Edinburgh vs Zebre

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Re: Edinburgh vs Zebre

Postby Friday Knight Lights on Sat Oct 07, 2017 10:24 am

I really don't know why we persist with Fowles, he is not good enough. Solly preferred him too so maybe fits the structured game plan better than SHC?

Got beaten at the ruck too often because du Preez and Bradbury just don't work in the same backrow, I thought Ritchie was good though. Hope to see Toolis get back to his best soon, everyone else was pretty meh.

Poor performance, not really surprising we play badly against Zebre and well against Leinster... At least we won this year!

Hopefully Crosbie introduced is the start of a lot of young players getting blooded and getting a chance, I doubt it looking at the European squad but they're the ones to get us out of this malaise.
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Re: Edinburgh vs Zebre

Postby Hil on Sat Oct 07, 2017 10:25 am

Wottie wrote:Any update after the game in the clubhouse about JJ? That looked really nasty.


He was in the bar after the game. Said was feeling OK but didn't remember much about it but had definitely been knocked out cold.
Slam the drop of victory
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Re: Edinburgh vs Zebre

Postby jodo on Sat Oct 07, 2017 10:55 am

Can't see how we can criticise our attacking strategy when Zebre were miles offside at practically every breakdown. How can you expect the backs to get anything going when there's someone in there face immediately when you get the ball.

Seems to be some criticism of our kicking game but I think it's been pretty well executed this season. The chase is good and we're either contesting the ball or taking man and ball.
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Re: Edinburgh vs Zebre

Postby Wottie on Sat Oct 07, 2017 11:15 am

Hil wrote:
Wottie wrote:Any update after the game in the clubhouse about JJ? That looked really nasty.


He was in the bar after the game. Said was feeling OK but didn't remember much about it but had definitely been knocked out cold.


Good news, thanks Hil
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Re: Edinburgh vs Zebre

Postby Wottie on Sat Oct 07, 2017 11:28 am

jodo wrote:Can't see how we can criticise our attacking strategy when Zebre were miles offside at practically every breakdown. How can you expect the backs to get anything going when there's someone in there face immediately when you get the ball.

Seems to be some criticism of our kicking game but I think it's been pretty well executed this season. The chase is good and we're either contesting the ball or taking man and ball.


They were but frankly, even if they were made to respect the offside line, we were taking 5-6 seconds to clear the call from the breakdown, and we never snipe to keep the defence honest. This I’m sure is much more significant in preventing space creation and rendering our backline impotent than a foot of two on the offside line. Also if that was how the game was being reffed then why didn’t we defend on the same line? Seems so obvious!

Agree kicking game better and more accurate this season but it had a tendency to be too deep last night and there was too much of it when we were suffering from not having enough ball. It was a very poor home performance after two good ones away in Llanelli and Dublin, but hey we got the points against a side going really well just now.
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Re: Edinburgh vs Zebre

Postby Debaser on Sat Oct 07, 2017 12:56 pm

It wasn't a classic by any means but we won - it could have been worse. I actually thought Zebra played a very disciplined game with some lovely rugby and off loads (something we very rarely do) at times. They also have some decent players - didn't look that different to our team in terms of quality.

I agree that Zebra were allowed to defend from an offside line position, a few passes looked forward, line out squint and various other offences were missed. The referee was fairly poor throughout which wasn't helped by the lack of TMO (how did we ever manage before they existed). Whilst not as frequent there were also a couple of Edinburgh offences which also went unnoticed - Fruean appeared to almost decapitate a Zebra player with a high tackle. This looked like a straight red card from where I was standing. Happy to have a crappy ref and lack of TMO on that occasion.

Zebra are no longer the whipping boys. Whilst our game plan was limited - had we played a team like Ulster with a similar plan it may just have been viewed as a tight game. I think it's fairly obvious that we are making some progress albeit baby steps but we have a lot of improving to do and we don't have the flare to dominate and really need to cut out the basic errors - e.g. Toolis knocking ball on from kick off was just one that springs to mind.

Edinburgh appear to have done a lot of work with the scrum half kick chase and it is much improved but I agree it is very predicable and generally Fowles was slow to get the ball moving which allowed the Zebra defensive line to reset. After having an immense first half against Leinster, Johnstone was fairly anonymous as were most of our backs.We lacked the X factor especially when Kinghorn went off. Nice break by Fife though.

Let's be thankful for the win in the league and move onto Challenge Cup
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Re: Edinburgh vs Zebre

Postby doedin on Sat Oct 07, 2017 8:01 pm

biffer wrote:Doedin in

Aw michty me we were pishypoo

Shocker.


Can someone take his spade away please?
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Re: Edinburgh vs Zebre

Postby doedin on Sat Oct 07, 2017 8:15 pm

Wottie wrote:Got to love this guy!

“I will have to watch it again, but it’s hard to play any type of rugby when the game is, in my opinion, poorly officiated,” said Cockerill.

“When [Dougie] Fife runs 50-metres and the guy is then offside he has to go to the bin. We’ve had some really, really bad calls in the last four weeks.”

“This week there seemed to be no offside line, for the competition to have any credibility they have to sort out the officiating because I have never encountered anything like it in anything else I have coached.”

“We can all see it. We kicked the penalty to go in front then the prop is two metres offside from the restart – that’s a scrum back to us, that’s a law of the game, so why is it just ignored? It is a pretty important point in the game – why would you ignore that? Ring Greg Garner [Elite Referee Manager for the PRO14] and ask why important parts of this game were ignored. I can see it, you can see it, everyone lese can see it – but the really important person who is stood a metre away chooses to ignore it. There has to be consistency and it has to be fair.

Asked if there should be referees from neutral countries, Cockerill replied: “I don’t care, they just have to do their job properly. But will he be accountable for that performance? My players will be, I will be, will he be?”


This is straight out of the Alex Ferguson 'nobody loves us, everybody hates us' book! I suspect it is irrelevant how good/bad the ref actually was this is more about Cockerill trying to create a siege mentality in the camp and using this to motivate the players and influence refs in the future. Probably also a bit of deflection from how bad we played on the night and shifting the focus off the performance or the players. I've no problem with this approach, for too long we have been too 'nice' a team. It was also good to see a few scuffles breaking out on the pitch, usually involving Toollis. However, as other have pointed out, we were lucky the ref missed the Fruean high tackle so it works both ways. I find it difficult to accept the ref and the officials made it difficult for us to play off loading, attacking rugby but not Zebra!
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Re: Edinburgh vs Zebre

Postby Friday Knight Lights on Sat Oct 07, 2017 9:29 pm

To be fair we've had the Bradley total rugby experience, it doesn't work really. Zebre will concede too many points and find themselves at the bottom of their group.
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Re: Edinburgh vs Zebre

Postby doedin on Sat Oct 07, 2017 10:01 pm

Friday Knight Lights wrote:To be fair we've had the Bradley total rugby experience, it doesn't work really. Zebre will concede too many points and find themselves at the bottom of their group.


Agreed!
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Re: Edinburgh vs Zebre

Postby macdone on Sun Oct 08, 2017 2:18 am

Friday Knight Lights wrote:To be fair we've had the Bradley total rugby experience, it doesn't work really. Zebre will concede too many points and find themselves at the bottom of their group.


Agreed, but a similar style has won the last 3 titles under Townsend, Lam and Pivac.
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Re: Edinburgh vs Zebre

Postby Friday Knight Lights on Sun Oct 08, 2017 9:59 am

macdone wrote:
Friday Knight Lights wrote:To be fair we've had the Bradley total rugby experience, it doesn't work really. Zebre will concede too many points and find themselves at the bottom of their group.


Agreed, but a similar style has won the last 3 titles under Townsend, Lam and Pivac.


I don't pay attention too much to the Scarlets so not sure what they did pre winning so can't really comment.

But Connacht and Glasgow built their attacking platform on a squad capable of structure, unquestionable effort and winning rugby - something that Cockers will build before handing the reigns to a Mike Blair or Ben Cairns I reckon.

Although, I still think old fashioned rugby can win the title. I think as time goes on the more obvious it is the Connacht result was a bit of a world cup year fluke as they weren't nearly that good pre 2015 and haven't got near it since. They had the luxury of a good side but without any internationals which is where the great sides fell down that year.
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Re: Edinburgh vs Zebre

Postby germain on Sun Oct 08, 2017 1:20 pm

Friday Knight Lights wrote:To be fair we've had the Bradley total rugby experience, it doesn't work really. Zebre will concede too many points and find themselves at the bottom of their group.


We've had the Neil Back experience and it was awful. But Bradley's rugby was sometimes so exhilarating and brilliant. I really wish him to achieve something great at Zebre.
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Re: Edinburgh vs Zebre

Postby Friday Knight Lights on Sun Oct 08, 2017 1:35 pm

germain wrote:
Friday Knight Lights wrote:To be fair we've had the Bradley total rugby experience, it doesn't work really. Zebre will concede too many points and find themselves at the bottom of their group.


We've had the Neil Back experience and it was awful. But Bradley's rugby was sometimes so exhilarating and brilliant. I really wish him to achieve something great at Zebre.


Yeah Bradley was responsible for some of the most fun us Edinburgh fans have had in a long time, I didn't say it wasn't fun, it was ... at times.

We still lost more often than won, though. The same will happen with Zebre.
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Re: Edinburgh vs Zebre

Postby joe soap on Sun Oct 08, 2017 3:59 pm

Friday Knight Lights wrote:We still lost more often than won, though. The same will happen with Zebre.


pretty safe prediction.

Zebre could double their win rate and then some and still lose more than they win. I suspect they would consider a doubling of their win rate a huge success and Bradley a great appointment.
But to be clear, no, I wouldn't have him back
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