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#Post#: 156477--------------------------------------------------
Nations Championship Sat 18th July 26
DIR By: Lock5
Date: July 16, 2026, 8:07 am
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Saturday 18th July 2026
BST
New Zealand v Ireland Live ITV1 KO 08:10
Japan v France Live ITV4 KO 09:40
Australia v Italy Live ITV1 KO 11:10
Fiji v Scotland Live ITV1 KO 14:10 (Murrayfield, Edinburgh)
South Africa v Wales Live ITV1 KO 16:40
Argentina v England Live ITV1 KO 20:10
#Post#: 156490--------------------------------------------------
Re: Nations Championship Sat 18th July 26
DIR By: Joaquin
Date: July 16, 2026, 1:12 pm
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Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend has made a whopping 14
changes to his starting side that will face off with Fiji in the
Nations Championship at Murrayfield.
Stafford McDowall skippers the squad that rounds off the first
block of the tournament, with Scotland having won one
(Argentina) and lost one (South Africa) thus far.
The centre is joined in the midfield by Ollie Smith, who will
don a unique jersey commemorating the passing of Scott Hastings,
for what is a ‘home’ Test for the islanders.
HTML https://www.planetrugby.com/news/scotland-team-v-fiji-gregor-townsend-makes-14-changes-as-new-captain-named-for-murrayfield-clash
#Post#: 156495--------------------------------------------------
Re: Nations Championship Sat 18th July 26
DIR By: Rocker
Date: July 16, 2026, 6:29 pm
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To be fair Fiji we're pretty dreadful last weekend so I can't
blame Scotland for ringing the changes.
#Post#: 156507--------------------------------------------------
Re: Nations Championship Sat 18th July 26
DIR By: FrostAndFire
Date: July 17, 2026, 7:03 am
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Fiji have, unfortunately, been poor. Until they get a functional
scrum and use more of a kicking game, they are going to be in
trouble against good teams. As England showed last week, if you
squash all the joy and entertainment out of a team like Fiji and
turn the game into a mind-numbing, stultifying 80 minutes of
misery, they have no comeback.
Scotland should have no trouble at all in running up a big
score, even with changes.
#Post#: 156510--------------------------------------------------
Re: Nations Championship Sat 18th July 26
DIR By: Rugbycat
Date: July 17, 2026, 7:51 am
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Home ain’t what it used to be as far-flung Fiji are forced to
‘suck up’ the bottom line
The Nations Championship is a very 21st century sort of sports
tournament, which is why the Pacific nation are playing on
Merseyside not Suva
Suva’s changed. I mean, I think Suva has changed. I’ve never
covered one of Fiji’s home games before. Maybe there are always
this many Liverpudlians around the place. The views of the Irish
Sea were definitely better than I expected. There were more
pictures of Brian Labone and Howard Kendall up around the
stadium, too.
The really odd bit was that every time the stadium announcer
tried to get the 50,000 fans inside the ground to shout “Go
Fiji” everyone just sat there and ignored him. Almost like they
were supporting the opposition.
They did sing Swing Low when he revealed this was now the
largest attendance for a Fiji home game. Given the team were 58
points down when he said it, it was odd none of the Fijians
seemed to be too happy about it. I couldn’t see him, but maybe
their chief executive was grinning.
Fiji made more money from this than they would have done if they
had held it in their capital. But England have not played a game
in Fiji since 1991 and despite being due to regularly play them
home and away, they are not going to any time soon either.
Ostensibly this is because the national stadium in Suva is too
small to host the new Nations Championship. The tournament
regulations, cooked up by the 10 teams who make up Six Nations
and Sanzaar, stipulate that venues need to have a minimum
capacity of 25,000. It’s not really clear why.
The capacity crowd of 15,000 that turned out to watch Fiji’s
15-point victory over Scotland last year seemed like plenty
given everyone there said it was one of the most raucous
occasions they could remember.
There is a lot of talk about what Fiji are going to earn from
all this. Fiji rugby say the money generated from these games
will go towards a new 30,000-seat stadium. But such a small
crowd turned out for their “home” game in Cardiff last week that
they ended up struggling to make a profit on it. They made
almost $500,000 (£373,000) from that one match against Scotland
and money’s not all it cost. Home advantage counts. The fans I
spoke to were adamant that the team would have beaten Wales last
week had they had been playing in their own conditions, in front
of their own crowd.
They will do better from this match at Everton, and against
Scotland next week, when, incredibly, they will be the “home”
team at Murrayfield, even though the tournament rubric states
the match should be at a neutral venue.
The Fijian organising committee had done a good job of trying to
make the place feel a little like home. They threw a stage up in
the fan zone out front, along with a couple of merchandise
trucks and craft and food stalls, they had Paradise Rootz
performing before kick-off, along with a gospel choir and 40
strapping lads in traditional likuvau who charged around the
grounds posing for photos with the locals. They performed a war
dance on the pitch before the kick-off. “Bit different to what
we usually get here,” said one of the watching coppers.
Alec Waugh described an international at Twickenham “as a
gathering of the clan” and this, too, was a reunion for members
of the small Fijian diaspora. “We’re a small team, only nine
people,” said one of the women on the organising committee, “and
we’ve been working on this since February.” Truthfully, they
gave their fans more to be proud about than the team did.
Fiji weren’t even the only “home” team playing away in the
competition on Saturday. Japan had their “home” match against
Ireland in Newcastle, New South Wales, despite beating Italy at
the 25,000-seat Chichibunomiya Rugby Stadium in Tokyo last week.
They had to do it because, along with Fiji, they’re one of the
two “invitational” teams in the competition and Ireland, who are
a founding member, simply refused to make the round trip to
Japan in between their 33-31 victory over Australia in Sydney
last week and their match against New Zealand in Auckland next
week.
“You know why we’re playing Ireland in Newcastle? Ireland have
all the power at World Rugby,” said Japan’s head coach, our old
friend Eddie Jones. “So we have to play our home game, that
should be in Tokyo, in Australia to make sure Ireland don’t have
to travel too much – let’s be frank about it. We have to just
suck it up.”
Not that Jones was going to blame them. He would have done
exactly the same if he had the choice. The schedule is truly
ludicrous. England’s includes 41,000km of travel in the space of
three weeks. That’s enough to circumnavigate the planet. It is
arduous for the players, impossible for the fans, and it makes
punchlines out of player welfare and World Rugby’s Environmental
Sustainability plans.
This is a very 21st century sort of sports tournament, in which
all the old values rugby likes to pretend it still cherishes
have been bent out of shape for the sake of the bottom line. It
has been designed almost entirely for TV, and yes, it makes for
pretty good viewing, too. But little old ideas like the
importance of a level playing field are long gone.
Home ain’t what it used to be as far-flung Fiji are forced to
‘suck up’ the bottom line
HTML https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/jul/11/home-aint-what-it-used-to-be-as-far-flung-fiji-are-forced-to-suck-up-the-bottom-line?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
#Post#: 156522--------------------------------------------------
Re: Nations Championship Sat 18th July 26
DIR By: Banstead Quin
Date: July 18, 2026, 2:45 am
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Morning brethren and Sistren. Watching the way NZ play makes me
feel even sadder about how poor England are. Backs and forwards
so comfortable ball in hand. Quick rucks, offloads, not afraid
to try stuff. Not perfect but joyous to watch. Stupid back row
clear outs aside 😊
#Post#: 156523--------------------------------------------------
Re: Nations Championship Sat 18th July 26
DIR By: RodneyRegis
Date: July 18, 2026, 2:55 am
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They just look powerful.
NZ, SA, Ireland and France more powerful, higher skill level and
better game plan.
Apart from that we're almost there.
#Post#: 156524--------------------------------------------------
Re: Nations Championship Sat 18th July 26
DIR By: J Scott
Date: July 18, 2026, 2:58 am
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--- Quote from: Banstead Quin link ---
>
> Morning brethren and Sistren. Watching the way NZ play makes
me feel even sadder about how poor England are. Backs and
forwards so comfortable ball in hand. Quick rucks, offloads, not
afraid to try stuff. Not perfect but joyous to watch. Stupid
back row clear outs aside 😊
>
--- End Quote ---
I liked the commentators nod to Hurricanes and their style of
play. Here’s hoping Cooper brings that to Quins.
#Post#: 156526--------------------------------------------------
Re: Nations Championship Sat 18th July 26
DIR By: RodneyRegis
Date: July 18, 2026, 3:07 am
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--- Quote from: J Scott link ---
>
> I liked the commentators nod to Hurricanes and their style of
play. Here’s hoping Cooper brings that to Quins.
>
--- End Quote ---
We live in eternal hope! Hopefully with some of the new lads
coming through we might have the cattle. Dommers' knee is a
massive setback.
Fingers crossed we get a decent preseason and don't have to
suffer too many defeats before the lads learn what will
hopefully be a completely new system.
#Post#: 156529--------------------------------------------------
Re: Nations Championship Sat 18th July 26
DIR By: Rugbycat
Date: July 18, 2026, 5:28 am
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CCS will be decent cover for Dommers, just needs to work on his
ball handling, let’s hope our injury list is not like the first
day of the Somme again, we never managed to field anything like
the same team twice last season, from the start of the season
and just went into a tailspin we never really got out of until
the very last games.
My hope is that we start to have some sort of playing style and
actually move forward as a team, and actually identify who we
believe is our best 23, and stick with it.
You will always get injuries but last year was bizarre, let’s
hope it was just bad luck or that we have identified the reasons
why they happened.
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