Packman
Academy Player
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- Sep 10, 2013
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Round three of the eurocup kicked ass as usual.
Connaught had a massive impact on their pool on Sunday by beating Toulouse. Saracens could now theoretically top the pool, while Toulouse' quarterfinal ranking potential has dropped dramatically, no easy QF for them! Also Connaught do have a chance of progressing to the quarters for the first time. There's your improvement right there.
Teams like Connaught, Exeter, Treviso, Edinburgh and Scarlets routinely wreck the big sides European campaign every single year. A low seeding after the pool stages is damn near lethal to a club's aspirations. A dropped bonus point can consign you to an away quarter final vs Clermont or Toulon. Ask Leinster or Leicester from last year. In this competition you have to put these sides away as insurances against any loss against a big side, but these smaller teams aren't going down without a fight, it all contributes to the drama and those big clashes like Ulster vs Leicester become all the more important because if you've drop a point in Treviso or if Montpellier ambush Leicester next week, which would be a disaster. There are no dead rubbers. Every single year it goes down to round 6. Every year. PRL just talk out their collective asshole. This competition is the crown jewel of domestic rugby and PRL are only wrecking it so they can get 143 million quid.
Look at Cardiff and Llanelli's eurocup records. Pre-regions, Cardiff were a joke but post regions they contested one of the best knock out games we've ever seen and in round 2 they beat the euro champions. Llanelli pre-regions were outside ***le contenders, regularly reaching the knock out stages. In 2002 they contested mini 3 match series with Leicester that is now Eurocup folklore, They Smashed the living daylights outa us on their own patch, we came back to win at welford road and the semi final was one of the hardest matches you'll ever ever see in your life. won by the most amazing kick ever. Post regions Llanelli just don't have the pack anymore but they have still shocked Toulouse in France in the past and they beat Harlequins this year AT THE STOOP! Why are quins playing do or die rugby right now? Because they lost a home game against the scarlets, that why.
The different between Treviso of old and present day Treviso is stark. Treviso now regularly beat at least one big team at home. In fact, if there is one team to prove that dumping the likes of Zebra into the shield will not help them develop then I point you towards Treviso. Their eurocup history proves they've gone from where zebra are now to wrecking team's campaigns. Leicester have just about achieved what they needed to do against Treviso by scoring in the last play of the match TWICE!!! One mess up (and we are talking about Leicester here, we balls our moves up quite often.) and we'd be in serious trouble vs Ulster in round 6 and we'd have probably been out of the cup in the pool stages last year. Treviso is Zebra about 6 years into the future but only if zebra are allowed to face the likes of Toulouse and Leicester. Zebra as a club is only about three years old, what do you want from these guys? if you want to fast track them they HAVE to stay in the Euro-cup. Otherwise they are Bucharesti. Never going anywhere. That will hurt the Italian national side as well.
People were rightly congratulating Georgia last week on a decent Autumn series. But what have they really got to push for? Are we seriously going to say that Georgia could one day play in a 7 Nations when we're crippling the Scottish and Italian national sides by slashing their player's exposure to top flight domestic rugby by 50%? Bigging up Georgia utter hypocrisy. You want to show Georgia that there is a pathway to competing with the best in Europe? You may want to start with allowing Zebra, Connaught and Edinburgh to stay in the European cup.
There's no two ways about it. We've had another fantastic round of European cup. The tired old English arguments have been show up as rubbish once again with Ospreys and Racing Metro deservedly losing and Leinster and Harlequins deservedly winning. It got nothing to do with rest times, everything to do with application. Every European cup weekend just blows PRL's agenda out of the water and all they are left with is 143 million quid as the excuse to wreck the European cup and that should be unacceptable to every true rugby fan in the northern hemisphere. If you think that's okay then you don't understand whats at stake or you don't care, either way your point of view is decidedly suspect and ultimately you are harming international rugby.
If we applied your logic to the six nations then Scotland and Italy would be playing against Russia and Georgia, the Four Nations would be three weeks long and all you PRL fans will be over the moon. Give us ten years of that and watch the fans and international interest drop to Rugby league levels. There is no way that anyone can honestly say that PRL's intentions are for the good of the sport. I'd compare it to Britain's opium wars in China. I just wish someone would stand up in the house of commons ask what the hell are you doing, and how the hell are you supposed to justify your actions?
Connaught had a massive impact on their pool on Sunday by beating Toulouse. Saracens could now theoretically top the pool, while Toulouse' quarterfinal ranking potential has dropped dramatically, no easy QF for them! Also Connaught do have a chance of progressing to the quarters for the first time. There's your improvement right there.
Teams like Connaught, Exeter, Treviso, Edinburgh and Scarlets routinely wreck the big sides European campaign every single year. A low seeding after the pool stages is damn near lethal to a club's aspirations. A dropped bonus point can consign you to an away quarter final vs Clermont or Toulon. Ask Leinster or Leicester from last year. In this competition you have to put these sides away as insurances against any loss against a big side, but these smaller teams aren't going down without a fight, it all contributes to the drama and those big clashes like Ulster vs Leicester become all the more important because if you've drop a point in Treviso or if Montpellier ambush Leicester next week, which would be a disaster. There are no dead rubbers. Every single year it goes down to round 6. Every year. PRL just talk out their collective asshole. This competition is the crown jewel of domestic rugby and PRL are only wrecking it so they can get 143 million quid.
Look at Cardiff and Llanelli's eurocup records. Pre-regions, Cardiff were a joke but post regions they contested one of the best knock out games we've ever seen and in round 2 they beat the euro champions. Llanelli pre-regions were outside ***le contenders, regularly reaching the knock out stages. In 2002 they contested mini 3 match series with Leicester that is now Eurocup folklore, They Smashed the living daylights outa us on their own patch, we came back to win at welford road and the semi final was one of the hardest matches you'll ever ever see in your life. won by the most amazing kick ever. Post regions Llanelli just don't have the pack anymore but they have still shocked Toulouse in France in the past and they beat Harlequins this year AT THE STOOP! Why are quins playing do or die rugby right now? Because they lost a home game against the scarlets, that why.
The different between Treviso of old and present day Treviso is stark. Treviso now regularly beat at least one big team at home. In fact, if there is one team to prove that dumping the likes of Zebra into the shield will not help them develop then I point you towards Treviso. Their eurocup history proves they've gone from where zebra are now to wrecking team's campaigns. Leicester have just about achieved what they needed to do against Treviso by scoring in the last play of the match TWICE!!! One mess up (and we are talking about Leicester here, we balls our moves up quite often.) and we'd be in serious trouble vs Ulster in round 6 and we'd have probably been out of the cup in the pool stages last year. Treviso is Zebra about 6 years into the future but only if zebra are allowed to face the likes of Toulouse and Leicester. Zebra as a club is only about three years old, what do you want from these guys? if you want to fast track them they HAVE to stay in the Euro-cup. Otherwise they are Bucharesti. Never going anywhere. That will hurt the Italian national side as well.
People were rightly congratulating Georgia last week on a decent Autumn series. But what have they really got to push for? Are we seriously going to say that Georgia could one day play in a 7 Nations when we're crippling the Scottish and Italian national sides by slashing their player's exposure to top flight domestic rugby by 50%? Bigging up Georgia utter hypocrisy. You want to show Georgia that there is a pathway to competing with the best in Europe? You may want to start with allowing Zebra, Connaught and Edinburgh to stay in the European cup.
There's no two ways about it. We've had another fantastic round of European cup. The tired old English arguments have been show up as rubbish once again with Ospreys and Racing Metro deservedly losing and Leinster and Harlequins deservedly winning. It got nothing to do with rest times, everything to do with application. Every European cup weekend just blows PRL's agenda out of the water and all they are left with is 143 million quid as the excuse to wreck the European cup and that should be unacceptable to every true rugby fan in the northern hemisphere. If you think that's okay then you don't understand whats at stake or you don't care, either way your point of view is decidedly suspect and ultimately you are harming international rugby.
If we applied your logic to the six nations then Scotland and Italy would be playing against Russia and Georgia, the Four Nations would be three weeks long and all you PRL fans will be over the moon. Give us ten years of that and watch the fans and international interest drop to Rugby league levels. There is no way that anyone can honestly say that PRL's intentions are for the good of the sport. I'd compare it to Britain's opium wars in China. I just wish someone would stand up in the house of commons ask what the hell are you doing, and how the hell are you supposed to justify your actions?
