NH Club rugby over the past weekend

IOt was an interesting weekend of rugby in Ireland, the UK and France and what was interesting was where the avcoiured teams were beaten.    Lets look at what happened - also from a SA player perspective:-

Unexpected Losses

Sale Sharks vs Saracens

The loss of Saracens was a very real surprise.   They were not beaten in 22 matches I England and was then beaten twice in a row.   Faf had a good dame - but his defense was somewhat problematic.   Robert du Preez was solid,   Koch was problematic in conceding 3 penalties. 

Leicester  vs  Gloucester

The loss was by 18 points and ome ahs to wonder what went wrong in the case of Gloucester.   The fact is Gloucestor had Tight 5 problems with Mostert standing around behind breakdowns and he carried the ball 18 times for a gain of 41 meters and he made a good enough number of tackles,   However, his contribution to the Tight 5 was near to zero and the Tight 4 left over struggled badly,

Worcester vs  Bath

Why did Bath lose?   Part of their problem was donating too many penalties -  16 in total - and one of the five players who each gave away 2 penalties was Louw,  Three players were yellow carded.   The discipline of Bath bordered on the non-existent  

Montpellier vs Lyon

Montpellier was totally outplayed by Lyon - they lost by 11 points,   Frans Steyn had a reasonable game  at full back - but was outplayed at full back by his opponent.   Serfontein scored one of the two tries of Montpellier.   Goosen on attack was very good and Jacques du Plessis had another very good performance at no 8.   For the rest the team struggled badly.

Benneton  vs Glasgow

A real surprise this one

Expected Results

I think that the other matches produced expected results.

...lot of players rested ahead of another round of the the Euro Rugby Champions Cup this week...that could explain some results with many B teams being fielded...

I know there were B-teams played in some cases - but not in all,   It would be interesting to see what happens this coming weekend.   I see some interesting results coming up.

Gloucester vs  Munster

Scarletts  vs   Leicester

Toulon  vs  Edinburgh

 Bath  vs  Wasps

Ulster  vs  Racing Metro

Leinster  vs Toulouse

Montpellier vs  Newcastle 

Lyon  vs   Saracens

Glasgow  vs  Cardiff

Exeter  vs  Castres

In highlighted the teams likely to win - but we do not have the teams as yet and there may be changes.

.   

Gloucester was disgraced by Munster in a 41-15 win.   This was the second loss in two weeks by a large margin in two competitions.   Gl;oucester is now bottom of the Pool log in the Champions Cup and really out of contention for progress beyond the pool stage of the competition.    

Thus far I have three results from the above    I correctly predicted that the following would win:-

Munster

Leinster

Montpellier

All the first three were b onus point wins,  

I have thus far all winners identified, lets wait and see what happens later today and tomorrow,  

The next two were wrong.   Bath beat Wasps by 2 points and Ulster beat Racing Metro by 4 points.

I should have changed my forecast as to the Wasps game.   I did not expect Useless de Jongh to be playing at center for Wasps - a Bath player ran straight through the Wasps backline where De Jongh was supposed to defend and scored a try. 

I am amazed by the Ulster win - will watch the game later on to see what happened,.      

Another two correct predictions:-

Edinburgh   28 Toulon 17

Scarlets        33 Leicester 10   

There is one more round to play before the quarterfinal squads will be clear,

The position of the potential quarterfinal teams are as follows:-

Pool  1     -      Leinster (20 points)

Pool  2     -      Munster (17 points)

Pool  3     -      Saracens (18 points)

Pool  4     -      Racing Metro (21 points) 

Pool  5     -      Edinburgh  (19 points)

There are still 3 matches outstanding in the games to be played today - namely 1 in Pool 2 and 2 in Pool 3.   Munster will remain leader in pool 2 - irrespective of whether Exeter or Castres win their game.    It is totally unlikely that Glasgow will unseat Saracens as Pool leader in Pool 3 - it can only happen if Glasgow beats Cardiff with a bionus point and Saracens lose against Lyons without scoring  a bonus point. 

So which teams can still be quarterfinal candidates other than the above 5 depending on the final round-robin matches next week:-

Pool  2    -   Exeter .

Pool  3    -   Glasgow 

Pool  4    -   Ulster

Pool  5   -    Montopellier

What is already clear is that the following of the 20 teams are out of contention already:-

Bath, Wasps, Gloucester, Cardiff, Lyon, Scarlets, Leicester, Newcastle, Toulon,  Castre.   That means the only teams remaining in the competition:-

England    -     2  teams  -   Saracens for sure and Exeter potentially

Ireland      -     3  teams  -  Leinster, Munster and Ulster potentially

Scotland   -      2  teams  -  Edinburgh, Glasgow potentially

France      -      3  teams   -   Racing Metro, Toulouse, Montpellier.

France      -      3 teams   -   Racing Metro for sure, Toulouse and Montpellier potentially   

Not a good advertisement for England club rugby though,. They had 7 teams in the competition and 5 of those are out of contention already, 

The situation is as follows:

England     -   7   teams only 2 in contention

France       -    6   teams  3 teams are still in contention

Ireland       -   3  teams  all three teams are still in contention

Scotland    -    2  teams  2 teams are still in contention.  

Wales        -    2  teams - none in contention

The interesting next week will be the following in view of potential qualification for the quarterfinals:-

Edinburgh  vs  Montpellier - even if Montpellier wins this game - both teams will qualify.  

Saracens vs Glasgow - if Glashow loses this game they are out of the competition

Exeter vs Munster - if Exeter beats Munster - both teams may qualify.   However, if Exeter loses they will be out of contention.

Ulster is likely to stay in contention even if they lose against Leicester,  

My forecast for those four matches are -

Edinburgh vs Montpellier   toss-up 

Saracens   - easy winner

Exeter vs Munster - toss up

Ulster   - Probable winner.

I think Glasgow may be out of contention after Round 4    

De Jongh didn't have a good game this weekend, granted but last week, He was excellent! Chup stil?

He remains a defense liability for any team he plays for and he is physically to  weak to make a real impact  on attack,   Do you still wamnt him in the Springbok team wi tless? 

He remains a defense liability for any team he plays for and he is physically to  weak to make a real impact  on attack,   Do you still wamnt him in the Springbok team wi tless? 

By the way xavi.

Is Northampton in the European Champions Cup at all? and is the team still rated as 9th on the log in the Aviva Premiership?    So what makes it all that competitive?     

Even a blind squirrel will find an acorn from time to time ...

His try was due to some poor defense from the opposing defender.

One nice grubber with a little good fortune does not make for an "excellent" match in my opinion ... and as we saw, there's just no consistency with this midget.

Not a Bok option ... 

Agee 100% with you on this one.    De Jongh is  poor midget at best and despite Mozart's unting of him for years - was a total failure since 2012 on test level.     

I would have Vorster and Viljoen ahead of him in every game.  He is a small player pretending to be playing at center.   Got run over by every opposing center and to not get that he ducks out of even trying to take tackles.   On attack he was only notable when another player put him in the clear.   Otherwise he was as harmless as a butterfly.

But then we have idiots like Mozart on site who pretends they know something about rugby and then come up with the most ridiculous suggestions ever  about players they favour for selection.     

But neither of the two are physically weaker than De Jongh.