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Mark Tainton on Bears signing George Smith

By Nick Heath

Bristol Bears signed the 111 time capped openside on a six-month deal back in June and Mark Tainton believes the 37-year-old will prove to be a pivotal signing ahead of their return to the Premiership.

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Tainton told RugbyPass: “I knew George when I did a year at Wasps on a consultancy with Dai Young there. He’s world class. I’ll say to people that the reason he’s world class is he doesn’t believe he knows everything. He’s still like a sponge. He still wants to improve and get better and better.”

“It’s not only what he can do on the field for us, it’s what he can do off the field as well,” continued Tainton. “We’ve got some young sevens in the squad as well, we’ve obviously got Dan Thomas who was probably one of our outstanding players last year. It’s not going to be just an easy run for George to be playing week in, week out.”

“He arrives on the 20th of this month. He’s the last player in, every player’s back next week bar our Samoan players who’ve got to play in a World Cup qualifier. We should have an interesting training field next week.”

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Bristol have drawn a home match on the opening Friday night of the season to host old westcountry rivals Bath in what should be a mouthwatering clash. Tainton told RugbyPass, “For us, it’s fantastic, to have a derby match as our opening game. We’ve got a tremendous stadium we share with Bristol City, it’s a big stadium. Teams like Bath we want to bring down to Bristol and fill the stadium as much as we can. If we can put on a show in the opening game of the season, that’ll kick on then for our next home game and then after that.”

Meanwhile Bristol Bear’s skipper Jordan Crane has credited life in the Championship as a suitable ground to “fine-tune” his side to prepare for life in the new Gallagher Premiership.

Following a first season without the play-offs in English rugby’s second tier, Bristol Bears have had ample time to prepare for promotion with Pat Lam signing 21 new players for the new Premiership campaign.

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Crane told RugbyPass that the new squad has taken positively to pre-season, “In my whole career, it’s probably the sharpest that a squad have come back. There’s a lot of competition in the squad. Everyone’s a little worried about that and everyone’s a little bit worried about their prep and stuff like that, the step-up. We need it to be [like that] so we can crack straight into rugby and get ourselves right.”

Crane continued, “We’ve had a season to embed everything that we want to do – try and test everything that we need to do so we’re a better team when we come into the Premiership.”

“We’ve had that luxury to be away from the spotlight and fine tune the stuff that we need to. So hopefully this year we’ll be a lot better team and a lot better prepared going into the Premiership.”

Bristol Bears will open the new Gallagher Premiership season with a cracking tie at Ashton Gate as they their West Country rivalry with Bath Rugby on Friday 31st August.

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Jon 8 hours ago
Jake White: Are modern rugby players actually better?

This is the problem with conservative mindsets and phycology, and homogenous sports, everybody wants to be the same, use the i-win template. Athlete wise everyone has to have muscles and work at the gym to make themselves more likely to hold on that one tackle. Do those players even wonder if they are now more likely to be tackled by that player as a result of there “work”? Really though, too many questions, Jake. Is it better Jake? Yes, because you still have that rugby of ole that you talk about. Is it at the highest International level anymore? No, but you go to your club or checkout your representative side and still engage with that ‘beautiful game’. Could you also have a bit of that at the top if coaches encouraged there team to play and incentivized players like Damian McKenzie and Ange Capuozzo? Of course we could. Sadly Rugby doesn’t, or didn’t, really know what direction to go when professionalism came. Things like the state of northern pitches didn’t help. Over the last two or three decades I feel like I’ve been fortunate to have all that Jake wants. There was International quality Super Rugby to adore, then the next level below I could watch club mates, pulling 9 to 5s, take on the countries best in representative rugby. Rugby played with flair and not too much riding on the consequences. It was beautiful. That largely still exists today, but with the world of rugby not quite getting things right, the picture is now being painted in NZ that that level of rugby is not required in the “pathway” to Super Rugby or All Black rugby. You might wonder if NZR is right and the pathway shouldn’t include the ‘amateur’, but let me tell you, even though the NPC might be made up of people still having to pull 9-5s, we know these people still have dreams to get out of that, and aren’t likely to give them. They will be lost. That will put a real strain on the concept of whether “visceral thrill, derring-do and joyful abandon” type rugby will remain under the professional level here in NZ. I think at some point that can be eroded as well. If only wanting the best athlete’s at the top level wasn’t enough to lose that, shutting off the next group, or level, or rugby players from easy access to express and showcase themselves certainly will. That all comes back around to the same question of professionalism in rugby and whether it got things right, and rugby is better now. Maybe the answer is turning into a “no”?

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j
john 10 hours ago
Will the Crusaders' decline spark a slow death for New Zealand rugby?

But here in Australia we were told Penney was another gun kiwi coach, for the Tahs…….and yet again it turned out the kiwi coach was completely useless. Another con job on Australian rugby. As was Robbie Deans, as was Dave Rennie. Both coaches dumped from NZ and promoted to Australia as our saviour. And the Tahs lap them up knowing they are second rate and knowing that under pressure when their short comings are exposed in Australia as well, that they will fall in below the largest most powerful province and choose second rate Tah players to save their jobs. As they do and exactly as Joe Schmidt will do. Gauranteed. Schmidt was dumped by NZ too. That’s why he went overseas. That why kiwi coaches take jobs in Australia, to try and prove they are not as bad as NZ thought they were. Then when they get found out they try and ingratiate themselves to NZ again by dragging Australian teams down with ridiculous selections and game plans. NZ rugby’s biggest problem is that it can’t yet transition from MCaw Cheatism. They just don’t know how to try and win on your merits. It is still always a contest to see how much cheating you can get away with. Without a cheating genius like McCaw, they are struggling. This I think is why my wise old mate in NZ thinks Robertson will struggle. The Crusaders are the nursery of McCaw Cheatism. Sean Fitzpatrick was probably the father of it. Robertson doesn’t know anything else but other countries have worked it out.

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A
Adrian 12 hours ago
Will the Crusaders' decline spark a slow death for New Zealand rugby?

Thanks Nick The loss of players to OS, injury and retirement is certainly not helping the Crusaders. Ditto the coach. IMO Penny is there to hold the fort and cop the flak until new players and a new coach come through,…and that's understood and accepted by Penny and the Crusaders hierarchy. I think though that what is happening with the Crusaders is an indicator of what is happening with the other NZ SRP teams…..and the other SRP teams for that matter. Not enough money. The money has come via the SR competition and it’s not there anymore. It's in France, Japan and England. Unless or until something is done to make SR more SELLABLE to the NZ/Australia Rugby market AND the world rugby market the $s to keep both the very best players and the next rung down won't be there. They will play away from NZ more and more. I think though that NZ will continue to produce the players and the coaches of sufficient strength for NZ to have the capacity to stay at the top. Whether they do stay at the top as an international team will depend upon whether the money flowing to SRP is somehow restored, or NZ teams play in the Japan comp, or NZ opts to pick from anywhere. As a follower of many sports I’d have to say that the organisation and promotion of Super Rugby has been for the last 20 years closest to the worst I’ve ever seen. This hasn't necessarily been caused by NZ, but it’s happened. Perhaps it can be fixed, perhaps not. The Crusaders are I think a symptom of this, not the cause

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