Celtic League Thread 05/06

[stevemagoo]

Terrible game - Conn did well with the blitz defence - dancing dangerously on the wrong side of the law! But still kept Count-the-ponies relatively quiet. Pitch was in rag order too after all the schlools games on it.

 

[An Tarbh]

Pitch was in rag order before the school games were on it.

 

[edinburgh_gunner]

Edinburgh take a pretty strong squad to Wales on Sunday. The only players missing are Leonelli (no idea why) and Taylor (back). Webster starts at 11 and Hewitt returns from injury, if only to sit on the bench.

 

[An Tarbh]

Big blow for Munster today with their clash at Llanelli being postponed due to a waterlogged pitch. They'll certainly be undercooked going into next weekend's quarter final against Perpignan, similar to Leinster's predicament of having a free weekend at the worst possible time.

 

[Black-Monday]

Good job i went on the internet, i was trying to watch the game on S4C. However i have no knowledge of welsh and was watching 'le rugby' nice to see the channel hating english. Like most welsh speaking entities.

Sky does offer some good games on the welsh channels, i watched sale in the powergen a couple of months ago.

BM

 

[loratadine]

the scarlets won the west wales derby 30-17

the table now is

Team P W D L F A BP PTS
1 Ulster 16 11 0 4 363 266 4 52
2 Leinster 16 9 0 5 359 284 5 49
3 Munster 15 9 0 5 292 256 6 46
4 Edinburgh 16 8 0 6 291 282 6 46
5 Cardiff Blues 15 6 0 7 295 249 9 41
6 Borders 16 6 0 8 230 281 5 37
7 Llanelli Scarlets 13 7 0 5 259 234 4 36
8 Ospreys 15 7 0 7 231 300 1 33
9 Glasgow 16 4 0 10 280 300 7 31
10 Newport-Gwent D'gons 14 5 0 8 244 272 6 30
11 Connacht 16 4 0 11 233 353 3 23

 

[An Tarbh]

I know Llanelli have 3 games in hand but with 3 of those games coming against Leinster, Ulster and Edinburgh I can only see an Irish winner at this stage.

 

[SmokeyMonkey]

The Dragons get a 4 point free weekend this weekend which seems to be the only way of us getting any points!

 

[An Tarbh]

Does anyone know what this free weekend lark really does, what imbalance was there in the points last season that made them introduce it?

 

[SmokeyMonkey]

Well basically it goes like this

First week:

------------Played Points
TeamA-------1------- 4
TeamB-------1------- 4
TeamC-------1------- 4
TeamD-------1------- 0
TeamE-------1------- 0
TeamF-------1--------0
TeamG-------0------- 0


TeamG not playing and no free weekend rule so they will be 'behind' for most of the season
Apparenlty they think this will confuse people so they've done this:

-----------Played Points
TeamA-------1------- 4
TeamB-------1------- 4
TeamC-------1------- 4
TeamD-------1------- 0
TeamE-------1------- 0
TeamF-------1--------0
TeamG-------1------- 4

Even though TeamG havent played they get 4 points to 'keep it equal' and the same goes for everyone twice throughout the season.

If you get me :wacko:

 

[An Tarbh]

Kind of but what I don't get is that every team seems to get 8 points, so my point is why bother, if they all get 0 they'll still all be equal come the end of the season. Definitely a confusing introduction.

 

[SmokeyMonkey]

Because they wouldn't be equal throughout the season, only at the end, but it hasn't really worked anyway what with all the postponements especially with the Scarlets.

 

[An Tarbh]

You'd think though that it's the end of the season that really counts not this nonsensical situation we have at the moment.

 

[SmokeyMonkey]

Oops! I was wrong, this isn't our free weekend.

 

[edinburgh_gunner]

Following the defeat to the Ospreys last weekend, I think the ***le is beyond us now. We could always win every game from here on in, but that's not really that likley. I think a top 3 finnish would be good, and to build on it next year with a new manager coming in (hopefully).

Edinburgh shouldn't be loosing to teams like the Ospreys, Glasgow or the Borders. Sometimes we just bugger it up completley and lats week was on of those weeks where the team just didn't click. Those were the games that probably did the damage as far as the ***le is concerned. Hopefully we can beat Cardiff though next week.

 

[Moses]

hello all
i live in france and so i am not able to watch any celtic league
so i was wondering if you knew a website where i could either watch celtic league or download the matches.
thx

 

[An Tarbh]

Hey Moses, welcome to TRF.

On scottishrugby.org there's usually some video highlights of the matches involving the Scottish teams, there were some clips on leinsterrugby.ie but they haven't updated it in ages, clips should still be there though.

 

[Moses]

thanks alot
i also found this site: http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/scrumv/onthebox/tvcoverage/
they seam to show the welsh matches live in streaming but im not sure
ill check it out on saturday

(btw , what does an tarbh mean???)

 

[An Tarbh]

usually the streaming is within the UK only, so not much joy on that front I'd imagine. An Tarbh is Irish for the Bull.

 

[edinburgh_gunner]

Edinburgh play the Cardiff Blues tomorrow night at Murrayfield and hope to bounce back from that absolute stinker against the Ospreys. 9 changes have been made for this one. Paterson is back from illness and so plays at 14, Godman moves to 13 and Di Rollo is dropped to the bench, Hodge and Dey start at 10 and 12 respectivley. In the forwards Taylor is back at 8, Hall is dropped in favour of Kelly and Hewitt returns to the starting XV after his injury against London Wasps back in January. Hogg is at 6 and MacDonald at 7.


Edinburgh Gunners team to play the Cardiff Blues

15 Hugo Southwell

14 Chris Paterson CAPTAIN
13 Phil Godman
12 Matt Dey
11 Simon Webster

10 Duncan Hodge
9 Mike Blair *

1 Dave Hewett
2 Andrew Kelly *
3 Craig Smith
4 Alastair Kellock *
5 Scott Murray
6 Allister Hogg *
8 Simon Taylor
7 Alan MacDonald

Substitutes

16 Dougie Hall
17 Alasdair Dickinson *
18 Dave Duley
19 Simon Cross
20 Rory Lawson *
21 Peter Jorgensen
22 Marcus Di Rollo



I'm glad to see Hodge starting cause I still think he's got what it takes. Good to have Taylor and Paterson back also. Leonelli is out with an injured back, but Webster is just as capable and hopefully he can unleash his blistering pace on Lumo. I don't know why Di Rollo has been dropped, and I'm concerned by Godman at 13. Last time I saw him play against Ulster at 13 he looked out of sorts and had to be swapped with Hodge who moved to the centre. Still, a strong team. As Blackadder said, we can still win the league...but it is unlikley now so he just wants the team to go out and win and not feel under any pressure. Hopefully we'll be back to our good old winning ways tomorrow night.