Chiefs v Bristol

What do you think? You can have your say by posting below.
If you do not already have an account Click here to Register.

Would like to see a Slade/ Devoto axis but hard to disagree. Think we have some real depth now. Will Nowell eveR get a ruin back at 15. I think he would be real class there.

I'm not sure whether it is just my computer Moorsman, but the formatting on this page has meant I can only read the article after clicking on the "printer friendly" button.

I like the look of your 15 but I would give it a couple of tweaks. Whoever plays, it should be a cracker. We can't afford to be complacent as I'm sure Bristol will be raring to go and would love to turn us over in our own backyard.

My 23 for what it's worth -

1. Ben Moon
2. Luke Cowan-Dickie
3. Harry Williams
4. Mitch Lees
5. Johnny Hill
6. Don Armand (c)
7. Sam Simmonds
8. Dave Ewers
9. Stu Townsend
10. Henry Slade
11. Jack Nowell
12. Ollie Devoto
13. Sam Hill
14. Olly Woodburn
15. Lachie Turner

16. Shaun Malton
17. Carl Rimmer
18. Tomas Francis
19. Ollie Atkins
20. Thomas Waldrom
21. Jack Maunder
22. Gareth Steenson
23. James Short



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2017:04:04:19:06:32 by barnychief.

We need an experienced Side out to avoid banana skins (our 'Sale' performance could have been inexperience in key positions) and a young fast bench to exploit a tiring Brizzle
I'd have:-
1.Ben Moon
2.LCD
3.Tomas Francis
4 Mitch Lees
5.Geoff Parling
6 Don Armand
7.Julian Salvi
8 Thoma Waldrom
9 Stu Townsend
10.Garath Steenson
11.James Short
12.Henry Slade
13.Ian Whitten
14.Ollie Woodburn
15 Jack Nowell

16.Shaun Malton
17. Carl Rimmer
18.Harry Williams
19.Johnny Hill
20.Dave Ewers
21.Jack Maunder
22.Joe Simmons
23.Lachie Turner

Campo needs to be in the 23 makes things happen like shorty

I'm being a pedant but no need for a fly half on the bench if Slade and Steeno are both in the starting XV.

I see LCD in the news for the wrong reasons. Hopefully won't affect his performance, or any plans he might have had this summer....

I see this game as an opportunity to continue the momentum gathered by our younger players this season. No disrespect intended, but if Bristol at home is not a game to do this, then there are none. Johnny Hill, Sam Simmonds and our two young 9's have the quality to ensure we do not slip up in this game as they continue their development.

The same can be said of Sladey at 10. If Steeno is fit again (which he hopefully is) then it would be a bit of a snub to Henry to throw him off of the shirt straight away. I personally thought he had a fantastic game last weekend running hard and flat to the line. His carrying and running game combined with his pin point passing keeps the opposition defence nervous and guessing. In attack last week, aside from a few sloppy mistakes across the team, we really looked in control. We do need to reintegrate Steenson as soon as we can, but I think the solution to this is to bring him off of the bench this weekend and see where we go from there.

Sam Simmonds is a great talent and provided the balance is right, his speed, power and link play can bring real dynamism to any backrow. Dave Ewers had a thunderous game back after his injury and I think he is champing at the bit to show what he can do before the England summer tour. I think this is the game to give him that opportunity and playing him at 8 will show his versatility. Don Armand is the sort of player every team needs. He is a real warrior who is seemingly everywhere the opposition don't want him. Thomas Waldrom seems to have dropped off in recent weeks so perhaps a barnstorming last quarter against tired opposition will give him back his mojo before the finals.

Our backline is dangerous regardless of who steps in, we have real strength in depth here. We have 3 of the best wingers in the premiership in Woodburn, Short and Nowell and it would be hard to leave any of them out. James Short seems to thrive on the more tired and spread out defences later on so he gets the 23 shirt. Phil Dollman is another who has dropped in form recently after a fantastic season. Lachie Turner hasn't put a foot wrong when I've seen him play and I think he has the qualities to give us real momentum from deep. Devoto is the model 12. He has pace, power and distribution skills to go with his hefty boot. With Sam Hill bringing his power and deceptive speed outside him, we have a very well balanced midfield. Once Campo is fit again, he would get the 13 shirt. True class and a real gamechanger.

Sorry for the repeat of my 23, this is just to give my post context -

1. Ben Moon
2. Luke Cowan-Dickie
3. Harry Williams
4. Mitch Lees
5. Johnny Hill
6. Don Armand (c)
7. Sam Simmonds
8. Dave Ewers
9. Stu Townsend
10. Henry Slade
11. Jack Nowell
12. Ollie Devoto
13. Sam Hill
14. Olly Woodburn
15. Lachie Turner

16. Shaun Malton
17. Carl Rimmer
18. Tomas Francis
19. Ollie Atkins
20. Thomas Waldrom
21. Jack Maunder
22. Gareth Steenson
23. James Short

While I agree with most of your reasoning Barnychief, this is an opportunity to establish the 'settled' side that will take the Chiefs to Twickenham, not the last opportunity to bring on developing players except from the bench. The selection must be Rob's opinion of his best 15 so that they hone that instinctive togetherness that makes the difference at the finishing end of the season. I think we did well last year because we had that for the run in.

For me this is the Business end of the season now. No mistakes, Best XV possible..

1. Moon
2. LCD
3. Francis
4. Lees
5. Hill
6. Armand
7. Salvi
8. Waldrom
9. Townsend
10. Steenson
11. Short
12. Whitten
13. Slade
14. Nowell
15. Dollman

16. Yeandle
17. Rimmer
18. Williams
19. Parling
20. Ewers
21. Maunder
22. Devoto
23. Turner

Can't disagree with any of the above suggestions but where do we put Campagnaro if he's fit???

Well Rob has gone with this selection. A little surprised to see young Jack start in front of Stu and it looks like we're planning to charge through this game with lots of pace.

15 Phil Dollman
14 Jack Nowell
13 Ian Whitten
12 Ollie Devoto
11 Olly Woodburn
10 Henry Slade
9 Jack Maunder
1 Ben Moon
2 Luke Cowan-Dickie
3 Harry Williams
4 Mitch Lees
5 Jonny Hill
6 Dave Dennis
7 Don Armand (capt)
8 Thomas Waldrom
16 Jack Yeandle
17 Carl Rimmer
18 Greg Holmes
19 Geoff Parling
20 Dave Ewers
21 Stuart Townsend
22 Gareth Steenson
23 Michele Campagnaro

To be honest I think Jack is the better future prospect, but both the youngsters bring something good to the team. Different style of play in this important position is great for a coach.

Kick-off delayed until 3.15pm due to traffic delays on M5 and late arrival of Bristol team.

We seem to have run into a rich vein of poor form. How we managed to get away with a TBP win I'm not sure. What on earth was going on with the 'no look' pass just give it to the opposition to run in a try.

There was not a single positive for the Chiefs today. We have been playing poorly but winning, but today took our performance to another poor level. Both Saracens and Wasps would be laughing at our performance today and would love to play us.

Positives? There are plenty. Here's a couple... Geoff Parling made a massive impact when he came on in line out and the loose, scored a try too. Ian Whitten was as solid as ever. Both could have been MoM

The significant issue was our mindset after an early try to start playing sevens rugby. How many consecutive games have we seen interception tries against us now? This is why we are putting ourselves on catch up. We need to mix our game and start by building solid foundations.

Apologies to Thomas Waldrom. He gave everything and scored 2 tries on the way....very positive

We got caught up in the traffic mayhem on the A30/M5 and parked in our VIP spot at about 3pm. It was pretty obvious that buses could not get through so we walked, crossing the wobbly bridge and got into our seats just in time o miss the first try!
For a while I wished we had waited for the bus because we gifted Bristol 3 tries and were lucky to go in one score adrift at half time. I thought the half time rollicking had worked when we scored to draw level and the score a bonus point try and hopefully put the game to bed, but we managed to screw up again and give them a try under the posts which left us chasing a fifth try to win!
Positives for me:
Geoff Parling steadied the line out and looked hungry.
Dave Ewers was immense.
Ollie Woodburn was brilliant in the kick and chase and superb under the highball!
Tank scored twice.
Disappointments:

Only two offside penalties all game, both against us! I'm pretty sure Bristol were offside on a number of occasions!
The number of penalties Bristol conceded in the red zone without even threat of a card.

We have played poorly in two games and still picked up WBPs, without being disrespectful to Sale or Bristol, dare I say we got dragged down to their level and the breaks for the AW and Europe have not done us any favours!

I thought the main positive was that we won. We have all too often lost games like that in the past and I think it's a sign of maturity that we can now win when not playing well. However, we will clearly not be able to play like that in our remaining three games if we want a home semi. Quinn will definitely fancy their chances against us, as will Saints and Gloucs, unless we lift our game significantly. The intercept tries are becoming tiresome. It's obvious teams have sussed our passing strategy and are looking for the intercept; a bit of back to basics required rather than trying to be too fancy. A number of individuals are not performing as well as they can, for whatever reason, and I'd be looking to make a few changes for Friday. In particular I'd like to see Turner and Short starting, and probably Campo as well.

LIstening to Rob's postmatch comments (Chiefs TV and Twitter feed) it seems he was a lot happier with this display than Sale. Comment was along the lines of some outtanding individual performances - Tank, LCD amongst others) - but not clicking collectively.

My positives were Tank, Armand, Ewers, Parling, Cowan-Dickie.

My only massive negative was the dreadful defending of that kick for the Eadie try. There was just one person in the back field. He was swamped by the chasers.

Another negative. Big screen not working to show the offside in Front of the kicker for that Briz try.
Winger looked a good few meters in front from my spot more or less in line with the kick. I was fully expecting it to be disallowed when Foley asked for it to be checked. Technical breakdown, or insufficient camera angles nearly cost us the match.
Not the first time our big screen/available camera angles have let us down at SP. Time for an upgrade in the summer perhaps?

Tom a Hawk had a rant about a few things on other posts, including his inability to remember to pack his season ticket, but also Sirs inability to pack his yellow card! Bristol defended manfully this afternoon but often illegally but, listening on ref box, I never heard him once threaten a card for repeated infringements in the red zone!

Agree, a lot of pens 5M out. I prefer zero tolerance there personally.
Also thought he allowed Briz to hang around at the back of mauls a lot, spoiling the ball.
Did lol when he penalised Briz for hands on the floor before attacking the ball after about 70 mins!

Had we lost, the ref would be a long way down the list of reasons for defeat mind. Decent effort by Briz today, defended manfully, and capitalised on the chances we gave them/they forced, although you have to feel a better prem team would have seen out a 14 pt lead which is maybe symptomatic of their position.

Quote:

fatheralice
Another negative. Big screen not working to show the offside in Front of the kicker for that Briz try.
Winger looked a good few meters in front from my spot more or less in line with the kick. I was fully expecting it to be disallowed when Foley asked for it to be checked. Technical breakdown, or insufficient camera angles nearly cost us the match.
Not the first time our big screen/available camera angles have let us down at SP. Time for an upgrade in the summer perhaps?

Definitely need to upgrade a number of things at SP including the screens.

On another note...

Cracking game today. Annoyingly late to the match due to traffic problems (mentioned on other posts and many faired worse than me). Although I missed the first 15-20 mins of the match I think Bristol did effectively prevent Chiefs from playing our planned game. It is testament to the players that we secured 5 points despite (again) a less than ideal performance. The next three games will be key to see if we have the ability to win a Premiership Final - if we continue to play as in the last two games - no chance but… if we play like we did against Leicester and Bath (both away games) we CAN win. More positives than negatives today.

How did the half backs go? Often easier for a young nine with an experiences ten like steenson...

How can anyone be happy with the performance, we made a very poor Bristol side look good with our mistakes especially our missed tackles out wide. We should be getting into a bit of form for the end of the season but we are no where near our best.

We need Steeno starting on Friday as the team look more solid when he is on the pitch and Campagnaro needs to start on the wing with Woodburn.

I watched the game on TV as I was not able to get to Sandy Park.
Firstly Bristol played very well,we have to give them a lot of credit on one of the best performances of the season.
They took the opportunities (we gave them....) and defended brilliantly (as Mr Foley would allow).
As for our own performance,we have talked about respect a lot recently and I don't think we showed enough respect to Bristol or more importantly to the ball!
The early try for us may not actually have helped us as we were far to cavalier with ball in hand expecting to run in tries from anywhere rather than winning the game first,grinding the opposition down and then stepping on the accelerator in the second half once the game is relatively secure.
Possession is so important to winning a game of rugby and we gave the ball away far too often.
We found a way to win again and our belief and confidence is amazing so it is not all bad.
In actual fact it may be a benefit to us to have such a tough game yesterday as an easy game where the opposition don't challenge you doesn't really prepare you for the really tough games.
A tough game at Quins next week is just what we need,it will focus our minds and will tell us more about where we are as a team than yesterday imo.

Quote:

fatheralice
Another negative. Big screen not working to show the offside in Front of the kicker for that Briz try.
Winger looked a good few meters in front from my spot more or less in line with the kick. I was fully expecting it to be disallowed when Foley asked for it to be checked. Technical breakdown, or insufficient camera angles nearly cost us the match.
Not the first time our big screen/available camera angles have let us down at SP. Time for an upgrade in the summer perhaps?

You know what we really need is a Technology and Communication company to come in and sort everything out? Oh wait we do................. 😉

Screen probably down to the club

Camera angles firmly in the remit of the TV people.

Quote:

Lowerwatha
Tom a Hawk had a rant about a few things on other posts, including his inability to remember to pack his season ticket

Now now Lowerwatha, My annoyance is not with failing to bring my season ticket but in the way in which the club reacted to this.

That Said I do agree that it seems like Mr Foley also forgot to bring something with him too.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2017:04:09:09:36:33 by Tom A Hawk.

People are complaining rightly about the lack of yellow cards, to be honest i'm not sure the ref knew anything about the Maul as Bristol seemed to do what ever they liked to stop it, bring down etc, all unpunished.

We can't blame Bristol, if you get to know you'll get away with it and it works, keep ongoing sunshine.

We caused our own problems yesterday, and they had one of those days where everything stuck and they finished well.

Is there a site anywhere that has the statistics for the match? Just got a feeling that the penalty count was higher than average yesterday.

ESPN rugby provides lots of stats including at player level. 21 penalties yesterday of which 8 were against Exeter

Match Stats

Quote:

Chief Redwine
Is there a site anywhere that has the statistics for the match? Just got a feeling that the penalty count was higher than average yesterday.

According to the TRP Bristol had 13 penalties Exeter 8. I was listening on refbox and Sir only called offside twice, both against us!
Keast kicked the ball into the stand after we were awarded a free and was told not to do it again. When he did it again he got a shove from Ollie Devoto and was told if he did it again he would be yellow carded. Wimpish refereeing!
Sorry TAH for my crass comment about your very frustrating error!

Thanks all.

I know I will get stick for saying this but we were rubbish! Yes the intensity was better but far too many simple mistakes. Our pack doesn't seem to be the monster it was last season and I wouldn't fancy it against Sarries.

Moon gives too many penalties at the scrum, the driving maul won't worry neither Wasps nor Sarries and aside from LCD and Ewers not enough heavy duty penetration. Slade also had a shocker.

We will have to win all remaining games, possibly with bonus points, if we want a home semi given the way Wasps and particularly Sarries are playing.

Waldrom had a good game. He seemed to come onto the ball at more pace and made deeper inroads as a result.

I sincerely hope Lees is ok. He is critical to our chances in the semi and final. Him, LCD and Ewers in the same pack make us a scary prospect. Without him our scrum is weak and our driving play less effective.

Agree with OldWing above... Steeno has to start on Friday. So should Short and Campo, our two biggest threats with the ball. It must also be time to give either Turner or Nowell a go at full back. In the pack I would start Ewers and possibly even Salvi who is a tackle machine. For me he offers much more than Dennis.

Assume Francis isn't in the squad because of impending move? I seriously hope not though.

Glad to see someone else talking about Nowell at 15. Think this would give solidity and exit from the kick game.

No stick from me MC, all your points concur with my thoughts. I actually think we were dire yesterday, and on that performance will not bother Quins, Glos or Saints, let alone Wasps and Sarries.

I`m with you on that too MC.I thought we were dire.
I did think Woodburn had a good game though as per normal.

-------------------------------------------------------
I drink and i know things...(Tyrion Lannister)

Quote:

dwhite805
Glad to see someone else talking about Nowell at 15. Think this would give solidity and exit from the kick game.

Surely the coaches should consider it. Nowell, Woodburn and Short are all fantastic and all very different. I feel for Short, Prem player of the month last month, missing out on the 23. Dollman has been great for us but the three aforementioned are all better.

I would love to see a back line of (IMHO and our best possible and balanced team for the playoffs):

15 Jack NOWELL
14 Olly WOODBURN
13 Michele CAMPAGNARO
12 Ollie DEVOTO
11 James SHORT
10 Gareth STEENSON (c)
9 Stuart TOWNSEND

1 Carl RIMMER
2 Luke COWAN-DICKIE
3 Tomas FRANCIS
4 Mitch LEES
5 Geoff PARLING
6 Dave EWERS
7 Don ARMAND
8 Thomas WALDROM

16 Shaun MALTON
17 Ben MOON
18 Harry WILLIAMS
19 Jonny HILL
20 Sam SIMMONDS/ Julian SALVI
21 Jack MAUNDER
22 Henry SLADE
23 Ian WHITTEN

Gave this one a miss in favour of Grinagog but did catch highlights. I never complain about a Chiefs win but some of our defence I could hear Rob swearing his head off at. Another messy display - but we still got a WBP and a playoff spot is ours - given our start to the season I'll take that!

Picked this up on twitter.

Thomas Waldrom made 30 carries v Bristol, the most in a @premrugby game since Opta began recording this data (since 2008/09).

Amazing statistic..... TOOT TOOT

He's also scored 50 Premiership tries and only 18 players have managed this in their careers

Players returning from 6 Nations into a winning team, short term break. Dont know if these things contribute to it but one poor performance after another - not good and needs to be sorted.

According to the Chiefs website, he's scored 38 of them for us - in just 3 seasons. Amazing stat.

The other stat I picked up from the link kindly provided was the number of tackles Bristol had to make during the match - five times as many as we made - and yet we didn't have that much more possession. Seemed a bit odd to me.

When we were short of back row, Waldrom played a huge part (and time on pitch) keeping the Ex team moving forward. Not top of the try charts this year but not shabby either for an ageing number 8! Well done Toot Toot.

Over the course of a season any team will have intercepts against them and loose days.....lets hope Chiefs have used theirs up and have a tighter more focuses game on Friday....anything less than 5 points over the next 3 games will mean an away semi ....