Aviva Premiership - Round 1

[Peat]

Re-developing Old Deer Park would be a nightmare, if possible, but if London Welsh are/were serious about being a Premiership club, they should have been looking at ways of doing so or an alternative long before this.

I feel that it is fair enough for London Welsh to be surprised by the promotion thing once and was impressed by the go they made of it in the circumstances. To get surprised by it again is taking the pee.

If London Welsh want to set themselves up for a genuine go at the Premiership, come back, make it, great. I disagree with Rats that London & the Home Counties is oversaturated, it supports 4 top level clubs fine and probably could support another better than Cornwall could support one. If they don't, then while it's impressive to see them nipping in ahead of better set-ups time and time again, I really hope that it will stop.

If that's snobbish, so be it. I don't think it is though. I don't care where England's clubs come from or their provenance. I only care about the contribution they can make to the game. London Welsh's contribution at this level is close to negative.

 

[goodNumber10]

1. No they can't. Look it up. If they could have they would have. Know this off a very good source.

2. Think they were surprised with promotion this year, not an excuse however as their squad recruitment has been dire (this keeps being said, doesn't seem to be sinking in). There is no real excuses for it.

3. Again read into the situation you will find that London Welsh infact reported the issue themselves as soon as they found out and took immediate internal discipline. Even before the sentence was given. Quite professional to be fair.
4. You might not think so but it is coming across that way. Whether you think you don't mean it or you do it is certainly coming across like that.

5. Plenty of clubs haven't too. Swings in roundabouts.

What's to look up? It's crown property and would be difficult but not impossible, other sports facilities have been given permission, London Welsh put up temporary buildings to accommodate their training center, so it is doable if done properly.

Looking through Richmonds planning permissions i can't find any applications by them or anyone else for development of the ground. They looked at Witney and pulled out of that almost immediately opting for Kassan.

How can you be a championship club that was demoted a year ago from the premiership and be surprised with promotion? That's like saying worcester and bristol will be surprised tehey got promoted. No one is challenging their recruitment over the summer, they've obviously panic bought what they can. The point is more that they shouldn't have had to recruit 25 players (yes 25 - that's a whole team) in two months. If they'd built a workable squad last year looking to come back they would have only had to recruit a handful of key players but they clearly didn't go down with the intentions of coming back up.

On the licences I don't believe for one minute that that was anything other than trying to look good. Regardless that is not an excuse for allowing it to happen, this was a senior member of staff in charge of all licencing, the board should have had oversite and had processes in place that checked these things and managed them - finding out however long after is just mismanagement.

It's got nothing to do with them being welsh, you make it a nationality thing, but LI got the same treatment last year and so did worcester.

Yes, fair point.

Look it's nothing against Welsh per se, just i think this current set up have bene very poor in their planning and implementation and as such they don't deserve to be there. They are a team who dropped formt he premiership less than a year ago, yet they are back with what appears t be absolutely no plan to be there. Maybe they will come good, but i doubt it.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

This can't be about Wales, anyway, as London Welsh are welsh in name and nothing else. They were more Welsh in the past, but not anymore.
They've got 6 welshmen in their squad.
Gloucester have 4, Bath have 3, Exeter have 3, Sale have 4 and Wasps have 6. It's not like they're flying the flag for Welsh players in England.

 

[Wendigo7]

There's about as much Welsh interest in London Welsh as there is in England picking players outside of France. None.

That said I am biased against teams if they don't produce England players and don't appear to be appreciative to the system and some of the backers comments made me feel very negative about that club.

It's all irrelevant anyway. Until they fix that dire defence of theirs, their stay and money from the season will be very shortlived. It benefits Newcastle and Richards greatly, which to me is a promising situation for the game up north.

If only we could get a good side in Liverpool, that would be somewhat of a holy grail.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

I think a top flight side in Yorkshire would be better than Liverpool - one of Donny, Rotherham or Carnegie to be a mainstay in the premiership would be great.
Yorkshire has some of the highest playing numbers of amateur rugby, would be great to see that translate into the Premiership.

Though same could be said for Lancashire, who see great success in the amateur game/have very high playing numbers, but then have little interest in the pro-club game.

 

[ratsapprentice]

Yorkshire would be awesome.
I would love to see them become good enough to start attracting large crowds to Headingley.
They've got good young lads in their academy (when have they not?) and IMO their restructuring is awesome.

 

[Peat]

Isn't Liverpool part of Lancashire in rugby terms?

 

[ratsapprentice]

It's part of The North.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

Isn't Liverpool part of Lancashire in rugby terms?

Thinking about it, I think they do fall under Lancs.
Had it in my head there was a Merseyside, I think all northwest falls undet Lancs (Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Cheshire, etc.) due to most of it being Lancs in the past.

 

[ratsapprentice]

No point in splitting it up really.

 

[Mrs. Peter Quinn]

I don't enjoy reading the same thing from people who haven't bothered looking into this. I pointed out earlier where actually almost all bar one or two went, it was hardly an axing. Few key players retired. If people got their facts straight with this it would help. Not by much but something .



Lot of the same faces do have a tendency to have a slag off at the same or similar things regularly, much like fanboys of the RWC'11 game and RC games era on this board. So I do agree with Thingimubob. If there is a valid and fair argument then I am all game, but regardless of whatever Peat there has been some unfair bashing going on in this thread an example was a post about the owner leaving (infact Byron was a backer not the owner). However some of the things discussed I agree with in particular the recruiting this year has been dire, what they have brought in in lots of areas has been nothing short of shocking. What was probably one of the biggest factors was on Saturday was London Welsh's fitness too. It was dire.

I guess it's not just about the number of people who were 'axed' - I think its also the overall numbers of players coming in and going out.
During the Summer 18 players left Welsh and 25 came in. That's a pretty big turnaround, though I've seen worse. You also need to consider players who maybe didn't leave but arn't going to be playing either; if you keep players on and don't intend to play them much then its hardly different from letting them go - jury's out because we don't know which players will be favoured.
If you look at the team who started that last playoff against Bristol and compare it to the starting 15 against Exeter, 5 players remain. Admittedly that's not a ridiculous statistic, I've seen worse, but it's notable - especially when you consider that only 1 member of the pack was the same. On the other hand, over half of the backs were the same - May, Stegmann, Jewell, Ross...

I don't share the complete antipathy towards Welsh that some do; I think the jury will be out for at least a few more games. Some of their recruitment however has left me bemused, though.

 

[psychic duck]

hahahahahahahahahah amazing!
For Tigers try just then, the number 8 literally put the ball BETWEEN his feet at the base of the scrum and bunny hopped forwards as the scrum went over the line, then Mele dives between his legs and dots it down before he gets a chance and robs his try! :lol: :lol: :lol:

Just so everybody knows. What Leicester did was actually against the IRB laws (http://www.irblaws.com/index.php?law=20&language=AF). 20.9 (b) Players must not pick up the ball with their legs. Sanction: Penalty. So they got away with it there, but refs having seen it once really ought to wise up if they try it again.

 

[Wendigo7]

I dont know who said Ford wasn't ready, but he's miles ahead of the rest.

Eastmond and Joseph were outstanding as were the whole Bath team.