So, with the URC taking a break, the Ospreys welcome English Premiership Champions, Leicester Tigers to the Swansea.com stadium. This is the start of the extremely busy Christmas period that will see the Ospreys play 7 games in 6 weeks. The Ospreys will need to be able to call on their Welsh internationals if they are to have any hope of matching the power of the Tigers. The Ospreys are really on a hiding to nothing in this group as they also have to face French Champions Montpelier.
As long as everyone is fit and recovered from the Autumn internationals and the SA trip, I would expect the squad to look something like this...
G Thomas N Smith S Parry S Baldwin T Francis T Botha A Beard AWJ R Davies J Morgan J Tipuric (c) M Morris E Roots
R Webb RMW J Walsh O Williams/D Edwards K Giles G North J Hawkins A Cuthbert M Nagy one from M Collins M Protheroe L Morgan TTW
with a starting team of -
G Thomas S Baldwin T Francis A Beard AWJ J Morgan J Tipuric E Roots
R Webb J Walsh K Giles G North J Hawkins A Cuthbert M Nagy
DIscuss
I am watching the game again this time on the TV (much warmer but still painful) and even the commentators say that the ref was very fussy. However, most of the decisions he made look correct although I do think he got the AWJ maul obstruction one wrong as well as the Cuthbert rolling one wrong. He clearly calls AWJ and Walsh back before penalising them for being in front of the kicker. The Parry one on the Tigers line was debatable but I can see why he gave it. The final decision at our maul looks to be very harsh as the Tigers flanker clearly changes his bind to latch on to Parry. That said, we were the architects of our own downfall with poor discipline and execution.
I do wonder how fair it is to judge Booth when he has had no say in the squad he has? Nobody previously has been able to do anything with that squad so why should he? Post the world cup and the end of the season we know there will be a lot of movement (as traditionally there is), especially with the amount of players across the regions who will be out of contract.
Wouldn't it be better to see what squad he can put together and see what results he can get from that?
With the budget cap in England starting to bite and the lack of knowledge about the welsh regioins future funding I should think a lot of players are worrying about their futures at this time!!!
The team we put out last week would probably have won that game. The old guard simply has to go. Tips has been awful since he came back and AWJ is finally showing that he is not the best in his position anymore. Webb also needs to be used as impact . I would like to see RMW being promoted to first choice S/H. Many of us have been saying all season that Booth is not the messiah we first thought he might be and we need a dynamic coach who understands modern rugby and won’t be caught up in cliched thinking such as “ arm wrestle” and “ controlling the environment” . We desperately need modern thinking and we must be jealous as hell now looking east at the Dragons. I sincerely hope Gats has the guts at least to rip up the current squad and be radical bringing in young keen to learn guys and not hope to rely on the old squad to limp through the six nations. We shouldn’t care if we come bottom of the 6 Nations as long as we blood a whole new squad that will take us forward. The tools are there, there are rough diamonds that need polishing. Thanks Tips, thanks AWJ, thanks Lids, thanks Liam W, thanks Halfers, but time to say goodbye, oh and bye bye Booth, nobody wants to watch arm wrestle or “ things we can control”. It costs money and time to come and watch and we don’t appreciate both being squandered.
Truly awful tonight. Aside of the terrible discipline and complete lack of ideas, the bit with 2 mins left on the clock when we kick the ball away made me think why bother coming out in the cold to watch it If we simply have no idea. Something looks terribly wrong.
That was a horrible performance , our discipline and back play was awful. On a positive note I think O Willliams could do some good.
Was the ref as bad on TV as he was in the stadium?
Once again all we have to offer is brute force everything we do is slow and cumbersome. Our back play is so predictable and easy to defend against. We seem like Wales to have forgotten how to play attacking rugby and prefer to concentrate on defensive backs rather than flair and pace.
Same old story, almost like nothing has changed for the last 12 years, we are incredibly poorly coached.
The HCC win predictor has us as 71% favourites to win against Tigers' 26% and the draw is 3%.
Tigers have no less than 8 of the team that started against Bristol last week missing this week. Are they not prioritising Europe? Doing the Ospreys a dis-service or is it just rotation? Hopefully this bites them in the arse.
The Tigers team (not full strength)
STARTING XV 15 Anthony Watson [6] 14 Harry Potter [49] 13 Guy Porter [49] 12 Dan Kelly [44] 11 Hosea Saumaki [17] 10 Charlie Atkinson [4] 9 Jack van Poortvliet (vc) [54] 1 James Whitcombe [29] 2 Charlie Clare [61] 3 Joe Heyes [108] 4 Harry Wells [164] 5 Ollie Chessum [36] 6 George Martin [47] 7 Hanro Liebenberg (c) [68] 8 Olly Cracknell [8]
REPLACEMENTS 16 Gabriel Oghre * 17 Nephi Leatigaga [72] 18 Will Hurd [14] 19 Eli Snyman [26] 20 Sean Jansen [9] 21 Richard Wigglesworth [41] 22 Jimmy Gopperth [6] 23 Matt Scott [53]
Team is
15. Max Nagy
14. Alex Cuthbert
13. George North
12. Joe Hawkins
11. Keelan Giles
10. Jack Walsh
9. Rhys Webb
1. Nicky Smith
2. Scott Baldwin
3. Tom Francis
4. Adam Beard
5. Alun Wyn Jones
6. Jac Morgan
7. Justin Tipuric (c)
8. Morgan Morris
Replacements:
16. Sam Parry
17. Gareth Thomas
18. Tom Botha
19. Huw Sutton
20. Rhys Davies
21. Reuben Morgan Williams
22. Owen Williams
23. Michael Collins
Got it almost spot on again with just 1 & 8 incorrect. I think that Rhys Davies is covering the back row.
No Ethan Roots? Is he injured
Dewi Lake in Training today so maybe he is in with a shout for selection - edit- he only returned today and is not in contact training so will not feature. He could feature next week against Montpelier.
The other main absentees are Gareth Anscombe and Dan Lydiate which suggests that Owen Watkin may well be available and may take the starting berth ahead of Hawkins.
Tigers play a very accurate kicking and kick-chase game, so we need to be prepared for that.
@showmaster Yes Morgan is faster than Cuthbert, but his defence is not as good so I would stick with Cuthbert. We do need to kick to space though and not directly to Steward.
Myler is injured so will not feature but Owen Williams may well be in the squad if we get him registered in time.
If we are forecasting then Rhys Davies, Myler and Watkin to start for control and defence with AWJ leading a powerful bench with a 6 - 2 split and Aubrey and Hawkins the pair of backs.
Steward is dangerous partly because of the powerful runners in front of him and we need to keep out Cokanasiga and Ashton first but also have Myler there to kick the ball to grass rather than into his arms. For that reason I would have Luke Morgan rather than Cuthbert for his speed in the kick chase.
Mind you, I was rubbish as a flanker anyway so what do I know, eh?
A couple of things that the Ospreys will need to be mindful of - do not kick loosely to Freddie Steward who is superb under the high ball and a run-back threat. The pack will need to front up and not take a backwards step especially at scrum and lineout time.