Rugby Union

[peasy23]

Flicked over and caught the end of London Irish v Sarries. Irish were 22-17 ahead but ended up playing 12 v 14 with two men in the bin and both sides having a player red carded. They managed to hang on through the sin bin period then scored a great try late on to clinch it.

[come on shire]

It was a bit attritional at times due to the wet weather but it's a big win for Glasgow against a team where the 2 sets of players know each other inside out. We tried to play running rugby but I thought the forwards were a bit busier.

I thought both sets of defences were excellent tonight. Same performance needed next Friday night but our record away at Edinburgh perhaps isn't the best.

[Detournement]

Only 11/30 starters in the second leg are born in Scotland. 

The SRU are a shambles. 

[honestly united]

15 minutes ago, Detournement said:

Only 11/30 starters in the second leg are born in Scotland. 

The SRU are a shambles. 

although only 12 out the 44 not Scotland qualified. However its one of my biggest gripes is player development in Scotland. When you think both Garbisi and Redpath are younger than Ross Thompson, yet are both consider Internationals yet Thompson is still looked on as a youngster as his development is stunted being in Scotland

[Genuine Hibs Fan]

Boff re-signed for Edinburgh with his contract previously being up at the end of season. Superb bit of business there 

[Self-raising Lazarus]

Once Hogg Russell and that crop retire Scotland are back in the doldrums big time.

Another's have said, where are the next scotland internationals coming from if not south Africa and England?

[GAD]

On 29/12/2022 at 13:15, honestly united said:

although only 12 out the 44 not Scotland qualified. However its one of my biggest gripes is player development in Scotland. When you think both Garbisi and Redpath are younger than Ross Thompson, yet are both consider Internationals yet Thompson is still looked on as a youngster as his development is stunted being in Scotland

George Turner is 30 and I'm pretty sure has only played about 140 professional games, including Scotland caps, and only about half of them would be as a starter. We are terrible at giving pathways to young players. They'd be better heading to England first chance they get.

[invergowrie arab]

1 hour ago, Self-raising Lazarus said:

Once Hogg Russell and that crop retire Scotland are back in the doldrums big time.

 

How would we know?

[GAD]

Good start from Glasgow, though the first 4 minutes being scrums was shite. Edinburgh responding well, though so many of the Scotland front 5 getting mulched in the scrum isn't the best 

[GAD]

Glasgow getting absolutely and emphatically destroyed in these kicking duels.

[topcat(The most tip top)]

1 hour ago, GAD said:

Glasgow getting absolutely and emphatically destroyed in these kicking duels.

I miss those kicking duels

[afca32]

Really good game that. Tuipulotu, Steyn and Gray all excellent. Great finish by Paddy Harrison at the end which could've set up and exciting finish.

[Self-raising Lazarus]

2 hours ago, invergowrie arab said:

How would we know?

There's nobody breaking through at club level to follow them.

[GAD]

Turning point if that game was Jamie Ritchie behaving like a dick.

[mcfadden22]

Any team that starts with Kinghorn & Pyrgos at 9 & 10 deserves to lose

[come on shire]

Literally a game of 2 halves. Edinburgh far better in the 1st half whilst Glasgow were better in the 2nd.

We gave ourselves a lot to do as we were 10 points behind at one point but we managed the game well in the 2nd half. I thought Ali Price wasn't at his best but George Horne ran the show when he came on. I noticed Edinburgh suffered a bit when Bill Mata went off...

[flyingscot]

I thought Glasgow were excellent last night. They suffered a bit with the kicking game but in the second half their creativity and running was excellent. Edinburgh really had no answer for that. Mata I didn’t think had this best game last night but I think that when he tired and went off, the gaps became bigger for Glasgow.  Ritchie seemed to struggle in particular, I think he was lucky not be penalised on several occasions where he was interfering, particularly on the line just before the yellow card (which in itself was a bit silly). 

Early days of course, but I think Franco Smith has worked out where the strengths and weaknesses are and the style for Glasgow to play which was not as least apparent under Danny Wilson. 
 

I was tempted to go last night, but the cheapest tickets I saw on the lead up where £40. With that plus travel I gave it a miss but fair play to the 25k there. 
 

 

[Genuine Hibs Fan]

The player development of the SRU is clearly very broken and probably always has been, with the handful of world class talents who emerged in the 2010s seemingly more luck than judgement. The Thistle (fancy lads themselves) did a piece looking at the decline of private schools as a source of players which I found interesting. While I'm sure we'd all like to see rugby become a more mass participation sport there's no denying that the facilities, resources, presumably higher quality games and others advantages should give these schools a lead. 

https://thistlescottishrugbypodcast.substack.com/p/why-are-edinburgh-private-schools?r=lo623&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

For comparison, someone shared an image below their tweet on this showing where Irish national team players come from, showing a pretty massive difference between us and a team we'd probably all like to replicate. To continue the analogy I'd actually say our team of recent years is similar to the Irish team of the 2000s with a very decent squad of players, a couple of consistently world class ones and a couple who could be when in form. Of course, they managed to win some stuff 

Moving from the private schools to youth development in the 18-20 generally that seems to have completely cratered, especially in S&C with our 20s looking like boys against men most of the time, and while the super 6 is quite fun I don't think it's doing much to bring these guys on when they can even get a game. 

Into senior teams the recruitment for the pro teams has largely gone downhill in recent years. While there's still good project or Scots qualified players coming in, there seem to be fewer guys coming in to offer real quality (Boffeli being a notable exception) and far more guys just filling up rotational space in the squad.

The third pro team argument is never going to go away but financially seems a non starter. Hard to argue we wouldn't be able to blood more young players at a decent level though, as at the moment there seem to be a lot of guys who make a little breakthrough at Edinburgh or Glasgow and then before you know it they're 24 and have played 24 professional games of rugby. Injuries also a factor there of course.

Italy have made leaps and bounds with their youth development in recent years but like when everyone wanted the football team to copy what Iceland were doing it's probably not completely transferrable and other than some impressive youth results it hasn't translated to much yet. I don't know that we're fucked but I think the optimism of the 2010s was probably misplaced as we are still playing catch-up on how to do professional rugby properly and our development and pathway is in awful shape

 

 

Edited January 4, 2023 by Genuine Hibs Fan

[honestly united]

1 hour ago, Genuine Hibs Fan said:

The player development of the SRU is clearly very broken and probably always has been, with the handful of world class talents who emerged in the 2010s seemingly more luck than judgement. The Thistle (fancy lads themselves) did a piece looking at the decline of private schools as a source of players which I found interesting. While I'm sure we'd all like to see rugby become a more mass participation sport there's no denying that the facilities, resources, presumably higher quality games and others advantages should give these schools a lead. 

https://thistlescottishrugbypodcast.substack.com/p/why-are-edinburgh-private-schools?r=lo623&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

For comparison, someone shared an image below their tweet on this showing where Irish national team players come from, showing a pretty massive difference between us and a team we'd probably all like to replicate. To continue the analogy I'd actually say our team of recent years is similar to the Irish team of the 2000s with a very decent squad of players, a couple of consistently world class ones and a couple who could be when in form. Of course, they managed to win some stuff 

Moving from the private schools to youth development in the 18-20 generally that seems to have completely cratered, especially in S&C with our 20s looking like boys against men most of the time, and while the super 6 is quite fun I don't think it's doing much to bring these guys on when they can even get a game. 

Into senior teams the recruitment for the pro teams has largely gone downhill in recent years. While there's still good project or Scots qualified players coming in, there seem to be fewer guys coming in to offer real quality (Boffeli being a notable exception) and far more guys just filling up rotational space in the squad.

The third pro team argument is never going to go away but financially seems a non starter. Hard to argue we wouldn't be able to blood more young players at a decent level though, as at the moment there seem to be a lot of guys who make a little breakthrough at Edinburgh or Glasgow and then before you know it they're 24 and have played 24 professional games of rugby. Injuries also a factor there of course.

Italy have made leaps and bounds with their youth development in recent years but like when everyone wanted the football team to copy what Iceland were doing it's probably not completely transferrable and other than some impressive youth results it hasn't translated to much yet. I don't know that we're fucked but I think the optimism of the 2010s was probably misplaced as we are still playing catch-up on how to do professional rugby properly and our development and pathway is in awful shape

 

 

Interesting article. One of the comments though gives a list of players to be produced just at Merchiston castle over the last decade and ask's if it is the clubs / SRU that is causing the issue.

I would argue that maybe the Private Schools are falling behind their counterparts - again I dont have anythng to back this up, are there many cross border matches between schools?

Im firmly of the belief that given we only have 2 teams players are not getting the game time as they have to dislodge an international from the team to get game time. When a player does get game time early its because they are world class, ie Hogg, Russell, Gray all getting games at 19/20, but further down, the international squad fillers are 24/25 or older before they have the pro team experience to get international recognition and by then its too late to be able to push on from good to great.

We just seem to miss something from 17/18 to 20/21 - I had previously put it down to guys being in hte institute of sport not getting proper meaningful games so we didnt breed winners, some people are born with it but others can learn it from being in tight, meaningful games and wanting to win, and learning from losing also what it takes to win - Scotland have been too soft for years and its getting proper competition at an early age which will change that.

I think its too early to write off the Super 6's but the coaches need to be ensuring the youngsters are playing and not just filling the team with older journeymen. Again a 3rd team would help to blood more players but as was said is  costly. Glasgow and Edinburgh now are probably bringing in a decent amount in gate money compared to 10 / 15 years ago (crowds up to close to 10k at Glasgow, compared to 3-4k not so long ago) which will also have increased sponsorship etc so maybe worth looking at again.

[GAD]

We are definitely miles behind Ireland, considering with the signing of Healy today for Edinburgh we are now going to start taking their players! The youth teams regularly get battered as well, with physicality seeming to be the biggest issue. I've got a mate who is a coach for U18s at a supposedly high level in Scotland and he's told some some sobering stories of games v Irish teams in particular having to be stopped before someone got hurt due to the differences in physicality and intensity.