kiggy
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Posts posted by kiggy
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21 hours ago, The Daddy said:
Skoundri seems to be highly rated by a few people I've spoken too that follow TO. I watched him play a few games for the Elite team and for a 20 year old he's big and quick, the type of player France has been lacking in the back row.
In regards to Brochon, one thing he has in his favour is that he's probably the best goalkicker at the club and the goalkickicking so far this season has been poor.
Houles might just stick him on the wing to get him on kicking duties. It really could be the difference between winning and losing a tight games.
Shame about Benjamin Laguerre he was outstanding in the first game of the season. With Schaumkel due to return soon and Armitage back TO are covered quite strongly on the wing.
The achilees heel for TO is the lack of depth in the pack. They're not as strong at prop as they were last time they were in the Championship
Agree with all of that. The depth in the pack is work in progress. They have eyes on a few players, but it has been a waiting game to see which SL players would be sidelined after pre-season matches and those that would agree a season long loan to come to France. Greg Richards was the first he won't be the last. A couple of NRL guys they were talking to decided to stay in Oz.
Myself...I would prefer the team to grow the younger elite players this season. They haven't had the money available to make a statement with the team but the feeling within the squad is good, they seem very happy at the moment. By letting go those players who were not pulling their weight, or who thought themselves more important than the team/club has been a breath of fresh air. I'm quite surprised that Pélissier has buckled down to the task in hand mind you as he can be difficult.
Keeping this small squad fit will be a challenge. They seem focused at the moment
Let's see who gets to play on Saturday, Skoundri i hope, some exciting times ahead!
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22 hours ago, welshmagpie said:
Josh is a brilliant player and an even better lad off the pitch - deserves every success!
I'm hoping he and Shorrocks gel. Long way to go though.
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Isn't this just a switch from BEiN sports? Are they waiting to see how these 6 matches go before making a.decision on the 2nd half of the season?
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On 13/02/2023 at 14:40, The Daddy said:
Always good to see clubs producing their own local players.
At least 12 players that have come through Toulouse's local teams have been named in their 21 man squads in the past two weeks.
Laguerre done well scoring two tries last weekend, Pezet played both games so far this season and Skoundri and Tropis have been named in the 21 man squads already. Both are highly rated youngsters.
By the way Josh Ralph looks like a super signing already
both performances have been eye catching.
I am hoping that Skoundri will get a run out soon. Brochon did OK against Newcastle but with OAB back i'm not sure he will get another chance for a while. Ben Laguerre is due for surgery on his shoulder as (apparently) they don't let these things go anymore, so he will be out for 3 months. It is looking good for the French game though, it was just a shame the two French lads went off to play in the UK (Cozza I think and Lacans).
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TO finally converted a try!
Brochon did OK, scored a try and then was promoted to goal kicker and didn't miss one. An odd game though after the speed of the first game against Barrow it all seemed a bit flat tonight, they didn't seem to get out of 2nd gear for most of the match. A small crowd didn't help, holidays/freezing cold/French match on TV might have been a cause but I hope the numbers pick up as it was poor tonight.
Sita's entrance was fun. Although he wasn't on the pitch for very long.
York are next, one of the only championship teams to have already played at the Stade.
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TO Elite are a bit depleted as they had to shuffle a few up to the top team for today's match. I'm only in Toulouse for today as it would have been good to see the game tomorrow with Mitch Garbutt leading Saint-Gaudens
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20 hours ago, audois said:
Good to see Dimitri Biscaro involved
Indeed. Exciting times for the young lads. I hear that Robin will start at full back tomorrow.
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36 minutes ago, The Phantom Horseman said:
The two latest additions were both highlighted in the Elite 1 thread a while ago, always worth a read those threads (bar the odd troll).
Looks like Ashall-Bott's absence might be as little as 1 game given it was a concussion he suffered. Laguerre could be a much longer absence by the sound of it after injuring his shoulder. Laguerre was playing really well but is probably easier to replace for Toulouse than Ashall-Bott.
Hopefully Waïl or Robin will get a run out. I'm looking forward to seeing the new players 1st hand on Saturday (no3 son's American girlfriend is coming along with us....special treat for her to see what a proper game looks like!).
Guy is back and will play on the wing as Latrell isn't ready, and yes, Ben will be out for a while. I heard it was necessary for surgery so that probably means 3 months out. Olly will be back for the York match.
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5 Elite players named in the 21, which is good news
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3 hours ago, Fevrover said:
Then they'll have a glut of Home fixtures.
I think that is similar for TO, 2nd half of the season is loaded more in favour of home matches.
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3 minutes ago, Leonard said:
Team still ######!
Batley try early on. Could be a long day.
Batley also add the 1st conversion of the new season...well done!
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15 hours ago, The Phantom Horseman said:
Also Laguerre went off having seemd to injure his shoulder when scoring, he too had played very well.
Shame for the young lad, I thought he showed a lot of promise. 2 scores is a good start. He will have a scan next week. OAB will be out for the obligatory 12 days. Maybe Latrell will be ready soon. TO don't need to lose more from the squad this early. I'm not sure what the rules are about using elite players, but if they are forced to, and allowed to, bring in 3 to 4 young French lads into the Pro setup then that can only be a good thing for the French game.
Promising game for me though, it seems like a completely new team, finally banishing the shadow of Johno and Killer that was hanging over them last season. I thought it would take more time to gel, the 2 halves look good. If they can stay fit enough to keep bringing the speed of the SL game into the championship then they shouldn't have too many problems.
Still, it's not the 1st game of the season that matters too much, it's the last one that counts.
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18 hours ago, The Phantom Horseman said:
Thank you Kiggy. It can be difficult getting updates over here on Toulouse so these are very much appreciated.
It's difficult knowing how much to say without giving too much away. Teams set up with an eye on who they will be playing on the day (it's those little 1% margins that sometimes make the difference!). So, I have to be careful what information I can give as I'm never sure how much is out in the public domain already.
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2 hours ago, The Phantom Horseman said:
Wow. Just looked on the RFL match centre page for the Barrow v Toulouse 21-man game squads as neither team appear to have announced them yet on social media.
Now, bear in mind that the RFl's website still is only able to cope with listing 19 names
and they always miss the last two alphabetically off...but Barrow have 19 listed with Josh Wood and Greg Worthington the 2 presumably missing late-alphabet players who should be there.
BUT...Toulouse have named only 18. And now we know why they have just added a couple of outside backs from their Elite 1 team, as the names missing from their squad are wing Latrell Schaumkel and centre Reuben Rennie, plus hooker Calum Gahan, and perhaps most significantly half back Josh Ralph, who carries a lot of their hopes this season.
I don't know if they are all injured, or whether there are visa issues, and maybe they habitually only fly with 18 anyway, but they have always named 21-man squads in the past. So it seems that for the opening day of the season Toulouse can only name 18 players, even after drafting two in from their Elite 1 team this week.
Calum will be out for a few months, Latrell still has knee problems they are managing but should be back soon. They should have a full 18 for Barrow, and a few others back soon (Sika who came back not very fit, and Guy who missed a lot of training due to a back injury).
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1 minute ago, The Phantom Horseman said:
RFL website seems to have had some omissions judged on Toulouse's own squad they have just released which has 21 names including Ralph and another they have just signed from their Elite 1 squad.
Don't read too much into this list, I know of at least 2 who won't be playing, although they should be ready for Newcastle next week.
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18 minutes ago, The Phantom Horseman said:
Yes, it was their call-up that suggested to me that one or two must be struggling for fitness. Presumably Toulouse would only travel with 18 or 19 to Barrow, and Richards would have made it 20 in the squad before Brochon and Lima were added.
The puzzling thing though is I think Brochon and Laguerre are both outside backs aren't they? That's the one area Toulouse seem well covered, they really need an extra half back and more forwards. So does everybody else though!
I don't know which position they have been using Laguerre in training. I can only think that Brochon can adapt, he does have a little (very little) big game time but they see that he has the ability to step up. Plus, he and PJ have been playing regularly so fitter than the rest of the squad at the moment.
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1 hour ago, The Phantom Horseman said:
It's interesting to see so many people tipping Barrow to beat Toulouse. They might be right, it's a difficult game to predict, but expectations for Toulouse seem to have taken a nosedive in the last few weeks since their squad was announced, even though it has been obvious for three or four months that they were going to be much weaker on paper.
That said...it might have gone too far in that direction now. It's hard to get information on who is going to be fit for Saturday, as there are supposedly still one or two nursing injuries, but if you look at the potential line-up they could field, it's still not at all bad, they just lack depth. The players in bold were all in their SL squad and played in one of their last two games last season
Ashall-Bott
Schaumkel
Rennie
Jussaume
Marcon
Ralph
Shorrocks
Belmas
Pelissier
Hansen
Stefani
Peyroux
Marion
subs
Akauola
Bretherton
Gahan
Armitage
Add Brochon, Lima and Laguerre to that list. Gahan won't be available. Akauola may not be match fit yet, he arrived back in poor condition.
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Ben Laguerre has finally made it official and joined TO full time. Brochon and Lima will be next. I think officially they have to wait until the end of the Elite season to sign but they are going to Barrow for the opening match so I don't know if that is an indication that they will also sign to become Professional.
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1 minute ago, Simon Hall said:
James Cunningham signs for York
https://www.yorkrlfc.com/post/york-knights-sign-former-promotion-winner-cunningham-on-two-year-deal
I had forgotten about James, another one who had to leave TO because of family pressures. Nice guy though.
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1 hour ago, The Phantom Horseman said:
taking your points one by one...
I don't think suffering losses is at all unusual for RL clubs. Saints and Wigan each reported losses of over £1m in their latest accounts (for 2021) but nobody seems to be saying they are in a fincancial cirsis
Sarrazain announced his forthcoming departure in October but said at the time that he had told the board about his intention to do so 18 months previously.
The dozen or so players that have been retained presumably are all on fairly decent salaries and it was always likely that the budget for this year would be slashed (though they have said it's only gone down to 4 million euros).The front of the shirt does seem to be very light on sponsors and the Mutuelle Du Rempart logo is noticeably missing (the mairie logo is on the back of the jersey). The MdR logo still appears on the website though so maybe there's a legitimate reason, perhaps related to them having changed suppliers to le Coq Sportif, or perhaps negotiations are ongoing. But it's a good point, if they have lost a major sponsor then that is a worry.
My take overall is that they are having to cut their cloth according to very different circumstances from previous years, but that's been obvious for many months. A budget of 4 million euros doesn't sound like they are in a serious financial crisis to me. But am only guessing really.
Sorry... I answered Archie and just realised you had already done a better job of it.
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1 hour ago, Archie Gordon said:
Perhaps there's not a story that needs sensationalising but there is very much a story that RL journalists should be interested in.
TO suffered (unexpectedly?) heavy losses in 2022.
Sarrazain is (unexpectedly?) departing the club at the end of March with no replacement identified.
The 2023 playing squad is very small and seems designed to rely on being bolstered by loans.
The long-standing main sponsor seems to be missing from the shirt (and not replaced), as does the Mairie's logo.
In light of the above, the TO spokesman's rebuttal is "nothing to see here". But that's very unlikely to the case.
Bernard did announce, maybe internal only to the club, that he was handing over some time ago. There is someone in line to take over but I think they are waiting for the debt to be cleared before announcing new names, i did ask who they were but I got a dunno in response. You also have to remember that clubs are run as companies in France and there are stricter rules about running a company at a loss.so I think there is some legal stuff to clear it all going on.
They are changing some sponsors, I know Lacharrette, who supply the cars, are being changed but I don't know how much a "proper" sponsor they are.
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3 hours ago, Davo5 said:
Well you’ve got rid of the Norman/Gigot combination in the halves so that should help with that although you are still carrying a number of veteran players which might not.
Offloading Gigot was a must, he caused a lot of problems. Showing Pélissier the door would be a big Brucie bonus.
Hansen is the captain this year and probably should have retired 2 seasons ago, but he still gives 110%, and could be invaluable when the youngsters join at the end of the elite season.
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4 minutes ago, Archie Gordon said:
I have some sympathy re. the loss of Ford, yes. The point I was making, however, was that with or without him TO put together a relegation-scrapping squad. Ford might have kept them up but they were always going to be in a battle for 10th-12th. The lack of recruitment after promotion was really odd. Recruitment isn't easy, of course, but TO seemed to believe the promotion squad would go OK in SL.
I agree for the most. They knew from the start it was going to be a bottom table struggle, 3 more wins and it would have made things very interesting. I also know how much of a problem it was, behind the scenes, trying to attract quality players when Catalans are the proven team in the area. It's not just the players mind you, 2 players have left this year because of family/partner pressure.
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5 minutes ago, Archie Gordon said:
They were very rarely hammered and nothing like "most weeks".
I believe, and so do others at the club, that with Ford on the pitch they wouldn't have lost those games when they were winning or close, and lost it in some stupid 20 minute second half period. I've been asked to do some data analyses to see if we can use what we learnt from the SL experience for better game management. Although with a new group of players it's going to take a while to see how we can best use them. There were some SL games where they were just not in it, but some others, the fine margins made a difference.
Fri 17th-Sun 19th Feb: The Betfred Championship Match Thread
in The General Rugby League Forum
Posted
Tough first half to be honest, York were on top for the last 15mins of the 1st half. There will be some sore bodies this morning in the TO camp Good to see a nice group of York supporters had made the trip.
I watched the Saints Penrith game in the morning and I couldn't help thinking how on earth Toulouse managed to beat Saint's last season. The gap between the two sides seems enormous.