Scots Abroad VIII (or let's spot the new messiah)

[Cameo]

Sounds like Finn had a good game. Racing are some team to watch.

[septic 9]

Sounds like Finn had a good game. Racing are some team to watch.

not the best opponents, but he gave a training ground exhibition of how to open a rush defence, without Vakatawa (injured and missed game). Mind Racing have some set of backs even without him, and going to be even better shortly (Boffelli).
Russell's range of passing flat from the gain line was there, but what stood out was his attacking kicking game, frequency and variety.
Had one blocked which could have led to conceding a try from half way, but had it cleared it was a nailed on Racing try - I mention this because it wasn't a Finn thing, it was an obvious training ground planned move

[Chunks Baws]

Jamie Bhatti has joined Bath with immediate effect.

[Mikey Brown]

Hmm. Good for him if he can get game time, but he’ll surely be behind Obano at least. It didn’t seem like a very useful move going from 2nd/3rd choice at Glasgow to 3rd at Edinburgh.

He has a good mix of aggression and physicality, so if Bath can help him improve as a player that would be great. Kebble not looked too hot for Scotland so far.

[Big D]

Hmm. Good for him if he can get game time, but he’ll surely be behind Obano at least. It didn’t seem like a very useful move going from 2nd/3rd choice at Glasgow to 3rd at Edinburgh.

He has a good mix of aggression and physicality, so if Bath can help him improve as a player that would be great. Kebble not looked too hot for Scotland so far.

I suspect there were long term concerns about Sutherland after his horror injury. Good move for him.

[switchskier]

Jamie Bhatti has joined Bath with immediate effect.

Moving him on makes a decent amount of sense as he's clearly third choice and blocking some of the younger players from getting game time. Bath's a weird choice though. They've got a deep stable of props beyond Obano in Schoeman and Boyce. He'll do well to get game time

[septic 9]

Jamie Bhatti has joined Bath with immediate effect.

Moving him on makes a decent amount of sense as he's clearly third choice and blocking some of the younger players from getting game time. Bath's a weird choice though. They've got a deep stable of props beyond Obano in Schoeman and Boyce. He'll do well to get game time

its only an injury joker move until end of season. Won't be back, might be lucky to pick up another contract. Another Cockerill/SRU fuck up. Bhatti was comfortably pushing Kebble at Glasgow, but Rennie signs Seuili, unnecessarily) and Cockerill screams for a Glasgow player to cover injuries instead of short term cover. Now we have player from the last Scotland squad possibly out of the game.

[Big D]

Jamie Bhatti has joined Bath with immediate effect.

Moving him on makes a decent amount of sense as he's clearly third choice and blocking some of the younger players from getting game time. Bath's a weird choice though. They've got a deep stable of props beyond Obano in Schoeman and Boyce. He'll do well to get game time

its only an injury joker move until end of season. Won't be back, might be lucky to pick up another contract. Another Cockerill/SRU fuck up. Bhatti was comfortably pushing Kebble at Glasgow, but Rennie signs Seuili, unnecessarily) and Cockerill screams for a Glasgow player to cover injuries instead of short term cover. Now we have player from the last Scotland squad possibly out of the game.

He needs to back himself to claim a permanent move (or maybe get a move back to Glasgow). Sitting behind and comfortably behind the other two at Edinburgh isn't doing anyone any good. I think Bhatti has been hurt by mismanagement, Sutherland bouncing back better than anyone could have hoped and he himself not playing well enough to get ahead of the other two which does sit with him.

With Schoeman and Sutherland marginally younger and at the moment better (despite some concerns over PS) it makes sense for him personally to move on.

[Big D]

No league/cup games for the Sarries lads before the 6N.

[Cameo]

I'm not his biggest fan anyway but I have real concerns about Duncan Taylor playing if he has had no game time. He can turn quite lumber-y

[AL.]

https://www.ruck.co.uk/ranked-the-10-fa ... iership/2/

I thought Dunbar broke the record for fastest ever Scottish player (or was it fastest accelerating) seems odd.... where is he now....

[Cameo]

https://www.ruck.co.uk/ranked-the-10-fa ... iership/2/

I thought Dunbar broke the record for fastest ever Scottish player (or was it fastest accelerating) seems odd.... where is he now....

Yeah, it was a try against Italy when him and Matt Scott looked like a future Lions partnership! Always seemed a bit of an outlier though his injuries didn't help him.

[General Zod]

Article on Jamie Bhatti here. Sounds like he is better off out of SRU employment.

https://www.rugbypass.com/news/jamie-bh ... edinburgh/

[Big D]

Article on Jamie Bhatti here. Sounds like he is better off out of SRU employment.

https://www.rugbypass.com/news/jamie-bh ... edinburgh/

Think there are two things at play here. Unsurprisingly Cockers man management skills aren't a universally successful set of skills and secondly Bhatti just hasn't upped his game to the level of the other two.

Whether that second point is down to Cockerill and Lawrie or that he just isn't as good as the other two can probably be debated too.

Professional sport is hard. Sometimes coaches are at fault, sometimes the players and sometimes no one. Not sure what applies in this case. No matter which way, best of luck to him at Bath and hopefully he earns a contract somewhere.

[Cameo]

The weight thing does seem narrowly focused. By all means have weight targets for players but it needs to be part of a plan. If players are sitting in saunas then not eating and turning up to training dehydrated just to meet weight targets, something has been lost in translation.

[Big D]

The weight thing does seem narrowly focused. By all means have weight targets for players but it needs to be part of a plan. If players are sitting in saunas then not eating and turning up to training dehydrated just to meet weight targets, something has been lost in translation.

Yeah that was strange. Would hope Edinburgh staff are acting on something more than gut feel. Body fat %, other measurements etc but then as a professional Bhatti would/should be able to get to that weight if achievable.

Seems to be another breakdown in communication.

[Puja]

When Eddie Jones took over England, he infamously chucked a bag of sweets at Ben Youngs's face and asked him if he wanted them more than he wanted more England caps. Now, leaving aside Ben Youngs's many, many flaws as a 9, his fitness has markedly improved since then. However, Eddie Jones has also noted that different players need different things and that Jonny May was a player who need to be loved and supported and believed in. He told May that he could be the best in the world and he wanted to help make that happen. And that's worked out pretty well too.

The major problem with Cockerill is that he thinks everyone's like him. Hard as nails, tough as teak, salt of the earth, if you don't like it work harder, f*ck you if you don't like it, etc. If he's got a team full of those, he gets results, but he's got no nuance, no ability to alter his man management to circumstances or the people he's working with. That description of his Edinburgh regime comes as absolutely no surprise to this Leicester fan.

Puja

[septic 9]

The major problem with Cockerill is that he thinks everyone's like him. Hard as nails, tough as teak, salt of the earth, if you don't like it work harder, f*ck you if you don't like it, etc. If he's got a team full of those, he gets results, but he's got no nuance, no ability to alter his man management to circumstances or the people he's working with. That description of his Edinburgh regime comes as absolutely no surprise to this Leicester fan.

Puja

I've been trying to point this out.
Thing is you don't have to be a Leicester fan to get that. All you had to do was follow Leicester's travails under him after the inherited old guard had dissipated. A long slow decline which he had no clue how to reverse A bit of a one trick pony - or one trick dinosaur
I'll ignore the Eddie Jones bit, except to say that he has as much baggage as Cockerill, just different stuff

[Big D]

The major problem with Cockerill is that he thinks everyone's like him. Hard as nails, tough as teak, salt of the earth, if you don't like it work harder, f*ck you if you don't like it, etc. If he's got a team full of those, he gets results, but he's got no nuance, no ability to alter his man management to circumstances or the people he's working with. That description of his Edinburgh regime comes as absolutely no surprise to this Leicester fan.

Puja

That's true, I feel like he's the man that can start a rebuild at a club that is a shambles, as Edinburgh was, but isn't the man to go that step further.

[whatisthejava]

Looks like we could be adding Hastings (Gloucester) and van der Merwe (Worcester!) to this thread soon.

Glenn Bryce just signed for the LA based rugby team

[switchskier]

The major problem with Cockerill is that he thinks everyone's like him. Hard as nails, tough as teak, salt of the earth, if you don't like it work harder, f*ck you if you don't like it, etc. If he's got a team full of those, he gets results, but he's got no nuance, no ability to alter his man management to circumstances or the people he's working with. That description of his Edinburgh regime comes as absolutely no surprise to this Leicester fan.

Puja

That's true, I feel like he's the man that can start a rebuild at a club that is a shambles, as Edinburgh was, but isn't the man to go that step further.

I think that most of us were highly sceptical when Cockers was appointed. But I have to admit that he won me over in that first season with the run to the QF with Munster and some of the straight talk. We instantly looked better than we had under Solomon's and there seemed to be a really solid base to build off. Let's not forget that it came after he had a similarly positive impact at Toloun.

It seems that he hasn't been able to adapt though, and I'm growing very tired of the constant complaints. I dearly want Edinburgh to have some stability and to stop jumping from one approach to another, but how bad dies it have to get to move on? If form doesn't improve before the 6N then it's time to start looking for a replacement for next season.

[septic 9]

I think that most of us were highly sceptical when Cockers was appointed. .

I'm not sure that is true. You may have been, I certainly had reservations but I think most Edinburgh fans thought he was a bit of a coup, a big name coach they didn't really think was in their reach.
It was always likely he would get an immediate bounce from them. The hard taskmaster was clearly needed to sort out a decade of shit culture at Edinburgh. Yes, it really did exist, the I'm a Scotland player or I play with Scotland players so I'm great trumped I'm a player in a shit Edinburgh team - and had done for years.

But I couldn't ever see him as more than a limited coach with a limited term. And TBF all coaches reach a sell by date, very very few exceptions. Just that some have longer shelf lives if they can see how the game (not just rugby) is changing and change with it, the best get ahead of it. Cockerill has never been like that.

[septic 9]

Looks like we could be adding Hastings (Gloucester) and van der Merwe (Worcester!) to this thread soon.

Glenn Bryce just signed for the LA based rugby team

think his contract was short term and maybe just his 7s contract - he is off in 2 weeks time. Think we'll see one of the young lads in the squad this week, probably McLean

[francoisfou]

Cameron Henderson is coming along nicely at Leicester and put in a good shift this afternoon against Bath, scoring an important try.

[septic 9]

that's Duhan VDM confirmed as a Scot abroad next season