The News Review:
- 5000 tickets remain for the Heineken Cup clash Wasps v Leinster
- Jamie Roberts raring to return after his horror injury
- Stcherbina fears for playing days
- Coach Sean Lineen tells Glasgow to show some consistency against …
- Six of the Best Needed to Improve Play-offs
- Blues in top shape to prove European credentials
5000 tickets remain for the Heineken Cup clash Wasps v Leinster
European Rugby Cup Ireland
Wasps and Leinster go head to head in a do or die game at Twickenham Stadium on Saturday 17 January K 5. This Round 5 clash will prove vital to Wasps’ qualification hopes in this seasons’ Heineken Cup and interest and sales have been strong since the outset. pening the lower bowl only for this New Year clash with a capacity of 30000 just 5000 tickets remain.
Jamie Roberts raring to return after his horror injury
Walesnline United Kingdom
And considering the partnership fellow centres Tom Shanklin and Jamie Robinson have forged in his absence that can only be a good thing. Roberts knows he will have to fight his way back into Dai Young’s starting XV. And with big Heineken Cup games on the horizon he was delighted to get his chance to do so sooner rather than later. “It was massively important for me to get back as soon as possible” he explained. “Tom has been playing really well and so has Jamie. “They have formed a really great partnership so it’s going to be hard for me to come straight back in from injury. Whether Dai decides to chuck me in the Heineken Cup next week remains to be seen though.
Stcherbina fears for playing days
BBC News UK
The ex-Australia A cap 32 suffered the blow in the Dragons’ 26-7 Heineken Cup loss in Toulouse on 6 December. Stcherbina underwent a successful neck operation in France but remains in a special neck chest and head support. “[At] 32 years of age to come back and depending on the recovery if it takes a long time I’d have to say that it’s doubtful to play again” he said. “It is wait and see.
Coach Sean Lineen tells Glasgow to show some consistency against …
Telegraph.co.uk United Kingdom
In the current campaign they have beaten Leinster and have taken Munster and Bath to the wire but they have also managed to lose to lowly Connacht as well. Indeed having started their Magners season brightly by beating the Dragons 12-6 at Rodney Parade last September their Heineken Cup campaign stalled in the starting blocks when they lost 32-22 to the same opponents on the same ground just over one month later. “This is the team that fronted up against Edinburgh” said Lineen after unveiling his side for the match. “It wasn’t a pretty game but it’s now all about that dreaded word consistency. We are up against a side that likes to come here and who think they can beat us up. I don’t think they have a lot of respect for Glasgow.
Related from Inkfeenz: Edinburgh v Glasgow: Teams
Six of the Best Needed to Improve Play-offs
Buzzle CA
The play-offs do that. Increasing the numbers involved from four to six would not only make the end of the regular season even more interesting it would generate extra income and it also softens potential disappointment for the team that finished sixth. The top six sides qualify for the following season’s Heineken Cup but if a team in the bottom half of the table wins the EDF Energy Cup or the European Challenge Cup and there is no English Heineken Cup champion the team finishing sixth misses out. A six-team play-off would only involve one extra weekend. Third would be at home to sixth and fourth would entertain fifth while the top two had a week off and the winners would travel to first and second in the semi-final. The American football play-offs are being played at the moment. The highest ranking teams sat out the first round and join the fray this weekend.
Blues in top shape to prove European credentials
Walesnline United Kingdom
Lynn Howells was coach as they strode to the Welsh-Scottish League title but it’s been a barren spell since for an outfit which used to brand itself as the world’s greatest rugby club. The Blues should be ranked with Heineken Cup superpowers Toulouse Munster and Leicester Tigers and dining at the top table of European rugby. But ambition seemed to be dreadfully lacking at Cardiff Arms Park as they threatened to go into permanent meltdown. Head honchos at the Blues finally woke up to the fact they should be competing with the big guns of Europe with the signing of Jonah Lomu in 2005 proving to them they still had the scope to draw big crowds. Since then the Blues have built slowly and going into 2009 have a squad capable of competing with the best teams in Europe. They are top of Pool Six in the Heineken and with Italian minnows Calvisano to come to Cardiff David Young’s men are virtually assured of a passage to the quarter-finals.