Sounds as if the off-season has been a touch frustrating at kingsholm and Headingley. From the BBC: Hazell sees red in friendly brawl Gloucester's England flanker Andy Hazell and Leeds counterpart Richard Parks were both sent off after a 22-man brawl in a pre-season friendly. The duo were dismissed after the mass fight in the first minute of the game at the Issoire tournament in France. Gloucester trio Patrice Collazo, Rob Elloway and Adam Eustace and Patrice Collazo were also yellow-carded. But they won 33-19 to claim third place after a 21-18 loss to Castres. Leeds also lost 34-27 to Clermont Auvergne. __________________ Also worth noting that Patrice Collazo appears to be two men, altohugh the French do breed their props big....
These friendlies main purpose is team training. They train every compartiment of the game, including brawling.
I find that the funny thing is although French have quite a bad fame when it comes to discipline, this time it was up to the brittons who gave the bad example.
All countries/nations have bad moments sometimes, especially NZ AB in the tours, they seemed to try and cheat in most aspects of the game.
Can't wait to see Munster take on Leicester and Northampton, we will be looking to reek revenge on Northampton after their one point defeat of us at twickenham in that fateful HC final, and hopefully we can give Leicester another good thraship, after beating them 20-7, last time we played them in the 2003 Heineken Cup
Leinster have announced their squad for the pre-season friendly against Parma in Naas on Saturday: Forwards (16) Emmett Byrne, Will Green, John Lyne, John Wickham, Ronan McCormack, Keith Tait, David Blaney, Conor Geoghegan, Adam Byrnes, Ben Gissing, Niall Ronan, Jamie Heaslip, Ciaran Potts, Stephen Bradshaw, Rob Connolly, Simon Crawford Backs (14) Guy Easterby, Brian O'Meara, Brian O'Riordan, Christian Warner, David McAllister, Felipe Contepomi, Eoghan Hickey, James Norton, Gary Brown, Brendan Burke, Robert Kearney, Ross McCarron, Greg Stafford, Dermot O'Sullivan Good few young players in there and 2 who went to my school.