Cardiff

[JohnCoffey]

It looks a very weak Cardiff RFC side tomorrow - we could be onto a second double !

[Phillip Grey]

Good luck today Steelmen, hoping to corne away with the win against a seriously weakened Cardiff squad.

Neil Edwards should be here today with Cardiff, if some scally hides his car keys until he agrees to help us there is a few pints of ale in it for them!

Have a good day everyone.

[abergavenny plodder]

Very disappointing again. Pack were 2nd best in all areas, the backs parted like the Red Sea on several occasions and conceded the crucial scrum penalty near the end against only 7 forwards and they scored their last try when they had only 13 players on the park. Crowd the poorest I have ever seen at ECP. I reckon about 200 and that's being generous. Couldn't,t pick an Ebbw MoM as everyone was equally poor. Thank god there,s no relegation as we,d be sure fire to go down and we need to recruit about a dozen players over the close season and new coaches to even be competitive next season.

[Phillip Grey]

Don’t really know what to say (not like me according to the long suffering wife).

Despite everything I was really optimistic about us winning today.

That was a depleted and poor Cardiff side and we lost.

The journey home was a long and quiet one.

[david brown]

Please,please ,could one of the deep thinking analysts who frequent this forum explain the reasoning behind the most bizarre substitution in the history of rugby football ? How can replacing a second row 17stone second row who was giving his usual 100 pc ,by a 10 stone hooker possibly have a major impact towards winning the game ? According to a CARDIFF supporter ,they had 7 academy players in their squad .yet they still beat us .Pretty obvious the supporters are showing what they think of the whole tragic situation by simply staying away.The continued requests for helpers ,will shortly mean we will have more of them than actual supporters.As previously stated ,that has to be the smallest crowd i can ever recall in 70 years of being a supporter

[chris]

I thought we played pretty well first half and I liked the way we kicked to the corners and controlled territory a lot more. We also managed to build an 8-point lead midway through the second-half, which should have put us into a winning position...

However, our scrum was very shaky throughout and some of our defensive work was really poor (we weren't even numbering up correctly).

The use of the bench was again baffling - it seems very formulaic and independent of what is actually going on on the field. What was the logic of going for the world's smallest pack (with Chunky, Joe Franchi and Ronny Kynes on the field) when we were already struggling in the scrums prior to that?!! Also why take off Rhys Francis when (again) he was having a stormer? Also, why take off our main ball carrier in Rhys Clarke at a time when we were struggling for any go forward ball? I think we just decided to give everyone a run...

Definitely one that got away. Cardiff were there for the taking and we should not have let an 8-point lead slip away so easily.

[html junkie]

Since when does Academy=weak? Did we ever think ourselves weakened by including Harri Keddie or Jared Rosser?
I thought we were much better and controlled large parts of the game with Callum Hall having his best game for us so far. Two mistakes cost us the game: one was an overthrown defensive line out, the other a missed midfield tackle. Mistakes happen and are nobody's "fault", certainly not the coaches'.
I expect a plastic trouncing at Merthyr on Friday but will continue to look for signs of improvement like the ones I saw yesterday.
I do agree that our normally excellent scrum creaked a bit, not least because it took the ref 70 minutes to realise Cardiff where deliberately wheeling. Not all the time; sometimes their TH turned in.
Another question: why did the late tackle on Callum, flagged by the AR, not earn at least a yellow card?

[david brown]

Hear we go again ,i certainly never said it weakened their team .So let us analyse the selection of these players.They were only included because they had so many of the first team out injured.This tends to indicate that if these had been fit ,the academy players would not have been playing ,Now from a simple logical deduction i would assume the team to be stronger with first team players available Notice you refrained from putting my troubled mind at rest by not giving an explanation for the substitution?.

[html junkie]

Hear we go again ,i certainly never said it weakened their team .So let us analyse the selection of these players.They were only included because they had so many of the first team out injured.This tends to indicate that if these had been fit ,the academy players would not have been playing ,Now from a simple logical deduction i would assume the team to be stronger with first team players available Notice you refrained from putting my troubled mind at rest by not giving an explanation for the substitution?.

I wasn't replying to you, nor referring to your comments in particular, David, but to several others writing that the Cardiff side looked weak (presumably because academy players were included to cover for injured regulars, as you shrewdly observed). I didn't respond to your comment about the substitution of Rhys Clarke because I have no more idea about it than you. At the time, I assumed Rhys had taken a knock, but that's just my assumption.

[Stevey]

I watched Clarkey walking off and around to the tech area and he did seem to be injured but as for substitutions I cannot explain. Poor crowd mainly down to 12oclock kick off.

[piglet]

Our scrummage was penalised repeatedly by the referee.
I spoke to one of our front row immediately following the game.
He indicated to me that he felt that the Cardiff front row were very well coached in the "dark arts" of front row play and duped the referee throughout.
Without those problems we might have seen a very different game.
The players should take heart and confidence from a much improved performance.

[Malpas69]

the Cardiff front row were very well coached

Enough said. We all know who the Forwards Coach is at Cardiff!

[chris]

The players should take heart and confidence from a much improved performance.

Yes to some extent, but I still can't see us being competitive against a better side like Merthyr on Friday.

Will take a miracle to win that one, given that they stuck 50 points on Ponty a week or so ago... could make for painful viewing!

[Topspectator]

The worry i had on Saturday is that Cardiff were comfortable to send up academy players.  And they came away with the result, i watched the warm up of the teams and they looked far more professional in their build up, we are lacking confidence and cohesion so when our pack is creaking and needing bulk and lineout options we ring the changes. The coaches make the said calls but surely the choices made are baffling.

[david brown]

Had my say about CLARKE but what about CULLAM Hall? The lad was obviously very low on confidence ,however last SATURDAY he played really well ,controlled the game ,kicked well and looked the part It must have been a further boost to his confidence ,when instead of encouraging the lad ,he was taken off Another totally unexplainable piece of bad decision making by the coaching staff.