JP Morgan 7s: Some rugby at last!

Yesterday I almost felt like I was back in the middle of the rugby season again as my Twitter feed was on fire filled with rugby related tweets. Ahead of Thursday night's first JP Morgan 7s meeting at Kingsholm all of the teams involved announced their squads and dealt their cards for the first time this season. The team sheets aren’t filled with well-known names, far from it in fact, the ‘old boys’ are clearly resting and recuperating as the grueling pre-season sessions rack up and the young guns are given their chance to shine. For the first time the squads also have representatives from various parts of the world with Leicester fielding Blaine Scully from the USA and Harlequins drawing on their international franchises with Jeremy Manning from Abu Dhabi Harlequins and Patrice Agunda from Kenya Harlequins.

Exeter, Gloucester, Worcester and Bath will kick off the 2013 7s at Kingsholm, after such a long time without rugby I’m sure that The Shed will be packed and all 4 teams’ supporters will be in fine voice to welcome rugby back with some Thursday Night Lights. It seems that the kit designers have been getting a little creative for a couple of these teams; Gloucester have recently unveiled a ‘Stade esque’, away kit… for those of you who aren’t familiar with Stade’s colour pallet it focuses around the extremely masculine colour that is pink! Exeter also have a rather delicious new kit complete with superhero background however sadly I don’t think that this lightning bolt background will follow them to match-days, which seems a great shame! 

 

They mean business....!

Next stop is Franklin’s Gardens – Leicester Tigers, Northampton Saints, Newcastle Falcons and Sale Sharks will all grapple for a trip to The Rec. The squads are a mixture of internationals, Junior World Cup Winners and experienced 7s players however it is with great sadness that I report that none of Saints’ Lions are taking to the field… that great moment will be left for their first home game of the season on Saturday 7^th September against Exeter Chiefs.

Harlequins, London Irish, Saracens and London Wasps will all enjoy their 7s on the artificial grass at Allianz Park, beautiful for speedy 7s not so fun for ‘astro like burns’… it’s a good job that rugby players are hard or so I’m told!  London Irish field a team of youngsters, Wasps are led from the front by Tom Varndell and Quins will be looking to continue their 2013 7s success. Personally I think that it will be the home team who finish victorious and who will make the trip to The Rec following Saturday’s qualifying competition.  Sarries are fielding a combination of youth and experience; Nils Mort captains a squad that includes the ever experienced, although sometimes unreliable, Mr Chris Ashton and Mr Michael Tagicakibau one of the extremely fast, extremely difficult to pin down Tagicakibau brothers.

This week’s 7s will be a chance to get the rugby juices flowing again, obviously we won’t be able to enjoy any front row beef, scrums or truly crunching hits however our Aviva Premiership Squads will all put on their new kits and provide us with a taster of what is to come when the full season starts on Saturday 7th September.

Allianz Park will be the venue for my 7s fix, experiencing the new purpose built stadium for the first time whilst enjoying the ‘juiciest’ of the 3 fixtures will be a great way to spend my Saturday night. All the news, pictures and highlights to follow!

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All the Pre-Season Gossip....

Pre-season is now well under way for all of our Aviva Premiership players, some have been beasting out horrific watt bike sessions for the past 3 or 4 weeks, whilst others are just returning after their summer holidays. Over the next few weeks the hard work is being put in before the first ‘official fixture’ of the season the JP Morgan 7s and the many bruising pre-season matches that follow it. This time is normally fairly quiet news wise, the players are putting themselves through a lot of pain and the rest of us are trying to find other things to fill their weekends with, however this season it has all been kicking off before a single match has even started! The rugby news has been coming in thick and fast, so I thought that now would be an appropriate time to review some of the punchier headlines to date…

Team Bonding at it's best...

Obviously we need to go straight to beautiful Bath and take note of the 'how to make friends and bond at your new club' lesson that Gavin Henson has taught everyone. Now personally I like Gavin Henson, yes you will all probably shoot me for saying that, but I do, he is an extremely talented rugby player... who just happens to not make great choices from time to time!!! A flooring from a team mate isn't really the ideal way to start his life at club number 8. Let's hope that things settle down, now that he and Carl have both been fined and the club have 'closed the issue'. I'm sure that Gavin will be knuckling down, no pun intended, to his actual pre-season training now and will plan to smash it up on the pitch in the first few games so that he won't be on the hunt for club number 9 come next Easter!

New Season, New Home...

The ‘transfer market’ has been an extremely busy one for the past few months with comings and goings all over the place, there are far too many to cover every single one however below are a few highlights...
 

Harlequins have benefited from a last minute signing; Nick Kennedy arrives back from Toulon fully charged with England and World Cup ambitions. He is ready to raise his profile and he has certainly chosen the right place to do this. Nick has just 9 England Caps... far too few in my opinion, having watched him play at London Irish for the past 7 years I can assure you that he is a superb player. Hearts broke all over Sunbury when Danny Care announced on Twitter, that Nick's signing was completed...

danny care ‏@dannycare 10 Jul

Welcome to the family @NickKennedy4 Always knew you wanted to be a Quin!! #COYQ

Nick Kennedy ‏@NickKennedy4 10 Jul

@dannycare thanks Chico. Good of you to announce it!?

Needless to say Mr O'Shea has bagged himself an absolute legend and I cannot wait to sit and watch Nick run out at the Stoop every week... it's a good job that I've got a great seat!!

One other club that hasn't done too badly in securing some fresh blood is Northampton. George North and Alex Corbisero will arrive back from their well deserved holidays ready to devastate the Aviva Premiership. I'm sure that Jim Mallinder will be excited to let them loose at Franklins Gardens to help wipe away the memories of Twickeham in May. I've no doubt that George North will be at the heart of everything good at Saints this season and as long as Dylan Hartley can keep his temper in check then Saints look like they will be marching straight back to Twickenham for the Aviva Prem Final come May. 

  

Sent to the Naughty Step...

Cockers is banned for 9 matches for 'using obscene, inappropriate and/or unprofessional language and behaviour towards fourth official Stuart Terheege' at the Aviva Premiership Final. We all know that he is a fiery character and after his written warning last season for his conduct it is not surprising that he has been punished yet again. Leicester of course are fuming and may still appeal but for the moment he will not be allowed to have any contact at all with the team on match days and will have to sit in the stands and watch like every one else. Clearly it will be up to his coaching team to steer the ship for the first few months of the season... welcome to the coaching staff Geordan Murphy it's time to get stuck in!!!

Finally Schalk Brits will miss the first 3 Aviva Premiership games due to his behaviour in Hong Kong, I'm pretty sure that he will think twice before launching one on a team mate again! Personally I would have loved to be a fly on the wall after that game because that punch certainly looked like it had some feeling behind it...

Pre-Season; how long left...!?

Sadly we still have a quite a while left to go until Round 1 of the Aviva Premiership so fingers crossed that the headlines will keep coming in because otherwise the lack of rugby in my life will start to become a real problem... at least until the JP Morgan 7s and the Pre Season Fixtures arrive!!