Finn-al countdown
WELCOME: Well, well, well Scottish players in the finals of Europe. Its been a long time, but welcome back you beautiful bastards. And welcome back to you beautiful lot as well for episode 6 of the Thistle newsletter. In today’s edition we walk you through all the European action from the weekend, preview the return of the Pro12/14/17 and generally take a good root around all of the weird and wonderful odds and sorts of Scottish Rugby from the last 7 days.
Russelling up some Magic: Where better to start than Finn Russell adding clip 136 to his future highlights reel with a game winning chip in the 76th minute to help Racing 92 take the win vs Saracens - see the clip here
That 76th minute bit of genius was enough for Racing to see off a Saracens side featuring Swinson, Maitland, Hunter Hill and (for about 10 minutes) Duncan Taylor before he went off injured.
It was great to see Finn delivering in a high pressure situation against arguably the best defence in club rugby. It was a moment that required a difficult skill, to be executed to perfection, at a time of immense pressure - if Finn takes down the Champions Cup next month then you’d expect he will at least on that plane to South Africa.
Full highlights from BT here.
LION KING? It is never too early to speculate about the Lions tour, and Russell’s performance has added significant fuel to the debate over the coveted 10 shirt v South Africa next summer. While many think Finn should be a shoo in, we are of course here to rain on that parade. There is still a belief at Thistle HQ that Finn struggles to consistently manage matches and if the match had stopped at 75 minutes there would be little argument that Alex Goode was the premier stand off on the day. We hope we’re wrong and that Finn can push on to become the world’s number one stand off over the next nine months, but we still struggle to see Gatland picking both Finn and Farrell in the same backline. Whilst we might not be his biggest fan, Farrell has proven himself to be a consistent performer at the highest level and has Lions test match experience in his favour.
Scotland on the South Coast
Finn’s Parisian men will face a horde of Scotland internationals now plying their trade for the SRU feeder team Exeter Chiefs. Hoggy, Jonny Gray and Sam Skinner all started for the Chiefs, with Handsome Sam (Hidalgo Clyne) coming off the bench, as they dusted off 5 time European champs Toulouse. Hoggy looked in fine form again, and while he didn’t get on the score sheet was a constant threat and had some quality touches. Eagle eyed Murray Kinsella on twitter also spotted this audacious support line showing how hard he is working on and off the ball. Jonny Gray put in a momentous performance against a enormous Tolouse pack and with every game seems to be growing with stature. Working with Rob Baxter is obviously working for him. Could we see him in the row next to Itoje in SA next summer? My god we hope so.
Full highlights from BT here.
SCOTS ABROAD:
Robbie Smith, former Scotland under 20 captain ahs signed a two year deal with the Newcastle Falcons
Matt Scott started at 12 for Leicester in their Semi Final loss to Toulon - the match was adjudicated by top Scottish ref Mike Adamson
Hamilton Burr started in the row for Waikato in their loss to last years Mitre 10 champions Tasman
Luke Hamilton had a run out for new club Oyonnax in a ProD2 win vs Provence
PRO14-ISH:We might not know how many teams will finish the season, but the European based franchises kick off the Pro12/14/17 in earnest this weekend. Glasgow start at the Sportsground v Connacht on Saturday evening, before Edinburgh take on the Ospreys a few hours later. The opening 8 rounds are out (images below) with the South African teams set to join the party in 2021 - pandemic pending. Just how many we don’t know. SA Rugby have committed to two, but with the demise of the Southern Kings a Pro14 statement said that “discussions are on-going about fulfilling this agreement from 2021 using a replacement team from its current professional franchises.”
SA TEASER: Tantalisingly, the statement also said that “PRO14 Rugby and SA Rugby are in early discussions about potentially expanding the tournament and deepening our partnership to include more South African franchises from 2021.” Watch this space, but certainly feels like moves are underway to bring the Stormers, Sharks and Bulls to Scotstoun and Mini Murrayfield sooner rather than later.
LOOSE HEAD SAFFERS: Glasgow’s Oli Kebble was in the Sunday Times yesterday talking about his desire to play for Scotland having qualified via residency in August. It’s a good read (Paywall here) and feels like the SRU are beginning to roll the pitch for the inevitable calling up for three South African born recruits for the autumn - Duhan, Kebble and Van der Walt. This will no doubt result in some good old fashioned self flagellation about the lack of pathway for Scottish players, but rules are rules and for Kebble’s part he does seem to have fully bought into the Glasgow and Scottish culture and will offer (finally) some depth a loose head. Rory Sutherland starting with Kebble on the bench is a step up from Dell and Gordy Reid who we had at the RWC. With “The Greatest Schoeman” coming soon as well, the South African Loosehead pipeline is looking strong for Scotland.
***FREE BEER**
We have partnered with Beer52 to bring our followers free beer! Just head to this link https://www.beer52.com/thistle and get your ten beers for free! All you have to do is cover postage at £4.95 and 10 beers will be sent right to your doorstep. Help support this Scottish business who do a cracking job of promoting craft beer from around the world!
Thanks Beer52!
***FREE BEER**
SRU SOS : Scottish Rugby is not immune from the financial challenges facing the wider sports industry and the SRU launched its big initiative this week to fill the SRU coffers for the next few months until fans can enter stadiums.
Thankfully the SRU membership scheme helped pad out our weekly quota of peak marketing guff.
Named after “three of Scotland’s most famous mountains” we have:
The Nevis
The top tier (makes sense, Scotland’s largest mountain) where for £34 you get access to a ballot for Scotland matches during the 20/21 season (if fans are allowed in), pre sale for all Scotland Women’s matches, name adorned on the players tunnel (excited to see Harold Shipman and Nigel Farage adorn the wall of Murrayfield via some pranksters), 50% discount on stadium tour and a BRAND NEW DIGITAL MAGAZINE!!!!
The Macdui
The second tier (makes sense, Scotland second largest mountain) where for £19 you get everything apart from access to the ballot and Women’s pre sales
The Lomond
The last package (err…The 182nd highest mountain in Scotland) is a free package which gets you access to…(drum roll please)…a personalised newsletter. Our sources indicate that the ‘personalised’ nature of the newsletter might extend only to the name.
The potential of no crowds for both the Autumn Nations Cup and the Six Nations would take another huge chunk out of the SRU’s coffers, so trying to raise some additional cash seems fair and given the circumstances the packages look okay. The SRU still has a proposal for crowds sitting with the Scottish Government, but may only get very short notice that they will be allowed, so having an up to date database of fans they can contact, track and trace is also a handy benefit of this push. As for moving to a ballot for tickets model, it looks like this will be a crisis only measure - the success of the season pass in recent years means that SOLD OUT BT MURRAYFIELD has been achieved almost before tickets go on general release, so a ballot is mostly a means to manage crowds in a covid world a la the Edinburgh ballot a few weeks back.
TV TIME: Good news for the Scotland women’s game this week as it was announced that their re-arranged 6 nations fixtures will be shown on BBC Alba. The first match v France is on 25 October, before Wales doubling up as a repechage tie as part of the qualification process for next year’s Rugby World Cup.
JEKYLL AND HYDE: The debate around whether Dave Rennie had a positive or negative on the Glasgow Warriors squad moved into Chapter 23 this weekend with some comments from Adam Hastings in the Offside Line. Hastings gave a pretty mature and nuanced answer when he said “Obviously boys have had different experiences with him, and you can’t please everyone as a head coach, and he certainly didn’t please me at times – he dropped me for a month and a half and I wanted to rip his head off. But we had some honest conversations and I honestly couldn’t say a bad word about him: what he’s done for me is brilliant.”
See the rest of the article here
SUPER SPRINT SUPER 6: Scottish Rugby’s number one crank Aristotle coined Super 6 “the bastard child of Scottish Rugby. Largely unloved, despised by many” but was right in his summation that it is still the “future of performance rugby in Scotland” If anyone wants a reminder of why a 3rd Pro Team is both desperately needed and fundamentally unworkable (even in a COVID free world), feel free to catch up on our piece on the rationale and options for a 3rd Pro team
The Super 6 is planning to return in the Autumn (indicative date of the 31st October) for the ‘Sprint Series’ where all teams will play each other over five weeks and a finals weekend where first will play second, third will play fourth and fifth will play sixth.
There has been some good/interesting news related to Super 6 over the last week or so:
Cammy Fenton has signed for Heriots after leaving Edinburgh in the summer
Allanvale Developments has taken out a front of shirt sponsorship deal with Ayrshire Bulls
THE WEEK AHEAD: Clear out your diaries and stock the fridge with beer cause its the Edinburgh Rugby End of Season Awards on Tuesday night. Whilst the Thistle is disappointed it won’t get its photo with The Sweet Prince Chris Dean due to our Home Shirt sponsorship, we are excited to see who takes down the big awards including ‘Ironman’ - given to the hardest trainer and ‘Man of Steel’ - awarded to the player with the most Defender of the Week awards.
FASHION SHOW: Glasgow fans can also look forward to a new kit announcement. The teaser on social media invites followers to RESPECT OUR HISTORY, INSPIRE OUR COMMUNITY, FIGHT FOR OUR FAMILY and DEFEND OUR HOME. Which is all very exciting, we are sure you will agree. Keep your eyes on socials for the drop later this week.
PLUGGING: You can subscribe to the podcast here: https://play.acast.com/s/thethistle
Follow us on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/thistle_rugby_pod/?hl=en
Follow us on twitter here: https://twitter.com/thistlerugbypod