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The Road to Bilbao and Beyond: Rugby 2018

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    Cardiff start well and 3-0 up but Navidi has gone off, possibly for good, within seven minutes.

    Gloucester try now.

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      Another Cardiff injury with winger Owen Lane off in the first half. Gloucester bossing it though, 6-20 at half time with the final indignity being one of the worst penalty decisions I’ve ever seen against Ellis Jenkins for being off his feet when he was clearly standing up. The officiating has been pretty poor all half.

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        Originally posted by Ray de Galles View Post
        The officiating has been pretty poor all half.
        As Gloucester were denied a perfectly legit try for a flat pass given us forward, Id agree.

        Good Cardiff try to make things interesting.

        And offside try just to reinforce the point....

        Edit — cross post with Ray below.
        Cardiff actually deserve to be back in the game but the refereeing is so bleeding awful!
        Last edited by ChrisJ; 11-05-2018, 20:21.

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          Yep, Gloucester have actually suffered more from some terrible, inexplicable calls. The refereeing is a total lottery.

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            Bollox. . Deserved for that 2nd half performance. Typical Glaws, snatching defeat etc.

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              What a fantastic game, second half and finish. Thank gawd Garces didn’t contribute to anything that finally won the match, though Gloucester can feel aggrieved about some earlier decisions.

              Almost no rugby teams seem to be able to defend even twenty point leads in one-off games any more which certainly adds to the excitement.

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                Now deleted but...dear oh dear!

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                  Fantastic second half performance from the Blues to win the Challenge Cup, a complete team performance. Danny Wilson has been excellent and I'm struggling to see the logic in not fighting to keep him as he's got the Blues into an excellent position.

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                    Danny Wilson has a major problem with Peter Thomas breaking his promises to him and interfering on too many aspects of the club. He finally had enough and decided to hand his notice in and do things entirely his way which is why they started winning.

                    As has long been suspected, Thomas might be Cardiff’s main benefactor but he’s also the biggest obstacle to them becoming a really major club again because he runs the place like his fiefdom.

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                      Already with Machenaud, Racing have now lost Dan Carter who is a late withdrawal from the bench.

                      This looks increasingly like Leinster’s final to lose, depressingly.

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                        Sexton levels.

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                          Racing lose Lambe within a few minutes so are down to third choice fly half, Dupichot off for a HIA too.

                          They have had more of the game but 6-6 at half time and have very little on the bench, Leinster will look to run around their older, bigger players and wear them down in the second half.

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                            So Leinster prevail 15-12 for their fourth European crown - guess the rest of the country must grin and bear it for the national good.

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                              Not being an RU enthusiast; despite my home town; am interested in what Ray, Antepli or DR make of Stuart Lancaster. From being a vilified England coach to winning the European Cup in a couple of years; was the England job to big for him, was there too many egos in the England dressing room, is he happier with day to day club rugby or some other reasons? Seems a pretty remarkable transformation for him.

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                                I think Lancaster has always been an excellent training ground coach and is great working direct with players but struggled when it came to the selection and more managerial side of international rugby. Too often in crucial games he picked the wrong players in certain positions and I think he struggled to get players mentally well set up for the biggest matches.

                                Four consecutive 6N second places is a poor return for a country with England’s resources and games like the 30-3 in Cardiff in 2013 and 19-9 in Dublin in 2015 showed Lancaster out of his depth. That’s before you get to the disaster of the 2015 World Cup and the 25-28 loss to us where the selection, tactics and game management were all shockingly poor.

                                He did do a lot of good on the “culture”side of the English national team, especially after the farce of Martin Johnson’s laughable tenure and the shambolic 2011 World Cup and I think Eddie Jones has benefited from a lot of that work since taking over.
                                Last edited by Ray de Galles; 13-05-2018, 19:59.

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                                  I agree with Ray, I also think he was told to pick Sam Burgess and couldn't refuse whereas Eddie Jones would have been able to.

                                  Rumours have either him or Shaun Edwards as favourite for the Harlequins job.

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                                    “I much preferred Fiji – even with a dictator in charge, a boss who was convicted for manslaughter, my phone being bugged, the bankruptcy and black magic – than my last year at the RFU.”

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                                      Ben Ryan is a lovely man - I met him on a few occasions when he was coach of the England 7s.

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                                        Romania kicked out of the world cup https://www.worldrugby.org/news/3347...edium=referral

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                                          Wow! This is for the player eligibility issues which also rules out Spain, the problems with the refereeing of the Belgium v Spain game have been bypassed?
                                          Last edited by Ray de Galles; 15-05-2018, 15:57.

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                                            The decision notes the performance issues and criticizes Rugby Europe's handling of the conflict, but concludes that the debacle didnkt meet the
                                            very high bar for overturning a result.

                                            Given the heavy points deductions for both sides, the result was no longer meaningful, anyway

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                                              Man, eligibility rules are crazy. Spain losing out because France changed their "next most senior team". Spain, Romania and Belgium all getting points penalties due it ineligible players. So Russia is off to the world cup.

                                              Edit: ah crap. I spent too long reading the judgement. Yeah, they said so long as there wasn't match fixing or similar they can't overturn referee's decisions.

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                                                Still, it means that imp will be able to boycott the tournament...

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                                                  Russia were above Belgium in the final table, weren't they? The effect of Belgium's punishment is to be passed over when Romania's play-off spot with Portugal was given to Germany (though whatever happens with that Samoa will defeat the winner).

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                                                    From that website:

                                                    In order to maximise Samoa’s preparation for these important matches, World Rugby is also funding Samoa’s entry into the 2018 World Rugby Pacific Nations Cup in Fiji between 9-16 June, which features Fiji, Georgia and Tonga.

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