have won a match (Leinster got a walkover).  Scarlets and Ulster might join them but disappointing in both Cups. Maybe players were looking forward to the break before Rainbow Cup to much.

[Geordie]

That would be nice but I won't hold my breath....

[formerly known as Sam]

So its Falcons v tigers...

Well lets see which Falcons decide to turn up...

Let's see what side Borthwick names. Certainly didn't name a first team for tonight so who knows what he'll name for next week. The England guys require two weeks rest between now and the end of the season, they've had one each as of now. Wouldn't massively surprise me to see no England guys next week so they can then go into the Bath/Saints/Wasps(?) games thereafter where Tigers fans consider bragging rights to be at stake.

Some young guys put in massive shifts and made Borthwick's selections a bit of a dilemma for next week after tonight.

[formerly known as Sam]

From the mouth of the Dark Lord;

"I think you've got to respect, Connacht are a good team," said Borthwick. "They had nearly 1,500 appearances in their starting 15. That's just under 100 appearances for Connacht per man.

"You compare that to a Leicester Tigers team of 500 appearances, and 250-odd of them were Ben Youngs. We had 14 players that shared 250 appearances.

"When you look at it in that context, you go 'this is a great performance', in the sense of the resilience the team showed.

[I cut out the waffle we have them too many chances, some stuff to work on blah blah bit here]

"This might surprise you but I don't pay any attention to what anybody else says about the decisions I make," said Borthwick.

"I believe I make the decisions in the right way for the progress of this team.

"You look at the end of the game, we had a front-row on the field and they're all 21 or under. Then you've got Cam Henderson, the second row, at 21, you've got George Martin (19) in the back row, Tommy Reffell at 21.

"You start looking at that and you start thinking, there's some good young players here and the more we can spend time developing these players, the strength of this team, this club going forward, the better.

"I want to win every game we go into. Absolutely. But I want to make sure, also, that we're growing this team and this club. Our supporters will be wanting that. Our supporters want to see this team developing and I am looking forward to having our supporters back here at Mattioli Woods Welford Road to cheer the team on."

So that sounds to me like expect another mix and match team next weekend.

[TightHEAD]

Never a try, Brizzle hard done by there.

[TightHEAD]

TMO favouring a French team, well I never!

[Duty281]

That's one of the worst TMO decisions I've seen. The clearest knock-on not given, likely cost Bristol the game.

[LeinsterFan4life]

That's one of the worst TMO decisions I've seen. The clearest knock-on not given, likely cost Bristol the game.

swings and roundabouts, the ball was clearly out for Kane Douglas's yellow

[TightHEAD]

TMO is blind.

[LeinsterFan4life]

The French are dominating this years comp.

[LeinsterFan4life]

Are Welsh teams told to just go out and implode in Europe?

[Collapse2005]

McGinty is playing well for sale, maybe on that got away.

[Collapse2005]

Scarlets are dire for the players they have

[TightHEAD]

Glad to see so many quality international Welshman playing for the Scarlets this weekend. Surely little old Sale couldn't beat a team with so many 6 nations champs on the pitch.

[TightHEAD]

Little Shane looks like he is going to cry!

[LeinsterFan4life]

McGinty is playing well for sale, maybe on that got away.

Yep he'd have been guaranteed to have played the 6 nations this year off the bench.

[y ddraig goch]

Painful lesson for the Scarlets. Similar to the one Cardiff were dealt by Irish. You cant win games of rugby if you're outmuscled.

It's like men against boys with the physicality of the South Africans. They're making AJ McGinty look world class.

Sale look like they're profiting from Saracens' demise. They haven't just taken their coach they've taken the recruitment model as well.

I'm not sure you can blame the Welsh performances this weekend on the 6Ns hangover but it can't have helped.

[y ddraig goch]

Are Welsh teams told to just go out and implode in Europe?

A few players probably have an eye on the Lions after winning the 6Ns.

[Collapse2005]

Scarlets are an embarassment, sorry but this performance is not acceptable, dont care what the excuse is.

Sale are good but not that good.

[mikey_dragon]

Scarlets are an embarassment, sorry but this performance is not acceptable, dont care what the excuse is.

Sale are good but not that good.

They haven’t been good under Delaney. Dan Jones has been poor all season but was extra shocking today. That said, the French ref is also shocking. No fair contest at the breakdown. Welsh teams back to getting screwed by French refs, Gauzere was a one off.

[TightHEAD]

How many cheap shots has Ball been allowed to get away with?

[mikey_dragon]

There you go, Sale’s last try comes from another unfair contest at the breakdown. French ref allowing Sale players to get tackled and get up, roll along the floor, etc; but isn’t allowing it for Scarlets players. Sale haven’t released a tackled player all game, really hope Delaney complains about this one.

[formerly known as Sam]

There you go, Sale’s last try comes from another unfair contest at the breakdown. French ref allowing Sale players to get tackled and get up, roll along the floor, etc; but isn’t allowing it for Scarlets players. Sale haven’t released a tackled player all game, really hope Delaney complains about this one.

You get the rub of the green when you have momentum. Scarlets looked like a bunch of individuals and both individually and collectively they lost the physical and tactical battles. A team of internationals shouldn't be battered by that Sale team in that fashion. Some of those Scarlets players looked very mediocre, is that flyhalf seriously the one that's kept Costelow on the bench? He looked well out of his depth. No idea why the Scarlets kept the ball in play so much, the Sale lineout is wobbly and the Scarlets lineout looked good. Kick for territory and apply pressure at the lineout should have been plan a.

[Guest]

A team of internationals..... then you ask about the Scarlets flyhalf who is clearly not an international!

[Guest]

But yes, I agree that it’s very poor for Scarlets to lose at home by that much.

[mikey_dragon]

Don’t disagree at all. As I said, they haven’t looked good under Delaney. They seemed to be going in the right direction with Mooar. Another key difference for me was the halfbacks. Gareth Davies and Dan Jones were very poor. Davies’ passing looked slow, Jones was just bad at everything. The speed of ruck is another key difference, and I feel that it has been quite slow for all the Welsh teams, not just Scarlets. The best teams have the ball in the ruck for less than 3 seconds. Faf was awesome today. I don’t think there was a great disparity in the teams put out, but key players like Akker, Faf and McGinty each had a very good game.

Sam there’s been complaints all season about both fly-halves at Scarlets because they’re been so poor. Yet when Costelow comes on he always does well. If Patchell is perennially injured then Costelow should be first choice. The coaches are wrong on this one.

[mikey_dragon]

So do we think Jake Ball’s charge on Faf was potentially yellow? Red? To be fair I think he thought “that little pr!-k is having it... the game is lost and I’m leaving at the end of the season... yolo.” de Klerk tan the game beautifully too.

[LeinsterFan4life]

So do we think Jake Ball’s charge on Faf was potentially yellow? Red? To be fair I think he thought “that little pr!-k is having it... the game is lost and I’m leaving at the end of the season... yolo.” de Klerk tan the game beautifully too.

He deserves a red for letting his team and himself put in a performance like that.

[RiscaGame]

Red, all day.

[lostinwales]

The footage I have seen isn't conclusive but does suggest shoulder to head.

Funny thing is when looking for some footage the first thing that comes up is the two players up close and personal at the RWC. There may well be some history there.

[formerly known as Sam]

A team of internationals..... then you ask about the Scarlets flyhalf who is clearly not an international!

I assumed he was a one cap wonder. He did look like a rabbit caught in headlights but then JD2 outside of him was going off pist regularly as well which wasn't helping.

I only saw the replay of the incident after it happened, but if a mid game interruption. Did the TMO actively review it?

[profitius]

Funny thing is when looking for some footage the first thing that comes up is the two players up close and personal at the RWC. There may well be some history there.

Thats what I was thinking. I remember seeing their clash as memes.

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