Have to admire Itoje… Doesn’t matter what shit is going on around him he always performs
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Itoje got sick of the scrum half there and got caught for a penalty
Another chop tackle
Ireland did it from the start of professionalism. The difference was that Ireland had ready made provincial teams with an identity whereas Wales didn’t. Scotland did it too.
Did they have any other choice though?
Llanelli were the only club team that was competing well under the pre-2003 system.
I’m sure I recall Leinster demolishing Swansea something like 52-0 in Swansea in the Heineken Cup in the final season Swansea competed as a stand alone club. That was a situation that could’n’t continue.
It was well known for a long time that Gatland was leaving after the 2019 World Cup. Of course he was going to stick with them. He wanted to win the World Cup!
He himself had brought through a golden generation of Welsh players eight years earlier.
Same as I can never understand the flak Declan Kidney gets for Munster declining after he left in 2008. You simply do not dispense with generational talents for the sake of the “future”. Rarely do you get two generational groups one after the other. Were Mick O’Dwyer or Alex Ferguson to blame for the decline of Kerry and Manchester United after they left?
Pivac has been coach for three years now. He largely stuck with those players too. Grass roots and youth structures in Wales are what appear to have stopped bearing fruit. That’s the WRU’s job.
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There was a lot more messing with Neath Swansea and Newport Gwent in recent times which always felt like a reset of a reset and didn’t accomplish anything. They had to try something but they tried flirting away to the Gallagher side a bit too often and are now an afterthought since the Bok sides came into the URC.
England on the way back?
Game on Ger
Marcus Smith unconverted penalty could be the difference.
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This is a great match.
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If Youngs came on earlier this would be the tan’s for the taking
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Mack Hansen mom 33/1
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Well now.
By God
Some comeback… They had most of the play from about min 20 on just couldn’t make it count
Marcus Smith kicks the ball out, when in possession and a man up
Not officer class
Ireland have clearly mentally destroyed New Zealand
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Write Eddie Jones off at your peril! The World Cup is all set up for him next year. Much easier side of the draw.
The All Blacks are finished.
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The Twickenham faithful didn’t appreciate that.
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That Smith went down in my estimation like Carberry in Japan
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Peril
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