Gloucester vs Sale - Sat 4.30pm

[Puja]

Gloucester: 15 Kyle Moyle, 14 Louis Rees-Zammit, 13 Chris Harris, 12 Mark Atkinson, 11 Jonny May, 10 Lloyd Evans, 9 Stephen Varney, 8 Ruan Ackermann, 7 Lewis Ludlow (c), 6 Jordy Reid, 5 Alex Craig, 4 Ed Slater, 3 Fraser Balmain, 2 James Hanson, 1 Val Rapava-Ruskin
Replacements: 16 Henry Walker, 17 Alex Seville, 18 Jamal Ford-Robinson, 19 Matt Garvey, 20 Seb Nagle-Taylor, 21 Toby Venner, 22 Billy Twelvetrees, 23 Ollie Thorley

Sale Sharks: 15 Sam James, 14 Tom Roebuck, 13 Robert du Preez, 12 Sam Hill, 11 Marland Yarde, 10 AJ MacGinty, 9 Faf de Klerk, 8 Daniel du Preez, 7 Tom Curry, 6 Jono Ross (c), 5 JP du Preez, 4 Cobus Wiese, 3 Coenie Oosthuizen, 2 Akker van der Merwe, 1 Bevan Rodd
Replacements: 16 Curtis Langdon, 17 Valerey Morozov, 18 Jake Cooper-Woolley, 19 Josh Beaumont, 20 Sam Dugdale, 21 Will Cliff, 22 Luke James, 23 Byron McGuigan

[Mellsblue]

Not particularly entertaining. IMO, Dickson is being far too lenient with the attacking team at the ruck. Lots of times the ball carrier has been allowed to hold on to prevent a jackal.

[Raggs]

Not particularly entertaining. IMO, Dickson is being far too lenient with the attacking team at the ruck. Lots of times the ball carrier has been allowed to hold on to prevent a jackal.

Sort of agree, however have heard him tell players that he can't reward them whilst another player is causing an issue. So it may be he's trying to help a flowing game, if he doesn't feel the attacking team hasn't been significantly slowed.

Would personally prefer a few more blown up and get a flowing game from that.

[Mellsblue]

Love the decision to overturn that knock on from Balmain, though.

[Raggs]

Love the decision to overturn that knock on from Balmain, though.

Was just about to post that .

[Mellsblue]

Beautiful from Glos flyhalf.

[Puja]

Love the decision to overturn that knock on from Balmain, though.

Was just about to post that .

Basically, he can now make as many mistakes as he likes for the rest of the match and I'm still going to rate him as having had an excellent game for being the first referee in ages to give a penalty for congratulatory head-patting.

Puja

[Raggs]

Love the decision to overturn that knock on from Balmain, though.

Was just about to post that .

Basically, he can now make as many mistakes as he likes for the rest of the match and I'm still going to rate him as having had an excellent game for being the first referee in ages to give a penalty for congratulatory head-patting.

Puja

I'm positive I've seen one of them in the past month or so. Can't remember which game though.

[Mellsblue]

This is sooooooo boring I’m actually hoping they start kicking it more.

[Raggs]

Loved the response from Dickson from the player looking for a card "We've not been down here in a while..."

[FKAS]

Dan du Preez might have a few games off after this one. Player always dipping should mean it's not that many but Manu didn't get much leniency.

Seeing this performance from Sale do we start showing more appreciation for Diamond and what he managed to do with them.

[Raggs]

Dan du Preez might have a few games off after this one. Player always dipping should mean it's not that many but Manu didn't get much leniency.

Seeing this performance from Sale do we start showing more appreciation for Diamond and what he managed to do with them.

I think it was nasty more than illegal.

I appreciated what Diamond achieved when he had no money, but now it's just the whole side seemingly under-performing, just perhaps a bit more than before.

[FKAS]

Dan du Preez might have a few games off after this one. Player always dipping should mean it's not that many but Manu didn't get much leniency.

Seeing this performance from Sale do we start showing more appreciation for Diamond and what he managed to do with them.

I think it was nasty more than illegal.

I appreciated what Diamond achieved when he had no money, but now it's just the whole side seemingly under-performing, just perhaps a bit more than before.

Diamond took them top 6 though. Two losses and now a narrow win against the bottom club in the Prem isn't a great showing from Deacon with the same squad.

[FKAS]

Brawl at the end was a bit more lively. Yarde perhaps lucky there was no close up footage of his altercation with I think LRZ in amongst the barrier. Looked like the young man might have been roughed up a bit.

Naughty from the water boy but stupid from Twelvetrees. Turned an attacking situation to possibly win the game into game over.

[Puja]

Brawl at the end was a bit more lively. Yarde perhaps lucky there was no close up footage of his altercation with I think LRZ in amongst the barrier. Looked like the young man might have been roughed up a bit.

Naughty from the water boy but stupid from Twelvetrees. Turned an attacking situation to possibly win the game into game over.

TBH, I don't think the waterboy was drastically out of line. The ball came straight to him and he bent forward to touch it - slightly d*ckish, perhaps, but it's not in the same region as moving to catch a ball or reaching to bat a ball away. He could quite reasonably say he was reacting to a ball coming to him and was going to pass it up to 12T.

I'm not sure how 12T escaped a red, tbh. You can't attack someone who's not on the pitch, full stop, no matter how annoyed you are. I think there'll be a few people interesting the citing commissioner from that game - Jono Ross will probably just get away with his shoulder check, but if that challenge was in a Wales vs England game, we'd be bracing ourselves for a week's worth of Welshmen whining and examining in minute detail to see if shoulder met chin.

Puja

[fivepointer]

Much as i dislike him playing for England, there's no doubt Glos are a far better side with Heinz at SH. They really could do with him back ASAP.
Quite a feisty game all round i thought.

[Mellsblue]

Ugo’s ankles must be freezing. Good job he has the hat, scarf and gloves to keep him warm.....

[chris1850]

Ugo’s ankles must be freezing. Good job he has the hat, scarf and gloves to keep him warm.....

And the hot air

[Raggs]

Brawl at the end was a bit more lively. Yarde perhaps lucky there was no close up footage of his altercation with I think LRZ in amongst the barrier. Looked like the young man might have been roughed up a bit.

Naughty from the water boy but stupid from Twelvetrees. Turned an attacking situation to possibly win the game into game over.

TBH, I don't think the waterboy was drastically out of line. The ball came straight to him and he bent forward to touch it - slightly d*ckish, perhaps, but it's not in the same region as moving to catch a ball or reaching to bat a ball away. He could quite reasonably say he was reacting to a ball coming to him and was going to pass it up to 12T.

I'm not sure how 12T escaped a red, tbh. You can't attack someone who's not on the pitch, full stop, no matter how annoyed you are. I think there'll be a few people interesting the citing commissioner from that game - Jono Ross will probably just get away with his shoulder check, but if that challenge was in a Wales vs England game, we'd be bracing ourselves for a week's worth of Welshmen whining and examining in minute detail to see if shoulder met chin.

Puja

The waterboy was the other side of the hoardings. He had absolutely no reason to interfere but to prevent the quick throw. 12T over reacted, but the water boy needs a fine, or a ban from being water boy, ban from pitchside etc.

[Gloskarlos]

Du Preez has to be banned for that, he tracks the head and follows it all the way to impact and there’s plenty of force. 36 shouldn’t have reacted. I get his frustration though, it’s foul play by the water carrier, and sending him off makes no difference whatsoever, sanction should be sterner for that and affecting the team he represents. That said, once again we are masters of our own downfall. Missed kicks and too many pens. Very questionable scrum pen to Sale too towards the end. I can understand Skivington being annoyed by those three decisions.

[chris1850]

Du Preez has to be banned for that, he tracks the head and follows it all the way to impact and there’s plenty of force. 36 shouldn’t have reacted. I get his frustration though, it’s foul play by the water carrier, and sending him off makes no difference whatsoever, sanction should be sterner for that and affecting the team he represents. That said, once again we are masters of our own downfall. Missed kicks and too many pens. Very questionable scrum pen to Sale too towards the end. I can understand Skivington being annoyed by those three decisions.

Agree that DDP was lucky not to have been penalised at the very least.

12T was equally stupid though. You cannot push a non player like he did. He should have pointed out the incident to Dickson who may well have awarded a penalty to Glos. The argument about preventing a quick lineout though is completely spurious because if you watch the incident again, Curry and Morozov, amongst several others, are clearly in a position to prevent it.

Finally, if Dimes had made the comments Skivington did, he would be up before the beak next week.

[FKAS]

Du Preez has to be banned for that, he tracks the head and follows it all the way to impact and there’s plenty of force. 36 shouldn’t have reacted. I get his frustration though, it’s foul play by the water carrier, and sending him off makes no difference whatsoever, sanction should be sterner for that and affecting the team he represents. That said, once again we are masters of our own downfall. Missed kicks and too many pens. Very questionable scrum pen to Sale too towards the end. I can understand Skivington being annoyed by those three decisions.

I don't think it's in anyway intentional. Shoulder contact is the top the back and bottom of the neck you'd need to slow it down to get a proper look. Plenty of force so if it does make contact with head first then it's a ban, might get some weeks knocked off for the playing dipping significantly but Manu didn't and North was basically on the floor.

[Gloskarlos]

Not equal at all, one is absolute foul play, the other is stupidity. Seems Nigel Owens is in agreement, it’s going through Twitter like a rash.

If you notice the tone and wording of skivington in the interview it’s light years away from that which historically has come from Dimes.

[chris1850]

Pot and kettle?

[Gloskarlos]

Nope. That is also foul play. That should be cited too.

As should the Alleged head butt by Yarde.