Topic: [Rugby] Union / League / Super / Sixes Sevens Pro14 / Cups & Tours / Olympics - page 61. (Read 14713 times)

^
It would be great to have you back in the thread and on the forum Timelord and hopefully
2022 will bring some more regular contributors to the thread too

Happy new year Timelord and to all the Rugby fans who commented to date.

A Happy New Year to one and all.

Yes, Covid has been playing havoc with games - I've been hearing the various UK Football teams have been impacted this round with players and officials out.

Our covid numbers are slim in Australia compared with UK/IRE/EU Continent, however two family members of mine (one in Victoria, the other here in SEQ) have both been told to isolate and get tested the same day which hits close to home.

At this point, it looks like I'll be able to post perhaps once per week, so I'll try to put together a "weekly wrap up" of information I find online (I might hunt out some small comps not featured on gaming sites too).

This thread needs a bump.

TBH I havent been betting on any games but both the United Championship and the
Heineken Champions Cup, also the Challenge Cup ^{Which I havent been following}

COVID is still playing its part with some games being postponed.

Round 9 of the URC is on tomorrow but 4 matches are postponed and 2 set to play.

This weekend sees tho more competitions starting up in Europe:

The famous "Heineken Champions Cup" and the EPCR Challenge Cup.

The Heineken is the top tier club Rugby Union cross country competition
on the calendar which sees top clubs from England, France, Ireland, Wales
and Scotland play in two pools of 12 teams.

The Challenge cup running beside the Heineken has 4 pools of 5 teams all
pretty much playing for a spot in next years Heineken Cup

https://www.epcrugby.com/2021/12/09/dont-miss-this-seasons-heineken-champions-cup-and-epcr-challenge-cup/

I'm not sure where you can bet on these games, but ATM Sportsbet dont have
any Rugby listed 

United Rugby Championship - Round 7

Three games scheduled for today but one is still postponed in South Africa
between The Bulls and the visiting Scarlets so the Bulls are scheduled to play the Sharks.

The other matches are:
Edinburgh v Benetton - Benetton will be looking to build on their win over Glasgow Warriors
from last week when playing at home.

Leinster v Connacht - Connacht have beaten Leinster before and will be looking to do what
Ulster did last week.

---

On the betting side I dont see Sportsbet listing any of the URC games for the last
number of weeks and their French PRO D2 and TOP14 are listed but betting is closed
on all games. They also have the Rugby 7's world series listed but no betting open.

https://www.world.rugby/sevens-series/teams

So I'm thinking of switching sites to a different gambling platform because maybe
Rugby betting on sportsbet does not have the amount of involvement needed, IDK

---

E D I T 04/12/21

---

Update on the results from yesterday...

Sharks 30 - 16 Bulls

Edinburgh 24 - 10 Benetton - unfortunately Benetton couldnt continue their
win from Glasgow away to Edinburgh. They now sit in second place behind
Leinster but Ulster could go back in to that spot by beating The Ospreys today.

Leinster 47 - 19 Connacht - Leinster were not going to have 2 defeats in a row,
they proved far too strong for the visiting Connacht.

---

E D I T 07.12.21

---

Update from Saturdays games in the URC

Ospreys 19-13 Ulster - A bit of an unexpected result, after a great result against the
"team to beat" last week Ulster cant back it up.

Stormers 19-37 Lions

Glasgow Warriors 33-14  Dragons

I'm not sure it was quick enough though, there have been two confirmed cases in the U.K
and it seems to be more transmissable than the Delta variant. Rugby matches will be
affected as will other sports in December and into the new year.

---

Update on the URC:

Connacht last night came back to winning ways at home by beating The Ospreys 46-18.
I was offered 2 free tickets to go to the match but I would only have made it in for the second
half.

---

E D I T - 02/12/21

---

Update from last weeks URC

While all the South African games were postponed due to Omicron, all the other
scheduled games were played with a few upsets IMO.

Benetton held out to beat the Glasgow Warriors by 1 point - 19 - 18. Looking over the
stats for this game they really read in favour of The Warriors but the Benetton defence
looked to have been able to deal with the attacks from The Warriors. A good result from
Benetton, they are mid table having lost 3 and won 3.

The Dragons were beaten by Edinburgh 14 - 30

And Ulster beat the home team Leinster 10 - 20. Even though it was a low
scoring game Ulster were far superior against the #1 positioned team on the table.

Hopefully this new Omicron variant turns out to be nothing to worry about, but I'm still praying for the world. I'm grateful South Africa detected the new variant so quickly and reported it. Probably saved countless lives, if this thing turns out to be a deadlier new strain.
I hope other countries that see new variants popping up in or coming through their countries catch them and report them quickly and honestly too.

Yes, I've been watching the SBS news just now discussing omacron (I'm learning the Latan alphabet one variant at a time)

We will probably see limited international games in the coming year and similar the the NRL where there were concentrated hubs if players isolated from the rest of the community.

UNITED RUGBY CHAMPIONSHIP

The competition is back up and running for this weekend with round 6, Connacht are
at home to The Ospreys. Strangely enough Connacht can perform better at away games
than they do at home.

Saturday sees all the South African teams playing at home.

Stormers v Zebre
Benetton v Glasgow Warriors
Sharks v Scarlets
Dragons v Edinburgh
Bulls v Munster
Leinster v Ulster

---

E D I T

---

[quote = https://www.unitedrugby.com/latest/news/sa-r6-r7-postponed]R6 & R7 South African Home Games Postponed Due to New Covid Regulations[/quote]

The new "South African" strain of COVID-19 has been detected and is already
on the move with a case diagnosed already in Belgium.

---

I tried to put some bets on the URC games this weekend but Sportsbet dont have any games
listed which is dissapointing, Connaught are leading The Ospreys ATM.

In Ireland a player say from South Africa playing for one of the provinces can become
eligible to play for Ireland after 3 years, if they decide or are forced back to their
native country for any number of reasons they could play international rugby for their
native country with this new rule.

Hmmm thinking about it more I dont think it is or will be utilised much.

I can imagine there are a lot of south pacific players who try for New Zealand but
have to switch back to their own country to get games as you guys point out.

I'm really not a fan of this change. I'm just not sure what's the incentive to doing this? We have clubs where players move around quite frequently, and while year 3 years is a decent amount of time, especially considering Rugby players generally have a shorter time playing than other athletes, but I don't know it just takes a lot of the commitment away from me.

Although, I can't see too many players actually doing this, at least current internationals. I guess this is useful for those that have selected a nation to play for, but never get the opportunity to play for them. Otherwise, I feel like players switching when they play regular rugby for a nation to another, would just be frowned upon by most.

I suspect the majority of the time it would be the other way around, those wanting to play for New Zealand not making the squad, therefore switch in favour of playing more regular.

A Tongan or Samoan player switching to play for New Zealand.  Possibly even Fiji.

Ah yes, games between the tip tier teams will always command more interest
and have the potential to create memorable games, doesnt always work out that way.

---

News out today from World Rugby has a big rule change


https://www.bbc.com/sport/rugby-union/59406025

On the face of it, it sounds good.
3 years seems like a long stand down period and can be a very large portion of a players
carreer. What are the situations where a player would change country?

I actually think that's a good thing in so far as it makes for more thrilling games knowing the teams are ranked so close together.  It'd be an entirely different match if the last place were to face-off against the first place and loose (as everyone expected) - hardly worth going along to watch.

^
It just goes to show how close it is in the World Rugby Union rankings, New Zealand
lost 2 of their games in the Autumn Internationals and are bumped to 2nd place by South
Africa who won 2 of 3 but had a poor Championship outing.

There are only 5 points seperating the top 5 teams ATM

https://www.world.rugby/tournaments/rankings/mru

Super Rugby Pacific: Ten unlucky players who missed out on contracts

Paul Cully05:00, Nov 23 2021

https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/super-rugby/127059151/super-rugby-pacific-ten-unlucky-players-who-missed-out-on-contracts - Archive [1a] [1b]

---

---

All Blacks' precarious world ranking adds to uneasy summer

Stuff sports reporters07:19, Nov 23 2021

https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/international/127067517/all-blacks-precarious-world-ranking-adds-to-uneasy-summer - Archive [2a] [2b]

. . . And we think everyone wants to watch our games . . .
We were ranked #1 not too long ago, I think going into the last world cup
Ireland had the #1 world ranking but unfortunately when it comes to RWC
time we are the great under-acheivers.

This coming Saturday we will be treated to essentially a 2019 RWC Final
REPLAY - England v South Africa.
As a reminder the final back in 2019 resulted in SA winning 32 to 12. I
realy dont know how this os going to pan out, SA won the Lions tour
series but didnt go too well in the Rugby Championship and England have
a few new players playing in these test games.

Some other games to watch out for are:

Wales v Australia
France v New Zealand

---

E D I T

---

Results from the final week of the Autumn Internationals:
Italy 17 - 10 Uruguay
Scotland 29 - 20 Japan
England 27 - 26 South Africa
Wales 29 - 28 Australia
France 40 - 25 New Zealand
Ireland 53 - 7 Argentina

Overall it was a good series for the home teams

Italy winning 1 of 3
Scotland winning 3 out of 4
Wales winning 3 out of 4
England winning all 3
Ireland winning all 3

There is one last game to be played next weekend, The Barbarians against Samoa.
France winning all 3

I'm sorry I missed these games.  Of all the above, I think Ireland Vs ?? games are the ones I've seen the least of out of all these teams.

No surprises England beat Australia, they're getting like their League counterparts focusing on one match against one other side (Kiwis) and don't prepare for other teams.

Thanks @Timelord2067, hopefully more people will get involved on the thread.

NRL Womens league starts 27th February and the mens start 10th March, looking forward already.

---

Autumn Internationals

Week 3 is kicking off on Saturday with 6 fixtures over the weekend and 3 big matches
which should yeild some cracking Rugby.

Italy v Argentina

Scotland v South Africa - Scotland will be looking to continue their beating of The Wallabies
                                   with the visiting Springbok's, #2 on world rankings.

Ireland v New Zealand - For us taking on The All Blacks is a massive occasion, in the 32 previous
                                 meetings we have only managed 2 wins and 1 draw which was in 1973!
                                 from the first match in 1905 until 2016 they have beaten us.

England v Australia - World ranged 3 and 4 go up against each other, 2 powerhouses of the game,
                             should make for great viewing

France v Georgia - Its welcome to see Georgia getting a game, they are the top team in tier 2 of
                          the sport, France should win handily here.

Wales v Fiji

---

E D I T

---

Results from yesterdays games:

Argentina beat Italy, no surprise there

South Africa beat Scotland 30 - 15

Ireland against the odds beat New Zealand 29 - 20 - great match, Ireland didnt allow
New Zealand to impose their game. Another historic win by Ireland because its only
the 3rd time.

England did the job against Australia 32 - 15. Far too many errors by Australia, they had
their chances but couldnt finish and too many handling errors.

---

E D I T 2

---

France won against Georgia 41 - 15 which really was to be expected. Eventhough
Georgia would be the top team in Tier 2 of Rugby Union there is still a huge gap
in talent to Tier 1.

Wales were run very close by Fiji, the scoreboard I believe doesnt reflect how close
the match was but wales are now on winning ways with 1 from 3. final score 38 - 23

Round 1 blockbusters await in 2022

The Panthers and Sea Eagles kick off an action-packed round 1 of the 2022 NRL Telstra Premiership

https://www.nrl.com/news/2021/11/09/round-1-blockbusters-await-in-2022/ (Video)

---

---

An unreal year for Women's rugby league awaits

The NRL has today unveiled a huge women's rugby league calendar for the 2022 season

https://www.nrl.com/news/2021/11/09/an-unreal-year-for-womens-rugby-league-awaits/ (Video)

---

---

My thanks to @aoluain for keeping the thread going while it is uncertain how long I am unable to post for.

Kudos.