By BODis GOD
February 5 2014

It was a low attendance at the Madjeski yesterday but the performance by the boys wearing out green jersey was great.  We won yesterday and Engand lost.  To all those that picked England above Irish, it was a poor choice.

Brian in his pre-match notes talked about giving all players a go so that they can fight for a first team place and bring some players back from injury so the team put out looked like a side with lots of players pushing and willing to fight and prove to Brian that they deserve Premiership rugby. And that got me thinking.

The team we put out against our first ever win over the Scarlets, was it a “Cup” team or “Second” team?

Here are the (sort of) definitions for both:

“Cup” team: These are players that we put out against sides like Lustianos XV or Caverleri Prato, we wouldn’t put them out against Quinn’s or Wasps.

“Second” team: Players that we can trust in games against Prato to destroy and to be able to step up to the plate against the likes of Quinn’s or Wasps.

Now my opinion lies with the idea of having a “second” team rather than a “cup” team, on yesterdays performance I feel that any one of those players from the pack could deserve to play against Premiership opposition. Of course we want the strongest sides out against Premiership teams but the Scarlets currently lie 7th in the RaboDirectPro12 and yes they have players missing but the margin of the win was very impressive.

If the team are meant to be a “cup” team they haven’t done very well. Yes, we were sadly booted out of Europe because of purely stupid rules but the LV=Cup has been a disappointing. Both sides yesterday played for pride but I think that the players are “second” team players for Irish because they played well and looked like they are pushing for something else. Their pushing ability shows that they aren’t content to be “cup” players and want to show that they deserve to play in the Premiership.

Let’s compare our players who start in our premiership games and if they will be put under pressure by “second” team players: