Ulster make changes for Connacht clash

Posted on Apr 13, 2012 in Irish Rugby, RaboDirect Pro 12, RaboDirect Pro12, Ulster

Brian McLaughlin has made 12 changes to the starting XV for the RaboDirect PRO12 clash with Connacht on Saturday (kick off 5.15pm).

The Ulster coach has decided to rest a number of players so outside half Ian Humphreys, fullback Stefan Terblanche and prop Tom Court are the only player retained from the side that defeated Munster in last weekend’s Heineken Cup quarter final.

In the backs, Paul Marshall deputises at scrumhalf for Ruan Pienaar who starts as a substitute. There is a new centre combination with Ireland U20 captain Paddy Jackson partnering Nevin Spence. Adam D’Arcy and Ian Whitten replace Andrew Trimble and Craig Gilroy on the wings, with the latter dropping to the bench after his try of the season contender in Thomond Park.

Up front, Nigel Brady starts as hooker in place of Rory Best and takes over from Johann Muller as captain. Tom Court moves across the scrum to tighthead prop, with Paddy McAllister starting at loosehead. Lewis Stevenson and Neil McComb start together in the second row for the first time. Dynamic trio Mike McComish, Willie Faloon and Robbie Diack form an all new back row in place of Stephen Ferris, Chris Henry and Pedrie Wannenburg.

Twenty year old lock Iain Henderson is named on the bench and could make his senior debut if he enters the fray at any stage. His Phoenix Academy colleagues Ali Birch and Michael Allen are also included among the replacements. Callum Black, Andi Kyriacou, Adam Macklin, Pienaar and Gilroy complete the squad.

The game is vital for Ulster’s hopes of finishing in the top four of the RaboDirect PRO12 and a win could send them into second place. They currently occupy fifth spot in the table but are just three points adrift of second placed Ospreys.

If things go to plan for Ulster, it could be the longest season in the club’s history so McLaughlin is aware that he needs to keep his players in peak physical condition. “The Munster match was very physical and a lot of players are still carrying bumps and bruises, so we decided it was best to give some of them a break. It is crucial to look after the players with so many important games coming up before the end of the season. There are opportunities for us to test the water a bit with some of our squad players and it will be exciting to see how they perform.”

One such player is Paddy Jackson, who has been deployed at inside centre rather than his usual outside half position. McLaughlin said, “We know what Paddy is capable of and we thought this was a perfect chance to try him out at 12 and allow him to add another string to his bow.”

McLaughlin has also been impressed with Iain Henderson in recent months and feels he deserves his place on the bench: “Iain had a tremendous 6 Nations campaign with Ireland U20s and he’s been training with us in recent weeks and has done very well. He is a big talent and it is important to give him experience at this level,” he said.

The Ulster coach knows his side face a difficult task against the Westerners, with Ulster being held 15-15 in their previous visit to the Sportsground. “The game in Galway will be huge. They have shown that they are capable of beating anyone on their day, particularly at the Sportsground. It’s one of the toughest places to go in the PRO12 to get a result. But as ever, we are confident we can do just that.”

Ulster Match Day Squad to face Connacht, Saturday 14th April 2012, Sportsground (kick-off 5.15pm)

(15-9): S Terblanche; I Whitten, N Spence, P Jackson, A D’Arcy; I Humphreys, P Marshall;

(1-8): P McAllister,N Brady (capt), T Court, L Stevenson, N McComb, M McComish, W Faloon, R Diack;

Replacements (16-23): A Kyriacou, C Black, A Macklin, I Henderson, A Birch, R Pienaar, C Gilroy, M Allen

Unavailable due to injury:                      

Jared Payne (Achilles tendon), Simon Danielli (hamstring), Tim Barker (back), Chris Cochrane (foot)

* Iain Henderson

D.O.B: 21/02/1992

Position: Second row

Height: 1.98m

Weight: 114kg

Honours: Ireland U20s

Patience is key for Green and Whites

Posted on Apr 13, 2012 in Championship, English Rugby, Nottingham

NOTTINGHAM hard man Joe Duffey says the Green and Whites must not be overawed by the must-win situation against Doncaster at Castle Park on Saturday (2.30pm kick-off).

Only a bonus point win will ensure that Nottingham stay in contention to advance to the RFU Championship semi-finals.

While Nottingham have already beaten the Knights four times during the campaign, and notched up record wins against the South Yorkshire side in the process, the hooker isn’t getting carried away.

“We know what to expect and what we need to do, but we really don’t want to get too excited,” Duffey said.

“If we want to play well, we need to have a cool, calm and collected build-up. If we get sucked into getting too hyped up for something like this, then we will end up doing things that we wouldn’t normally do.”

Duffey also warns that focusing too hard on needing a four-try bonus point win invites undue pressure on the side.

“We can do it, we can get the tries, but we can’t get in our head that we need to come up with four tries, because that is only going to get us wound up. And when that happens you are in danger of trying too much stuff.

“We need the tries, we know that, but they don’t all need to come at once.”

According to the experienced campaigner, it is a game of patience that Nottingham will need to rely on.

And when it comes to taking a stronghold of proceedings over 80 minutes, the 29-year-old New Zealander sets the benchmark.

“I’m not there to be pretty, I’m there to do the hard yards,” Duffey said.

“What we’ve noticed with Donny is that they have a tendency to be up at half-time, even against the better teams, and then they seem to run out of puff. Once they are tired we have to strike and play smart.

“If we work them hard in the scrum and in line outs, then they are going to be tired and there will be holes popping up either on the fringes or out wide.”

Nottingham director of rugby Glenn Delaney has made three changes to the side that draw 19-all with Bristol at the Memorial Stadium.

The Green and Whites’ most prolific play-off try scorer Tim Streather comes in at his preferred position of outside centre, replacing the injured Andrew Forsyth.

Matt Parr is promoted to the starting side ahead of loose head prop Michael Holford. Former England international Ayoola Erinle has also recovered from a niggling leg injury to take his place on the bench.

Nottingham Rugby side to take on Doncaster: 1 M Parr 2 J Duffey 3 R Bower 4 C Green 5 N Rouse 6 S Kalamafoni 7 Wilson 8 F Levi 9 S Romans 10 Arlidge 11 A Savage 12 Socino 13 T Streather 14 A Lewington 15 D Jackson.

Replacements from: 16 M Holloway 17 M Holford 18 C Hammond 19 A Shaw 20 F Barnham 21 K Hallett 22 A Erinle.

England Under 18 beat Wales for final place

Posted on Apr 4, 2012 in Age Grade Rugby, England U18

England Under 18 secured their spot in the 2012 FIRA tournament final against Ireland after beating Wales 22-16 in Madrid.

Head Coach John Fletcher said that the forwards “provided the platform” for the three-try win as Javiah Pohe, Ross Moriarty and Scott Wilson all got over the whitewash, Billy Burns added seven points with the boot.

After a fractious start in wet conditions, Wales got the first points on the board through fly half Jack Maynard before England’s No. 10 Burns levelled up two minutes later.

With 20 on the clock centre Pohe got England’s first try – patient build up from the forwards eventually freed up the 17-year-old Leicester youngster, who showed a nice step before darting over the line.

England’s second came five minutes later, a short line-out inside the Welsh 22 was well caught by Maro Itoje and the resulting rolling maul was touched down over the line by Moriarty to make the score 17-3.

Maynard reduced the deficit to 11 with his second penalty to draw the first half to a close with England 17-6 to the good.

Wales started the second half strongly and scored with 43 played through flanker and captain Ben Roach and Maynard’s successful kick put Wales to within a try of the lead.

England could have extended their advantage when wing Josh Watkins made a nice break and found scrum half Callum Braley in space, but the Hartpury No. 9 was closed down quickly and his pass out wide to Zach Kibirige was knocked into touch.

Fortunately England’s third try did come soon after, another short line-out was well gathered and prop Wilson forced the ball over the line to put England 22-13 up with 15 minutes left.

A Welsh penalty, again from Maynard, with five minutes to go brought them to within a converted try of the lead, but England’s solid defence held firm to ensure their place in the final.

Fletcher was proud of his side after the game and said: “We’re delighted with the effort and delighted with the result but we’ve still got some work to do. The game could have gone either way to be honest, they had a lot of the ball and they had opportunities to hurt us.

“It was a fairly even game but we’ll move on from this and look to better ourselves in the final. Our forwards were excellent, our set-piece was very good and it provided the platform for the win.”

Try scorer Moriarty added: "I’m really happy to get the win both from a personal point of view and for the team. We worked really hard today, it might not have been the prettiest but we got the job done. I spoke to my dad [Paul Moriarty, former Wales player] after the match and he was chuffed – we just can’t wait for the final now."

England Under 18 starting XV

15 Zach Kibirige (Yarm School) (Newcastle Falcons)

14 Josh Watkins (Bromsgrove School) (Worcester Warriors)

13 Tom Stephenson (Moulton College) (Northampton Saints)

12 Javiah Pohe (Wyggeston & Queen Elizabeth 1st) (Leicester Tigers)

11 Nathan Earle (Oaklands) (Saracens)

10 Billy Burns (Hartpury College) (Gloucester Rugby)

9 Callum Braley (Hartpury College) (Bristol Rugby)

1 Danny Hobbs-Awoyemi (Moulton College) (Northampton Saints)

2 Harry Thacker (Leicester Grammar) (Leicester Tigers)

3 Scott Wilson (Sedbergh School) (Newcastle Falcons)

4 Maro Itoje (Harrow School) (Saracens)

5 Charlie Ewels (Bryanston School) (Bath Rugby)

6 Ross Moriarty (Hartpury College) (Gloucester Rugby)

7 Gus Jones (c) (Eton College) (London Wasps)

8 Josh Buggea (Hartpury College) (Worcester Warriors)

Replacements

16 Reece Marshall (Moulton College) (Northampton Saints)

17 Harry Rudkin (Wyggeston & Queen Elizabeth 1st) (Leicester Tigers) on for Danny Hobbs-Awoyemi

18 Alex Lundberg (Hampton) (London Wasps)

19 Jake Oldaker (Wellington College) (Bath Rugby) on for Maro Itoje

20 Joel Conlon (Ivybridge Community College) (Exeter Chiefs) on for Josh Buggea

21 Tom Chapman (Colfe’s School) (Saracens)

22 Sam Olver (Oundle School) (Northampton Saints) on for Billy Burns

23 George Catchpole (Leicester Grammar) (Leicester Tigers)

24 Nick Carpenter (Filton College) (Bristol Rugby)

25 Max Northcote-Green (Millfield) (Bath Rugby)

26 Howard Packman (Moulton College) (Northampton Saints)

Schmid warning to Esher

Posted on Mar 23, 2012 in Championship, English Rugby, Esher, Moseley

MIKE SCHMID has warned his Esher side that they will be relegated from the Championship unless they sort out their indiscipline.

Esher travel to Moseley on Saturday rooted to the foot of the relegation play-off group after successive defeats by London Scottish and Plymouth.

But it was last Friday’s 18-11 reverse in Devon that angered Schmid as Esher gave away a series of needless penalties to hand Plymouth the initiative.

That leaves Esher four points adrift of Plymouth with four play-off games remaining and the spectre of National One rugby looming on the horizon.

Director of Rugby Schmid fumed: “We talked all week about not giving away soft penalties in the middle third of the park but at Plymouth we had eight.

“Yet we’ve given only one try away in two games so we have to have more confidence in our defence than that to risk silly penalties.

“It’s an individual putting his needs in front of the team. It’s happened too much in the last two weeks, when the games are always going to be tight and we know Plymouth have a goal kicker who kicks everything within 50.

“It’s not going to be a great video session for those boys that were taking penalties because it’s personal accountability.

“I can tell them, their team-mates can tell them but until they actually listen and do it properly it’s going to keep hurting us.

“It’s the silly controllable penalties we have got to lose. You are always going to get one or two calls you question but it’s the ones when the players are putting his needs in front of the team, not listening to the referee or not working hard enough to get off the floor. Those are the things we have to work harder on.”

But Schmid insists his players have the character to bounce back and find the form that saw them win their last three games of the regular season.

He said: “There were some fantastic points in the game. We were down to 14 when Mike MacFarlane was in the sin-bin and we came out and defended admirably for the first 10 minutes of the second half and I really thought we were going to kick on. But our indiscipline just cost us.

“With every game it gets harder. We are going to have to win at least two more, probably three out of four.

“Now we are going away to Moseley, which is arguably the hardest place to go during the play-offs. It’s going to be very tough but we to fight as hard as we possibly can.

“But Moseley started 0-2 in the play-offs last year then beat us back to back to virtually save their season so it’s very, very doable.

Moseley are a good side but we have got to make sure the game is played at the pace we want it to be played at.

“Everything’s got to be on the line now, each and every week. We have four games left to prove we deserve to be a Championship rugby team and the boys have got to stand up and prove that.”

Schmid also admits Esher must sort out the lineout problems that also contributed to their defeat at Plymouth. He said: “Our lineout was a huge issue.

“It’s been the strongest part of our game all year but for the last two weeks it hasn’t. Against Scottish it was average and against Plymouth it was below par. So that’s an area of the game we have got to fix.

“We have got to rebuild very quickly, learn from our mistakes at Plymouth and really try and shift the mood so we have 100 per cent focus on Moseley.

“Also at times we are trying to win the game in the opening minute. We went for the high-risk stuff rather than building pressure.

“Rugby generally comes down to who does the basics best, who wins scrum and lineout, who makes least handling mistakes, just doing the basic skills.

“Our attack never got going. We defended admirably throughout the game and I thought it was a very good defensive performance. But with that kind of defensive performance we have got to score some points but we weren’t able to build up momentum.

“Guys got more and more frustrated as the game went on and we lost focus on actually what makes us a good team. We have to make sure our leaders out there are keeping us on track the whole game and we just stay focused.”

Esher could be boosted by the return of lock James Inglis and scrum-half Jamie Mackenzie after injury for the trip to the Midlands.

15 Luke Daniels
14 Sebastian Stegmann
13 Thomas Cheeseman
12 Arran Cruickshanks
11 Philip Mackenzie
10 Mark Atkinson
9 Jamie Mackenzie
1 Dave Millard
2 James Campbell
3 Ignacio Elosu
4 Ian Kench
5 James Inglis
6 Tom Alexander
7 Sam Stitcher (Capt.)
8 Michael Macfarlane

Replacements
16 Nick Mayhew
17 Paul Barker
18 Peter Synnott
19 Kevin Corrigan
20 Nicky Little
21 Jonathan Hylton
22 Clive Stuart Smith

RFU Podcast: Six Nations reflection for England teams

Posted on Mar 22, 2012 in England, English Rugby, RFU Podcast

With four wins from five games, Robshaw cuts a happy figure: “Hugely honoured doesn’t even cover it to be honest.,” he said. “I’m just extremely proud, we have a great group of lads and hopefully we can take this English team forward. The crowds for both home fixtures have been outstanding and it was nice to pay them back with a win against Ireland.

“The coaching staff have been superb throughout the campaign and I think that we’ve shown that we want to go out there and win for them.”

Lancaster, whose interim contact expires on March 31, added: “My role was always to take over the job for the Six Nations and it was all about building foundations, but how it unfolds from now is out of my control.”

Also in this week’s podcast:

• Burns on fire: Gloucester ace Freddie burns on being named Aviva Premiership player of the month and his England aspirations
• Hunting for success: England Under 20 head coach Rob Hunter reflects on another Six Nations title while looking ahead to the Junior World Championship in South Africa this June
• Sevens heaven: England Sevens pair Charlie Walker and Dan Norton look ahead to the Hong Kong Sevens
• Street’s ahead: As the England Women collect their seventh successive Six Nations title – this time without conceding a try – we hear from head coach Gary Street