Premiership round 4

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Friday 8 October
19:45 Quins vs Bristol

Saturday 9 October
15:00 Chiefs vs Worcester
15:00 Gloucester vs Sale
15:00 LI vs Tigers
15:00 Saracens vs Falcons

Sunday 10 October
Wasps vs Saints

Bye week for Bath.

I'd expect Quins, Chiefs and Sarries to be too strong at home in their respective fixtures.

Sarries vs Falcons could be interesting if Sarries continue to play without the ball as the Falcons talented outside backs can score tries from nowhere. I'd expect the Sarries power up front to prove too much over the 80 minutes though.

Sale haven't had the best start without Faf and losing MacGinty on top of him has been a big blow. Gloucester aren't the best side either though so Sale will definitely have a good chance there. Rodd and Tuilagi rotating out after the England camp seemed to hurt them against Chiefs. Given Lawes returned last weekend I'd guess that Tom Curry will be close to available as well.

Tigers will fancy an away win against LI but I think it will be a good challenge for Tigers. Whilst Tigers have overall been good in the opening 3 rounds I think it was noticeable that Isiekwe caused so many issues. Witty/Lonsdale, Slater/Davidson, Isiekwe/Swinson aren't the most formidable lock pairings. Isiekwe is by far the best player there and caused a lot of issues. I think Coleman and Simmons with Mafi off the bench will be a good challenge for Tigers locks. I definitely fancy Tigers chances but hope we play with the ball more as we did in rounds 1 and 2 rather than being as conservative as we were against Sarries when realistically both sides played some pretty abysmal rugby for large swathes of the game.

Saints will definitely fancy an away win against Wasps with how each side have started their seasons.

Scotty Wilson....had to retire due to injury.  Shame only early 20s

Get in Mike Brown!!!!

Well Vunipola not exactly using the Dombrandt form to put a marker down there.

Get in!!!

And Stevenson is not winger in the centres...he's a centre who was playing on the wing...he's a 13 bu trade....

No 7&1/2 wrote:Well Vunipola not exactly using the Dombrandt form to put a marker down there.

Radwan took him down earlier and now Connon strips the ball off him

Aaah man!!!

No try....what a tackle by Robinson

Nice from Farrell, what a pass from Malins. Then a mess of a finish.

GeordieFalcon wrote:No try....what a tackle by Fuser

Robinson wasn't it? Immense effort to stop that one over the tryline. The offload from Malins was delightful though.

Shut up Farrell

Farrell frustrated with inconsistent refs but more so with sloppy Saracens play.

formerly known as Sam wrote:

GeordieFalcon wrote:No try....what a tackle by Fuser

Robinson wasn't it? Immense effort to stop that one over the tryline. The offload from Malins was delightful though.

Yeah it was Robinson...

Wow. Ref given a pen when he's just ignored the same for Newcastle. Awful reffing there.

It is....

But Sarries are losing their cool.

We need to focus on our game....Saracens are a class act.

Damn it....penalty try

That was stupid. Just take the medicine. So obvious then a yellow too.

Yeah exactly

We're giving up too many penalties now

Half time...10-17 falcons....but Saeacens really coming in to the game now.

Be a really tough second half for us I think.

The drop off for Sarries at scrum-half is so stark compared to where their squad used to be.

I've seen a bit of Ruben de Haas for USA and certainly think he's a better player than Davies.

Ivan van Zyl is meant to be a decent 9 too but I've not seen much of him.

The sooner Sarries get them involved the better.

No it's not the better KC

Is the Leicester match as interesting as the score suggests?

I'd really like Blamire to come on at the end of the sin bin period for a head to head with George.

Sarries backline subs could have an impact today I think.

van Zyl for Davies
Goode for Malins
Tompkins for Morris

That would likely improve Sarries on today's performances.

No 7&1/2 wrote:Is the Leicester match as interesting as the score suggests?

Not being streamed anywhere in the UK sadly, 7.5. BT are back to just showing certain games as fans are back in stadiums. RugbyPass/SuperSport are showing one additional game most weekends I think but not Tigers vs LI this week.

I know a few guys are watching through Australian or USA based paid streaming services and a VPN but given I'm likely to be working a fair few weekends this season I decided not to bother with the hassle as I'll likely be watching on Prem Rugby TV the next day anyway fairly often.

Got your wish KC

One thing I'll say before the second half of LI vs Tigers is that Tigers bench forwards should have a big impact.

Montoya, Leatigaga, Heyes, Snyman and van Staden is some serious heft to launch in the second half.

For gods sake ...we've just lost all discipline....

Pen after pen. Back down to 14 soon.

That was a forward pass....

We've just imploded

Mako was lifting the player

How was that a penalty to Sarries? He was lying on top of the player and not even lifting the ball!

Is Tempest ever going to penalize Sarries for sealing off the ball at the breakdown?

Safe to say that wasn't a great couple of minutes for Lucock!

Wacokecoke looked great whenever I saw him last season. Glad to see him on.

High tackle ref!!!

Aaahh Jamie....

Ah Jamie! Some turn around that.

I find Cooper moving to prop so odd. He is terrific around the park and was good in the set-piece as a hooker. He seems to frequently get minced, understandably, at the scrum at loosehead though.

Nordli-Kelemeti looks a talented young scrum-half.

KC
It's because we have so many options at hooker rhey tried to do a Rob Vickers and convert him. It's not working.

They were on the goal line!

Love sacks

Well mixed feelings.

Saracens are just a machine...but we also made it very easy for them in the second half.

How did we not take a point from that game....

Ah well, I didn't think we would come away with anything. Saracens deserved it, but we really could/should have come away with a point.

LI 16 - 21 Tigers

I didn't see it live but will watch on Premiership Rugby TV tomorrow. Similar to last week I'll take the win but it sounds like Tigers made very hard work of it once again. "Our own worst enemy" seems a common phrase used by several Tigers fans I know who were at the ground.

It sounds like Youngs had another really poor game and Ford was well off his best particularly from the tee.

Cole gave away a few penalties as well apparently which is frustrating as he was terrific in rounds 1, 2 and 3. This was his 4th start on the bounce, he only started 4 games on the bounce once last season as Tigers rotated him and Heyes. Hopefully he gets a break next week, though a first start of the season against Rory Sutherland would be a big test for Heyes.

On the upside it sounds like Montoya and van Staden had the positive impact you'd expect from two players of their quality which is great to hear.

Thats the first game I've been annoyed at our players.

Nevermind...Bristol next weekend.

At least you got a win KC - Irish keep getting close but no cigar ...

Heaf wrote:At least you got a win KC - Irish keep getting close but no cigar ...

True. I do think Irish are a better side this season than their start shows.

My old man was down in London for the weekend and went to see the LI-Tigers match in the new stadium. He said the building is great, well designed and executed. On the other hand, he thought this was not a great match and it seemed many players did not bring their 'A' game. LI have some good players, but for some reason, just don't seem to put a performance together. He thought Montoya is phenomenal.

king_carlos wrote:LI 16 - 21 Tigers

I didn't see it live but will watch on Premiership Rugby TV tomorrow. Similar to last week I'll take the win but it sounds like Tigers made very hard work of it once again. "Our own worst enemy" seems a common phrase used by several Tigers fans I know who were at the ground.

It sounds like Youngs had another really poor game and Ford was well off his best particularly from the tee.

Cole gave away a few penalties as well apparently which is frustrating as he was terrific in rounds 1, 2 and 3. This was his 4th start on the bounce, he only started 4 games on the bounce once last season as Tigers rotated him and Heyes. Hopefully he gets a break next week, though a first start of the season against Rory Sutherland would be a big test for Heyes.

On the upside it sounds like Montoya and van Staden had the positive impact you'd expect from two players of their quality which is great to hear.

Ford effectively kicked us to victory judging by the highlights so can't have had that bad a day at the office. The two tries scored from rolling mauls were pretty much on the five metre so out of hand seems to dialled in. Bit disappointed we aren't seeing a greater evolution of the pack but maybe we are suffering a little with the same backrow playing for the fourth straight game. Now we've got some players back hopefully we'll freshen things up a bit and give some players a rest over the next few games. 

Benny seems to be in some indifferent form. Not doing anything particularly badly but not doing anything particularly well. I'd rotate him out for next week against Wuss, shame because he started the season with what looked like a return to his old creativity. Last weekend Vs Sarries though he was pretty poor, he was kicking into the wind and over compensating but at no point in the near 50 mins on the pitch did he actually make a kick contestable.

I'd agree on Cole. Time for him to have a week off, whatever has been hampering Heyes is hopefully finished and he can start Vs Wuss with Leatigaga on the bench. Only concern might be that I heard Genge left the pitch with an injury. We do have two looseheads staying fit playing in the Championship so cover shouldn't be too bad.

I'm not complaining with four wins from four. Grinding out wins away from home is something we've missed, particularly against LI who tend to be an awkward team for us to play against.

Wholesale changes for next week Vs Worcester;

Van Wyk, Montoya, Heyes
Wells, Henderson
Chessum, van Staden, Weise (if Jasper isn't ready then Liebenburg)
JVP, Burns
Socino, Scott 
Nadolo, Heggarty, Saumaki

Dolly, Whitcombe, Leatigaga, Green, Martin, Wigglesworth, Ford, Steward.

Actually having watched it Benny didn't play badly he was just a bit meh. He looked like he was coasting if anything, a little inaccurate particularly the box kicks and there was one bad pass. There was also a really nice one handed pick up that had it been from a more fashionable player would have been all over social media. He also covered across really nicely to stop an LI attack.

Tigers tried to play and did create chances but things weren't sticking. Some silly pens conceded, we didn't play the strict ref particularly well and credit to the ref he was consistent so we should have been able to adapt. Ground it out in the end.

George Martin really turned up on the carrying front. Nice to see that area of his game come out as at academy level he was a bit of a beast ball in hand but it's obviously a lot harder to do that when you come into senior rugby.