Planet Rugby Forum

Im sure it was ... I seem to remember watching a SA team that ran riot somewhere like Goldenacre or the Smellie's ground. Must have been a long time ago though?

Do we qualify automatically if we host?

Could very well be the only shot we have at next year's tournament!

dpedin wrote:Im sure it was ... I seem to remember watching a SA team that ran riot somewhere like Goldenacre or the Smellie's ground. Must have been a long time ago though?

If it was at Goldenacre it could have been a Cricket score. I’ll get my coat.

Funnily enough I too have vague memories of a junior World Cup of sorts being held in Edinburgh as I remember a Fijian lad having the surname ‘Fukufuka’

U20 World Cup has only been going since 2008.

Before that there was u19 and u21. We hosted u21 in 2004. But since the modern inception of the annual age group tournament, we haven’t hosted it.

Are the Georgian U20 team any good this year - beat them and it seems from TOTM's SRB article that there is a real chance of progression to the 5th-8th playoffs. Ireland will beat Italy and Australia will beat England (and will win the whole tournament in my opinion).

Alba wrote:Are the Georgian U20 team any good this year - beat them and it seems from TOTM's SRB article that there is a real chance of progression to the 5th-8th playoffs. Ireland will beat Italy and Australia will beat England (and will win the whole tournament in my opinion).

Forwards looked really decent against NZ, but they didn't show anything in the backs. Ultimately too limited a team, but if they can turn the match into a 10-man thing Scotland could be in trouble.

clydecloggie wrote:

Alba wrote:Are the Georgian U20 team any good this year - beat them and it seems from TOTM's SRB article that there is a real chance of progression to the 5th-8th playoffs. Ireland will beat Italy and Australia will beat England (and will win the whole tournament in my opinion).

Forwards looked really decent against NZ, but they didn't show anything in the backs. Ultimately too limited a team, but if they can turn the match into a 10-man thing Scotland could be in trouble.

I saw a bit of the NZ match and our forwards seemed to have a lot of success against the Kiwi pack too - perhaps an indication of the quality of this NZ pack rather than Georgia?

For the Scottish Rugby Blog - a quick look at how things have gone so far for Scotland at the U20 Championship and what they need from the final pool match to avoid the relegation playoffs:

https://www.scottishrugbyblog.co.uk/201 ... ges-so-far

7-0 to Scotland U20 at half time

Alba wrote:7-0 to Scotland U20 at half time

Bit of a turgid match. Scotland keeping Georgia at bay because Georgia are horrendously bad at their own line out. Regardless of who has possession, the defence seems to be winning almost every collision.

As expected, Scotland are nowhere in the scrum but at least manage to get their own ball out quickly enough to avoid getting penalised on their own put in.

..and for good measure they leave a gaping hole for an inside pop but the Georgian winger drops it.

Scotland have been comfortably second best IMO. It's almost attack vs defence - poor Georgian handling errors and the aforementioned lineout the only things keeping Scotland in it.

Some of these Georgian forward look closer to international retirement than U20's.

12-3 to Scotland now, decent try from a quick tap penalty. The 10 has a nice flat pass.

12-10 to Scotland at the moment. Scotland just scored a decent try, but it was ruled out for a needless forward pass. Poor skills.

The commentators LOVE McCallum, or McCullum as they insist on calling him.

FFS - 74th minute and a Scottish lineout overthrow caught and scored by a Georgian backrow. Criminal to go to the tail on such an important lineout.

17-12 Georgia.

Final score 17-12 Georgia. Scotland had a huge opportunity to win it at the death with a great break down the wing but they guddled it.

The better team won, and Scotland are in real relegation danger now.

Full time, Georgia win. Scotland had flashes, moments where they looked to play but Georgia had them on toast in the scrum, ref was pinging them all day. Overpowered, and looked spent in the last 20.

Now can they pull a win out of the final two matches to retain their place...they'll need to play better!

I'm not sure we've actually seen the best Scotland side selected yet either. The approach seems to have been to have two half-strength sides through the groups, presumably saving the full side for the do-or-die relegation playoff games?

Alba wrote:I'm not sure we've actually seen the best Scotland side selected yet either. The approach seems to have been to have two half-strength sides through the groups, presumably saving the full side for the do-or-die relegation playoff games?

The side picked for the SA and Georgia matches was pretty much the team that rounded out the 6 Nations. That's the strongest selection - although I guess there might be a small number of changes for the Italy game. Very little experience among the rest of the group though.

dargotronV.1 wrote:Full time, Georgia win. Scotland had flashes, moments where they looked to play but Georgia had them on toast in the scrum, ref was pinging them all day. Overpowered, and looked spent in the last 20.

Now can they pull a win out of the final two matches to retain their place...they'll need to play better!

Fiji have missed over 100 tackles in this tournament so far. Hopefully it doesn't come down to that but if Scotland do end up in the 11th/12th place match they need to take advantage and use every opportunity available to pressure their defence. Play setpiece rugby; keep Fiji pinned back in their own half with no loose kicking to allow them to counter attack.

I don't see a great deal of the young uns but do we need to allow for Dingwall and Redpath being part of this age group and then being removed? Sure 2-3 years should be long enough to cultivate replacements but replacing full time professionals and talented players isn't that simple.

Or is that cutting them too much slack?

Big D wrote:I don't see a great deal of the young uns but do we need to allow for Dingwall and Redpath being part of this age group and then being removed? Sure 2-3 years should be long enough to cultivate replacements but replacing full time professionals and talented players isn't that simple.

Or is that cutting them too much slack?

That's being very harsh.

We've had a few unreal years of talent and are now slipping back to the norm. Our players lack of size and bulk shows at this level.

I like haggis wrote:

Big D wrote:I don't see a great deal of the young uns but do we need to allow for Dingwall and Redpath being part of this age group and then being removed? Sure 2-3 years should be long enough to cultivate replacements but replacing full time professionals and talented players isn't that simple.

Or is that cutting them too much slack?

That's being very harsh.

We've had a few unreal years of talent and are now slipping back to the norm. Our players lack of size and bulk shows at this level.

The thing is, as long as we can stay in the elite group, producing a few pro players from each year group is probably sufficient. This group has some guys who will, in my opinion at least, be top professional players. Jack Blain, Connor Boyle and Rufus McClean for instance all look more than capable of having good to great careers. I suppose that is our aim?

The team that finished 5th was exceptional, full time pros from that year as far as I can see so far are Luke Crosbie, Matt Fagerson, Callum Hunter-Hill, Adam Nicol, George Thornton, Darcy Graham, Blair Kinghorn, Stafford McDowall, Robbie Nairn and Charlie Shiel. I'm sure Kevin can tell us how many we get on average from each year group, but that seems a lot. I also wonder how we compare with other countries, how many do other countries convert from U20 to pro level and on to full international status?

Alba wrote:

I like haggis wrote:

Big D wrote:I don't see a great deal of the young uns but do we need to allow for Dingwall and Redpath being part of this age group and then being removed? Sure 2-3 years should be long enough to cultivate replacements but replacing full time professionals and talented players isn't that simple.

Or is that cutting them too much slack?

That's being very harsh.

We've had a few unreal years of talent and are now slipping back to the norm. Our players lack of size and bulk shows at this level.

The thing is, as long as we can stay in the elite group, producing a few pro players from each year group is probably sufficient. This group has some guys who will, in my opinion at least, be top professional players. Jack Blain, Connor Boyle and Rufus McClean for instance all look more than capable of having good to great careers. I suppose that is our aim?

The team that finished 5th was exceptional, full time pros from that year as far as I can see so far are Luke Crosbie, Matt Fagerson, Callum Hunter-Hill, Adam Nicol, George Thornton, Darcy Graham, Blair Kinghorn, Stafford McDowall, Robbie Nairn and Charlie Shiel. I'm sure Kevin can tell us how many we get on average from each year group, but that seems a lot. I also wonder how we compare with other countries, how many do other countries convert from U20 to pro level and on to full international status?

I'll do a full update once the current tournament is over but this is where things stood last year:

https://ontopofthemoon.com/2016/07/30/w ... tatistics/

2017 squad have had 14 players play in a top level league now. 2015 and 2016 squads both on 7 players gone onto full caps - should be 9 in each by the end of the summer with Cummings and Hutchinson having played in both years.

I'll probably need to start breaking it down by number of caps at some point to get a really good comparison in terms of what each year has contributed to the full Scotland set-up.

I like haggis wrote:

Big D wrote:I don't see a great deal of the young uns but do we need to allow for Dingwall and Redpath being part of this age group and then being removed? Sure 2-3 years should be long enough to cultivate replacements but replacing full time professionals and talented players isn't that simple.

Or is that cutting them too much slack?

That's being very harsh.

We've had a few unreal years of talent and are now slipping back to the norm. Our players lack of size and bulk shows at this level.

How is it harsh? I was offering a reason why they may have "underperformed". Two talents who up to I think u18 were involved in that year group, and are now pretty much full time pros were removed from the available talent pool. Two who would almost certainly be discussed as future full Scottish internationals (they may yet be). When I say cutting them some slack it was in direct reference to me giving them the excuse of losing the aforementioned players. Disco has identified that each u20 side on average will have approx. 7 future internationals, removing two potential full internationals will hurt.

It was a c+p response to a poster on another forum: "However, I would question whether the results set players off in a culture of mediocrity. They don’t win a lot and nothing seems to change in that regard."

There are people who will look at the output from the U20s since the academies began and seen a drop off in finishing place in the last two years (granted that is from social media). It is a very small sample size and we have been spoiled since 2015 though.

New conference setup appears to have leaked to Wales Online. Bit of a look at how the updated groups compare to the originals (I'm assuming this is going ahead this as Simon Thomas is usually pretty reliable and he appears to have confirmed with at least some of the clubs).

https://wp.me/p68WtH-8ep

Overall the conferences are more even but that's mainly because A is top loaded then has more weaker teams to balance it out, whereas B is probably going to be a brutal dogfight among 6 teams.

How does Munster get to be Ireland's top seed?

Edinburgh01 wrote:How does Munster get to be Ireland's top seed?

Scored 1 point more in the pro 14.

topofthemoon wrote:New conference setup appears to have leaked to Wales Online. Bit of a look at how the updated groups compare to the originals (I'm assuming this is going ahead this as Simon Thomas is usually pretty reliable and he appears to have confirmed with at least some of the clubs).

https://wp.me/p68WtH-8ep

Overall the conferences are more even but that's mainly because A is top loaded then has more weaker teams to balance it out, whereas B is probably going to be a brutal dogfight among 6 teams.

Decent draw: both conferences are evenly balanced in terms of quality but I think Edinburgh are in a conference which would be easier for them to navigate (if that makes sense?). Edinburgh and Munster both play forward-orientated games and are a decent match; Scarlets have gone totally off the boil and I don't expect this to change. Can only see Leinster, Ulster, Munster, Edinburgh and Glasgow in the mix next year.

Caley_Red wrote:

topofthemoon wrote:New conference setup appears to have leaked to Wales Online. Bit of a look at how the updated groups compare to the originals (I'm assuming this is going ahead this as Simon Thomas is usually pretty reliable and he appears to have confirmed with at least some of the clubs).

https://wp.me/p68WtH-8ep

Overall the conferences are more even but that's mainly because A is top loaded then has more weaker teams to balance it out, whereas B is probably going to be a brutal dogfight among 6 teams.

Decent draw: both conferences are evenly balanced in terms of quality but I think Edinburgh are in a conference which would be easier for them to navigate (if that makes sense?). Edinburgh and Munster both play forward-orientated games and are a decent match; Scarlets have gone totally off the boil and I don't expect this to change. Can only see Leinster, Ulster, Munster, Edinburgh and Glasgow in the mix next year.

Maybe. Edinburgh had the second lowest points total from all teams in the new conference last season. Obviously it is difficult to compare across conferences, but based on last season, I would expect Connacht, Benneton and one of the Welsh sides to be pretty close to Edinburgh come seasons end. I suppose it all comes down to how much you think their European performances affected Edinburgh in the league last year.

Edinburgh's away form cost them last year and their team sans internationals was absolutely awful. Kinghorn being injured really hurt them too as he and Graham were the only two capable of doing anything in attack. And Cockers was far too stubborn.

Hard to see them being as bad as last year. Cockers will have the non internationals absolutely drilled in pre season so I expect a good start and some better depth.

I like haggis wrote:Edinburgh's away form cost them last year and their team sans internationals was absolutely awful. Kinghorn being injured really hurt them too as he and Graham were the only two capable of doing anything in attack. And Cockers was far too stubborn.

Hard to see them being as bad as last year. Cockers will have the non internationals absolutely drilled in pre season so I expect a good start and some better depth.

I hope you are right - for me the problem was twofold, and your comment on Cockers speaks to that. The gameplan was far too limited and forward oriented, and the forwards required to play it weren't available enough. The big question is; was the gameplan formed out of necessity due to the missing players, or is that the gameplan Cockers wants to play regardless? If the later, I think this season will be another underwhelming one.

Has anyone heard any news on Bennett at all - I'm not sure it was even confirmed what injury he suffered? Fraser Brown's injury was never confirmed either as far as I know (beyond it being his ankle).

Alba wrote:

I like haggis wrote:Edinburgh's away form cost them last year and their team sans internationals was absolutely awful. Kinghorn being injured really hurt them too as he and Graham were the only two capable of doing anything in attack. And Cockers was far too stubborn.

Hard to see them being as bad as last year. Cockers will have the non internationals absolutely drilled in pre season so I expect a good start and some better depth.

I hope you are right - for me the problem was twofold, and your comment on Cockers speaks to that. The gameplan was far too limited and forward oriented, and the forwards required to play it weren't available enough. The big question is; was the gameplan formed out of necessity due to the missing players, or is that the gameplan Cockers wants to play regardless? If the later, I think this season will be another underwhelming one.

Has anyone heard any news on Bennett at all - I'm not sure it was even confirmed what injury he suffered? Fraser Brown's injury was never confirmed either as far as I know (beyond it being his ankle).

There was a picture of Bennett running about in pre season so presumably wasn't as bad as feared.

I think Cockers is a forwards dominated guy but Kinghorn did have an excellent 17/18 and Graham an excellent 18/19. There is potential for exciting backs at Edinburgh. The problem is the 10s are meh and centres not good.

What was infuriating with Cockers was Schoeman and Mata playing 80 minutes every week with Dell and Bradbury fresh on the bench.

I fear we're seeing with Cockers what the Leicester folks were seeing latterly - excellent at drilling forwards, limited beyond that.

Alba wrote: Fraser Brown's injury was never confirmed either as far as I know (beyond it being his ankle).

Mark Palmer said on twitter the players are back in camp so hopefully get an update soon.

Smutley wrote:I fear we're seeing with Cockers what the Leicester folks were seeing latterly - excellent at drilling forwards, limited beyond that.

Nothing to drill but a limited set of backs better teams just don't want though. Kinghorn, Graham, VdM aside there's not much talent there.

Bennett somehow finding something and Scott getting out the gym would he a start. Dean has improved a bit as a 12 tbf. Hickey's signing over Weir stayong looks a bad decision.

Smutley wrote:I fear we're seeing with Cockers what the Leicester folks were seeing latterly - excellent at drilling forwards, limited beyond that.

Nothing to drill but a limited set of backs better teams just don't want though. Kinghorn, Graham, VdM aside there's not much talent there.

Bennett somehow finding something and Scott getting out the gym would he a start. Dean has improved a bit as a 12 tbf. Hickey's signing over Weir stayong looks a bad decision.

Big D wrote:

Alba wrote: Fraser Brown's injury was never confirmed either as far as I know (beyond it being his ankle).

Mark Palmer said on twitter the players are back in camp so hopefully get an update soon.

Brown still on crutches in a pic here:
https://www.scottishrugby.org/fanzone/s ... d=1&pid=38

Scotland getting bummed by Italy and heading for the relegation playoffs