European Challenge Cup - Cardiff vs Tigers

[Turnaroundspecialist]

Very pleasantly surprised by the result and more importantly the heart shown. The test will be to see if it can be followed up at Saints

[johnthegriff]

Now watched the recording of the match and the ref was better than I thought, I still believe he was wrong on a couple of scrum decisions and penalties awarded against Tigers should have been in our favour. Viljoen was more involved than I had believed and actually on a second viewing the game itself was better than I thought. Maybe we were a bit lucky but I have been to so many matches when we were a bit unlucky that I don't care. We won and that's the end of it, now for Saints!

[Cardiff Tig]

I regard this competition as important, frankly in our group the team that goes through will beat Calvisano twice, win their home matches and do better away to Pau and Cardiff than they do at Welford Road. With that in mind if I had been pressed before the match I might have said that I would not be disappointed with a losing bonus point. A Cardiff supporter before the game told me that their side was pretty much the best they could put out from those available and he did not understand why we had picked such a second team.

This was my point pre-match. I'm very happy with the win, and the comments about the quality of the game are a nothing comments really as you can only play what is in front of you. But everyone thought this was a weak team (whether they agreed or disagreed with the selection) and IMO it's an important competition and could (and indeed did) go a long way to wrapping up qualification for the knock out stages this weekend.

Frankly, I think the coaches got lucky. And I'd argue getting experience of knock-out rugby is definitely needed for the whole team if and when we ever get back to the top end of the table.

Did they get lucky, or were there large amounts of intelligent planning involved such as for example did they study the referee's style beforehand and play with a plan to suit him etc?
These are always interesting questions to which only those involved really know the answers!

I completely agree with this as well, I can't know if it was actually a complete masterstroke! Either way, I'm definitely pleased that we have a good chance to make it into the knock out stages of this competition after the results of the first two rounds.