Gloucester vs Quins - Monday

[Puja]

GLOUCESTER RUGBY

15. Louis Rees-Zammit
14. Ollie Thorley
13. Chris Harris
12. Mark Atkinson
11. Jonny May
10. Danny Cipriani
9. Stephen Varney;

1. Val Rapava-Ruskin
2. Franco Marais
3. Jack Stanley
4. Ed Slater
5. Matt Garvey
6. Jack Clement
7. Lewis Ludlow ©
8. Jake Polledri

REPLACEMENTS

16. Henry Walker
17. Corne Fourie
18. Fraser Balmain
19. Matias Alemanno
20. Jordy Reid
21. Joe Simpson
22. Lloyd Evans
23. Billy Twelvetrees


Harlequins starting XV
1. Santiago Garcia Botta (20)
2. Joe Gray (159)
3. Will Collier (175)
4. Stephan Lewies (18) - Captain
5. Glen Young (16)
6. James Chisholm (94)
7. Will Evans (17)
8. Alex Dombrandt (48)
9 .Danny Care (279)
10. Marcus Smith (83)
11. Aaron Morris (49)
12. Luke Northmore (6)
13. Joe Marchant (89)
14. Cadan Murley (33)
15. Mike Brown (331)

Game Changers
16. Scott Baldwin (16)
17. Marc Thomas (2)
18. Wilco Louw (0)
19. Tevita Cavubati (18)
20. Archie White (29)
21. Scott Steele (5)
22. Andre Esterhuizen (1)
23. Chris Ashton (4)

[twitchy]

There is some terrible rugby on display here.

[Stom]

Posted here now I saw the thread...

Joe Gray with possibly the most insanely bad penalty and yellow card, jeez. Pure stupidity.

If it weren't for Cipriani being a dumbass, we'd have conceded.

[Raggs]

I don't get why you run Polledri at the 9/10 when you're 60m out, with an advantage in the backs, but when you're 5m out, and don't have much time for a backs move, you don't give it to Polledri, and instead try and run it?

[Scrumhead]

We’ve really profited from Gloucester’s errors but I’ll take it!

[Stom]

Lewies giving hope to all of us by running it in and then collapsing on the floor and needing his inhaler to survive! What a scene

I'll be honest: I don't think much of LRZ. And you can see every week why Cipriani doesn't have more caps...

[twitchy]

I don't get why you run Polledri at the 9/10 when you're 60m out, with an advantage in the backs, but when you're 5m out, and don't have much time for a backs move, you don't give it to Polledri, and instead try and run it?

Some seriously bad decision making from glos.

[twitchy]

Game on.

[Stom]

God Garcia Botta is terrible.

[twitchy]

Gutting for glos.

[Timbo]

That was a ridiculous game of rugby. Glos going full clown car gifting 2 try’s and blowing about 3 of their own.

As absurd as Glos were, at least you can see what they’re trying to do and what kind of team they want to become. Gustard been at Quins for nearly 2 seasons now and they offer virtually nothing ball in hand.

[Scrumhead]

To be fair, I think we were playing very much a containment strategy and kicking to compete. Generally it worked.

At home, we at least try to move the ball a bit, but it’s hit and miss. We seem to be stuck between having a playmaker at 12 (like Lang) or a heavy carrier (Lasike) and can’t quite decide ... My impression is that Esterhuizen is intended to be a bit of both.

[Mikey Brown]

Something about Esterhuizen says playmaker to you?

[Which Tyler]

Wish Gloucester could have saved this performance for next week!

[fivepointer]

That was a ridiculous game of rugby. Glos going full clown car gifting 2 try’s and blowing about 3 of their own.

As absurd as Glos were, at least you can see what they’re trying to do and what kind of team they want to become. Gustard been at Quins for nearly 2 seasons now and they offer virtually nothing ball in hand.

My impressions too.

Talk about gift wrapping a game.

Quins won and frankly didnt have to do too much to do it. They werent remotely interested in trying to play any rugby. They will say, well we got the win, but they surely have the personnel to play better than that.

[Stom]

That was a ridiculous game of rugby. Glos going full clown car gifting 2 try’s and blowing about 3 of their own.

As absurd as Glos were, at least you can see what they’re trying to do and what kind of team they want to become. Gustard been at Quins for nearly 2 seasons now and they offer virtually nothing ball in hand.

My impressions too.

Talk about gift wrapping a game.

Quins won and frankly didnt have to do too much to do it. They werent remotely interested in trying to play any rugby. They will say, well we got the win, but they surely have the personnel to play better than that.

Well indeed, it was pretty terrible.

With Smith's ability ball in hand and Marchant's agility outside, plus Care's attacking kicking game, we have weapons that can hurt teams. Against anyone who knew how to play, we'd have lost that game. As is, Danny Cipriani won us the game, pretty much.

Really not a good advert for Premiership rugby.

[Mellsblue]

Really not a good advert for Premiership rugby.

Little has been since the return.

[Mikey Brown]

It’s incredible how quickly I’ve lost interest in rugby again after waiting so long for it to restart.

I know there’s still things to play for but there’s just too much of it.

[Puja]

Would've been far, far better to wrap the season up with 3-4 weeks of playoffs like the Celts have done. We might see the benefit from this in the England team in years to come from all the youngsters getting game time, but apart from that, this has been a waste of time and damaging to the image of the Premiership.

Puja

[Raggs]

We regularly see blow outs though. Whether it's resting for Europe or teams targeting head to heads at the bottom of the table.

And wasps have seen their firsts beaten by 2nds and have beaten very strong firsts teams with clear 2nds. Can't imagine they're the only ones.

[Stom]

Yeah. But it's not the players' fault, it's the coaches and the RFU. No-one has made any effort to play heads up rugby and when they do, they're punished by regulations and reffing that punishes them.

If the reffing was setup to benefit the England team, we'd be much better off. And it bloody well should be. Everyone else does it, there's no reason we can't.

We need to get away from the fact those big Saffas can have such an impact in English rugby. We should be looking to enable the more creative players, encourage offloading, promote linebreaks, and generally look toward a more physical version of Souper Rugby, not "COLLISSIONSSSS!!!!1!"

[Raggs]

Wasps and Bristol don't appear to be going for collisions only. Saints have plummeted but were doing very nicely before. Glaws as well.

Absolutely you need to get on the front foot, but there's plenty of clubs not relying on that as much.

[Scrumhead]

Agreed. A lot of the younger players coming to the fore are not ‘collisions’ players either.