European Club Rugby
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Huh?
None of the reports on the web have any idea why
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So I watched my fair share of Champions Cup rugby this weekend
Glasgow vs Leinster. Dave Rennie's side went down at home to make it 0 from 2 with 0 points and already all but eliminated. For Glasgow we had Callum Gibbins, who was solid but got a nasty head clash at the end. For Leinster we had Michael Bent and Jamison Gibson-Park off the bench.
Munster vs Racing 92. A crap crap game, which Munster ended up winning comfortably enough. For Munster we had Rhys Marshall and for Racing we had Tameifuna, a geriatric Dan Carter and even more geriatric Joe Rococoko.
La Rochelle vs Ulster: great game to watch, Charles Piutau was dangerous every time he touched the ball and would still walk straight back into my AB team. For la Rochelle, Victor Vito was also excellent and would start ahead of Squire for mine. We also had Jason Eaton, Rodney Ah You, Sean Reidy etc. La Rochelle powered over Ulster and look a good beat to go reasonably deep into the tournament.
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Hartley has plenty of previous which could count against him but for me, I feel completely accidental and something of a non-event.
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Hartley is a prick, but that was an accident. Happy with the yellow tho, as he of all people should know where his arms are flailing.
On the other hand Slimani got one over Hartley too, IMO this should have been aa red card, coming in from the side, targeting the head with shoulder, really surprised if he doesn't cop a couple of weeks.
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lol. Hartley guilty as sin.
That's a flying clear out where his hand just happened to smack a guy in the chops. Hartley was cleaning out thin air in front of him but his outstretched hand makes perfect contact, that is well aimed.
I'd expect a big ban, actually.
If there was someone that Hartley was actually cleaning out then he could argue his way out of it. Otherwise that's a flying punch disguised as a flying flop over a ruck.
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@rapido While you can never rule out intent/stupidity with Hartley, you can clearly see that the guy he was aiming to clear out stepped away, leaving him with thin air to clear. The flailing arm leaves him open to criticism certainly. On viewing from in front of Hartley it hardly seems to make contact with Slimani but from a different angle you can see it catches him under the nose, so he cops some septum shock. Not nice.
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@siam said in NH club rugby:
Huh?
None of the reports on the web have any idea why
The times is reporting its for cocaine, but that he didn't fail a test. If true what an idiot!
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@stargazer said in NH club rugby:
@mooshld Is he related to Ali Williams?
I lived in Edinburgh for 7 years if you can't have a good night out there with out blow you are a loser.
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Hartley
'If it looks like a duck, it walks like a duck,'You know the rest.
Dirty fuck. Always has been, always will be.
You have these English mums bleating about how dangerous rugby is and wanting to stop full contact.
And then you have Hartley as England captain.
Doesn't make sense.
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@mikethesnow I blame his English Mum.
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@catogrande said in NH club rugby:
@rapido While you can never rule out intent/stupidity with Hartley, you can clearly see that the guy he was aiming to clear out stepped away, leaving him with thin air to clear. The flailing arm leaves him open to criticism certainly. On viewing from in front of Hartley it hardly seems to make contact with Slimani but from a different angle you can see it catches him under the nose, so he cops some septum shock. Not nice.
Still pretty debatable though. DH doing plane landing instead of plane taking off to start with. His arm doesn't look to be aiming at the player that backed off, unless he was going for the ankles (IMO if he was clearing out he would be aiming higher). He appears to tense and swing his arm at the player at full reach.
Looks like sly deliberate niggle that was more exposed than he thought it would be (assuming he thought at all)
The commentary makes me laugh though. In the second incident they are claiming that because it was head contact it should be red, but no such claim when DH made head contact with a fist? -
@crucial It's Hartley so it will always be debatable. I'm certainly no Hartley apologist but in this instance I see it as accidental. Clumsy at worst. Thought it worthy of a penalty at the time with a yellow being a bit harsh. Any further sanction would be over the top IMO.
But and there is always this but in these instances, we often see what we want to see.
Which is the position I am assigning to you.
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@catogrande said in NH club rugby:
@crucial It's Hartley so it will always be debatable. I'm certainly no Hartley apologist but in this instance I see it as accidental. Clumsy at worst. Thought it worthy of a penalty at the time with a yellow being a bit harsh. Any further sanction would be over the top IMO.
But and there is always this but in these instances, we often see what we want to see.
Which is the position I am assigning to you.
As you say, with DH there is always the problem of bias due to reputation, but I cannot workout what he was actually trying to do with that wide swinging arm down at ground level. To be accidental it would need to look as if he was actually trying to enter and bind correctly at the ruck. The accident could be that he got the head instead of just a smack to the body, but in that case it is reckless contact with the head.
No big loss for England if he is gone. George is a much superior player. -
29 unavailable, 23 remaining.
Squad size is 52!
My holy shit moment is not 'wow, they're missing 29 players'. My takeaway is 'what morons organise a comp that for 7 weeks out of approx 39 weeks clashes with the international window'.
Squad size of 52! Carrying all those extra bodies.
Does that 7 weekends of domestic action with b-listers (3 to 4 homes games each, plus tv revenue) make enough cash to cover having to have a squad about 30% bigger than a typical SR squad?
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@rapido said in NH club rugby:
29 unavailable, 23 remaining.
Squad size is 52!
My holy shit moment is not 'wow, they're missing 29 players'. My takeaway is 'what morons organise a comp that for 7 weeks out of approx 39 weeks clashes with the international window'.
Squad size of 52! Carrying all those extra bodies.
Does that 7 weekends of domestic action with b-listers (3 to 4 homes games each, plus tv revenue) make enough cash to cover having to have a squad about 30% bigger than a typical SR squad?
Number of matches played is a factor in determining squad size. Super rugby regular season is, I think, 15 games? Pro 14 regular season is 21 games and then you must add the European Cup games as well, which is a minimum of a further 6 games. then there are the lesser competitions such as the whatever it's called Anglo-Welsh cup (used as a development competition by most - until they're in with a chance of winning)!
Nonetheless the injury lists at Pro14 and Aviva Premiership level is getting ridiculous this season.
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Premiership: Extended season will be 'more balanced' for players
Premiership Rugby's plans to lengthen the domestic campaign by a month from 2019-2020 have been opposed by players, with strike action not ruled out.Part of the rationale behind lengthening the season is to reduce the overlap between the international and domestic game. But leading players have voiced their concern at the prospect of a longer campaign and a shortened pre-season. Saracens and England number eight Billy Vunipola, who is sidelined by a knee injury, told the Rugby Union Weekly podcast in September that "something had to change" to reduce the burden on players. "As a contact sport, there is no other sport in the world that plays a longer season than we do at the moment, so why would we go longer?" says the Rugby Players Association (RPA) chairman Christian Day. "This is the first time I've seen a proposal with no positives for the players, so why would we agree to it?" However, Rowe says spreading out Premiership fixtures would allow for more frequent rest periods during the season. "The reality is that at the moment a guy could start playing on 1 September, and play right though until May with no breaks," he added. "The idea of the extended season is putting breaks in so you can rest the guys. "If you had a break in November when you could give someone a week or two off, and a break in March when you could give someone a week or two off, it's a bit more balanced out than going right the way through." The RPA have stressed the need for a proper pre-season to allow players time to recover mentally and physically. English rugby's Professional Game Board is now under pressure to seek an urgent resolution, with the new chief executive of the Rugby Football Union Steve Brown expressing his concerns.This article is one of the response to Premiership Rugby’s response to Global Calendar announcement
