Quote Originally Posted by SLUDGE FACTORY View Post
The only side with any decent crowds is Leicester and they get smaller crowds than the football club

Birmingham doesn't have any big rugby union sides

Derby , Stoke , Nottingham nothing to speak of

It's a very high brow game and that's why when working class English people moved here and were given all sorts of inbred rugby related teasing it was directed at people who wernt interested in rugby at all
Dunno about Leicester being the only well supported English side - Northampton get more than that town's football team I would have thought and Gloucester and Bath are definite rugby cities with Cornwall being more rugby along with teams in Bristol and Exeter which play to large crowds - the west country has always had a rugby tradition.

As far as the Welsh game goes, I watched he first half from about when they scored their first try and the bit of the second half which coincided with half time in the City match and the impression I got is that it was more of an Italian loss than a Welsh win if you get my meaning - italy opened us up plenty of times, but a combination of impetuousness and and a lack of accuracy meant that they were unable to capitalise on lots of opportunities where Wales would have been punished by the other Six Nations sides.

On the other hand, Wales deserve credit for taking nearly all of the chances they had - that said, their first try owed a lot to a lucky bounce of the ball and their second one to woeful defensive play. The third one was a penalty try - I've never been able to claim I knew all of the rules of the game, so I don't have a clue what it was for, but, as the TMO had plenty of looks at the incident, I assume it was a correct decision and I've not seen the fourth one.

The win may have cleared a few off the stormclouds that had gathered for the "national sport", but, based on what I saw, we're still a long way short of being anything more than also rans in the coming World Cup.