Dragons v Ospreys Sat Nov 18th @17.15

It is not optimism but realism and if this all depresses you then your mental health would be greatly improved by ignoring the team, coaches, fans and everything to do with Ospreys.

Squidge, I love the culture being created especially the "Homegrown" ethos. OITC is a marvellous and I think unique addition but the Pathway is the great achievement. The youngsters may push through and become a winning team or they may not but they are given their chance. The really great thing about Ospreys is that from youngest debutant like Morse to senior veteran like Tips, they all trod that same Pathway and that is how a culture is built.

You could be right. I will probably still support the Ospreys though if you don't mind.

Support 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

The trouble is gaffer that we don’t generate fast ball. There was one example and we scored from it. Apart from that on excellent piece of play RMW was slow and indecisive and he really lacks the ability to direct play. He is a highlights reel player who produces patches of good play but puts no control on the game’s tempo.

I like Booth. He came in when things were pretty perilous off the field, and incredibly poor on it. He has plenty of credit in the bank, but i cant help but feel theres always something missing. The balance between attritional play, and "playing with the ball" seems out of kilter.

Take S/H for example. A large reason why we cant play any other way than kicking and hoping for a mistake is because of our inadequecies here. RMW just doesnt have the abiilities to control a game from the onset. Anyone whos watched him the past few years can see hes someone you bring on later in the game. We bring in the South African on loan, presumably because S/H has been identified as an area of weakness. Surley the game to bring him into the 23 to guage him, is against a team who previously hadnt won in over a year? We didnt, and the expected shortfalls at S/H were once again laid bare for all to see. I have no idea if Kruger turns out to be better than RMW, but RMW should in no way be untouchable.

Then theres Luke Morgan. Luke Morgan is fast. I can think of no other abillity when i think of him. Sure he tries hard, but surely thats a pre-requisite? The problem with Luke is that continually he appears to lose his head, with it almost always costing us both in tries conceded, and far to regulary, yellow cards. If Kasende was deemed worthy of a slot on the bench, im sorry, he has to start over Luke. Surely one position which is easiest to slot into from one team to another is wing?

Again i dont want to appear too down, but we never look the sum of our parts. Im not saying we have a squad thats going to challenge the "big" teams, but we should be better than looking so disjointed and negative for large parts of games. That mess we served up on the weekend against a very poor Dragons cant keep happening.

The change in Aled Davies , physically, game management and speed to the ball and pass is phenomenal, he always had a good pass , but I now believe he is the best Welsh 9 although Lost to Gatland

It it mentor or team philosophy at Sarries

RMW' pondering game provides the opportunity for opponents to reset every time

My views on Luke Morgan are well known a square 7's player in a 15 round hole

A round 7's player in a square 15 game , poor under high ball , goes missing in defence, runs into contact and turned over and a yellow card phenomenon

PS

Protheroe made numerous excellent legal tackles prior to his brain fart , just a loss of concentration which I can forgive, even AWJ and Tips have been known to make mistakes

( AWJ trip which caused Gatlands angst )

Yep, the latter part of Tandy’s and the whole of Clarke’s tenures were dark days and we’re clearly a long way from that. But on occasion we can appear, to use your word, ‘disjointed’.

I think we’ve needed better coaching support (sorry to throw the other coaches under a bus!) around Booth. Mark Jones has been a good step towards rectifying that.

We’ve been hampered by a lot of injuries in the backs and two bits of bad luck against Glasgow and the Dragons - Weir clearly should have been sent off and obviously the kamikaze moment from Protheroe. (Literally) Praying for a win against ‘them lot’ on Sunday to get some momentum back.

The other regions have better players than us at nine presently. I appreciate I don’t know the financials, and regardless it could have been a conscious choice to give RMW a run after Webb’s departure, but I would have liked us to have gone in for Dane Blacker (as he was out of contract) then let them battle it out for first choice.

As I’ve mentioned above, I was a little perplexed when Morgan was offered an extension. If it was felt we needed more numbers in the back three, then why didn’t we eg make an offer to Harri Doel when he was here as injury cover.

Upright tackle, head on head. Pretty pathetic by Protheroe to be fair.

Chasing a box kick that was too long he stayed upright and ran into the player who had just caught it. Nailed on red card. Our attack never really functioned but we defended bravely. A really bad missed tackle by Luke Morgan on Roberts gave them the crucial score just before half time and their second came after then went wide to the excellent Dyer when we went to 13 men

The half backs were very poor and We got no scrum dominance as Nicky Smith was continually penalised.

What did you think of the scrum pens against us?

Always hard to judge whether tight head or loose head at fault but I think Nicky does sometimes go after the tight head more than he needs to.

As strong as possible given injuries. Good to see Kasende in there. Could be a good game with those flyers on both teams.

Dragons RFC: Cai Evans, Rio Dyer, Sio Tomkinson, Aneurin Owen, Ewan Rosser, Will Reed, Rhodri Williams (c); Rhodri Jones, Bradley Roberts, Lloyd Fairbrother, Matthew Screech, Ben Carter, Sean Lonsdale, Ollie Griffiths, Aaron Wainwright

Replacements: Elliot Dee, Aki Seiuli, Chris Coleman, George Nott, Ryan Woodman, Dane Blacker, Steff Hughes, Ashton Hewitt

Yes, strong side and very strong bench as well.

Let's hope for a resounding win.

I disagree with jim below, Fender has been a favourite of mine and is now approaching real "boiler-house" dimensions of 20 stone.

His post did trigger a thought and some stats would suggest that our starting pack this week is exactly 900 kg and averages 17 and a half stone.

Glad I'm not playing these days!

Sam Parry is fit and available so we could see him on the bench for this game or maybe he gets held back for the Enemies game

I sort of expect Gareth, Sam and Jac to be in the 23 and maybe one of the Cheetahs but Dan to start is a bit of a flyer. Toby seems very happy with the numbers he has to select from and he may well pick two very strong sides for the next two games.... because he can.

Starting Dan might be a bit of a flyer but we do need to find out if he has what it takes, so maybe this is the game to do that.

In saying that, I think Walsh probably starts but I can see logic in giving Dan a start.