Hello!

Hey lads,

I got my hand bent back and trapped the wrong way in a maul, thought I'd broke my wrist but it looks like it's just a sprain...should be back next week.

Was pleased with the BT switch as I'm a BT Broadband user so it was free...I'm paying the little extra for HD though...not really listened to their presenters yet but I notice they're doing really long pre match analysis...

Big news coming out of England and France regarding European rugby...is this the end or more posturing?

Richard measuring I believe Sporty.

That's my gut feeling too Aristo

Ye they said yesterday that they were looking to setup a France England tourney. But the ERC now announced today that ALL PARTIES are onboard to find a resolution.

Sorry guys but your AP lot are being @R$€ holes plain and simple. And the French are following them for reasons im not sure of. To get what they want i suppose. Which is always more cash! Which they actually spent on their own league

Ding - whilst I'm sure cash is part of the problem I do think the English and French clubs are genuinely unhappy about the current qualification inequalities.

Clearly the English and French clubs are unhappy, what we all need is a tournament that works for all and hopefully by putting together everyone's best ideas that can be accomodated

I do like the idea that it would be a competition run by the clubs rather than the unions, but I don't like the idea of dropping it to 20 sides - I'd worry that it would end up with the same clubs year after year and I don't like the Amlin being dropped to 20 as I think its great that some of the less developed Rugby nations play the bigger sides - that should help them develop and promote the sport for years to come.

How that all goes forward I don't know, but I'm hopeful that something can be brought together which is fair for all

Perhaps a tournament of the top 7 from each of the 3 leagues, the Heineken and Amlin winners and an Italian side if none has finished in the Aviva top 7 giving a 24 team tournament with the same structure as currently.

The other alternative could be a staright forward tournamet where every side is in at the start and progresses through a series of single match drawn from the hat games. Admittedly you could get Leiceste Vs Toulouse in Round One, but that might add some spice to it

Decent points of view indeed. but lets look at this from another perspective. There are 6 countries involved in the HC and 2 of those countries are demanding 66% of the profits.

Please explain to me how that's fair?

From my viewing of the Bath-Leicester game it seems the lottery of the front row collapse appears to have been replaced with the lottery of the "early push".

And how Stringer was putting it in straight but Mele was putting it in crooked... sheesh

The scrum resets will be down significantly...from my experience of propping under the new rules (at a ridiculously low standard ofc ) there's really no way you should collapse now unless you're messing around.

Another bonus of the new rules that only front rowers will know about is that under the new rules you're able to move your head and neck the next day...the old big hit scrums used to destroy your neck and shoulder muscles for 2 or 3 days.

Sorry to derail my own thread but wtf was the ref doing red carding the SA hooker today...ruined the game completely...it's not football...if you tackle high expect to eat an elbow / forearm...it's your own fault!!! Grrrrr!!!