Exeter change two for Champions Cup final, recall fit-again Nowell

Otherwise, surprising to hear that Asiata hasn't got an invite from Joe but Kailea has, not sure what issue Mckellar had with him, but seems Joe isn’t buying it.

Slipper’s recent form is encouraging and AAAs of course too. Won't surprise me if Joe can right Tupou quickly too.

I don't really fear this Lions pack at all though. If we can avoid injuries we can match them just fine.

It’s in the halves we are nowhere near as good.

Interesting games being played there. A quite personal call to cancel a certain constantly negative writer there was left up, knowing that people would react against something so extreme. Whereas my much more moderate post about the constant negativity, even on a weekend with such great contests, was deleted, probably because people would be much more likely to support it and find it harder to criticise. They also deleted my response to someone who said that the website doesn't believe in cancellation!

Are you trying to say Nick is going a bit over the top, trying to give South Africa a warning that they could become the next Wales?

I’d agree with you. The future is too bright to let any of European rugbys quaint quirks get the better of your picture of South African rugby. You say the results aren’t acceptable but they completely are, it happens all over NH rugby, but perhaps for different reasons.

This is too old of a location to address it, but he does cause us to ponder a valid question, where are better EPCR performances going to come from? Everything seems to be running smoothly enough in the URC (granted I haven’t seen the weekends results), and 3 of 4 teams having involvement in finals footy, in one competition, is more than enough to drive success higher up, but that has been achieved at the sacrifice of EPCR matches right? Brute force strength in player base might indeed be one answer, but I’ve l tried to determine might be a good structural answer and I’m just not able to come up with one they way rugby works in SA.

It’s a very intriguing problem though! Just not too big a deal.

Hmm I can’t even think of any overseas tight head props to call on? Let’s hope there are no injuries but depth is so important at that level

The Brums look toghter to me and more aggressive than the Reds. As you can see from Canham’s body position in those pics some of the basic tech is poor.

Agree Nongorr is third up in front of Robbo but it is a bit disturbing if that is the case.

Not quite sure why Joe is so wedded to Gordon but it may be a sign of shifting emphasis in the wider context too! I reckong they will start with big Will in the Lions series which why Harry may drop out in the B/R.