My Lions XV

On March 10th I picked my Lions XV and posted it on twitter @parsley76. Despite some big performances since then I'm sticking by the fifteen I picked.
Here are some thoughts on my selections.

15. Hogg. Has been catching the eye since he burst onto the International scene. Halfpenny is unlucky to miss out but I feel Hogg has the edge in attack.

 14. Bowe. I'm a big fan of Bowe. He may not be the fastest winger in the World but he's big, strong, intelligent, skillful and has Lions experience. Just made his return to action against the Dragons at the weekend, and should be able to show enough form in the next 2 weeks to book his place in the squad. 

  13. Brian O'Driscoll.  If there's one player who can inspire a team it's BOD. 

  12. Billy Twelvetrees.  There's star quality about this guy. He's got the full package you'd want for an International inside centre.  Can pass, run, kick, tackle and has the rugby intelligence to fill in at 10, should the stand-off be out of position.  A partnership with BOD is something I'm really looking forward to and I'm share Gatland will try it out early in the tour.

  11. Tim Visser. What no George North I hear you saying.  Well as a good a player as North is I feel he has been over-hyped since he burst onto the scene as a teenager.  And theres also Alex Cuthbert.  To be fair I think Visser, North and Cuthbert are all very similar.  I've gone for Visser simply because I believe he has the edge in pace and skill.

10. Sexton.  The most complete number 10 in the Home Nations. Plus the experience. A cert to start?

9. Greg Laidlaw. Bit of a left-field selection but just look at his performances for Scotland during the 6 Nations. Very consistent and an excellent goal kicker as back-up should Sexton have an off-day.  I haven't gone with Phillips because despite what he brings to the game I get so frustrated with his link play with the backs.  Alot of the time he arrives too slowly to the breakdown and also can take an age to pass the ball out.  A traditional scrum-half like Laidlaw will keep the game flowing at a good pace and I think that's the way to beat Australia. 

8. Heaslip.  Not his best 6 Nations.  I think the burden of Ireland captaincy affected his play.  I would still pick him as I expect him to recover form and he has that crucial experience as well.  Toby Faletau is slightly unlucky to miss out.

7. Robshaw. He would be my Captain.  I was initially thinking of BOD for the role but I feel the Captain needs to play the whole game and Brian probably won't last the full 80. The end of the 6 Nations saw Justin Tipruic have a stormer against England. That's done enough for Justin to get in the squad for sure.  And Warburton?  Similar in many ways to George North as regards over-hyping.  Will make the squad but I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't make the Lions Test match day 22 squad.
Chris Robshaw has shown with the England captaincy that he can still play his best rugby despite the added responsibility. 

6. Sean O'Brien.  I've gone for the ball carrying impact of O'Brien over someone such as Dan Lydiate, who is more of a defensive specialist. 

5. Geoff Parling.  The second row is a highly competitive position and you could make a case for virtually all the starting locks of the Home Nations, plus choices such as Nathan Hines and Paul O'Connell.  Parling gets my nod because he quietly goes about doing his job to a high standard.  He'll be the backbone that the Lions pack is built on. 

4. Alun Wyn Jones. A true leader and rugby warrior.  Some people think he may get the nod for Lion's captain.  I'm not so sure, though in my eyes he's a cert to start the Test.

3. Adam Jones.  Say no more.

2. Rory Best.  Hard to ignore the great 6 Nations that Richard Hibberd had, although I'm sticking with Best.

1. Cian Healy. Good scrummager. Dynamic in the loose. A key ball carrier for the Lions. 

More

Its been a while since my last blog. Laziness mainly. But with the arrival of my iPhone a couple of months ago I have taken to posting more comments on Twitter - http://twitter.com/parsley76

So I think the days of a match report for every game I watch are long gone. I'll definitely do reports for every game I go to watch live. Looking ahead to November I've got tickets for the Wales v New Zealand game. Always a great day out. And I've already booked my away trip with Edwards Coaches for the France v Wales game in next years 6 Nations. Just need to secure some tickets.

On the 9th October there were three live Heineken Cup games featuring Welsh sides. I took a break from watching rugby all day and gave the Scarlets v Perpignan game a miss. Sods law, it turned out to be the best game of the three, and probably the 1st round. And Rhys Preistland scored an early contender for try of the season.

Rhys Priestland Incredible Try - Scarlets v Perpignan - HEC Rugby - 09-10 10

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eYPkVjs9oU

Blues 18-17 Edinburgh. 9 October 2010

Toulon 19-14 Ospreys. 9 October 2010

Northampton 18-14 Castres. 8 October 2010

Scarlets 18-21 Ospreys 2 October 2010

Bath 3-18 Gloucester. 1 October 2010

Blues 22-6 Connacht. 30 Sept. 2010

Dragons 23-11 Glasgow. 12 Sept. 2010

Ospreys 32-16 Treviso. 10 Sept. 2010

Northampton 27-19 Leicester. 5 Sept. 2010

Ulster 27-26 Ospreys. 3 Sept. 2010

South Africa 22-29 New Zealand. 21 August 2010
Attendance: 94,713

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Tri_Nations_Series

New Zealand 20-10 Australia. 7 August 2010

New Zealand 29-10 Wales. 26 June 2010

Jame Roberts scores Wales first try against New Zealand since 2006.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_union/welsh/8760225.stm

New Zealand 42-9 Wales. 19 June 2010

New Zealand 66-28 Ireland. 12 June 2010

Wales 31-34 South Africa. 5 June 2010

England 35-26 Barbarians. 30 May 2010

http://www.skysports.com/rugbyunion/match_report/0,20244,11069_40424_1,00.html

Leinster 12-17 Ospreys. 29 May 2010

The Magners League Final. This game clashed with me going to see Reginald D Hunter at the St. Davids Hall in Cardiff. I did manage to catch the first 60 minutes of the game at a nearby pub and saw most of the important action. Great win for Ospreys.

Blues 28-21 Toulon. 23 May 2010

Cardiff Blues win the Amlin Challenge Cup. Awesome

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_union/welsh/8685409.stm

Biarritz 19-21 Toulouse. 22 May 2010

Leinster 16-6 Munster. 15 May 2010

Ospreys 20-5 Glasgow. 14 May 2010

Blues 13-12 Munster. 9 May 2010

Ospreys 42-10 Dragons. 7 May 2010

Biarritz 18-7 Munster. 2 May 2010

Wasps 15-18 Blues. 1 May 2010

Toulouse 26-16 Leinster. 1 May 2010

Munster 11-15 Ospreys. 24 April 2010

Dragons 14-20 Blues. 23 April 2010

Dragons 49-28 Edinburgh. 18 April 2010

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_union/welsh/8615005.stm

Scarlets 16-39 Blues. 17 April 2010

Leinster 20-16 Ospreys. 16 April 2010

Biarritz 29-28 Ospreys. 10 April 2010

Leinster 29-28 Clermont Auvergne. 9 April 2010.

More games I've seen...

Gloucester 29-28 Saracens. 3 April 2010

Ospreys 27-19 Scarlets. 2 April 2010

Dragons 28-20 Ospreys. 27 March 2010

France 12-10 England. 20 March 2010

Wales 33-10 Itlay. 20 March 2010

Scotland 15-15 England. 13 March 2010

Ireland 27-12 Wales. 13 March 2010

Blues 20-29 Leinster. 7 March 2010

Dragons 31-22 Munster. 6 March 2010

England 16-20 Ireland. 27 Feb. 2010

Italy 16-12 Scotland. 27 Feb. 2010

Wales 20-26 France. 26 Feb. 2010.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_union/8536807.stm

Ospreys 19-17 Connacht. 21 Feb. 2010

Italy 12-17 England. 14 Feb. 2010

Wales 31-24 Scotland. 13 February 2010.

This game will go down as one of the great Welsh comebacks of all time. And luckily as I was there, sitting at the end all five tries were scored - amazing.

The day started off well. We've ditched going to Servinis to breakfast and found a better place in Canton called Saffron Cafe. Servinis was always a bit pricey and the place too cramped. Saffron is just brilliant, £4.40 for a big breakfast with tea, and the food is perfectly cooked. The cafe is spacious and clean and the staff are friendly, well worth a trek to Canton for this excellent breakfast. But don't just take my word for it, check out this review:

http://www.qype.co.uk/place/342472-Saffron-Cardiff

As for the game, I'll leave it to the BBC match report to do it justice.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_union/8508259.stm

My man of the match: Shane. A second half performance that was World Class.

England 30-17 Wales. 6 Feb. 2010

Went down to London for the weekend. Didn't have tickets for the big game. The plan was to watch the game in Richmond, probably in the beer tent at London Welsh again.

Arrived in Richmond at about 11:00, a good six hours before kick of. Walked to Harlequins ground at The Stoop, was a good walk of about two miles. We wanted to have a drink in the club house, unfortunately the steward on the gate informed us that the whole venue was ticket-only for hospitality. By this time it was about 12:30 and we had a look round Twickenham stadium, very quiet, the Green King beer tent was not even open yet, didn't start serving till 1 pm. On our walk back to Richmond we spotted Richard Hill and Phil Bennett talking outside the rugby museum and got their autographs - so it wasn't a wasted walk after all.

Eventually found our way back to Richmond, checked in at London Welsh ground to discover it was twelve pound just to enter the beer tent. Decided to save our money and watch the game in Richmond town centre. Settled in at The Bull pub to watch the Ireland v Italy game. The pub was mainly full of Welsh fans who had travelled down for the day.

The first half of the game was full of errors and forgettable play by England and Wales. Considering Wales were playing away I was fairly satisfied at the score of 3 all with 10 minutes before half time. Then with six minutes to go the moment of the match occurred - Alun Wyn Jones was yellow carded for a trip on Dylan Hartley. England slotted a penalty and score a try each side of the half when Wales were down to 14 men. A very costly sin bin. At 20-3 down the game looked all but over. Fear not, Wales decided to play and found some fluency as they stretched England with Adam Jones eventually diving over the line. All the play was now coming from Wales and with ten minutes till the final whistle James Hook produced a sublime piece of centre play to ghost in under the posts. The pub went wild and everyone started to believe Wales might actually come back to win the game just like 2008. It was all set up for a grandstand finish but England were reading from the same script. Delon Armitage intercepted a pass from a Welsh attack on the flank and this resulted in a try for Haskell. One minute their was hope, next the game was over. Still, it was a good second half by Wales. Exciting in patches, and the Hook try was true class.

One that got away perhaps. Nevermind.

My man of the match: Danny Care.

Friday night games. Are you a fan?

I think Friday night 6 Nations game are generally a bad idea. They're perfectly fine for club matches when attendances are usually below 10000 but when you have seven times that number at a game more consideration is needed.
I chose not to go to the Wales v France game this year because of the transport issues. Watching a 6 Nations game should be one of the highlights of a rugby fans' year. Nobody wants their day ruined straight after the match by having to endure the chaos of getting home from a packed city. Saturday is the ideal day for a match; 2 to 3 pm kick off. Game finishes at 5. No mad rush to go home at the same time. Fans can stagger the time they leave.

The other Nations should all host a Friday night 6 Nations game, then the IRB should assess whether to continue with this experiment.If the fans had their say I think the majority would prefer not to have a Friday night game, but in the future I think a compromise will be reached when each Nation plays one Friday night game every other year.

I have been lucky enough to go to the last 3 France v Wales games. Last year's game was the first Friday night 6 Nations game. I found the atmosphere was down on 2005 & 2007. Most of the home crowd had been working. The French fans seemed quite quiet, even during their winning performance. Although the paper plane throwing in the 2nd half was annoying. I don't recall many Mexican waves.
I suppose the result of the match helps as well.

Originally posted at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/606/A63661836

LV= Cup

Blues 45-24 Newcastle. 31 Jan. 2010

I joined the Blues Supporter's Club at the start of the season and was sent a complimentary ticket to this match. I got to go upto the hospitality area on the top level of the main grandstand. Quite nice it was too. Before the game Craig Quinnell did a short interview with Ben Blair and Rhys Thomas for the benefit of those in the hospitality lounge.
The game was a comfortable run out for the Blues and allowed alot of fringe players to get a first team game. As the 6 nations was only 1 week away no Wales squad players were involved. A good day out.

Wasps 13-18 Scarlets. 30 Jan. 2010

Dragons 40-19 Ospreys. 29 Jan. 2010