Edinburgh Rugby Supporters Club

In a distraction from tonight's poop, are we expecting the usual re-signing news in the run up to Christmas and 1872?

I predict we will kick off with Watson staying another couple of seasons. Heard it here first!

IMHO we need :

Hooker - to replace Ford and keep Rambo on his toes.
Scrum half - someone with a different style to Pyrgos, ie with a break, to be our first choice 9. Let go of Kennedy and \ or Fowles.
2 Centres - our weakest area. Glasgow have 5 centres who are ahead of ours. Probably need to get clear out a couple, including Bennett unfortunately, and bring in something different (can we steal Nick Grigg?)).
Second row - an extra experienced squad player.

macdone, Mark Bennett, Matt Scott are arguably equal to anything Glasgow have got.

I'm a wee bit confused/concerned that the box kick seems to be the go to tactic @ Edinburgh, Simon Hickey was meant to be a top 10 (NZ u20 WC winner captain) so why not get the ball to him ASAP & let him decide, Pygros ,especially, likes to box kick as the preferred option.

When we did get quick ball to VDM last night.................

The game last night was summed up in one movement last night -20 year old Hodgson took the ball forward & was tackled by Pro14 POY Tadhg Beirne and Irish & Lion legend POM, ball stripped........try. Not Hodgson's fault but......

Jockybadger wrote:macdone, Mark Bennett, Matt Scott are arguably equal to anything Glasgow have got.

I'm a wee bit confused/concerned that the box kick seems to be the go to tactic @ Edinburgh, Simon Hickey was meant to be a top 10 (NZ u20 WC winner captain) so why not get the ball to him ASAP & let him decide, Pygros ,especially, likes to box kick as the preferred option.

When we did get quick ball to VDM last night.................

The game last night was summed up in one movement last night -20 year old Hodgson took the ball forward & was tackled by Pro14 POY Tadhg Beirne and Irish & Lion legend POM, ball stripped........try. Not Hodgson's fault but......

I'd much rather have Sam Johnson, Huw Jones to any of our lot. I thought George Taylor was alright yesterday, deserves another go. I thought Cammy Hutchison for the under 20s now in Nice was great for the age groups.

We need to release Bennett, we're getting no production. Sport is a tough business but he's far too injury prone. I don't think he'll ever get back to who he was. It's a crying shame but it's not an effect strategy to hope he gets back when evidence suggests otherwise. Even when healthy he hasn't been good. And he won't be here cheap either.

Ford also needs to go. Old and slow.

Jockybadger wrote:The game last night was summed up in one movement last night -20 year old Hodgson took the ball forward & was tackled by Pro14 POY Tadhg Beirne and Irish & Lion legend POM, ball stripped........try. Not Hodgson's fault but......

correct and correct.

And it would not have mattered if it had been Gilchrist, or for that matter Retallick or O'Connell at his peak. The problem was poor to no support or effective clear. While maybe more excusable with the team out last night, its been an issue all season. Sometimes a turnover, always a minimum of slow ball. Who is the forwards/breakdown coach?

joe soap wrote:

Jockybadger wrote:The game last night was summed up in one movement last night -20 year old Hodgson took the ball forward & was tackled by Pro14 POY Tadhg Beirne and Irish & Lion legend POM, ball stripped........try. Not Hodgson's fault but......

correct and correct.

And it would not have mattered if it had been Gilchrist, or for that matter Retallick or O'Connell at his peak. The problem was poor to no support or effective clear. While maybe more excusable with the team out last night, its been an issue all season. Sometimes a turnover, always a minimum of slow ball. Who is the forwards/breakdown coach?

Roddy Grant.

To be fair Beirne and PoM are amongst the world's best at that bit of skill.

And breakdown strategy is part of the wider gameplan.

Friday Knight Lights wrote:

joe soap wrote:And it would not have mattered if it had been Gilchrist, or for that matter Retallick or O'Connell at his peak. The problem was poor to no support or effective clear. While maybe more excusable with the team out last night, its been an issue all season. Sometimes a turnover, always a minimum of slow ball. Who is the forwards/breakdown coach?

Roddy Grant.

To be fair Beirne and PoM are amongst the world's best at that bit of skill.

And breakdown strategy is part of the wider gameplan.

we haven't been playing those 2 all season though, have we? We have had the same issue all season. Getting support to the ball carrier and being effective isn't really part of an wider gameplan, its a fundamental for an gameplan.

Everyone needs to take off the rose tinted specs on and stop making excuses. The breakdown ball protection has been weak, continues to be weak, whoever plays. Either the players aren't good enough in his aspect (however good they may be in others), or the coaching isn't. Or both

Losing possession, getting turned over or desperately slow ball was a problem against three of Scotland’s four opponents in the last few weeks, too.

titchfield, joe soap,

agree 100% re breakdown.

Scotland have missed Barclay terribly, Wilson has got the attitude but not the requisite expertise, I like Hardie, he has a hard NZ edge, but he may be way out of favour Fraser Brown is excellent at the breakdown, could a move back to 7 be an option?

Du Preez (for a season) looked like the answer of the 8 & clearing out issue but he has regressed dreadfully since the injury.

I would've given Graham a start V Argentina, he could be a very useful player.

Blade Thompson looks more a top of the ground player,

Ritchie, Crosbie, Ashe??????

Weegies started tonight without 15-18 first choice players against the Scarlets who were probably only 3-4 players off their full team. Weegies played fantastic rugby and won well despite being down to 14 men for 60 mins. Puts into perspective the difference in the squad depths in both our teams. We go deep into our squad and get beat by one of worst teams in league who then ship 59 points at home to Leinster the following week.

Cockerill has a big job on his hands to develop the squad to get to same level as Weegies. Not only have they better players, they all fit seamlessly into the system and have a focus, skill level and confidence we can only dream of. Our guys - young and senior guys - just looked lost at times last night/last week and our defensive system broke down terribly at times. Im not saying we don't have some promising young players, we do, its just that they don't look like they know our systems and what their job is at times. The Weegies also have some senior players around them giving leadership - the likes of Jackson, Grigg and Fusaro were excellent tonight. Im not sure I can say the same for our senior guys, Hamilton excepted, in last couple of weeks.

Watching the games in the last couple of weeks has made me realise how big the gap is between our squads once we dip below our top 15. Its going to take some time to build the squad we need.

Weegie players not starting tonight:

Hogg
DTH
Dunbar
H Jones
Horne Snr
Seymour
Hughes
L Jones
Hastings
Price

Brown
Fagerson Jnr
Fagerson Snr
Gray
Gibbins
Harley
Wilson
Kebble - on bench
Halanukonuka - on bench

In contrast, Edinburgh players not playing yesterday

Kinghorn
Graham
Hoyland
Scott
Bennett
Johnstone
Hickey
Pyrgos

Dell
McInally
Nel
Schoeman
Fenton
Berghan
Toolis
Gilchrist
Mackenzie
Carmichael
Watson
Mata
Bradbury
Barclay
Crosbie
Ritchie

biffer wrote:
There's some crazy paranoia and other stuff over on the Glasgow website

'The SRU are going to shut us down'

I thought it was pretty clear that was joke.

monkey wrote:

biffer wrote:
There's some crazy paranoia and other stuff over on the Glasgow website

'The SRU are going to shut us down'

I thought it was pretty clear that was joke.

Really? They just don't normally do jokes over there.

biffer wrote:In contrast, Edinburgh players not playing yesterday

Kinghorn
Graham
Hoyland
Scott
Bennett
Johnstone
Hickey
Pyrgos

Dell
McInally
Nel
Schoeman
Fenton
Berghan
Toolis
Gilchrist
Mackenzie
Carmichael
Watson
Mata
Bradbury
Barclay
Crosbie
Ritchie

I agree we have a lot of guys out too but I wasn't really trying to compare numbers of players not available or not picked. If we and the Weegies both put out our best team it would be a tight game, however if we put out our 2nd and 3rd teams then I suspect we would struggle!

For me it is more about the quality of players as you go deep into the squads and the difference in ability to play quality rugby. We got beat in an awful game playing poor rugby by a dreadful Dragons team who then go on to ship 59 points at home in their next game whereas the Weegies pull in a number of youngsters and beat one of the top teams in the league with only 14 players for 60mins and played fantastic rugby. Their young guys seemed to just slot into their system and knew what they were doing and played well whereas our young guys try hard but seemed lost at times. The Weegies senior players - Jackson, Fusaro, Swinson - put in a decent shift and provided a bit of leadership ours - Fowles/Kennedy, Socino, Brown, Fife - were poor and posted missing at key times of our games although Hamilton and Sutherland are probably exempt from criticism. The quality of the back up players, apart from Frisbie, is far higher than ours.


The main point is that Cockerill has a lot of work on his hands to reshape the squad and get us anywhere near the level the Weegies. We know that during AIs and 6Ns with call offs and injuries we need to rely on our 2nd or 3rd choices but unlike the Weegies who have a squad that can cope we are pretty thin. I'm not sure the likes of Fife, Brown, Socino, Fowles, Kennedy, etc are good enough, they have had their chance, failed and need replaced. The younger guys like Taylor, Baggot, Shiels and others look to have more about them and need to be given a chance to show what they can do. It will take time but as the Weegies have shown if they're good enough they're old enough. I suspect we will see a few more 'well kent' faces moving on at the end of the season.

In terms of development we are probably where Glasgow were when Townsend took over, though he didn’t inherit the sloppy, entitled, delusional culture that RC has.
Cockers has shaken things up but there is a long way to go, we can put out a decent side when everyone is fit, but we are years away from putting out a second string capable of what Glasgow did last night.

I find our game plan frustrating, it’s effective when the box kick and chase are deadly accurate and there are times when that tactice has been matched with a great defensive linespeed which can march a ateam back to their own goal line from where they are forced to belt the ball into touch and we can launch from there.

When it doesn’t work we look slow and ponderous, lacking in energy and intensity, that was the most impressive thing for me about Glasgow last night, they just ramped up the energy as the game wore on, George Horne is the centre of it all, I’d love to see his gps tracker stats as to how far he runs during a game and at what percentage of full pace. He’s a human dynamo.