Rugby Union Thread

[cheltenhamlion]

Rolland or "that" South African wanker are streets ahead of everyone else in the worst international ref field.

[paul_e]

Agreed, Rolland is a terrible ref, always picks a side early on and gives them the benefit of everything for the rest of the game.

[Dave Summers]

Add me to those that think Rolland is woeful.  I think he is the worst official in any sport that I have seen.  He is just totally incompetent and thinks that the crowd have come to see him.  In fact, while I am at it, get rid of Irish refs all together, both Clancy and Fitzgibbon are dreadful too.

That said, although he was poor, I wouldn't use him as a reason as to why we lost.   Like Richard said earlier, I was all for going to do something different at half time, but so glad I didn't.   What a superb effort in the second half by the lads.   I was happier about the way we fought and played in that period than I was for all of the wins in the Six Nations.   

Read a lot of stuff yesterday and don't think England quite got the credit they deserved because, make no mistake, after 30 mins we were staring at 50-60 point drubbing.  I'm especially looking at Stephen Jones and Staurt Barnes in the Times.   They have obviously got an agenda against Lancaster and won't be happy until they have him out.

On to the team and I thought Corbs made a massive difference when he came on and looking at that, you wouldn't bet against our front row being the Lions front row next year?.  Cole impresses me more and more and he had the Beast sorted on Saturday.   Where I think we lack is a Grewcock/Johnson figure in the second row.  I think it will be Lawes or Attwood to fulfill that role, but Parling and Botha were poor Saturday.  Waldrom added something  when he came on, Robshaw continues to confound my criticism of him and I thought Johnson had another decent game.  Was surprised to see the criticism of him earlier.

So glad Ben Youngs backed up my faith in him and I thought he and Flood did well.   Manu and JJ need perservering with and hope we can get them some ball next week.   I wouldn't have Strettle anywhere near the team and as Wade isn't going to play because of defensive issues, I would bring Goode in at FB and move Foden back to the wing.

All in all I am hugely excited about the future and no Stuart Barnes is going to shake my faith just yet :-)

[PaulWinch again]

Stuart Barnes is always unbelievably negative and irritating. I thought in spite of the defeat we were very good from the 20th minute on Saturday. As the side develops and injured players come back I'm convinced we'll be a top team. My opinion(which was fairly high) of Lancaster has improved with this tour.

[Jon Crofts]

My mate is Tom Palmers uncle, had a text from Tom on Saturday evening, showed it me this morning, went something along the lines of 'disappointed with result, everyone upbeat about performance, spirit & belief in everyone & everything is all consuming'

Sounds like Lancaster & his team are just what England needed, a result in the 3rd test could be just what they need to go onto great things.

[paul_e]

There's definitely more positives than negatives.  I agree that 2nd row doesn't look quite right at the minute, But with Kitchener coming through, Lawes and Attwood looking to get fit and Launchbury looking good for 4,5 or 6 we've got options there.

Robshaw is doing nothing wrong but he's not in the same league as the 7s for oz, nz or wales, I'm holding out for Kvesic there though, who will be a top talent.  6 Johnson is ok but hasn't got the skills or pace to compete with Wood or Croft who will both be straight back in the squad when they're fit (wood is better of the 2 by a long way as well, genuinely world class 6).

Youngs did well, I still think there were times where he was too slow getting the ball out and we lost an overlap because of it.

Hard to call on JJ as we got such little good ball for the centres to use.

The key for england is to shake off this image refs have of us, anything borderline we do is given against us which severely impacts our ability to truly aggressive in the breakdown, SA and Ireland in particular prey on that and just out-muscle us on the floor which makes it really tough to win turnovers or generate quick ball for the backs.  I have no idea how we go about that though.  I'd love Lancaster to start really pushing the message in interviews, etc - even if it achieves nothing in the short term I'd love to see the start of an awareness that, for 8-9 years we've been given the shitty end of the stick more often than not.

[PaulWinch again]

Croft is World Class as well.

[Dave Summers]

England : A Goode; C Ashton, J Joseph, M Tuilagi, B Foden; T Flood, D Care; A Corbisiero, D Hartley (capt), D Cole, T Palmer, G Parling, T Johnson, J Haskell, T Waldrom.

Replacements : L Mears, J Marler, M Botha, P Dowson, L Dickson, O Farrell, B Barritt.

This looks an exciting team to me.  Very pleased to see Alex Goode getting a run at full back as I really rate him.  Still not sure on Foden as wing and would love to have seen him take a gamble with Jonny May or Christian Wade.   I believe that Morgan will come again next season and I guess he probably hasn't been fit this tour, but the pack looks quite well balanced to me.

One caveat I would add, we have no pace or guile to come on from the bench.  This looks weak in my opinion.

I think there have been plenty of positives on this tour and it bodes well for the future.  As Lancaster has said though, by the time of the Autumn's he needs to know who is going to be on the 3 yr journey to the next World Cup.   I guess this game will go part way to answering the questions.    But with the likes of Lawes, Robshaw, Wood and Croft to come back and maybe players like Henry Thomas introduced, we have the basis of a good pack.   We have loads of scrum halves and some good depth at fly half and plenty of back three options.   Hopefully Manu and JJ can go well this weekend and give us a centre pairing.

[paul_e]

England : A Goode; C Ashton, J Joseph, M Tuilagi, B Foden; T Flood, D Care; A Corbisiero, D Hartley (capt), D Cole, T Palmer, G Parling, T Johnson, J Haskell, T Waldrom.

Replacements : L Mears, J Marler, M Botha, P Dowson, L Dickson, O Farrell, B Barritt.

This looks an exciting team to me.  Very pleased to see Alex Goode getting a run at full back as I really rate him.  Still not sure on Foden as wing and would love to have seen him take a gamble with Jonny May or Christian Wade.   I believe that Morgan will come again next season and I guess he probably hasn't been fit this tour, but the pack looks quite well balanced to me.

One caveat I would add, we have no pace or guile to come on from the bench.  This looks weak in my opinion.

I think there have been plenty of positives on this tour and it bodes well for the future.  As Lancaster has said though, by the time of the Autumn's he needs to know who is going to be on the 3 yr journey to the next World Cup.   I guess this game will go part way to answering the questions.    But with the likes of Lawes, Robshaw, Wood and Croft to come back and maybe players like Henry Thomas introduced, we have the basis of a good pack.   We have loads of scrum halves and some good depth at fly half and plenty of back three options.   Hopefully Manu and JJ can go well this weekend and give us a centre pairing.

Bold bit is important for me.  Farrell and Barritt on the bench is a terrible decision.  Wade or May had to get the nod to give us a running threat from the bench.  After his performance on tuesday it would be May replacing Barritt for me, Farrell can cover 10, 12 and 13 as he's played all of them at club level.  May had 2 moments on tuesday that show how big a threat he is, his raw pace to create the chance for abendanon to get his hattrick and then a truly spectacular finish for his own try, there are very few players in the world who could've scored from there.

[Dave Summers]

Agreed Paul_e.   I would guess though that part of their thinking is that both Joseph and Tuilagi can cover wing, so it makes more sense to have another centre alongside Farrell, who will also cover fly half.

Like you, I am a massive fan of May and thought he should have been on the tour anyway.   With the likes of Ashton, Wade, May, Sharples, Yarde and Brown, Foden and Goode at full back we do have loads of potential there.   We certainly shouldn't be seeing anymore of the likes of Strettle or Banahan.

[PaulWinch again]

As I said incorrectly in the cricket thread! I'm glad to see Lancaster isn't afraid to make bold changes. I'm pleased to see Goode in and it's an attacking team. Also he's rewarding Waldrom for his good display last week. Corbiseiro in for Marler is a good call, and I'm relieved to see Botha is out.

[villan1975]

Can someone please put the Irish team out of their misery?I didn't see any rugby of the seventies but this New Zealand team are absolutely in a different world to any other team.Six changes today and they still gain their record score against Ireland.Richie Mccaw is the best player I have seen,an absolute warrior.

[cheltenhamlion]

May didn't make the bench? Bugger.

[PaulWinch again]

Stuart Barnes is a negative bastard.

[PaulWinch again]

Flood off injured and missed two kicks.