For you to tell someone else to move on when discussing a ref decision is laughable... When you think the ref got it wrong you go on for pages.

I think you may be confusing Tony with someone else..

You were absolutely right,I concede ....

Now R92 won it and qualify, ....

No debate.

Lets move on and see how Aviva teams do ..

That will be official too.

Aviva will have a bad year, it happens. What is weird is the obsession a fair few have with seeing the Aviva fail... You won't find many French or English sitting at home gleefully wishing the Pro 14 failure yet here we are.

I think it has something with the attitude the English have about what they consider as "their" game, and their dismissal of other countries when they are winning....the similar budget France has four teams to England's one.

I would imagine that 2019 will be focussed more on the World Cup, and many Pro 14 teams will mothball players like AWJ, Warburton etc..

The problem is that, along with the "arrogant English" claim, this English attitude exists more in the minds of Pro 12/14 fans than in actual reality. We constantly hear about English arrogance and it has absolutely no bearing on how England are acting at the time. Likewise you mention English dismissal of other countries and again it has little bearing on what English fans actually say. Some commentators make comments about that yes, but how is that any different to Pro 14 commentators making comments about their superiority or Top 14 doing it?

If you look at the fans though, you will find a lot of Pro 14 fans who gleefully rejoice in any failings of the Aviva and look for every opportunity to frame the entire league as a failure. You will find that far less common among Aviva and Top 14 fans when the Pro 12/14 fails though. I just feel the attitude in a lot of Pro 14 nations stinks, it's far too petty and built on a desire to see others fail, the same with internationals. Also this whole fabricating a straw man English mentality to justify a misplaced outrage is ridiculous.

"I oppose England because they are arrogant! BTW not a single English player is good enough to be in my team, they are all mercenaries, they only win through luck and watching them go out at the world cup was the happiest day of my life" - a completely not arrogant or petty Pro 14 fan discussing English arrogance and dismissive attitude. Just saying.

Are you serious? Read the heavily Anglocentric Rugby Paper and their writers like Colin Moag and Nick Cain attack the Pro 12/14 all the time.

You keep used the word "arrogance" , I did not.

You may not be old enough to remember but we were insufferable in the 1970's...

And you have Wales online, would you accept that being used as a valid basis for saying the Welsh are all a bunch who are completely deluded about the capabilities of their own team to the extent they think they are 1 point behind the ABs? Of course not because it is a load of *b@ll@cks*. Every country has these commentators, I'm comparing the fans and how often do you see fans taking pleasure in the failings of the Pro 12/14? I can find plenty who seem to be taking pleasure in the perceived demise of English clubs. When the prospect of no Aviva clubs going through gives greater pleasure than the prospect of your club winning, you have a problem.

By you I mean a hypothetical person rather than you personally.

Wales Online can be quite lowbrow, but nobody there is so delusional to claim or think that Wales are only marginally behind the All Blacks. Anyway, read The Rugby Forum or even Gwlad, and the unspoken assumption is that the Aviva is a million times better than the Pro 14. (Imho, the Italian teams, Dragons and now Kings are worse than any Aviva team, but other than those there is not much of any difference between the quality of the two leagues).

I have very mixed views of English clubs. I like to see the likes Saracens, Northampton etc but like the South West clubs especially Gloucester which is a brilliant community club.

Yes agree with this. The Pro 12/14 has always been treated as a much lesser competition so it’s nice to see the Celts doing well.

There is a reason I specified that, it's because Walesonline DID do a comparison to the ABs where they rated Wales as just 1 point behind. http://www.walesonline.co.uk/sport/foot ... ds-8142909 Also again only 4 points behind http://www.walesonline.co.uk/sport/rugb ... d-11448729 so yeah, they were delusional enough to make that claim. Obviously a look at the comments shows how you can't take journos and commentators as an accurate measure of what fans think.

I have read the rugby forum, there isn't this belief that the Pro 14 is really behind the Aviva. The only claim that is really made is that it is at a higher intensity for the players with big internationals also playing a lot of domestic rugby. The chart posted elsewhere would back that up as the English internationals must put up with far more game time and have less time to recover than Pro 14 players. The other claim is that Aviva teams don't focus on Europe, the teams put out for Europe will also be the teams used weekly in the domestic competition and are not specifically rested for the competition.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Scores on the doors!

It's a knockout !

I agree with you about the number of games English international players play over their Pro 14 counterparts, they certainly do play more games. There was a chart in The Times the other day illustrating that exact same point regards Lions players returning to their respective leagues. Something like the top ten were all English players at English clubs leading playing hours with Courtney Lawes topping the charts if I remember correctly. Why is that do you think? Because the English clubs don't have to play them as do their Pro 14 counterparts. Do they?