On fire in France: Delon Armitage
Now that the dust has settled in Europe, it's time to dish out the kudos for outstanding performances in Round One of the Heineken Cup.
Saracens, Harlequins and Toulouse were the big winners of the opening weekend.
Sarries went on the rampage in the Scottish capital, while the champions of England put themselves in pole position in Pool Three thanks to a storming second half against Biarritz.
Toulouse took the lead in the 'Pool of Death' with a performance - especially at scrum time - that will have been noted across the competition.
Meanwhile, Toulon's army of stars confirmed they are the real deal.
Team of Round One:
15 Delon Armitage (Toulon): Both Armitage brothers were in fine form for RCT and Delon makes our team thanks to his two tries against Montpellier. Mentions too for Alex Goode , who touched down for Saracens and Jared Payne who gained 117 metres for Ulster with ball in hand.
14 Alex Cuthbert (Cardiff Blues): It's never fun when you score a hat-trick and your team still loses! Northampton's Ken Pisi deserves a mention as does Sitiveni Sivivatu , who scored for Clermont.
13 George Pisi (Northampton): The Pisi brothers are proving to be a real threat for Northampton. George bagged two tries with another scorching performance. Jonathan Davies did well for Scarlets while Waisea Nayacalevu scored twice for Stade Français in the Amlin Challenge Cup.
12 Gael Fickou (Toulouse): Another fantastic talent rolls off the Toulouse academy production line. The 18-year-old's try in his European debut against Leicester was out of the top drawer. Guy Novès doesn't need to look much further for a replacement for the ageing Yannick Jauzion. Wesley Fofana was dangerous as ever for Clermont with over 100 metres gained.
11 Eli Walker (Ospreys): A tough call because there were plenty of good wings but Walker's solo try against Treviso will long be remembered. Simon Zebo must have thought he'd scored the winner for Munster in Paris but the Fat Lady was yet to sing.
10 Charlie Hodgson (Saracens): Another difficult decision with a handful of candidates. The veteran pivot scored a try amongst his 25 points and didn't miss a tackle. Luke McAlister, Danny Cipriani and Ben Botica all made headlines.
9 Paul Marshall (Ulster): Danny Care is unlucky to miss out after an outstanding display for Quins but Marshall edges it thanks to his double against Castres.
8 Nick Easter (Harlequins): This one nearly caused a fight at Planet Rugby HQ and Ed is still sulking because Louis Picamoles was outvoted but Easter's man-of-the-match performance cannot be ignored.
7 Shane Jennings (Leinster): It was a tough day at the office for the defending champions, as illustrated by the 16 tackles made by their openside flank. A mention too for Steffon Armitage and Chris Robshaw.
6 Julien Bonnaire (Clermont): Another veteran still putting in the hard yards...and the big hits. A try was his reward. Keep an eye on Toulon's 22-year-old flank Pierrick Gunther, who is a star in the making.
5 Samu Manoa (Northampton): The big American wore 4 on his back but we can't leave him out after he carried the ball for 84 metres, beating four defenders along the way. Exeter Chiefs nearly caused the upset of the year and skipper Tom Hayes was in the thick of the action. Johan Muller was a tower of strength for Ulster.
4 Steve Borthwick (Saracens): There's life in the old dog yet! The flash boys got the headlines for their tries but the Sarries captain led the tackle count in Edinburgh with 14 hits. Bakkies Botha was so good for Toulon that France coach Philippe Saint-André said he wished he could pick the South African enforcer for les Bleus!
3 Census Johnston (Toulouse): The Tigers scrum was under the cosh in wet conditions in Toulouse and the fiery Samoan was the root cause of the trouble. John Afoa put in another big game for Ulster while former a certain Carl Hayman was fit enough to make 16 tackles for Toulon. Davit Zirakashvili helped Clermont win a penalty try.
2 Richard Hibbard (Ospreys): The Ospreys dominated a very strong Treviso scrum and Hibbard made a impact on defence with 10 hits. Rob Buchanan's try for Quins changed the complexion of the encounter against Biarritz.
1 Thomas Domingo (Clermont): Getting back to his best form, Domingo caught the eye with his energy around the park. Saracens prop Mako Vumipola also had very strong game. Honourable mention too for Racing's Andrea Lo Cicero.
Comments
Toulousain says...
@new-J4a. thank you for coming back to the page. you are the most interesting of the bloggers on this site. i always read your stuff. i am enjoying getting to know your personality via the rugby and the blogging. i even enjoy watching you fight!!
thanks for continuing to support the france team, despite it being a difficult thing to do. we are not popular in the SH mon ami. the rougerie thing will take years to heal, and maybe never truly mend. we are so angry here in france about it. we love NZ. we admire their rugby. no-one here really thinks france should have won RWC. all we wish for is the respect of the NZ team and fans. hopefully, we can put a good performance next June and begin to earn it back.
See you on the boards :-)
Posted 21:29 18th November 2012
new_j4a says...
@Toulousain, I read your response, by chance wandering back into an old thread that I had bookmarked and was cleaning up....as they say in the bodice ripping novels I see being read on the underground, "We cannot go on meeting like this."
On the subject of sincero, he does seem quiet at the moment. I hope he does come back but keeps his posts to rugby and cuts out the "800 years of crimes against humanity" bilge he was spewing. I do not particularly enjoy insulting my own Irish heritage just to strike a blow that hurts him.
I understand what you say about "machismo"....there is a lot of testosterone poisoning about...I am poisoned too and see my son making many of the same mistakes I made.
On the topic of the English and the French...I have exactly the same love hate relationship with the French. How can they be so good at rugby and yet appear not to care??? I cannot spend long now....good luck for the weekend!!! I will supporting France against Australia...
Posted 10:43 07th November 2012
Toulousain says...
hi justice. i am once again in a quiet (and loving?) frame of mind late into the evening, so thought i wld reply to your earlier post.
so, mon ami, how is your cat and mouse game with sincero going? i have not seen him so often on the boards lately, so your bricks and baseball bats approach may indeed be working.... although it seems that you get stuck in a never-ending quiblbe (is that the right word?) over spelling, grammar, and all those peculiarities of the english language that i will never truly grasp.
Hmmm. your fundamental question. what motivates me? it is hard to pin down. a difficult childhood. aggressive father. even more aggressive brother. watching those two beautiful men in the family tear each other apart. over nothing, usually. just machismo. I like your concept of a "voice" that is with all of us. it smacks of a soul. or transcendental truth. very attractive, even if flawed in pragmatics.
I believe I spent many of my earlier years not liking the English. Hating them sometimes. But most times out of a kind of grudging respect. France and the US are the two great republics. But the UK, the great modern monarchy, with its free speech, tolerance, and legal system, its parliamentary democracy with Prime Ministers Questions, the stiff upper lip, the legendary "discipline" under fire. There is much to admire indeed. Most of the bloggers here are what i would term anglo-saxon. It's why i am drawn to this website, more than the French equivalents, where I feel I've heard it all before, and the people are too easily put into their simple caricatures. To beat the anglo-saxons, you have to first study and observe them!!
You may interpret this as flirting. In france, I just think we do this sort of thing more often and with more subtlety. But I would be honoured and flattered if you tried a little flirting with me.
Grosse bises
T.
Posted 21:38 01st November 2012
Toulousain says...
new_j4a. thank you for your kind words. you raise some interesting points. i am a little occupied at the moment, but will post a more considered reply later, perhaps on another thread. bonne nuit mon brave.
Posted 21:09 21st October 2012
new_j4a says...
@Toulousain, you get so sweet and charming late at night (when the rugby is over and you have had a few glasses of wine?) and want so badly for the whole rugby world to love each other. Your concern for me and imagined problems you think I have with "validating my existence" are almost as amusing to me as my little cat and mouse game I play with the "scum sincero" to make him behave.....and he responds, occasionally to my great amusement with a snarl of pain when a little well aimed arrow hits him where it hurts, but far more often much more subtly with a change in his general behavior on this site. Have you noticed the improvement now that every time he speaks there will be a "voice" that hounds him mimicking his own illogicality prejudice or mocking his trivial errors? I am happy to provide this service and amuse myself at the same time. (And we shall know he read this if the recent good behavior takes a turn for the worse....or maybe not)
And you? What motivates you to encourage him in his hatred of the English? Do you hate them too....just a little bit? And have you worked out why? Is it somehow that snoring figure beside you, the Argentinian rugby administrator, who fails to stimulate you...intellectually.... and leaves you to make little flirtations on the web? Interesting....bonne chance et profiter des années de déclin.
Posted 10:57 21st October 2012
Toulousain says...
ooops. sorry crunchfit. i missed you out. but i was thinking of you too. i dont know why, but i realise i have offended you too. we got our wires crossed a while back. as you may now see, i am clearly not the same person as makemehappy or new-j4a or anyone else in fact. who else could be this strange?
i will endeavour to not provoke you or any other irish poster going forward. i may fail in that endeavour. but my intention is honest. and my conscience clear.
so sincero, paddy91317, leinster_goy, gcp_jones, kybone, curates_egg, dodgyrog, BODsGODmisspelt, backingleinster, leinsterblue etc etc.
a new start? the rugby season is too young and exciting to bear grudges. the irish teams are great to watch. the banter is usually good. the 6N is soon to come....
happy days to all!
Posted 22:58 20th October 2012
Toulousain says...
strange, isn't it? knowing the person has read your comment, but not replied? like you probably will read this (but won't reply). it attacks a certain part of you. the part that wants to know it exists.
well mon ami new_j4a, you do exist. i have read your comment. you did not post in vain. you are a decent fellow. i like you a lot. but you must not think you can solve all the world's problems. right all the wrongs. it's too much for anyone to do that by themselves.
you need friends to do that. but you lose friends with this kind of behaviour.
i am your conscience.
i am sitting here at my computer late at night, but i am thinking of you. strange, no? and if you read this, you are doing the same.
we are as one!
go well new_j4a. go well !!
(now back to the other pages, to see if anyone else is out there hehehe)
Posted 22:19 20th October 2012
new_j4a says...
@Sincero, I didn't spot any typos. What I thought I saw was so many double negatives strung together that you end up with your head up your own arse....which is your natural posture of rest judging from the rest of the piece and most of the stuff you write
Posted 06:45 19th October 2012
new_j4a says...
@Sincero, "colonial yokel?" What are you talking about? I am Irish and all of my forebears are buried in Cork....where we care about the Irish "national" team and not the money grubbing "provincial" club side called Leinster. It is no wonder that we are so shite on the international stage with supporters like you about. And the English? You secretly admire them. You speak their own language and you ape their mannerisms. All the bile you spill comes from a knowledge of your own inferiority....rugby and otherwise.
Posted 18:21 18th October 2012
Sincero says...
Oh no, one typo... picked up upon by a genuine fool. How embarrassing... try getting a life, you illiterate colonial yokel.
Posted 14:26 18th October 2012
heart_of_oak says...
APV1 - I know, you're right and yet I posted anyway. Perhaps a bit naiive of me. Totally agree with you re our problems at number 10. SL seems not to like taking risks which is maybe what he would consider he'd be doing if he tried Burns. If only Cips were a bit more consistent and less inclined to act like a prat all the time. But then, he's in his 20s and flush with cash, the ladys seem to like him.... maybe it's no surprise.
Kybone - I've got alot of sympathy with what you say. I can see that having mediocre teams in the tournament for the sake of international quotas isn't ideal. The point I was making to Sincero was twofold :
1. I don't want to see Celtic leagues decline, which might mean their national teams decline. This would not help England in the long run and at the end of the day, a successful England team is what I want to see.
2. I wanted to show that not all English people are just interested in change for the sake of some financial gain.
As APV1 says, continued posting on this is just going to result in yet more posts with a good chance that those posts may stray into nationalistic non-Rugby areas, with inflamed opinions, just showing how divided we all are.
I've reached the point now where I think, to hell with it, what will be will be.
I'll go back to telling you all about our mascot at Roundhegians, the lovely Add Widdecombe. She who sashays to the bar in t' clubhouse to get in 5 pints of mild the front 5 of our scrum. Oh the stories I could tell you... Guess how she holds the 5th pint ??
Posted 12:38 18th October 2012
new_j4a says...
@sincero, who says "you say the IRFU policy is taking a risk... which suggests the IRFU would be unhappy with an outcome of Irish teams being eliminated from the Cup due to us not being undercooked." Huh? And who is "ridiculous" did you say?
Posted 08:44 18th October 2012
Toulousain says...
agreed! could not have put it better myself.....
Posted 19:53 17th October 2012
kybone says...
heart_of_oak- Just to pick up on your points about the HC format. I would like to see 4 teams removed from the HC with the new make-up being 7 French, 6 English, 6 Pro 12 with 1 extra place going to the best performing league. I know that means that the teams are coming out of the Pro12, but there's a reason why the teams at the bottom end of the Pro12 are down there and it is that they aren't very good. My reasons are thus- In the HC at the moment there are teams that are just not good enough to be there. They haven't had to qualify and have no hope of achieving anything in the competition. The main example being Zebre who were beaten at home by Connacht- and thats about as easy a fixture as you can hope for at HC level. I think it makes more sense for those teams to play in the Amlin. They'll have a lot more winable games and for clubs like Connacht, Treviso, and Edinburgh (if they were the teams to miss out on the HC) it would be a genuine chance of silverwear. Just think what is better for helping a team develope- getting well beaten 6 times in the HC (maybe the odd victory) or winning a european competition, albeit at a lower level. What a great shot in the arm for Italian rugby if Treviso were to win the Amlin.
I also think it would improve the Pro12 for the lower ranked teams as they'd have something to play for and to try and achieve rather than just going through the motions at the back end of the season due to being out of the title race. Some people seem to think that being taken out of the HC and put into the Amlin is like being cast into oblivion- its not, the Amlin is a genuine european competition and there's a trophy up for grabs. Also, it wouldn't be specific teams being cast out i.e Zebre, Connacht, Edinburgh, and Treviso. All it means is that those teams would have to finnish above their rivals to qualify.
Posted 19:33 17th October 2012
Sincero says...
Oaky, I'm not here to insult the English, I'm here to discuss rugby. However, the position you find yourselves in is plainly ridiculous, hence the ridicule.
Toulousain... you say the IRFU policy is taking a risk... which suggests the IRFU would be unhappy with an outcome of Irish teams being eliminated from the Cup due to us not being undercooked.
Fact of the matter is the money comes from international rugby- whereas the provinces do not fill the IRFU coffers... hence the huge antipathy between fans and the IRFU. Basically they've miffed the grass-roots at club level by acting unscrupulously, and also at provincial level... they force us to sell players we wish to keep, as they want Irish - qualified players across the board, then they deny us our internationals for important parts of the season. It's really all about money.
Again, they've designed this to help the Irish team achieve at international level, not to give the provinces a leg up in the Cup. As you can see, quite the opposite is true.
All the best folks...
Posted 19:18 17th October 2012
APV1 says...
@ heart_of_oak - during the S15 and 4N tournaments, I went out of my way to suggest that all of their players were mediocre. It became a little bit of a (not very funny, I grant you) running joke.
I think our chum from The Cape was just mocking me with his comment, having not read mine from earlier. I suspect they were trying to bait the hook and it sems to have worked...
You're probably right about SL and his choice at 10. Flood will have to start for the Autumn, with OF as back-up. But come the 6N, I'd like to see Burns, Ford, even Heathcote being considered. Flood's not a world-class 10, in my opinion, although he may be the best we've got! So let's develop the youngsters for 2015, having kept our top 4 place over the Autumn. Dreaming? Perhaps I am.
And if you continue to respond to Sincero, they will continue to post.
Posted 15:26 17th October 2012
Toulousain says...
Sincero, we would always pick our strongest available side for a qf or semi. the difficulty is that by april, a lot of our best players are plain knackered (or worse, injured) because they have been flogged without rest since august. for a good example, check out our starting XV vs edinburgh last season. this the crazy choice the T14 clubs are juggling with.
imho they are over-cooked come april, like your leinster players are under-cooked right now. look how tired and short of spark the final games of T14 were last year. just bash bash of tired bodies. no tries in quarters, semis or final. painful to watch.
hence, the key to beating the Irish teams this season will be to take max advantage of their currently undercooked state in these first 2 rounds. this is the crazy risk that irfu player welfare has created. if leinster or munster drop/give away any more bonus points next weekend, and there is a strongT14 or AP team in their pool to take advantage (i.e. clermont and saracens respectively) they may not recover enough points to top their pools. so they will have away QFs. so their rested players may get more rest than they bargained for.
it's the same with crusaders in S15. the more games they rest mccaw and carter in the early rounds, the more risk they take of not making the play-offs. (of course, the upside is they peak for the AB tests).
anyway, good luck this weekend. things can and will only get better. (for us, things can and will only get worse!!)
Posted 10:13 17th October 2012
heart_of_oak says...
Sincero - you come across as if you do hate the English. Most of your posts contain at least one remark that is anti-English and not related even to Rugby, never mind the Heineken cup. Thankfully, we live in a part of the world where we can express our opinions and you've every right to do it.
But this is a Rugby forum. When your compatriot Connaughtabu posts, I'm willing to bet we all take his posts seriously. When you post, we're just waiting for the insult. You'll no doubt have an insult to make in response to this.
As regards the HC, I don't particularly mind if it stays in its present format. If it can help to make stronger leagues in Scotland, Ireland, Italy then in the long run, I see that as being good for England and English rugby, which is what I want. If the rugby in nations around England, with smaller pools of players should decline, because they have fewer players in major competitions, then I think English - and French - rugby would decline as well. Our most frequent competitors at international level, are, after all, these same NH nations. If we all want to do well on the international stage then we need as many NH players as possible to be competing against tough, skilled opposition in tough competitions.
So I guess this puts me at odds with alot of my fellow Englishman. But I think they are seeing it from a club perspective - which they've every right to do - while I see it from a long term international perspective.
Posted 08:02 17th October 2012
Sincero says...
I don't hate the English at all... I've explained that to you before. However I have strong feelings about your behaviour of late regarding the European Cup. My advice: less moaning and more getting better at rugby.
Toulousain... if S.T. were to decide to play a second-string team in the knock-outs that's surely your look-out in France, no? We play our strongest team for the biggest matches- and that's both league and cup. The issue is our strongest team has been unavailable for selection for the coach.
And a side point is the player rotation is supposed to give us an advantage not at the provincial level (the IRFU do not love the provinces) but rather at international level... all the IRFU's money comes from there. That's the whole point... they prioritise that above all else, and leave the provinces wanting.
Posted 02:18 17th October 2012
heart_of_oak says...
APV1 - am I being thick ? I don't understand your post to capedcrusader. Did you really think all the HC games were mediocre ? If so, you and I were watching different games.
Re Cipriani - no, SL won't pick him this season no matter what he does. I bet you SL will pick Flood. I'd like to see Burns or perhaps Farrell but I wish Sarries would play more adventurous rugby and pick Farrell at fly half - which they won't while Hodgson is playing well.
Posted 17:52 16th October 2012