Aviva Premiership Final Preview

The Champion of English rugby will be crowned today as the home of the RFU, Twickenham stages the 2012 Aviva Premiership Final to be contested by the Harlequins and the Leicester Tigers. Should the Quins be victorious it would be the first ever championship title for the London based side. While a win for the Tigers would see England´s most successful club continue to expand on its untouchable resume in English rugby. Leicester are nine time champions of England, three more than the nearest best clubs, Bath and the London Wasps who have both been champions six times. Leicester´s last championship victory came in 2010 while the club was defeated by Saracens in the 2011 final. 

Regardless of who wins, the Final will be a further illustration of the strength of Argentine rugby with Pumas players being present in both teams. The Harlequins will have a Pumas secondrower on the bench as Tomás Vallejos Cinalli looks to break into the squad for The Rugby Championship. The Leicester Tigers have two Pumas in the starting lineup with Horacio Agulla set to play his final match for the club. He will start on the right wing while Marcos Ayerza is to start at loosehead prop. Argentine-Italian tighthead prop, Martín Castrogiovanni has been named on the bench. 

Prediction: Leicester to win by 8 points. 

Aviva Premiership Semi Finals - The Road to Twickenham

The Aviva Premiership is down to four with the Semi Finals of England´s premier rugby competition to be played on Saturday in Leicester and London. The two winning sides will qualify for the final to be played at the home of English rugby, Twickenham Stadium on May 26. The same venue will host the Heineken Cup Final one week earlier between Leinster and Ulster. It will also be the central venue for Rugby World Cup 2015 with the RFU having said the venue will open the tournament as well as host the final.

The Aviva Premiership Semi Finals will be a further case in point for Argentina to host Rugby World Cup 2023 due to the involvement of Pumas players in both Semi Finals. No other country yet to host a World Cup will have players in both Semi Finals. The case for Argentina to host is also supported by the involvement of the USA with the North American country having a player involved in one of the two Semi Finals. With Japan hosting Rugby World Cup 2019 the Americas will be the onl region yet to have hosted a World Cup. The same region is the only to have produced a World Cup Semi Finalist yet to host a tournament.

Leicester Tigers vs Saracens

Saracens won the 2011 Final while Leicester won in 2010. In 2012, however, they will play at the Semi Finals stage. Leicester enter as heavy favorites having dominated the Aviva Premiership inr ecent times. Since the completion of the Six Nations no team has come close to playing the kind of rugby that Leicester have. 

Players from the Americas: Horacio Agulla and Marcos Ayerza (Argentina),  Chris Wyles (USA), Martín Castrogiovanni and Carlos Nieto (Argentine players who are Italian capped)

Prediction: Tigers to win by 12 points.

Leicester15 Geordan Murphy (captain), 14 Horacio Agulla, 13 Manu Tuilagi, 12 Anthony Allen, 11 Alesana Tuilagi, 10 Toby Flood, 9 Ben Youngs, 8 Thomas Waldrom, 7 Julian Salvi, 6 Steve Mafi, 5 Geoff Parling, 4 George Skivington, 3 Dan Cole, 2 George Chuter, 1 Marcos Ayerza

Bench: 16 Tom Youngs, 17 Logovi'i Mulipola, 18 Martin Castrogiovanni, 19 Graham Kitchener, 20 Craig Newby, 21 Sam Harrison, 22 Billy Twelvetrees, 23 Scott Hamilton

Saracens: 15 Alex Goode, 14 David Strettle, 13 Owen Farrell, 12 Brad Barritt, 11 Chris Wyles, 10 Charlie Hodgson, 9 Neil de Kock, 8 Ernst Joubert, 7 Will Fraser, 6 Jackson Wray, 5 Mouritz Botha, 4 Steve Borthwick (capt), 3 Matt Stevens, 2 Schalk Brits, 1 Rhys Gill.

Bench: 16 Jamie George, 17 John Smit, 18 Carlos Nieto, 19 Hugh Vyvyan, 20 George Kruis, 21 Richard Wigglesworth, 22 Adam Powell, 23 James Short.

Harlequins vs Northampton Saints

The Quins dominated the first half of the season and were well out in front in the Premiership before other clubs closed the gap following the return of players from World Cup duty. Northampton were the final team to qualify for the Semi Finals but are no weak opponent. The match could go either way with the sides being of similar abilities.

Players from the Americas: Tomás Vallejos Cinalli

Prediction: Harlequins to win by 3

Harlequins

15 Mike Brown, 14 Tom Williams, 13 George Lowe, 12 Jordan Turner-Hall, 11 Sam Smith, 10 Nick Evans, 9 Karl Dickson, 8 Nick Easter, 7 Chris Robshaw (captain), 6 Maurie Fa'asavalu, 5 George Robson,
4 Olly Kohn, 3 James Johnston, 2 Joe Gray, 1 Joe Marler

Bench: 16 Rob Buchanan, 17 Mark Lambert, 18 Will Collier, 19 Tomás Vallejos Cinalli, 20 Tom Guest, 21 Richard Bolt, 22 Rory Clegg, 23 Matt Hopper.

Northampton15 Ben Foden,14 Chris Ashton, 13 George Pisi, 12 James Downey, 11 Paul Diggin, 10 Ryan Lamb, 9 Lee Dickson (captain), 8 Roger Wilson, 7 Phil Dowson, 6 James Craig, 5 Christian Day, 4 Mark Sorenson, 3 Brian Mujati, 2 Andy Long, 1 Soane Tonga'uiha

Bench: 16 Ross McMillan, 17 Alex Waller, 18 Paul Doran-Jones, 19 Ben Nutley, 20 Teimana Harrison, 21 Martin Roberts, 22 Stephen Myler, 23 Tom May.

2010 Final 


2011 Final 

Amlin Challenge Cup Quarter Finals Wrap

Stade Français 22-17 Exeter
Exeter, who look likely to be playing in the Heineken Cup next season, really gave a sleepy Stade Français a large fright at the Stade Charlety. They dominated most of the match, but failed to ever take a big lead on the scoreboard, and late on failed to take their chances with kicks, got some bad luck with some Stade ruck infringements going unseen and the lack of a camera at the right angle for a probable try whcih saw it disallowed meant Stade could score late on with a try from Paul Williams set up by some Julien Dupuy brilliance to take the match.

Ignacio Mieres making a break against Stade Français

This game also saw an interesting match up between two Pumas contenders for the number 10 shirt Felipe Contepomi and Ignacio Mieres. But both had mixed matches. Contepomi was less prominent in the match but stupidly sin binned after reacting to a borderline foul tackle and what looked like taunting by the Exeter hooker Chris Whitehead, but ultimately it was his chip kick to set up Djibril Camara's well finished try  that was crucial to the result.

Mieres on the otherhand, was better than Contepomi throughout the match, but failed to make a difference where it counts on the scoreboard. It was his sensational 40 metre break which set up Exeter disallowed try which was probably a try in the first half, and in the second half he quite simply bottled two opportunities to secure the match with a medium difficulty conversion and very easy drop goal miss, although it could be argued Stade were offside for the charge down. He will be gutted to have missed the chance to knock out the team which massively underused him and preferred to pick Lionel Beauxis on his one man mission to whack the leather of all rugby balls.

It will be interesting to see who is chosen for the Pumas 10 shirt as there are good arguments for all of Hernández, Contepomi and Mieres to start there for the Pumas later this year.

As a sidenote Stade Français continue to get some very poor crowds at the Stade Charlety, whilst they seem to always sell out the Stade de France for matches and played in front of a packed crowd in Mans two weeks ago their attendances at just average home matches has been dismal, only 4,693 turned up to this match.

Toulon 37-8 Harlequins
Whilst the first match had a scoreline which didn't reflect the match, the second certainly did as Toulon thumped the English leaders Harlequins which extends their unbeaten run at the Stade Mayol to 13 matches. Toulon were dominant in all areas of the pitch and just scored from any penalty conceded by Quins and added tries towards the end to sweeten the scoreline for them. Notably Steffon Armitage was outstanding in this match and must be working towards an England recall as a specialist number 7, a place he has never really been given a fair run before.

Harlequins had two Argentines playing, starting was Tomás Vallejos and Benjamín Urdapilleta off the bench, neither were particularly prominent in this match.

Wasps 23-26 Biarritz
This was a match that was Biarritz's to lose and they almost did, they had a dominating pack and created two excellent try opportunities in the first half only for Iain Balshaw to wreck them, nevertheless they were led 23-9 in the second half with a try from Blashaw and South African prop Eugene van Staden. But Wasps scored tow tries in three minutes to level the scores. After another ruined easy try opportunity by Florian Faure this time, the Basque side eventually went through thanks to the trusty calmness of Dimitri Yachvili's boot.

Two Argentines were in the Biarritz team, Eusébio Guiñazu started at hooker and had a mixed day with one or two poor lineout throws, whilst Francisco Gómez Kodela came off the bench in the second half.

Brive 15-11 Scarlets
This was Brive's second string side, but it managed to defeat the Scarlets first choice side at home thanks mainly to a couple of factors. Brive dominated the Scarlets scrum and it is thanks to that Brive got most of the territory and their points from.

Whilst the Scarlets malfunctioned badly at the scrum, they also malfunctioned at the lineout with Matthew Rees who has been having a very poor season losing the first four or five lineouts. The Scarlets much talked about backs didn't get into the match. If the Scarlets want to compete at Heineken Cup level they will simply have to buy a better front five as their numbers one to five simply aren't good enough for Heineken Cup level rugby. And Brive proved that a worse team on paper, can beat a better team when the set pieces are so dominant.

Out of interest, France may want to keep an eye on the 19 year old loosehead prop Jefferson Poirot who on his first start for Brive destroyed the Scarlets tighthead, who was destroyed even more when Davit Khinchagishvili came on.

One Argentine, scrum half Agustín Figuerola played in this match coming off the bench late on for Brive.

Semi Final draw:
Toulon v Stade Français
Biarritz v Brive

The semi finals are an all French affair, and look very easy to predict, with the home teams having a massive advantage in each match, it would be a huge surprise not to see a Toulon against Biarritz final at the Stoop.

Final to be played at the Twickenham Stoop