User avatar
By Stevie J
#5747
Will be an interesting one for sure. I don't think I have ever seen a London Irish team beat Scarlets. Ever.

I could certainly see a lot of players rotated in however to keep others fresh for the Premiership. Would it be worthwhile to give a few of our late starters (RWC) a run out, such as Phipps, Mafi, Motu?

Also, you can watch LIVE on S4Chttps://www.london-irish.com/news/watch ... 4c/bp2373/.

Popty Ping.
By bigbitty
#5750
Ah Popty Ping - a microwave for those not in the know!

I ike the word for traffic humps - twmpathau (which my mind always reads as thumpaties!
By Margin_Walker
#5751
So what kind of team are we selecting? I'm not going to hazard a guess other than to assume there will be plenty of changes. Certainly won't include Rona or Meehan who both seem to be on holiday going by their social media. Guessing the likes of Botha, Loader, Hoskins, and Naholo will also be taken out of the firing line for a few weeks.

In fact I'd go with something like this:

Elrington,
Matu'u
Chawatama
Mafi
Maddison
Nott
Gilsenan
Rogerson
Phipps
Atkins
Hassel Collins
Stephenson
Macken
Williams
Veitokani

Goodrick-Clarke, Atkins, Cilliers, Munya, Curtis-Harris, Steele, Campbell, Fowlie
By GC89
#5765
Very close to what I would expect MW, although it looks like Myler will have some involvement based on his prominence in preview material on social media. I think Mafi may be given another week or two to integrate and learn the calls based on his first interview with us. I would personally have Campbell or Williams at 13 ahead of Macken, who I don't really rate.
By GHA
#5773
London Irish:

15 Tom Parton
14 Brendan Macken
13 Tom Stephenson
12 Bryce Campbell
11 Ollie Hassell-Collins
10 Stephen Myler ©
9 Nick Phipps

1 Harry Elrington
2 Motu Matu’u
3 Patric Cilliers
4 Barney Maddison
5 George Nott
6 Ben Donnell
7 Conor Gilsenan
8 Matt Rogerson.

Replacements:

16 Ross McMillan
17 Danny Hobbs-Awoyemi
18 Lovejoy Chawatama
19 Jack Cooke
20 Isaac Curtis-Harris
21 Scott Steele
22 Jacob Atkins
23 Matt Williams
By GHA
#5775
Scaaaaaaaaaalets:

15 Johnny McNicholl
14 Corey Baldwin
13 Steff Hughes (capt)
12 Kieron Fonotia
11 Steff Evans
10 Dan Jones
9 Kieran Hardy

1 Rob Evans
2 Taylor Davies
3 Werner Kruger
4 Lewis Rawlins
5 Tevita Ratuva
6 Uzair Cassiem
7 Josh Macleod
8 Blade Thomson

Replacements:

16 Marc Jones
17 Phil Price
18 Samson Lee
19 Steve Cummins
20 Jac Morgan
21 Dane Blacker
22 Ryan Lamb :shifty:
23 Morgan Williams
User avatar
By Narbia
#5782
Who knows? With fast ball and quick runners, we might just knock up a decent score.
This one I doubt very much will be an arm wrestle. :shifty:
By GC89
#5789
Very strong Scarlets team - will be a real test of character for our younger lads.
By Margin_Walker
#5845
Think we could be in trouble with Maddison going off as it gives us a very lightweight pack . We'll see though

Like what I've seen so far of Donnell. Hits pretty hard in defence.
By Margin_Walker
#5848
Probably an okay result given the team selected, but disappointed at how the final ten went. Just couldn't catch a break
By GHA
#5849
http://imgur.com/a/7FP39qh

I might be wrong, but red 7 comes in the side and kills the ball does he not? Big swing there, penalty for us in their 22 with the opportunity of 3 or a kick to the corner, instead their scrum which turns into their penalty and we barely see their 22 again rest of the game.

Good result given the side, but I thought our attack was a little less crisp than usual. I can understand being a little less adventurous but it felt like of the things we tried very little was clicking. Oh, and we kicked too much away.
By Margin_Walker
#5850
GHA wrote:
Sat Nov 16, 2019 9:51 pm
http://imgur.com/a/7FP39qh

I might be wrong, but red 7 comes in the side and kills the ball does he not? Big swing there, penalty for us in their 22 with the opportunity of 3 or a kick to the corner, instead their scrum which turns into their penalty and we barely see their 22 again rest of the game.

Good result given the side, but I thought our attack was a little less crisp than usual. I can understand being a little less adventurous but it felt like of the things we tried very little was clicking. Oh, and we kicked too much away.
Yeah, got pretty frustrated by that one. He's no right to be there as he wasn't part of the maul. You could argue that it was a tackle anyway as he'd broken away. Either way it 100% wasn't legal.

You win some, you lose some though. It was probably just about a fair result.

Agree about our attack. We played a fairly conservative game and Bryce at 12 doesn't exactly help in the distributions stakes. Main positive for me was the defence. Lots of young lads making big hits. They had to resort to the boot (which worked pretty well tbf) to get through us.
User avatar
By Narbia
#5852
GHA wrote:
Sat Nov 16, 2019 10:04 pm
Defense was excellent yet again, I thought
Yeah. Quality game time for the youngsters and a couple of fringe players.
User avatar
By Stevie J
#5920
I finally got a chance to watch the game off the Sky box today. For a newbie I thought Ben Donnell did a lot of good things;

  • After a Scarlets kick is fielded by Parton who starts the counter attack. Donnell shows good hands and calmness, involved twice as we getup the park, earn a penalty which eventually leads to Irish scoring a try through Motu’u.
  • Near the end of the first half, a really good tackle by Donnell on Kruger to force the bad pass and knock on by Steff Evans.
  • Right at the start of the second half he and Gilsenan combined for a great double tackle knocking the Scarlets attacker back several metres.
  • After their second try the Scarlets breakthrough and are 5m out. He times his move well, pounces on the loose ball as the 9 takes it out and offloads to Lovejoy, allowing us to clear our lines.
  • Finally after a dodgy Parton kick is taken by Hassell-Collins, Steele kicks down to Steff Evans and Donnell wraps up him up to keep the Scarlets down in the 22.
For a first year Academy forward I thought all that, that I noticed anyway, was tremendous.
By Margin_Walker
#5922
He's second year, albeit pretty young as he's an August birthday. Pretty promising though and hope he gets some Eng U20s game time this season.

Him and Gilsenan combined well.
MattM liked this
User avatar
By MattM
#5923
He was called up by u20s last season but got injured and didn't get any game time but I expect him, Ben Atkins and Chunya Munga to be around the squad at the least.
Margin_Walker liked this
By Margin_Walker
#5925
MattM wrote:
Tue Nov 19, 2019 7:46 am
He was called up by u20s last season but got injured and didn't get any game time but I expect him, Ben Atkins and Chunya Munga to be around the squad at the least.
Yeah, saw him named in the U20s training squad this time last year and assumed he was injured as he stopped appearing on the team sheet for Esher.

Would expect him, Munya, Atkins, Moore-Aiono, Green and Cokanasiga to be in with a shot this season. Rossiter may have been too, but he seems to be injured again.

Green, Cokanasiga and Rossiter have two years of eligibility left. The others just have this season.

I just don't buy this idea that we're focusing on […]

Team vs Exeter

Is Reed on the naughty step (I thought he was go[…]

Malt https://www.houseofmalt.co.uk/wp-content/up[…]

The full back berth is the one I'm more concerned […]