Images, Offers & Previews - Aviva Premiership Round 3

Yes it is that time again… the start of another round of Aviva Premiership Rugby; Round 3 and boy do we have another superb weekend of rugby ahead of us. By now  you all should be back into the swing of things, with shirts already washed, ironed and hung up ready to go, tickets/season tickets out in a prominent place and your BT Sport set to record every piece of action possible over the course of the next few days. 

With bonus point tries, shock defeats, last minute match winning penalties, yellow cards and red cards we’ve seen quite a lot of action already this season and we are only 2 weekends in.

With so much action going on off the pitch this week it would be remiss of me not to have a little discussion about a few ‘key points’ before looking towards Round 3. Henson Gate… Bunny Gate… O’Connor Gate… where should I go first!?! Let’s do them in the order they broke shall we!? Manu and those bunny ears, his ‘practical joke’ made headline news and polarised opinion across Twitter, I’m pretty sure that he wasn’t expecting such a reaction. Appropriate or inappropriate, funny or not, the opinions have been flying all week. Matt Dawson certainly wasn't afraid to share his thoughts; “My view on Tuilagi/PM. I'm utterly embarrassed. When will some learn, there's a time and a place. #dontpoohonthePMsdoorstep #BTSportRugby”. Others took a more light-hearted view; “Manu Tuilagi incident grabbing the headlines. Not my type of thing. Slightly cringeworthy. Don't stone him for it.” – Will Greenwood. If I’m honest I’m inclined to agree with Will, it’s not my thing, and I think that Manu should have had more respect for the image of the PM and the Lions however don’t make a mountain out of a molehill. David Cameron is a grown man and actually he didn’t take any offence as the exchanges between himself and Manu on Twitter show, so let’s lay the bunny ears to rest and move on!

Still friends - Manu & D.C  Image @manutuilagi

Henson Gate – "A Full Refund for Bath Fans if Gavin scores a point at Allianz on Saturday". You don’t need to work in marketing to understand the objective of this one… drive ticket sales and awareness through 'slight' controversy. Again whether you agree or disagree with the initiative it has everyone talking about the Saracens vs. Bath game at the weekend, more so than any other fixture in Round 3. Surely that is one objective achieved already and the question of tickets sales... well we will have to wait until Sunday to find out about that one! Personally I think they could have employed a different initiative, I don’t think it is respectful to single out a player and given the history between Gavin Henson and Saracens I think it is off the mark. One other question that I do have is what initiative will be next for the London Wasps home game?? Money back if Goode hits the post again or if Ashley Johnson gets another yellow card?? 

Respect gone out the window? Or a piece of marketing excellence? @saracens image

Finally we head Down Under... it appears that it isn’t just the Northern Hemisphere that are having some ‘image problems’. This week James O’Connor, the golden boy of Australian rugby was thrown out of Perth airport for drunkenness. Whilst James wasn’t on ‘work business’, he was flying to Bali with his girlfriend, the fact that he wasn’t allowed to board his plane due to his behaviour isn’t great!!! Again it puts into question the respect that some players have for their image and the image of the game… adding this onto his ‘Burger Gate’ scandal during the Lions and I think James needs to be a little bit more careful about his actions off the field in the future!

Right, now that is all of the ‘gates’ covered, let’s move onto the more serious business of the Aviva Premiership Round 3 fixtures. On Friday Night Worcester Warriors host Harlequins at Sixways… both teams arrive with a point to prove, Worcester that they can see out and win a match at Home and Harlequins that they can power through despite their ever growing injury list. Worcester will need to tighten their discipline if they are to come away with anything from the game and Quins will need to pray for better weather than last Friday night and a stronger kicking performance from Nick Evans to seal the deal.

Friday Night Lights also arrive at the AJ Bell Stadium where Sale Sharks host London Wasps… at the beginning of the season I’m sure we all had this down as an easy win for Wasps however given Sale’s unexpectedly strong start it could be a little bit tighter than first thought. Wasps have made a few changes to last weekend’s team - Ben Jacobs and Charlie Davies start in the back line and Carlo Festuccia and Kearnan Myall boosting the forwards. Sale pile on the changes too however Steve Diamond has stuck with Nick Macleod at 10, although Mr Cipriani finally makes an appearance on the bench, clearly Steve believes that he has come out of his mourning period for Miss Brook now!!!! Sorry I really couldn’t resist that one!!

Friday Night Lights hopefully will be more fruitful for Wasps @waspsrugby image

On Saturday Welford Road, the Madjeski Stadium and Kingsholm host the 3 matches… Leicester despite their huge injury list and lack of Cockers’ should comfortably beat Newcastle Falcons and bounce back from their defeat to Bath last weekend. London Irish against Exeter Chiefs will be a cracker; Irish will fancy this match, at home for the first time this season and looking to build on a hard fought away win at Sixways last weekend. Rob Baxter wants his Chiefs to move forward from the ‘little launch pad’ they created last weekend against Wasps and gain a crucial away win. Finally Kingsholm welcome Northampton Saints and from what I saw last weekend at The Stoop the Shed is not going to be a happy place come 5.30pm on Saturday afternoon as I think North, Hartley, Corbs, Dickson, Myler and Co will be far too strong for Gloucester.

Last but not least Saracens host Bath at Allianz… with the quality of the backs in both teams this is set to be a fast paced, lung busting match on the 4G surface. Watson, Joseph, Banahan, Henson and Ford vs. Ashton, Tomkins, Strettle, Farrell and Wigglesworth, personally I’m very tempted to hop in the car and get myself to Allianz to watch this one play out!

So as the team news continues to fly in let’s get ready to enjoy talking about some action on the pitch as opposed to all of the controversy off it shall we!!? Round 3, let’s be having you!!!