Who gets picked next?

[Shugs]

Slightly and nicer problem to have for Blackett now. Who on earth does he pick v Bristol - or more to the point who can he leave out! I'd go with:

West
Oghre
Alo

Rowlands
Launchbury

Willis J
Barbeary
T Willis

Robson
Umaga

Bassett
Mills
Fekitoa
Kibirige
Minozzi

Harris
Cruse
Brookes
Gaskell
Shields
Gopperth
Vellacott
Spink

[JonnyD]

The guys have three days off so I think there’ll be a fair bit of rotation.
It’s a must win especially as Bath have a tough game away at Sale.

Thinking about who came off early today and who played 80 I’d go with this to start with a strong bench

Harris Cruse JT-A
Rowlands Cardall
Morris Willis Willis
Vellacott Gopperth
Booj Fekitoa
Bassett Miller Odogwu

Bench: McIntyre, Oghre, Alo, Launchbury, Shields, Robson, Spink, Watson (Miller covering 10)

[Heathen]

I think Lee may be more bullish and assess players day by day. I think he will want to put out his best team against Bristol (as game minutes permit. The Quins match is the following weekend and Chiefs two weeks later.

[Raggs]

Very light training for the next few days and as many top players as we can put out. We heavily rotated against Saracens, i suspect so we could do this.

[Neils]

I think Lee may be more bullish and assess players day by day. I think he will want to put out his best team against Bristol (as game minutes permit. The Quins match is the following weekend and Chiefs two weeks later.

Don't think Quins is the next week as it is still TBA. Aren't Quins involved in either Euros or Prem Cup thing next weekend.  Our players will be well rested when that comes around.

[Neils]

Quins playing Premiership Cup final a week on Monday so no involvement for us.

[InBetweenWasp]

Strong as possible.  If Jacob is good to go, he plays.  Suspect Atkinson would have started yesterday if it wasn't for the head knock.  There's decent rest ahead.

Interestingly, Hask saying on his pod this week that the players he's spoken to are loving twice-weekly games, as it's basically meant zero training and that a lot of the fatigue is from over-training and not enough recovery work - just meetings/walk-throughs at the moment so ironically, they're fresher than when there are normal weekly games.  I suspect heavy rotation amongst teams probably helps too!

[backdoc]

Same team again, maybe with Rowlands replacing Gaskell, and mixing the back row a bit.
Cruse swaps with Oghre.

[NellyWellyWaspy]

I think Blackett said that they are doing one day a week of training (with probably only an hour or so actually playing on a pitch) and one day practicing passes, especially the one handed kind.

[DGP Wasp]

The nice thing about the manner of yesterday's win is that it was so comfortable that players will surely be feeling a lot fresher this morning that they were after Bath and Sarries where they really had to put a full 80 minute shift in.

Presumably as with any other Sunday game, the team will have to be announced tomorrow lunchtime, so very little time for fitness to be assessed before then.  With that in mind I wonder if the team that gets announced tomorrow may see one or two changes by Sunday as players recover.

Given J Willis only came on for the final 20 or so last night with the game already won, then I'm sure he'll start with no shortage of candidates to complete the back row.  Maybe Gopperth to start at 10 with Umaga on the bench for this one.

As others have said, there's a good break after this one, and it's against one of our rivals for top 4, so must throw our best available 23 at it.  The question is, what is our best available 23??  We came into this period of the season with what looked like a first and 2nd string matchday squad alternating.  However, we now have much more of a hybrid as those that may have been considered second choice have shown themselves to be every bit as good.  Who do you now leave out??  Good problems to have.

[NellyWellyWaspy]

I see that Bristol have appealed Piutau's suspension. To be heard on Thursday. Having watched the incident, which Piutau seemed to incite and provoke to keep it going, I can't see how they are going to win that. His behaviour was far from gentlemanly, and a long way from being the innocent party Pat Lam tried to make out that he was.

Can the panel extend the ban in the appeal process?

[baldpaul101]

Presumably as with any other Sunday game, the team will have to be announced tomorrow lunchtime,

I wonder if this still applies at the moment, the team for the Monday game was announced on the Sunday?

[InBetweenWasp]

I think Blackett said that they are doing one day a week of training (with probably only an hour or so actually playing on a pitch) and one day practicing passes, especially the one handed kind.

I thought I heard him say that were doing one day/session on structured play and the other day/session on unstructured play.  Not quite sure how you practice unstructured play as surely by practising it, there's some structure to it!

[MarleyWasp]

I see that Bristol have appealed Piutau's suspension. To be heard on Thursday. Having watched the incident, which Piutau seemed to incite and provoke to keep it going, I can't see how they are going to win that. His behaviour was far from gentlemanly, and a long way from being the innocent party Pat Lam tried to make out that he was.

Can the panel extend the ban in the appeal process?

I think they can and might. Piutau pleaded guilty and under the framework the best he could have hoped for was that the panel accepted his self defence claim and didn't ban him, or 3 weeks.

They didn't accept the self defence arguement, stating the the Findings of Fact section in the Judgement:

Whilst the Player referred to his actions as being in self-defence, the delay
between W19's attempted punch and his response was sufficiently long for the Panel to conclude
 that the punch was more a reaction and response to W19's attempted punch than it was genuine
 self-defence. Whilst the Panel do not doubt that the Player has concerns about being hit in the
 head (as many if not all rugby players almost certainly do), the Panel did not consider that this
 was the dominant reason behind his decision to punch W19.

I get the impression they feel he shouldn't have been banned for the same duration as Kitchener, and I am inclined to agree on the basis that Kitchener threw more punches and swore at the ref after. 

I disagree with their version of events. To me, Piutau goaded Ted Hill whilst gripping his shirt and he also grabbed hold of Kitchener's shirt before Kitchener swung a punch that missed. A Bristol player restrained Kitchener and Piutau took that opportunity to punch Kitchener in the head, which lead to Kitchener punching him back several times. If Piutau hadn't goaded Hill none of this would have happened.

The panel may take the view that Piutau did use self defence, but I'd be surprised if they did. They could equally argue that he doesn't accept he is guilty and only entered a guilty plea as part of his self defence claim. If they decide that they could take the approach he doesn't deserve his credit for a guilty plea and increase the ban to 6 matches.

[DGP Wasp]

Not quite sure how you practice unstructured play as surely by practising it, there's some structure to it!

I thought the same when he said that last night.  But then I guess jazz musicians still have to practice!?