Planet Rugby Forum

The Tampon 'revival' continues. You heard it here first.

dynamo_kev wrote:The Tampon 'revival' continues. You heard it here first.

This is so much better. We've improved so much since Mallinder was sacked. Actually look like a team.

Bath conceding penalties at virtually 1 a minute

Bath seem to have picked a load of big lads from the gym who haven’t read up on the rules, or seen a rugby ball before

This on TV? Can't find it

BT Sports

happyhooker wrote:This on TV? Can't find it

BTSport 1.

Tom Wood gets overexcited

Feels like we didn't get enough value out of the opening 20 minutes

6-6 after 30. Bath coming back into it.

Got a bit scrappy.

...and it all falls apart at h/t....

Daylight robbery.

Well worked from Banahan

Gaffney going for the hairdryer treatment

Joost wrote:Gaffney going for the hairdryer treatment

That was Dickens

Roger Wilson used to be a really classy operator. He's been bloody awful every time I've seen him for Bath. Him and Fotuali'i are so frustrating.

Bath midfield has no creativity either.

James?

Woops, yes

JM2K6 wrote:Roger Wilson used to be a really classy operator. He's been bloody awful every time I've seen him for Bath. Him and Fotuali'i are so frustrating.

Bath midfield has no creativity either.

Eh? Kahn’s been a great player for Bath

Joost wrote:

JM2K6 wrote:Roger Wilson used to be a really classy operator. He's been bloody awful every time I've seen him for Bath. Him and Fotuali'i are so frustrating.

Bath midfield has no creativity either.

Eh? Kahn’s been a great player for Bath

He can be, but he's also capable of putting in shit kicks, throwing passes to no-one, and slowing play when he shouldn't. He has a great attitude and a great skillset, but his error rate is way too high.

Tom Dunn's fingers have tried to escape from Tom Dunn.

Wilson picked up a really dodgy leg injury that he never really recovered from with us. Hasn't changed since he moved to Bath

We really look like we threw away those first 20 minutes. Could have been 15 up, and it would have been a totally different game

Mallinder makes a gliding break then throws a speculative offload that goes forward

That's actually his middle name

Saint wrote:Wilson picked up a really dodgy leg injury that he never really recovered from with us. Hasn't changed since he moved to Bath

We really look like we threw away those first 20 minutes. Could have been 15 up, and it would have been a totally different game

Yeah, fair enough.

Wilson just butchered a try there

What the actual fudge? That's a knock on, clear as day

Nice by Burns there.

Auterac looks to be carrying some extra timber.

Forget everything I said previously on this thread

Saint wrote:What the actual fudge? That's a knock on, clear as day

Two knock-ons tbf. Ah well

First knock on by Green? Green didn't touch the damn thing

We have been screwed in this match. We probably would have lost regardless, but we have been absolutely done up by the officials

Something quite satisfying about watching a Fijian second row casually saunter towards the defence, try to step, get lassoed and then absolutely battered in the tackle.

The Saints we know and love are back.

Saint wrote:We have been screwed in this match. We probably would have lost regardless, but we have been absolutely done up by the officials

I think it goes a bit deeper than that.

Nice to see Stephenson playing well again. He and Nick Tompkins are the forgotten men in the midfield of the English game.

Oxbow wrote:The Saints we know and love are back.

They've played massively better in this game even when things started to go wrong. Still lots of issues, but this is a huge step up from the dark days

JM2K6 wrote:Nice to see Stephenson playing well again. He and Nick Tompkins are the forgotten men in the midfield of the English game.

Tom S is slowly getting things back together after a shocking 3 years of injury. Really interesting interview/podcast with him from Radio Noddy a few weeks back - how he's effectively having to relearn the tricks of 13 - footwork, body shape, head position, and how it took him the best part of 6 months before he felt comfortable with just taking a tackle.

I was there when he broke his leg 18 months ago - I swear you could hear the snap echo round the ground, one of the most sickening things I've heard in rugby

Saint wrote:

JM2K6 wrote:Nice to see Stephenson playing well again. He and Nick Tompkins are the forgotten men in the midfield of the English game.

Tom S is slowly getting things back together after a shocking 3 years of injury. Really interesting interview/podcast with him from Radio Noddy a few weeks back - how he's effectively having to relearn the tricks of 13 - footwork, body shape, head position, and how it took him the best part of 6 months before he felt comfortable with just taking a tackle.

I was there when he broke his leg 18 months ago - I swear you could hear the snap echo round the ground, one of the most sickening things I've heard in rugby

Grim. Seems a likable chap too. Looks much stronger in the lower leg than he used to be (or maybe it's my memory being terrible) so hopefully this'll put him in good stead.

JM2K6 wrote:

Saint wrote:

JM2K6 wrote:Nice to see Stephenson playing well again. He and Nick Tompkins are the forgotten men in the midfield of the English game.

Tom S is slowly getting things back together after a shocking 3 years of injury. Really interesting interview/podcast with him from Radio Noddy a few weeks back - how he's effectively having to relearn the tricks of 13 - footwork, body shape, head position, and how it took him the best part of 6 months before he felt comfortable with just taking a tackle.

I was there when he broke his leg 18 months ago - I swear you could hear the snap echo round the ground, one of the most sickening things I've heard in rugby

Grim. Seems a likable chap too. Looks much stronger in the lower leg than he used to be (or maybe it's my memory being terrible) so hopefully this'll put him in good stead.

Think that's your memory - the thing that stood him in good stead when he was a callow 18/19 year was his raw leg strength - he used to break tackles that a 25 year old would struggle with. He's missing confidence still and now experience - for his age he's short of a good 50 matches or so, which at his age is significant

Bath missing 17 players, and look to have lost Dunn for a while and Banahan for a couple of weeks.

Saint wrote:We have been screwed in this match. We probably would have lost regardless, but we have been absolutely done up by the officials

Apart from those ten penalties in the first twenty minutes. Be thankful the scoreline wasn't even worse for Saints, Bath could have scored 2 or 3 more tries.

I was watching this last night and at one point the ref, Tom Foley, told one of the teams to stop competing for the ball because of a "dead ruck".

i.e. everybody was on the floor, there was nobody to bind onto and counter ruck, and the attacking scrum half was standing with the ball at his feet.

Nigel Owens does something similar when he calls "ruck is lost".

A ruck should never be lost or uncompetable (if there's such a word). If it's no longer a ruck then either the referee should call a scrum if the ball's unplayable, or it's out and anybody can go for it. This standing around with nobody able to compete and the scrum-half at leisure to weigh up his options is a blight on the game. It makes me sad.