Second Team or Cup Team?

By BODis GOD
February 5 2014

It was a low attendance at the Madjeski yesterday but the performance by the boys wearing out green jersey was great. We won yesterday and Engand lost. To all those that picked England above Irish, it was a poor choice.

Brian in his pre-match notes talked about giving all players a go so that they can fight for a first team place and bring some players back from injury so the team put out looked like a side with lots of players pushing and willing to fight and prove to Brian that they deserve Premiership rugby. And that got me thinking.

The team we put out against our first ever win over the Scarlets, was it a “Cup” team or “Second” team?

Here are the (sort of) definitions for both:

“Cup” team: These are players that we put out against sides like Lustianos XV or Caverleri Prato, we wouldn’t put them out against Quinn’s or Wasps.

“Second” team: Players that we can trust in games against Prato to destroy and to be able to step up to the plate against the likes of Quinn’s or Wasps.

Now my opinion lies with the idea of having a “second” team rather than a “cup” team, on yesterdays performance I feel that any one of those players from the pack could deserve to play against Premiership opposition. Of course we want the strongest sides out against Premiership teams but the Scarlets currently lie 7th in the RaboDirectPro12 and yes they have players missing but the margin of the win was very impressive.

If the team are meant to be a “cup” team they haven’t done very well. Yes, we were sadly booted out of Europe because of purely stupid rules but the LV=Cup has been a disappointing. Both sides yesterday played for pride but I think that the players are “second” team players for Irish because they played well and looked like they are pushing for something else. Their pushing ability shows that they aren’t content to be “cup” players and want to show that they deserve to play in the Premiership.

Let’s compare our players who start in our premiership games and if they will be put under pressure by “second” team players:

Number	Prem	Second	Pressure?
15	James O'Connor	Tom Homer	Yes
14	Topsy Ojo	Alex Lewington	Yes
13	Eammon Sheridan	Setimata Sa	No
12	Fergus Mulchrone	Guy Armitage	Yes
11	Marland Yarde	Sailosi Tagicakibau	Yes
10	Ian Humphreys	Shane Geraghty	Yes
9	Tomas O'Leary	Pat Phibbs/ Darren Allinson	Yes
8	Blair Cowan	Chris Hala'Ufia	Yes
7	Ofisa Treviranus
6	Kieran Low	Danny Kenny	No
5	Ian Gough	Nic Rouse	Yes
4	Geroge Skivington	Bryn Evans	Yes
3	CJ Van de Linde/ Leo Halavatau	Jamie Hagan	Yes
2	David Paice	Jimmy Stevens	Yes
1	Matt Parr/ John Yapp

As you can see we have 28 players who are putting pressure on our fist XV so this is positive, the players who have performed and improved in the cup games look ready and raring to step up to the plate. Finally, Irish really have a threatening squad. Watch out Sarries!

COYI!