Tigers Vs Stormers

[FKAS]

STARTING XV

15 Freddie Steward [75]
14 Josh Bassett [9]
13 Matt Scott [69]
12 Solomone Kata [5]
11 Ollie Hassell-Collins [10]
10 Handré Pollard [19]
9 Ben Youngs [306]

1 Francois Van Wyk [40]
2 Julián Montoya (c) [46]
3 Dan Cole [314]
4 Ollie Chessum [47]
5 Cameron Henderson [46]
6 Hanro Liebenberg [95]
7 Tommy Reffell [105]
8 Jasper Wiese [65]

REPLACEMENTS
16 Archie Vanes [10]
17 James Cronin [21]
18 Joe Heyes [130]
19 Harry Wells [183]
20 Kyle Hatherell [6]
21 Tom Whiteley [15]
22 Jamie Shillcock [11]
23 Dan Kelly [66]

DHL Stormers: 15 Clayton Blommetjies, 14 Courtnall Skosan, 13 Suleiman Hartzenberg, 12 Jean-Luc du Plessis, 11 Ben Loader, 10 Jurie Matthee, 9 Paul de Wet, 8 Keke Morabe, 7 Willie Engelbrecht, 6 Nama Xaba, 5 Connor Evans, 4 Hendre Stassen, 3 Brok Harris (captain), 2 Scarra Ntubeni, 1 Sti Sithole.
Replacements: 16: JJ Kotze, 17 Kwenzo Blose, 18 Lee-Marvin Mazibuko, 19 Dylan Sjoblom, 20 Junior Pokomela, 21 Marcel Theunissen, 22 Stefan Ungerer, 23 Cornel Smit.

Few of the Stormers big names being saved for their home game next week which is on a 6 day turnaround.

[Puja]

Why are the European games not synchronised with the URC and done in blocks? It's worked out well for Leicester this year, obviously, but it's ridiculous that they're going from SA to Britain to SA across three weekends - of course they're going to bring a shadow XV. At the very least, the SA sides should be playing two games at home and two games away, rather than alternating.

Puja

[Which Tyler]

More to the point - why are the South African clubs in a European competition?
Even without them, there are too many teams involved already, necessitating a pig of a format (even if a LOT better than the travesty format of the last couple of years).

HC used to be compulsory watching, and I'd rarely miss a single match. Last few years, I didn't even watch all of Bath's matches.
Today is the first time I've even looked to see who's in Bath's pool - thankfully, no South Africans, so I'll probably try to watch pool 2's matches this year.

Interest in the KO stages will depend on what happens in the pools.

[Puja]

More to the point - why are the South African clubs in a European competition?
Even without them, there are too many teams involved already, necessitating a pig of a format (even if a LOT better than the travesty format of the last couple of years).

HC used to be compulsory watching, and I'd rarely miss a single match. Last few years, I didn't even watch all of Bath's matches.
Today is the first time I've even looked to see who's in Bath's pool - thankfully, no South Africans, so I'll probably try to watch pool 2's matches this year.

Interest in the KO stages will depend on what happens in the pools.

The Celts are making noises about England's allocation and, frankly, they're probably right. 8 teams from a 10 team league is not a competitive qualification process, especially since they get 8 teams from across 5 nations and 16 teams. I wouldn't be sad about it going down to a 20 team format (5 English, 7 French, 8 URC) and could even see an argument for it being a 16 team tournament to have it be the elite (4 English, 6 French, 5 URC, 1 spot for Champion/Challenge Cup Winner).

In an ideal world actually, I'd be happy with it being a 16 team tournament, played in a block at one chunk of the season, and have the four English representatives be all EQP regions. That way we could still have the Premiership and the club rivalries, but we band together at the end to kick the crap out of Jonny Foreigner.

Puja

[Which Tyler]

For me - I like these to be the best of the best; and see no reason for more than 16 teams, and I agree with your allocation (though I'd still massively prefer the South African to go back to the Southern Hemisphere - but that cat's out of the bag now).

I'd like fewer windows for the HC/CC, but I'm not too fussed whether it's 2 batches of 3 matches, or all in at the end of the season (there are some definite downsides for each domestic league with that - and the French especially, won't be willing to make those sacrifices).

[Mellsblue]

I’m enjoying the irony that the PR(L) may be hoisted by their own petard of ‘you’ve too high a % of teams qualifying from your league’ argument they used against the Celtic/Magners/Pro 12 league or whatever it was called back then.
Imagine going from calling the shots and staging a coup to being the runt of the litter… The self-serving, short term thinking pricks.

[FKAS]

Geez, Tigers handling errors in that first half were horrendous.

Stormers super physical and just throwing themselves at everything. They've got some depth in that squad and their head coach Dobson has done a great job with them.

Steward looks rattled at the back. The Stormers chasers are getting airborne and are focusing more on jumping into him than really going for the ball. Has thrown him way off his stride.

Errors from Hanro Liebenburg has had a 14 point swing. Missing a straightforward tackle off the scrum and the ballsing up a simple two on one.

[Banquo]

Geez, Tigers handling errors in that first half were horrendous.

Stormers super physical and just throwing themselves at everything. They've got some depth in that squad and their head coach Dobson has done a great job with them.

Steward looks rattled at the back. The Stormers chasers are getting airborne and are focusing more on jumping into him than really going for the ball. Has thrown him way off his stride.

Errors from Hanro Liebenburg has had a 14 point swing. Missing a straightforward tackle off the scrum and the ballsing up a simple two on one.

decent rally so far....

[p/d]

Kata is a cracking player

[Epaminondas Pules]

Fucking hell we are boring! As a tigers and England fan I am genuinely losing my love for this game! It’s just fucking dull!

[FKAS]

Fucking hell we are boring! As a tigers and England fan I am genuinely losing my love for this game! It’s just fucking dull!

What's frustrating is that we are trying to do more in the wider channels but are often getting it wrong. What really pisses me off is the forward carrying where there is just no imagination. One pop and crash, any side that can stand up physically will stop us. The good attacking teams have little tip ons available and it just stops the opposition doubling up on your ball carriers. Weise had two it three tacklers on him every time, one little pop and we were away. The only time we did it Kata scored his second try from all the momentum we suddenly had.

[Banquo]

Kata

amongst pigeons?

[FKAS]

Kata is a cracking player

Passing can be a bit iffy but he's a nice direct option to have in the side. As McKellar likes his attack to do middle, middle and touchline wide Kata does a good job of holding the defence.