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Rees-Zammit mania continues among Welsh fans despite his exclusion

(Photo by Alex Davidson/Getty Images)

There have been two main talking points since Wayne Pivac named his Wales team on Thursday to face Italy in this Saturday’s Six Nations opener. 

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One is the controversial decision to start George North at outside centre, opting to keep uncapped Nick Tompkins on the bench. 

While North is an accomplished Test player, few see him as a comfortable centre, as opposed to Saracens’ Tompkins, who is. 

The second is the absence of teenage sensation Louis Rees-Zammit, who misses out on the matchday 23 altogether. 

The hysteria surrounding the Gloucester winger over the past few weeks has barely been seen before for a player so young.

(Continue reading below…)

New Wales coach Wayne Pivac expects a strong start to Six Nations from his team

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It reached fever pitch with the apparent battle with England which ensued, as both nations tried to cap him first. 

The 18-year-old pledged his allegiance to Wales, but much of the Welsh public wanted to see him capped on Saturday. 

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Josh Adams was never going to be dropped given his form in red over the past year, but there seems to be a split between who should have started out of Rees-Zammit and Johnny McNicholl, both of whom would be earning their first cap. 

Pivac has opted for the New Zealand-born winger, which is understandable as he not only coached him at the Scarlets, but this is off the back of high-level performances for a while now in contrast to Rees-Zammit’s recent, albeit monumental, rise to fame. 

https://twitter.com/stuart73g/status/1222854830030454784?s=20

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While some feel the Gloucester wing was worthy of a place on the bench, the outside back spot has been taken by Tompkins, who is perhaps more worthy given the question marks lingering over North at outside centre. 

https://twitter.com/SupernovaDave/status/1222859177275600898?s=20

It had been said that Italy would have been a good opportunity to hand Rees-Zammit his debut, as it usually isn’t as rigorous a Test as the other matches, but the same applies to both McNicholl and Tompkins. Then again, for a player that only turns 19 on Sunday, Rees-Zammit has plenty of time. 

WATCH: The Rugby Pod sets the scene ahead of the 2020 Guinness Six Nations and reflects on yet more Saracens fallout  

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J
JW 1 hour ago
‘The problem with this year’s Champions Cup? Too many English clubs’

Like I've said before about your idea (actually it might have been something to do with mine, I can't remember), I like that teams will a small sustainable league focus can gain the reward of more consistent CC involvement. I'd really like the most consistent option available.


Thing is, I think rugby can do better than footballs version. I think for instance I wanted everyone in it to think they can win it, where you're talking about trying to make so the worst teams in it are not giving up when they are so far off the pace that we get really bad scorelines (when that and giving up to concentrate on the league is happening together). I know it's not realistic to think those same exact teams are going to be competitive with a different model but I am inclined to think more competitive teams make it in with another modem. It's a catch 22 of course, you want teams to fight to be there next year, but they don't want to be there next year when theres less interest in it because the results are less interesting than league ones. If you ensure the best 20 possible make it somehow (say currently) each year they quickly change focus when things aren't going well enough and again interest dies. Will you're approach gradually work overtime? With the approach of the French league were a top 6 mega rich Premier League type club system might develop, maybe it will? But what of a model like Englands were its fairly competitive top 8 but orders or performances can jump around quite easily one year to the next? If the England sides are strong comparatively to the rest do they still remain in EPCR despite not consistently dominating in their own league?


So I really like that you could have a way to remedy that, but personally I would want my model to not need that crutch. Some of this is the same problem that football has. I really like the landscape in both the URC and Prem, but Ireland with Leinster specifically, and France, are a problem IMO. In football this has turned CL pool stages in to simply cash cow fixtures for the also ran countries teams who just want to have a Real Madrid or ManC to lose to in their pool for that bumper revenue hit. It's always been a comp that had suffered for real interest until the knockouts as well (they might have changed it in recent years?).


You've got some great principles but I'm not sure it's going to deliver on that hard hitting impact right from the start without the best teams playing in it. I think you might need to think about the most minimal requirement/way/performance, a team needs to execute to stay in the Champions Cup as I was having some thougt about that earlier and had some theory I can't remember. First they could get entry by being a losing quarter finalist in the challenge, then putting all their eggs in the Champions pool play bucket in order to never finish last in their pool, all the while showing the same indifference to their league some show to EPCR rugby now, just to remain in champions. You extrapolate that out and is there ever likely to be more change to the champions cup that the bottom four sides rotate out each year for the 4 challenge teams? Are the leagues ever likely to have the sort of 'flux' required to see some variation? Even a good one like Englands.


I'd love to have a table at hand were you can see all the outcomes, and know how likely any of your top 12 teams are going break into Champions rubyg on th back it it are?

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f
fl 5 hours ago
‘The problem with this year’s Champions Cup? Too many English clubs’

"Right, so even if they were the 4 worst teams in Champions Cup, you'd still have them back by default?"

I think (i) this would literally never happen, (ii) it technically couldn't quite happen, given at least 1 team would qualify via the challenge cup, so if the actual worst team in the CC qualified it would have to be because they did really well after being knocked down to the challenge cup.

But the 13th-15th teams could qualify and to be fair I didn't think about this as a possibility. I don't think a team should be able to qualify via the Champions Cup if they finish last in their group.


Overall though I like my idea best because my thinking is, each league should get a few qualification spots, and then the rest of the spots should go to the next best teams who have proven an ability to be competitive in the champions cup. The elite French clubs generally make up the bulk of the semi-final spots, but that doesn't (necessarily) mean that the 5th-8th best French clubs would be competitive in a slimmed down champions cup. The CC is always going to be really great competition from the semis onwards, but the issue is that there are some pretty poor showings in the earlier rounds. Reducing the number of teams would help a little bit, but we could improve things further by (i) ensuring that the on-paper "worst" teams in the competition have a track record of performing well in the CC, and (ii) by incentivising teams to prioritise the competition. Teams that have a chance to win the whole thing will always be incentivised to do that, but my system would incentivise teams with no chance of making the final to at least try to win a few group stage matches.


"I'm afraid to say"

Its christmas time; there's no need to be afraid!

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