2017 Rugby Europe Championship

[Bruce_ma gooshvili]

Cracking first half though. Romania need to retain the ball or they will get tired out. Their fitness let them down a little in November late on in games.

 

[Car]

I can't believe we collapsed again in the last 20 minutes. We're clearly lacking the depth and some of the mistakes was just bad. As if those technical problems at the start hadn't been bad enough.

With performances like this, we really don't need to think about the World Cup.

Congrats to Russia, they played it well.

 

[Welshdragon2000]

I've been a supporter of Georgia joining the six nations for a little while but until they have a goal kicker who is reliable, then they do not deserve to be in it. Very poor performance from them today and a number of missed penalties lost them that game. Congrats to Romania

 

[Bruce_ma gooshvili]

A big result for Romanian rugby and not one that surprised me so much after seeing them in November. They are within 1.02 points of Italy in the rankings and have a trip to Japan to look forward too as well as Tier 1 visiting Bucharest annually from 2020 onwards. They have had the emotional rollercoaster since losing to Germany in the first round.

The game itself deteriorated in the second half as both sides tensed up. I really hope Romania widen the park when they renovate, that game would never have finished 8-7 on a wide park and they intend to play with their backs more so a wider park would help them develop their play. The Romanian front row were my men of the match (although as Toko points out, Haig might have helped them out with his selection).

A tough one for Georgia to swallow, but Romania are a genuinely improving side and there is no shame in losing to them away from home. I would feel more sorry for Georgia if it had not just been announced that they can look forward to a minimum of 2 fixtures a year versus Tier 1 from 2020. They will have opportunities to regain ranking points in the future and demonstrate if they'd be an addition to the 6N.

 

[dragos03]

It would have been so frustrating to lose another close match against Georgia. I still feel we didn't use our backline enough in this match but who cares, we won. Our forwards fought hard today and even the reserve young props held up quite well.

As for Georgia, Gorgodze seems to be getting old and when he plays poorly the entire team struggles badly.

It's crazy that Romania got beaten by Germany and played awful in this tournament but managed to win the competition in the end. Yes, the Oaks won the competition, Rugby Europe officials made a ridiculous mistake when they awarded the shield to Georgia at the end. I just checked the oficial competition manual and it's quite clear:

2.4.2 in the manual:
Equal number of points at the end of Competition:
If two or more teams have same number of points the best ranked will be:
•
The Union having more
number of match points in the games played between the
tied Unions

 

[Toko_11]

Just as I feared. Sometimes I feel like Haig has no grasp on the strengths and weaknesses of his own players. Obvious mistakes selecting the team and the substitutes(or the lack of them) during the game.

Ofc Romania were the better team and absolutely deserved the win today, Congrats to the Oaks, waited long for this one.

But I'm more concerned about what we did wrong and there's plenty there.

#3 Bekoshvili is not an International level prop. Milton needs to get it in his thick skull that we can't compromise our Scrum strength in favor of "dynamic" passing props.. For ****s sake mate our fly half can't pass and you're selecting a "dynamic" prop, what's he gonna do pass it to the center? Wonder how many passes our "versatile" props had during this game? I would've traded it for a good scrum performance of Chilachava, Peikrishvili, Kubriashvili, hell even the 19-year-old Tabidze did well in the 2nd half. So stop with these passing props and maybe find a passing fly half first.

Talking of fly-half. a blind 5-year-old could've told you after previous games that Khmaladze must've been left out of the team! hell, a Blind 5 year old would've played better. We had Malaguradze who is fit and ready to play yet we go 160min straight with a man who is barely out of the injury and doesn't even remember how to play yet. Ok maybe he overestimated him before the game and thought of Russia as a warmup, but why would he keep him on the field for 80 ****ing minutes. Jesus christ.

#14 Svanidze in favor of Koshadze who was the star player in previous games? In what world does that make sense? Maybe Haig thought Romania would be as easy to beat as Belgium... Yes, that's it, In the alternate dimension where Belgium is stronger than Romania this decision would've made plenty of sense. But not in our ****ing dimension it doesn't.

#15 Kivirikasvili... oh Jesus. Why is he still our main kicker, he hasn't been a good kicker since 2011 rugby world cup. Yet we always choose the free kick and always miss it.(I know Vlaicu had a day off too but that doesn't excuse us) Oh look another reason to select MALAGURADZE as a starting fly-half. He's could fly-the-half AND be a good kicker. But no Romania is Belgium, we won't have problems beating them.

Unused Subs. So by the end of the game all our 2nd rowers were injured. Do we have anyone to replace them? noo ofc not, We need to experiment in the first row! FIRST ROW! and a replacement scrummy Begadze(for god knows what reason if Lobzhanidze got injured, kvirikashvili could move to 9). we take 2 19-year-old props one of whom remains unused. Because Nariashvili is perfectly capable of playing 80 minutes by himself, Just like bregvadze, and Zhvania is also a prop who plays all 3 positions...All that whilst not having a single tall ****er to use as a 2nd row. Strategic Genius.

Zhvania at a hooker is a joke, he is a loosehead, he's always been a looshead No matter how many times you play him as a hooker in the national team, he'll still be a decent prop and a ****ty hooker.
________________________________

The worst of all.. Milton is now going to blame this on experiments and us not being strong enough to win REC with new players so next year he's gonna call up all the first team to play the tournament. Thick as a brick.

I'm just a supporter why is it that I can see things so clearly while people in management seem deluded at times.

here's a hint. USE EXPERIMENTAL TEAMS AGAINST ALL REC TEAMS THAT AREN'T ROMANIA.

We don't need Need Nariashvili for Belgium and we can't have Bekoshvili for Oaks. Plain and simple.

 

[dragos03]

In my opinion, the props were not that bad but your starting hooker was awful. Gorgodze is not as strong as he used to be but Georgia seemed to have no backup plan, they kept giving him the ball.

 

[Toko_11]

#1 Nariashvili was probably our best player today.


Gorgodze tried playing at fly-half for a while because we didn't have one.

When we scored the try it was #11 Todua filling in for the fly-half.

Gorgodze did nothing wrong, his job is to breach the line which he does every time, problem is us handing him the ball every time because we can't get the ball to the backs.

 

[dragos03]

Rugby Europe eventually corrected their mistake and awarded the championship to Romania. I don't think we played well today but we won, so I'll save my comments for some other day.

Toko, you seem focused on your backs but the main problem is with your forwards. A nation with so many professional forwards should be a lot more effective in lineouts, scrums and mauls. If I was your coach, I'd concentrate on doing the basics well and using your native strengths, your backs simply lack the speed and imagination to trouble any decent opponent.

 

[Toko_11]

Rugby Europe eventually corrected their mistake and awarded the championship to Romania. I don't think we played well today but we won, so I'll save my comments for some other day.

Toko, you seem focused on your backs but the main problem is with your forwards. A nation with so many professional forwards should be a lot more effective in lineouts, scrums and mauls. If I was your coach, I'd concentrate on doing the basics well and using your native strengths, your backs simply lack the speed and imagination to trouble any decent opponent.

Where have you been draggy ? I've been ranting about our forwards for 2 pages

 

[dragos03]

Winning the REC puts Romania in an unique position, we now hold two of the most important Tier 2 trophies: the Rugby Europe Championship and the World Rugby Nations Cup. In the last 9 months, we have also defeated all of the major nations that play in the ARC (USA, Canada, Argentina XV, Uruguay). We had a very bad recent record against Georgia and the USA but we beat them both and now hold the Antim Cup and the Pershing Cup.

There really is no excuse anymore to deny us proper test matches. I'm not asking for the Six nations to open up just for the Oaks or anything like it, but we haven't played a Tier 1 test in 11 years while every other Tier 2 nation gets at least one every year! World Rugby must now find a way to secure a Tier 1 opponent for us in November or at least next year.

 

[amz]

Very enjoyable match, probably the second half was less spectacular but both team played with a lot of heart, a good advertising for REC rugby.

I am not upset by the mistake with the trophy, it may happen. I think they just forgot to update the manual.

About Romanian team, I think Vlaicu and Surugiu had a good match both of them, nothing spectacular but solid performance. Fakaosilea is certainly a good addition to the squad.

 

[amz]

Shall we try a team of the tournament?

Right, I'll start, although for some position I struggle to find consistent performers because some of the players weren't released for their clubs; e.g. Tussac was very good versus Romania but played. Obviously my selection will be biased towards Romania because I didn't watch all other matches but I do expect others to make their own selection and pick eventually a team of the tournament and some players may be out of position just to stick them there


1. Nariashvili - Because he is a one man first row and relentless in general play. Discipline of a robot as well (by Toko)

2. Turashvili - not the best hands in lineout but redeemed himself vs Georgia and was good in the open play and defense

3. Tussac - he didn't played much so he's in the team because of the match vs Romania

4. Van Heerden - immovable from Romanian second row, solid performance for the entire tournament.

5. Nemsadze - solid act in the second row

6. Tkhilaisvili - one of the local championship player but delivering good performances comparable with his compatriots playing in France

7. Otto - I think we'll hear more of this player in the future.

8. Gorgadze - 3 tries and very young

9. Surugiu - although he didn't played in all matches he was very good vs Georgia and I think he won the duel with Lobzhanidze

10. Parkinson - solid kicker

11. Fercu - can't miss him from any back three, flawless tournament for him; Jordi Jorba looks promising

12. Sharikadze - probably one of the better T2 centers; I think he could play at a higher level at club level;

13. Vlaicu - he played injured for most of the duration of the tournament; although he missed some kickable points vs Georgia he was generally reliable with the boot

14. Koshadze - one for the future and try scoring back of tournament

15. Linklater - best boot of the tournament

 

[Toko_11]

Nariashvili - Because he is a one man first row and relentless in general play. Discipline of a robot as well.

I agree with all the picks.

 

[dragos03]

Here are the final REC standings. It's unbelivable that we won the tournament despite being awful in every match, while in other seasons we were on fire but we lost.

 

[amz]

Nariashvili - Because he is a one man first row and relentless in general play. Discipline of a robot as well.

I agree with all the picks.

I started the team with him and I forgot to add a small description so I added yours.

What I think it lacks is more Spanish players...but I really lacked any idea except Linklater. Ascarte for example is one of my favorite Spaniards but he didn't played much to justify a place. I liked Jorba who was consistent for such a young player but couldn't leave out any of the back three outside.

 

[Welshdragon2000]

Here are the final REC standings. It's unbelivable that we won the tournament despite being awful in every match, while in other seasons we were on fire but we lost.

That's always the sign of a good team, Romania are on the up

 

[Osezno]

I started the team with him and I forgot to add a small description so I added yours.

What I think it lacks is more Spanish players...but I really lacked any idea except Linklater. Ascarte for example is one of my favorite Spaniards but he didn't played much to justify a place. I liked Jorba who was consistent for such a young player but couldn't leave out any of the back three outside.

You'd be surprised to know how much criticism all Spanish wings have received from fans. Including Jorba. Or even especially Jorba. But I don't think your ideal XV lacks Spanish players, we've got good names but not outstanding ones. Maybe Mathieu Bélie, Kalo Kalo Gavidi, Thibaut Ãlvarez... but they all have better men ahead of them in their positions.

In any case I must admit Spanish coaching has been awesome. Nobody trusted Santiago Santos choices for wings or the decision to play with a lightweight second row and we've all been proven wrong, he's given the chance to young players and men from División de Honor instead of simply calling people from French leagues whatever their form was, defense has been improved by a ton in a single year...

 

[Welshdragon2000]

You'd be surprised to know how much criticism all Spanish wings have received from fans. Including Jorba. Or even especially Jorba. But I don't think your ideal XV lacks Spanish players, we've got good names but not outstanding ones. Maybe Mathieu Bélie, Kalo Kalo Gavidi, Thibaut Ãlvarez... but they all have better men ahead of them in their positions.

In any case I must admit Spanish coaching has been awesome. Nobody trusted Santiago Santos choices for wings or the decision to play with a lightweight second row and we've all been proven wrong, he's given the chance to young players and men from División de Honor instead of simply calling people from French leagues whatever their form was, defense has been improved by a ton in a single year...

Do you think Spain have enough to tke them to the World Cup? I loved watching them in this championship and I thought they looked a tidy team at times especially against Belgium and Georgia (although they had issues finishing chances)

 

[Osezno]

Spain can definitely make it to the World Cup. But our lack of consistency can be very damaging in a long repechage process.