The Official English Rugby Thread

[Kawazaki]

Stadiums should be walkable from city centres and the associated pubs/bars/restaurants/public transport

You mean like Stade de France , homebush , stadio Olympico , kings park , loftus versfeld …

Basically it’s Principality stadium only that fully ticks your wish list , Murrayfield if you redefine what’s walkable & edible nearby, and then lansdowne

Appreciate that a not insubstantial cohort of rugby fans struggle walking to the fridge but Murrayfield, Aviva and pushing it a little Stadio Olimpico are all very much walkable from the centre.

And I said ‘should’, there’s a reason people rave about trips to the Rec and it isn’t for the fantastic facilities inside the ground. Anyway, it’s a completely fanciful pipedream but I maintain it would be instantly one of the world’s great stadiums

It would also be very close to Lords if you built it where you suggested. The main problem though is that the land there is worth at least twice what Twickenham is worth, probably nearer 10x.

[Sinkers]

It was Eddie Jordon leading the consortium to resurrect London Irish?
Just seen an announcement that he’s died today.

[SaintK]

It was Eddie Jordon leading the consortium to resurrect London Irish?
Just seen an announcement that he’s died today.

He was the face and figurehead of the operation.
His son is running the commercial aspects.
RIP Eddie

[Yeeb]

Stadiums should be walkable from city centres and the associated pubs/bars/restaurants/public transport

You mean like Stade de France , homebush , stadio Olympico , kings park , loftus versfeld …

Basically it’s Principality stadium only that fully ticks your wish list , Murrayfield if you redefine what’s walkable & edible nearby, and then lansdowne

Appreciate that a not insubstantial cohort of rugby fans struggle walking to the fridge but Murrayfield, Aviva and pushing it a little Stadio Olimpico are all very much walkable from the centre.

And I said ‘should’, there’s a reason people rave about trips to the Rec and it isn’t for the fantastic facilities inside the ground. Anyway, it’s a completely fanciful pipedream but I maintain it would be instantly one of the world’s great stadiums

On match days with crowds those places are an hours walk away from a true centre with a true varied assortment of entertainment , they are hardly suitable modern locations any more than Twickenham is. Rfu isn’t keen of letting entertainment leave its own appointed fanzone now anyways so being stuck in the middle of nowhere is a moot point now.

[Yeeb]

Bill Sweeney threatening to move the RFU to Birmingham or MK unless the licensing conditions at Twickenham are loosened. Says (probably correctly) that the £600m redevelopment is not viable without it.

Said before but regardless of licence the RFU will not be able to successfully able to project manage this refurbishment and could well go insolvent trying. Spend the money on a 50% share of Wembley whilst we have some negotiating room.

It does though remain my quixotic ‘if I was dictator’ vision to build a national rugby stadium just north of Euston as the area needs to be largely bulldozed as part of any HS2/mainline station refurb/Crossrail 2 anyway. A man can dream

A better location would be where Vauxhall plant was in Luton:
Shithole town that could do with the jobs
Next to airport
On a main line rail route
On the m1 and near to Home Counties and m25

All very worthy but, you been to Luton lately?
The roads and parking around the Vauxhall plant are already full of Luton Airport traffic. The walk from Luton Parkway would be easy but there are zero pubs or infrastructure etc. The access roads are already very busy and it is on the main A505 east/west access to the M1. Factor in the Luton airport expansion and additional runway and you would have bedlam.
I'm only 20 minutes away but would rather travel into London by train and take a train out to Luton than take my car anywhere near there on a match day. Anyone coming from the North would have to go into LOndon first anyway as Luton is not a true north/south mainline station.
Milton Keynes might differennt.

Any stadium there would surely have its own links to stations and motorway so the local roads thing would be irrelevant , would just follow other newish stadiums and facilities. As I said to matey above, Rfu wants to keep it all in the fanzone anyways so not having anything else nice in the area is irrelevant , would be like the o2 in docklands, you go there for one purpose only not for a local wander around.
Wembley too, fuck all nice nearby.

[Paddington Bear]

You mean like Stade de France , homebush , stadio Olympico , kings park , loftus versfeld …

Basically it’s Principality stadium only that fully ticks your wish list , Murrayfield if you redefine what’s walkable & edible nearby, and then lansdowne

Appreciate that a not insubstantial cohort of rugby fans struggle walking to the fridge but Murrayfield, Aviva and pushing it a little Stadio Olimpico are all very much walkable from the centre.

And I said ‘should’, there’s a reason people rave about trips to the Rec and it isn’t for the fantastic facilities inside the ground. Anyway, it’s a completely fanciful pipedream but I maintain it would be instantly one of the world’s great stadiums

On match days with crowds those places are an hours walk away from a true centre with a true varied assortment of entertainment , they are hardly suitable modern locations any more than Twickenham is. Rfu isn’t keen of letting entertainment leave its own appointed fanzone now anyways so being stuck in the middle of nowhere is a moot point now.

Probably not a great use of either of our time to debate walk times, but from recent experience I was in a pub near the Liffey within half an hour of full time in February! In fairness Edinburgh, Cardiff and Dublin have an advantage for match-day experience of being much smaller cities than London or Paris, which are of a size where any event gets swallowed up, nothing really to be done about it.

The RFU fanzone is in part a factor of appalling transport links - if they didn’t keep the bars open post-match the carnage at Twickenham station would be even greater than it already is (three hours after the South Africa game there was still a queue round the corner and people scrapping in it).

Say what you like about Wembley as an area, and you’d be correct, but the transport works like clockwork and dissipates people back into central and off into the night in short order. Why? Because it’s connected to three tube lines, an overground and two national rail lines. To the extent Twickenham residents don’t want 100,000 people turning up to see Beyonce three times due to the transport issues, they have my sympathy.

Which is another reason why my never going to happen Euston Stadium would work so well - it’s in an area with a transport infrastructure explicitly designed to shunt hundreds of thousands of people in short order, be it all the way home or to stations with plenty of parking in locations roughly where you’re suggesting building a stadium

[Yeeb]

Oh I’m not dissing your Euston idea , just that it’s just not cheap enough I’d have thought on land use.
The land at Twickenham would be big bucks for sure , and whilst it’s a great stadium the fanzone is quite shit really , same like any other event zones.

If they went someplace shit like Luton, you’d perhaps get cash from the govt too. Perhaps closer
Would be around Watford where the Warner bros park is, on the m25, lots of space, on tube and main line rail line to Birmingham.

[shaggy]

Appreciate that a not insubstantial cohort of rugby fans struggle walking to the fridge but Murrayfield, Aviva and pushing it a little Stadio Olimpico are all very much walkable from the centre.

And I said ‘should’, there’s a reason people rave about trips to the Rec and it isn’t for the fantastic facilities inside the ground. Anyway, it’s a completely fanciful pipedream but I maintain it would be instantly one of the world’s great stadiums

On match days with crowds those places are an hours walk away from a true centre with a true varied assortment of entertainment , they are hardly suitable modern locations any more than Twickenham is. Rfu isn’t keen of letting entertainment leave its own appointed fanzone now anyways so being stuck in the middle of nowhere is a moot point now.

Probably not a great use of either of our time to debate walk times, but from recent experience I was in a pub near the Liffey within half an hour of full time in February! In fairness Edinburgh, Cardiff and Dublin have an advantage for match-day experience of being much smaller cities than London or Paris, which are of a size where any event gets swallowed up, nothing really to be done about it.

The RFU fanzone is in part a factor of appalling transport links - if they didn’t keep the bars open post-match the carnage at Twickenham station would be even greater than it already is (three hours after the South Africa game there was still a queue round the corner and people scrapping in it).

Say what you like about Wembley as an area, and you’d be correct, but the transport works like clockwork and dissipates people back into central and off into the night in short order. Why? Because it’s connected to three tube lines, an overground and two national rail lines. To the extent Twickenham residents don’t want 100,000 people turning up to see Beyonce three times due to the transport issues, they have my sympathy.

Which is another reason why my never going to happen Euston Stadium would work so well - it’s in an area with a transport infrastructure explicitly designed to shunt hundreds of thousands of people in short order, be it all the way home or to stations with plenty of parking in locations roughly where you’re suggesting building a stadium

It works until they decide to close some of the platforms/lines and kettle everyone in on Olympic Way. 4.5 hrs just to get to the station last year after a concert.

[Oxbow]

I know I say this every time, but it happens every effing time, Kay and Healy commentating on a Saints v Tigers game.

[duke]

I know I say this every time, but it happens every effing time, Kay and Healy commentating on a Saints v Tigers game.

Kay and Healey commentating on any Tigers game is bad enough, it gets doubled when it’s Saints

[Kawazaki]

What is the worst ever league performance by a champion the season after they won the league?

[Oxbow]

That's right up there with the worst I've ever seen Saints play. I know they lost a lot of experience at the end of last season, but the transformation from brilliant to dogshit is remarkable.

[Kawazaki]

That's right up there with the worst I've ever seen Saints play. I know they lost a lot of experience at the end of last season, but the transformation from brilliant to dogshit is remarkable.

Thought the Saints wingers were very poor and the backrow just out-worked. Stadium looked packed.

[Paddington Bear]

That's right up there with the worst I've ever seen Saints play. I know they lost a lot of experience at the end of last season, but the transformation from brilliant to dogshit is remarkable.

Thought the Saints wingers were very poor and the backrow just out-worked. Stadium looked packed.

Until 60 minutes or so when there appeared to be a fire drill. Northampton were appalling, must have been 30ish handling errors and some disgraceful defensive lapses. Felt a bit flat that the Northampton fans couldn’t even boo at the end, a football team performing like that against their arch rivals would struggle to make it back to the bus. JVP was superb.

Heading to Tottenham for (hopefully) the annual beatdown of Quins?

[Kawazaki]

Heading to Tottenham for (hopefully) the annual beatdown of Quins?

I had the offer of tickets but my eldest has now reached that age where I inevitably have to drive her somewhere to play hockey on Saturdays and often on a Sunday as well.

[SaintK]

That's right up there with the worst I've ever seen Saints play. I know they lost a lot of experience at the end of last season, but the transformation from brilliant to dogshit is remarkable.

Thought the Saints wingers were very poor and the backrow just out-worked. Stadium looked packed.

Until 60 minutes or so when there appeared to be a fire drill. Northampton were appalling, must have been 30ish handling errors and some disgraceful defensive lapses. Felt a bit flat that the Northampton fans couldn’t even boo at the end, a football team performing like that against their arch rivals would struggle to make it back to the bus. JVP was superb.

Heading to Tottenham for (hopefully) the annual beatdown of Quins?

26 unforced errors and 14 turnovers conceded. Youre not going be anywhere near winning with stats like that. I've never seen Saints nilled before at home and poor old Hendy probably made more errors in the match than he has done in his career so far. No chance of play-offs now!

Enjoy Tottenham, fabulous stadium. Beer's bloody expensive mind you!!!!

[SaintK]

Pretty astonishing stats from Itoje! 30 consecutive 80 minute performances in the 6N since 2020.

[Paddington Bear]

Thought the Saints wingers were very poor and the backrow just out-worked. Stadium looked packed.

Until 60 minutes or so when there appeared to be a fire drill. Northampton were appalling, must have been 30ish handling errors and some disgraceful defensive lapses. Felt a bit flat that the Northampton fans couldn’t even boo at the end, a football team performing like that against their arch rivals would struggle to make it back to the bus. JVP was superb.

Heading to Tottenham for (hopefully) the annual beatdown of Quins?

26 unforced errors and 14 turnovers conceded. Youre not going be anywhere near winning with stats like that. I've never seen Saints nilled before at home and poor old Hendy probably made more errors in the match than he has done in his career so far. No chance of play-offs now!

Enjoy Tottenham, fabulous stadium. Beer's bloody expensive mind you!!!!

It really is impressive, pity they haven’t got a football team to match it!

[Oxbow]

Pretty astonishing stats from Itoje! 30 consecutive 80 minute performances in the 6N since 2020.

For a spell he was well below par but Eddie just refused to take him off no matter what.

[Hal Jordan]

I wonder if he'll do 80 minutes today?

[Brazil]

It would take a heart of stone not to laugh at that result.

[Lady P]

Wtf actually just happened in Sarries v Quins?!

[ASMO]

Brizzle V Racists WTF is going on there, 10 tries in the first half, defence optional.

[Hal Jordan]

Wtf actually just happened in Sarries v Quins?!

Sarries absolutely butchered their chance just after the half, and Quins took advantage. Glad I was there to see it.

[Ovals]

Wtf actually just happened in Sarries v Quins?!

It all seemed to change when they brought Benson on at FH - the 22 year old played a blinder.

[sockwithaticket]

Why play for the full 80 when you can just switch on for the final 20 and get the job done?

Work smarter not harder

[Paddington Bear]

Haven’t seen a chargedown under the posts since Thomas Castaignede, and before that Thomas Castaignede, and before that…

[SaintK]

Barbeary having brain fart and kicking the ball dead thinking the clock was in the red with 30 seconds to go
Glaws 5m scrum and score in the corner
28 26

[SaintK]

Billy Millard leaving Quins at the end of the season.
Evans to step up or will they look elsewhere?

Harlequins' director of rugby Billy Millard has announced he will leave the club this summer after seven years.
The 55-year-old Australian joined the Twickenham-based club in 2018 as general manager and led them to their second Premiership title in 2020-21.
Millard became director of performance in 2021 before taking on his current role in 2023.
"This decision is not one that's been made lightly, but I am in a position to take on a new challenge in my rugby career, whilst spending time on a family project," he told the club's website.

[Slick]

Oh I’m not dissing your Euston idea , just that it’s just not cheap enough I’d have thought on land use.
The land at Twickenham would be big bucks for sure , and whilst it’s a great stadium the fanzone is quite shit really , same like any other event zones.

If they went someplace shit like Luton, you’d perhaps get cash from the govt too. Perhaps closer
Would be around Watford where the Warner bros park is, on the m25, lots of space, on tube and main line rail line to Birmingham.

Bit late to this, but what the fuck are you talking about Yeeb? Murrayfield is a 20/25 minute slow stroll from the centre of Edinburgh.

Also, I have to say that I thought the fanzone at Twickenham was brilliant when I was there this year.

[Yeeb]

Oh I’m not dissing your Euston idea , just that it’s just not cheap enough I’d have thought on land use.
The land at Twickenham would be big bucks for sure , and whilst it’s a great stadium the fanzone is quite shit really , same like any other event zones.

If they went someplace shit like Luton, you’d perhaps get cash from the govt too. Perhaps closer
Would be around Watford where the Warner bros park is, on the m25, lots of space, on tube and main line rail line to Birmingham.

Bit late to this, but what the fuck are you talking about Yeeb? Murrayfield is a 20/25 minute slow stroll from the centre of Edinburgh.

Also, I have to say that I thought the fanzone at Twickenham was brilliant when I was there this year.

It’s the closest one but still way further than Cardiff which was the only one meeting his criteria. Took me about 90 mins last time I visited thanks to crowds and being pretty pissed.

Fanzone is whack tbf compared to a proper town centre of choice , your idea of brilliant must differ from mine

[Tichtheid]

Brizzle V Racists WTF is going on there, 10 tries in the first half, defence optional.

I've just seen this, there was some defence going on
Edinburgh fans used to see this a lot

https://www.tntsports.co.uk/rugby/premi ... ideo.shtml

[Oxbow]

Saints down to their sixth-choice fly half this evening, who's actually a scrum half. Away at Sale where we never win anyway. It could make for grim viewing.

[SaintK]

Saints down to their sixth-choice fly half this evening, who's actually a scrum half. Away at Sale where we never win anyway. It could make for grim viewing.

[SaintK]

Carry on!
This was always going to be the outcome. Let's see if any of them listened to the concerns they heard on their travels round the grassroots clubs.
I somehow doubt it!!!

Rugby Football Union chief executive Bill Sweeney has survived a vote of no confidence at a special general meeting.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-un ... ye077l0vo

[Paddington Bear]

Problem is if you are going to get rid of him you do need a plan of what happens next, and that always seemed suitably vague.

[SaintK]

Problem is if you are going to get rid of him you do need a plan of what happens next, and that always seemed suitably vague.

According to some reports the WGU see the very fact that an SGM was called at all is somewhat of a victory as the RFU will now have to listen to the concerns raised rther than just ignore them.
The board really don't come out of this at all well.
Beaumont was Sweeney's poodle
When asked straight at the SGM Wayne Barnes admitted to receiving £25k from the RFU since being involved in supporting Sweeney
Udin the RFU President is supposed to be neutral but volubly backed Sweeney and the status quo.
Still I'm sure they'll all be enjoying their freebies and expenses etc for a while yet

[sockwithaticket]

Ordinarily, you'd expect Mitchell being back to significantly boost Saints, but playing a depth chart 9 at fly half is probably going to mitigate any upside.

They're certainly very physcially committed so far. I'm sure Langdon will want to get one over on his old side.

[Oxbow]

Couldn't have had a worse start, then Pollock does Pollock stuff.

[sockwithaticket]

I reckon the tackle on Iyogun as he scored could have done with a TMO check. looked very high and certainly yellow worthy.