Rugby - The Game They Play In Heaven II

[Havak]

Munster are in a rebuilding phase, Ospreys not so.

I see Tindall are the horse are to wed?

[finbar]

Mrs finbar saw the photo and said it looks like his nose is sliding off his face. That's English rugby, I said.

[finbar]

I notice Mr Attwood is in trouble again. Stamping. Again. Obviously he didn't have his fill of it in Australia. Hopefully he doesn't escape on a technicality again.

[finbar]

Gav made a solid-ish return yesterday. He looks to have left his orange hue behind in Wales. Wasps -v- Saracens. A bit like watching a fight between your mother-in-law and the tax man - you can't bear the sight of either and just hope they inflict maximum damage on each other. Rubbish first half, a shambles. Sarries were better in the second half but Wasps remained generally rubbish.

[Havak]

Sorry to have left you talking to yourself.

Like the description of Sarries and Wasps. Loved the fact that after just twenty minutes of rugby the Welsh egomaniac is again touting himself for the national side.

Enjoyable afternoon at Welford Road - a slightly understrength side still putting Sale to the sword and I got to see twenty mins of the young scrummy Harrison. Very promising. Manu Tuilagi must be an outside bet for the 6N - there aren't many centres English qualified who have his mix of strength, pace and hands.

One does worry for Sale - there are still some class players there (Peel and Cueto stood out today) but they are all towards the end of their careers. I wonder if they have the resources to remain competitive much longer. Interesting to see Chris Jones - touted for years by Sales fans but quite thoroughly destroyed by that one tour to Oceania under Dayglo's watch. He now looks what he probably always was - a decent club player.

I wonder what KoC makes of Sale right now?

[kittenOFchaos]

In Canada atm.

Haven't seen enough of our games this season to be able to make any definitive judgements.

The club has been on the slide for a while now. The loss of PSA with so many top-quality foreign players has been met with the appointment of fairly average replacements. The fact we've kept losing so many players of value to injury and international duty hasn't helped in any way shape or form.

Sheridan is leaving for Toulon and rumoured that Charlie is headed to Saracens and the Head Coach has been sacked after a short term. If Charlie has left, or was thinking of it and our Head Coach has been removed it suggests that Charlie was really not happy with him and that Kennedy removed the Head Coach in order to retain CH. This is all speculation, but given that Sale have been sucking hard for ages and were doing so with a previous Head Coach, it is odd that the new coach was removed so quickly.

What Sale need at the moment is to retain CH, motivate the team, pray for our injury problems to ease then improve the squad by hiring some players of note. For a club that once had the likes of Chabal, Lobbe, J Robinson, Redpath, J White, Bruno alongside CH and Cueto, it seems incredible how average the players we have are. Did PSA find out the money was drying up and leave and this is simply the result of too much thrift, or have our appointments since PSA been dreadful?

At some point, the blame cannot be simply placed on the Head Coaches and blame must be targetted at Brian Kennedy.

[finbar]

Sorry to have left you talking to yourself.

At least I have a captive audience. Though I often ignore myself if I think I'm prattling drivel.

Sale have lost a number of quality players over the last couple of years and simply haven't replaced them. They also seem somehow to have mis-managed Matthew Tait. That said, even at their strongest, they didn't achieve what they might or should have. Apparently Brewer was sacked because of lack of man-management skills, a problem apparently well known before he was appointed. Why appoint him?

[Havak]

Sale are important to the Premiership for bringing the Senior code to the Northwest. It is one of the reason the RFU subsidised Robinson's contract.

I do wonder though if Kennedy has burnt a few too many bridges? By all accounts he is an abrasive character?

[finbar]

Ignacio Fernandez Lobbe summed up Sale's problems in two words: Brian Kennedy. Always a difficult situation when a club's benefactor can also be a major liability.

[Havak]

Indeed. Though Barwell at Saints also has a poor reputation and they seem to be doing okay.

Tricky away trip to Exeter for us on Sunday - fingers firmly crossed.

Oh and Happy New Year everyone.

[finbar]

Ditto to that. But who would be an Irish supporter? Well, I share their pain. Yesterday they reminded me of the Wallabies. A team with a lot of talent with a coach who champions the cause of players expressing themselves on the field, yet devoid of substance and discipline when it counted. They don't do the hard work, the grafting, when it's required. Bath's big asset yesterday was commitment. Their handling was dire - Hape was close to embarrassing - they had little system, but they kept slogging on, kicking their penalties, and it was enough. Toby Booth and Robbie Deans should put their heads together.

Yesterday was the first time I'd seen Corbisiero for a long time. The boy has great potential. His technique is certainly better than Dan Cole's. He was outstanding right up until they moved him across to tighthead where he was exposed.

[kittenOFchaos]

Sale 28 - Saracens 22

The big news is Gaskell is back - from what I had read I didn't expect this.

Reading the report (still in Canada), it sounds like forwards totally outplayed Saracens and that the backs enjoyed playing against Henson.

A really good start to the New Year

[finbar]

Nice one Sale! Particularly for embarrassing Gav. For my sins, in the absence of any rugby on Sky Italy, I listened to a lot of Leicester -v- Exeter via Radio Leicester. Leicester just about infringed their way out of the game. Old habits, etc. Exeter certainly are the surprise packet this season, particularly at home.

[Havak]

Discipline remains a concern.

A tasty fixture next up though -Saints visit us next weekend.

Enjoyed Sale's win - but then anyone beating Sarries these days gets my support.

So Finbar you listened to Blethyn and Steve Jones. Never less than entertaining but perhaps not always the most neutral of commentary teams.

[finbar]

Discipline has been a Leicester problem since - well, the Big Bang, and, according to Stephen Hawking, the Big Bang was actually a Leicester player falling on the wrong side of the ruck.

I wouldn't have known Exeter were playing except the commentators occasionally mentioned names unknown to me.