| Any rugby fans out there?
Posted: 2/11/2008 9:12:46 AM | Oh forgot!!  There must be a few League players in the US, Ok the team they put forward for the World Cup wasnt brilliant but at least the had one!! | |
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| Any rugby fans out there?
Posted: 2/11/2008 9:31:24 AM | Cas did come out all guns blazing... But they holstered them again at half-time.  Whatever Matterson told them didn't really have the desired effect... And the 2 point penalty they took ended up costing them the game. It let Catalans off the hook, lost the momentum and Cas never regained the ascendancy. | |
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| Any rugby fans out there?
Posted: 2/11/2008 12:42:55 PM | | I played in highschool, way too much fun! Anyway, I'm a New Zealand fan. They were the first team I ever watched when I was a little kid and I was hooked ever since. | |
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| Any rugby fans out there?
Posted: 2/11/2008 8:55:24 PM | | so much for 2008 Six Nation's - over already, would you agree? France look home and hosed and only two games in.... | |
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| Any rugby fans out there?
Posted: 2/12/2008 4:55:33 AM | | As a Saints fan, I was not shocked by Sunday's score. We payed the price for playing no friendlies and first team only played 40mins of Scully's testamonial,Where as Hull KR had a good run out against Leeds.We started the game very slow and left it too late for the comeback-game was lost in first have.Saints need to improve for friday when the wire come visiting. I am tipping Wakefield for top six. | |
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| Any rugby fans out there?
Posted: 2/14/2008 4:59:37 AM | As a Saints fan, I was not shocked by Sunday's score. We payed the price for playing no friendlies and first team only played 40mins of Scully's testamonial,Where as Hull KR had a good run out against Leeds.We started the game very slow and left it too late for the comeback-game was lost in first have.Saints need to improve for friday when the wire come visiting. I am tipping Wakefield for top six. Jeez don't go overboard with your tipping... Lelle's head will explode!
What are your thoughts on Sculthorpe?
He's been a good servant for years and in his time he was a great player but as far as I'm concerned, he's now a complete waste of your resources (and has been for a couple of years). He might as well retire...or do a Farrell and go to Union - he's probably still capable of playing that. | |
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| Any rugby fans out there?
Posted: 2/14/2008 10:14:25 AM | As you say , he was an exceptional player .I cannot see him being at saints next year unless he plays 75% of the games which is very doubtful.He will never be the player he was . The kick and clap brigade should come calling.
His contract will be minimal this year because of his testamonial meant where else could he go.
What do you think of Bradford this year. | |
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| Any rugby fans out there?
Posted: 2/14/2008 6:24:02 PM | I think top 2 should be a realistic aim for Bradford after the off-season recruitment. We finished 3rd in the regular season and got to the cup semis last year despite having rubbish like McAvoy in the team and no depth in key positions. On paper, this year's squad is much stronger so should do at least as well if not better.
4th or lower...and anything approaching a repeat of the catastophic play-off performance of last year (i.e. letting the extremely ordinary Pies come back to beat us), would probably mean McNamara would have to go. | |
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| Any rugby fans out there?
Posted: 2/17/2008 7:18:19 AM | Good win for Bradford .
Next week should be top game, making no prediction after our performance against the wire | |
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| Any rugby fans out there?
Posted: 2/17/2008 11:28:53 AM | Well the one thing in our favour is that we don't have Kevin Penny defending (sort of!) on the wing for us.  He's fast...but that's all. The rest of his play is atrocious. | |
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| Any rugby fans out there?
Posted: 2/17/2008 12:22:22 PM | Penny has a lot to learn granted but playing a prop at centre marking gidley will not help him
Cullen should have played anderson centre sooner instead bracek .
On friday our forwards have to match yours and use our speed around the ruck
To close to call | |
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| Any rugby fans out there?
Posted: 2/17/2008 2:18:22 PM | Bracek is more a back-rower than a prop but I agree he was out of position... However, it wasn't Bracek making mistakes or missing tackles on Gidley that caused the tries. Saints didn't create numerical overlaps... Penny simply failed to mark up against Gardner properly. He was the same against Todd Bryne last week.
Next week could go either way but the Deacon/Harris pairing still shows no sign of gelling (or speeding up), whereas Pryce is a constant threat and Long usually plays a blinder against us...so if I was a betting man, my money would be on Saints. | |
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| Any rugby fans out there?
Posted: 2/18/2008 2:07:32 AM |  thanks Tries again, but they are going to have to play a hell of a lot better than they played in the first half this week!! Thank god they held them to one try in the second half!!
Sorry guys I never got to watch the other games (and I call myself a rugby fan??? ) so I cant comment. | |
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| Any rugby fans out there?
Posted: 2/18/2008 4:21:46 AM | I'm back in the gym from this week! Am so ready to finish off the season on a high after missing no end of game time.
I'm thinking about playing League when the Union season ends to keep up my fitness and get in some hitting time.  | |
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| Any rugby fans out there?
Posted: 2/18/2008 11:38:46 AM | With our injuries in our pack , you would have to fancy Bradford but with our pace you never know
I have to say I hate 7 30 ko. nightmare for away fans means I have to try and finish very early and fight rush hour to get to the game
Why don't you play Jeffries at half back instead of Harris . | |
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| Any rugby fans out there?
Posted: 2/18/2008 3:16:35 PM | The greatest of all " New Zealand '' All Blacks, Our Sevens Team, Locals Hurricanes, And of course League. So I say go Kiwis no matter what ball they are playing with.  | |
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| Any rugby fans out there?
Posted: 2/18/2008 4:46:14 PM | Why don't you play Jeffries at half back instead of Harris .
Good question...and I'm not even going to attempt to understand why McNamara hasn't done it yet. As a pairing, Deacon and Harris have never hit it off (even when we won SL in 2005 it was almost a case of it being despite them rather than because of them). For the most-part, Deacon offers more than Iestyn, so I'd use Jeffries at stand-off - at least he has abit of pace and can sniff out a try.
Yeah, 7:30pm is a rubbish kick-off time for a week day. 8pm used to be bad enough, but now it's even more awkward. It's not just "away" support that suffers though, I travel up from Nottingham... Getting past Sheffield will be murder and then the M62 will be at a stand-still.
And of course League. So I say go Kiwis no matter what ball they are playing with. It should be interesting to see what Kearney and Wayne Bennett can do to change the Kiwis' fortunes for the better now that they've got rid of Kemble...
I suppose that Kemble had to go after the beatings they took last year, but I felt some sympathy for him. So many of NZ's best players were unavailable through injury, off-season surgey, suspension, cross-code switches or nationality switches (i.e. declaring allegiance to Samoa for the World Cup) etc...it was a very make-shift looking squad. I dare say that Bennett and Kearney will have access to a much stronger bunch of players this year. | |
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| Any rugby fans out there?
Posted: 2/19/2008 12:26:14 PM | Do you think you have to play Harris because of the pending court case.Where you have to be seen using him so the whole fiasco was not a total waste of time.
Scully named in squad, can not see him playing though, as is Talou but hope they stick with Tyrer as he is our future and only decnt goalkicker.
Kemble got judged but he was only allowed to pick half his squad , so he had to go with youth, do not get me wrong I never thought he was ever good enough, no experience. | |
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| Any rugby fans out there?
Posted: 2/19/2008 1:42:25 PM | | This should be great to watch. Yes they will do there utmost this year. We will just have to see how they flow. There are a lot of great league players out there it is just how they put them togeather as a team. | |
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| Any rugby fans out there?
Posted: 2/20/2008 5:30:17 AM | Do you think you have to play Harris because of the pending court case.Where you have to be seen using him so the whole fiasco was not a total waste of time. Maybe that's their motivation for picking him... Maybe they actually rate him?!?! (After-all, Noble even selected Harris for GB a couple of years ago!)
As far as I'm concerned, Harris was never necessary in the first place (at the time we already had Deacon, Leon Pryce, Karl Pratt, Robbie Paul and Chris Bridge to cover the halves), so what was the motivation for even signing him???
Personally, I don't think the money spent or the trouble caused by bringing a player to a club should have any bearing on whether he plays or not. If he's playing poorly, drop him - but they never do.
Scully named in squad, can not see him playing though, as is Talou but hope they stick with Tyrer as he is our future and only decnt goalkicker. If it comes down to goalkicking, Bradford should win! Tyrer's kicking was awful on Friday... Conversely Deacon's was excellent (plus we have Harris, Sykes, Burgess & Godwin as very decent back-up goalkickers)...
But it probably won't come down to goalkicking! We usually defend like muppets against Sts and let Long have the freedom of the pitch. Gilmour's another one - always plays well against us (we never should have let him leave). | |
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| Any rugby fans out there?
Posted: 2/20/2008 9:37:01 AM | I do not think it will be close on Friday, I feel one team will run away with it but it could be either team
Tyrer is a better kicker than what he showed on friday | |
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| Any rugby fans out there?
Posted: 2/22/2008 5:04:14 PM | I do not think it will be close on Friday, I feel one team will run away with it but it could be either team Well Saints didn't run away with it, but I was right to tip them to win... And as usual, Gilmour and Long had decent games against us.
Bradford's biggest problem was the number of knock-ons and sloppy mistakes (e.g. Hape fumbling on his own try-line, Hape passing to a Saints player at the end, Evans giving Saints a scrum by failing to trap the ball properly and Platt's balls-up & subsequent sin-binning).
A few less fundamental errors and we might have won...despite the best efforts of the 3 stooges that we have masquerading as playmakers (Deacon, Harris & Newton). They're all so slow and hesitant. It was noticeable that we only scored (and only ever looked like scoring) when Godwin was on the pitch. When it was left to the other 3, we were almost none-dimensional. They couldn't create their ways out of a wet paper bag.  If Jeffries still can't get a game next week, he might as well hand in a transfer request. | |
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| Any rugby fans out there?
Posted: 2/23/2008 2:18:36 AM | It was a good result for us as odsal is not a happy hunting ground for us .
Your forwards did not dominate as they normally do and your three stooges suffer because of it and they have no pace
We both agree about Jefferies.
Losing Foz is a big blow considering who else is injured.
Wakefield sunday at home I expect a tough encounter but I think home advantage will see us through. | |
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| Any rugby fans out there?
Posted: 2/23/2008 6:21:16 AM |
It was a good result for us as odsal is not a happy hunting ground for us .
Your forwards did not dominate as they normally do and your three stooges suffer because of it and they have no pace
I disagree. As far as I'm concerned, our forwards were fairly dominant. Our pack(especially Vagana, Burgess and Lynch) repeatedly made good ground to take us into good field position and gave our halves plenty of opportunities to create something close to your try-line... They weren't good enough to make the most of those opportunities.
In the last 10m of the pitch, when the distance to the defence is reduced, the lack of pace, flair and cutting edge between Deacon, Harris & Newton becomes more glaring - and time and again, it lets the whole side down.
Another example of how much of a hindrance they are, were the occasions we were caught on the last tackle... Deacon and Harris had every chance to put a kick in but chose not to. They are utterly incompetent. If we'd had Long & Pryce as our half-backs, I'm sure we would have won quite comfortably considering the territorial advantage provided by our forwards. | |
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