RugbyRebels

Bristol:
15. Charles Piutau; 14. Luke Morahan, 13. Piers O’Conor, 12. Siale Piutau, 11. Henry Purdy; 10. Ioan Lloyd, 9. Andy Uren; 1. Nahuel Tetaz Chaparro, 2. Bryan Byrne, 3. John Afoa (c), 4. Dave Attwood, 5. Chris Vui, 6. Jake Heenan, 7. Dan Thomas, 8. Nathan Hughes.

Subs players: 16. Will Capon, 17. Jake Woolmore, 18. Jake Armstrong, 19. Ed Holmes, 20. Fitz Harding, 21. Tom Kessell, 22. Sam Bedlow, 23. Alapati Leiua.

Unavailable: Harry Thacker, Yann Thomas, Kyle Sinckler, Max Lahiff, Joe Joyce, Ben Earl, James Dun, Steven Luatua, Harry Randall, Chris Cook, Callum Sheedy, Max Malins, Semi Radradra.

The unavailable list is really depressing.....

Gloucester:
1 V Rapaua 2 H Walker 3 F Balmain 4 M Garvey 5 M Alemanno 6J Gibson 7 L ludlow 8 F Clarke
9 W Heinz 10 B Twelvetrees 11O Thorley 12 M Atkinson 13 H Trinder 14 S Carreras 15 J Woodward

Bench Socino, Seville, Ford -Robinson, Craig, Morgan, Chapman , Kvesladze.

Same back line as they played against L Irish but five changes to the pack that started at Brentford including a changed Front Row.

Haven't seen Gloucester play so no idea what to expect here.

Even with that injury list, I’d expect a comfortable win for Bristol.

Glos are bottom for a reason.....

They've not had much luck with injuries tbf. They do miss Slater quite a bit. They do score tries though, so there is something to build on.

No fear of anything other than a Brizzle win here. Been reading lots of interesting info around the Glos rebuild, it’s a proper bottom up, out with everything regime. Which, whilst I hope will bring a longer term sustainability results/performance improvement, means right now we are all at sea. A LBP would be as much as I would hope for out of this, but given our defensive strategy has yet to be ingrained properly, a TBP might be more likely. We are bereft of 10’s (36 ain’t one) and our front row in particular hooker is a problem area with injuries we have. Interested to see how Morgan manages after nearly a year out. We miss Polledri massively. This is the only team that can be mustered, not just Briz with a large number of unavailables.

Nice to see Henry Trinder getting a run for Gloucester at close to 32 years old. 7-8 years ago he looked to have all the goods - skill, footwork, pace etc. to become an England regular, but had a cruel run of injuries. At his (short) peak, a great centre.

Spiffy wrote:Nice to see Henry Trinder getting a run for Gloucester at close to 32 years old. 7-8 years ago he looked to have all the goods - skill, footwork, pace etc. to become an England regular, but had a cruel run of injuries. At his (short) peak, a great centre.

Yep. Many years ago I put up a poll on here (well, a previous iteration) and subsequent discussion about who would be England’s long term 13: Tuilagi, Trinder or Lowe. I think I may have cursed them all.

Wins a win but that was not pretty. Hopefully Bryne and Hughes aren't too badly crocked! POC had another good game and Lloyd is growing into the 10 spot.

Hopefully a better performance and no more injuries next week!

Can’t believe we threw that away.

Mellsblue wrote:

Spiffy wrote:Nice to see Henry Trinder getting a run for Gloucester at close to 32 years old. 7-8 years ago he looked to have all the goods - skill, footwork, pace etc. to become an England regular, but had a cruel run of injuries. At his (short) peak, a great centre.

Yep. Many years ago I put up a poll on here (well, a previous iteration) and subsequent discussion about who would be England’s long term 13: Tuilagi, Trinder or Lowe. I think I may have cursed them all.

Noted for the future (for 12s mostly, but still)

Glos should be encouraged by that performance. They showed a fair bit of tenacity and competed strongly. They looked a lot better defensively. Scrum good, line out needs work.

[quote="Mellsblue"
Yep. Many years ago I put up a poll on here (well, a previous iteration) and subsequent discussion about who would be England’s long term 13: Tuilagi, Trinder or Lowe. I think I may have cursed them all.
[/quote]

Can you do one for Farrell please?

jimKRFC wrote:
The unavailable list is really depressing.....

.

It's the number of English players in that team which is depressing, and even that small number is inflated by Hughes. Brizzle are managing to be back in the top flight, top of the top flight even, and still largely irrelevant to English rugby. Which is a neat trick in its own way

Digby wrote:

jimKRFC wrote:
The unavailable list is really depressing.....

.

It's the number of English players in that team which is depressing, and even that small number is inflated by Hughes. Brizzle are managing to be back in the top flight, top of the top flight even, and still largely irrelevant to English rugby. Which is a neat trick in its own way

You're aware that they currently have 4 players away with England, right?

Puja

Puja wrote:

Digby wrote:

jimKRFC wrote:
The unavailable list is really depressing.....

.

It's the number of English players in that team which is depressing, and even that small number is inflated by Hughes. Brizzle are managing to be back in the top flight, top of the top flight even, and still largely irrelevant to English rugby. Which is a neat trick in its own way

You're aware that they currently have 4 players away with England, right?

Puja

Guess it depends on how you want to class Malins and Earls?

Raggs wrote:

Puja wrote:

Digby wrote:
It's the number of English players in that team which is depressing, and even that small number is inflated by Hughes. Brizzle are managing to be back in the top flight, top of the top flight even, and still largely irrelevant to English rugby. Which is a neat trick in its own way

You're aware that they currently have 4 players away with England, right?

Puja

Guess it depends on how you want to class Malins and Earls?

Even if I added on 4 players away with England they'd be all the way up to a pathetically small number of English players

Not entirely sure what this has to do with the Gloucester game...

But Mako and Ellis came through at Bristol, so that's 6 that Bristol have contributed to. Think Billy was in the set up but only briefly.

I wouldn't contend is does relate to Glaws, but the discussion does seem to touch in part on the Bristol lineup, and what I take from the lineup is they're not especially relevant to England with that mix of players.

Brizzle though are perhaps copying how Sarries went when starting to build an impressive squad, not enough English and (certainly until Covid relief) looking a tad unrealistic vis a vis the cap. Truly there are no new things under this sun

Digby wrote:

Raggs wrote:

Puja wrote:
You're aware that they currently have 4 players away with England, right?

Puja

Guess it depends on how you want to class Malins and Earls?

Even if I added on 4 players away with England they'd be all the way up to a pathetically small number of English players

But still more EPS players than half the Prem, which is quite impressive considering how little time they've had in the top flight. Suggests they're looking to buy English where the option is there. But if we're going by bulk numbers, you'll notice only 3 of the unavailable list aren't EQP (and one of them is Sheedy).

Puja

Puja wrote:

Digby wrote:

Raggs wrote:
Guess it depends on how you want to class Malins and Earls?

Even if I added on 4 players away with England they'd be all the way up to a pathetically small number of English players

But still more EPS players than half the Prem, which is quite impressive considering how little time they've had in the top flight. Suggests they're looking to buy English where the option is there. But if we're going by bulk numbers, you'll notice only 3 of the unavailable list aren't EQP (and one of them is Sheedy).

Puja

In that lineup?

Digby wrote:

Puja wrote:

Digby wrote:
Even if I added on 4 players away with England they'd be all the way up to a pathetically small number of English players

But still more EPS players than half the Prem, which is quite impressive considering how little time they've had in the top flight. Suggests they're looking to buy English where the option is there. But if we're going by bulk numbers, you'll notice only 3 of the unavailable list aren't EQP (and one of them is Sheedy).

Puja

In that lineup?

12 from the 23 are English. If there weren't internationals right now (even assuming no injuries to Luatua and Radradra), they'd have 15 (plus Sheedy, who is English developed). I don't see why they're particularly attracting your ire rather than someone like Sale.

Puja

Digby wrote:I wouldn't contend is does relate to Glaws, but the discussion does seem to touch in part on the Bristol lineup, and what I take from the lineup is they're not especially relevant to England with that mix of players.

Brizzle though are perhaps copying how Sarries went when starting to build an impressive squad, not enough English and (certainly until Covid relief) looking a tad unrealistic vis a vis the cap. Truly there are no new things under this sun

So not related at all then. Happy to discuss EQP, or salary caps, on the those threads when you start them and lay what's acceptable to you & how well your club does.

Will leave it on this thread though.

jimKRFC wrote:

Digby wrote:I wouldn't contend is does relate to Glaws, but the discussion does seem to touch in part on the Bristol lineup, and what I take from the lineup is they're not especially relevant to England with that mix of players.

Brizzle though are perhaps copying how Sarries went when starting to build an impressive squad, not enough English and (certainly until Covid relief) looking a tad unrealistic vis a vis the cap. Truly there are no new things under this sun

So not related at all then. Happy to discuss EQP, or salary caps, on the those threads when you start them and lay what's acceptable to you & how well your club does.

Will leave it on this thread though.

As ever if you going to try and limit where a conversation on an internet thread goes I wish you luck.

Puja wrote:

Digby wrote:

Puja wrote:
But still more EPS players than half the Prem, which is quite impressive considering how little time they've had in the top flight. Suggests they're looking to buy English where the option is there. But if we're going by bulk numbers, you'll notice only 3 of the unavailable list aren't EQP (and one of them is Sheedy).

Puja

In that lineup?

12 from the 23 are English. If there weren't internationals right now (even assuming no injuries to Luatua and Radradra), they'd have 15 (plus Sheedy, who is English developed). I don't see why they're particularly attracting your ire rather than someone like Sale.

Puja

I'm perfectly happy to criticise beyond Brizzle, but looking at the XV (and I didn't in truth look at the bench) my instant reaction was 'that's pants'

When the non-EPS are the likes of Afoa, Vui, Luatua, Radradra and Piatua, I’m happy enough with the make up of the Bristol squad. I’ve no issue with world class imports. It’s the squad fillers and average 1st teamers that annoy me.