6 Nations 2013

[PaulWinch again]

All of you England players and coaches should be fucking embarrassed.

[Proposition Joe]

I'd still have Ashton to come off the bench, because if you give him ball he can score. But we need a lot more creativity and pace in the backs. Hopefully Lancaster and the coaches will learn from this and realise their mistakes. Oh and Shane Williams, Eddie Butler and Jonathan Davies can fuck off.

I don't follow club rugby (I'm more League for club level and Union for internationals), but I always liked the look of Strettle when he played for England.  What's happened to him? 

Who would you have instead of Goode (who I thought was not too bad over the tournament)?  Ben Foden?  Perhaps Cipriani can go back there, as he played there for Wasps in the beginning.

[PaulWinch again]

There's better young players coming through than Strettle, Wade and May come to mind. I'd definitely have Foden at full back.

[paul_e]

Twelvetrees has to start ahead of barritt.

Mako V has to be ahead of Marler.

Goode hasn't got the pace to be an international outside back.

Brown can't play on the wing at this level, try him at full back or leave him out.  He was shit for both tries, poor decision to tackle a guy much bigger than him high for the first and then didn't make a decision for the 2nd when he needed to either go for the early tackle or move wide and block the space, instead he hung around waiting for someone else to make the decision for him.  He also made a big error throwing the ball infield to no one in the first half.  If you're caught on your own out wide go into touch, giving the ball away is asking to be counter attacked and we got lucky that their charge down wasn't better that time.

Starting a semi-fit Croft was insane.  He was utterly anonymous and forced Wood to 8 where he isn't a good enough ball carrier to have the necessary impact.  We work with Morgan so the replacement needs to offer something similar, not giving Billy V a run against Italy removed that option and is easily the worst decision he's made in the tournament.

Warburton and Tipuric exploited Robshaws weaknesses at the breakdown, this was always my worry if we came up against a side with a strong 7 (or 2 in this case).

Our front row need to learn to play the ref, 2-3 penalties/freekicks they got were caused by them being a bit devious and us not being wise enough to make it obvious.  Mako got caught by one right after he came on where the bind was on his arm and pulled him down so he missed his bind.  The ref was on the other side so he just saw it collapse with Vunipola the first to go and gave them the pen.

If Farrell isn't kicking the points he's a very average player at 10.

Youngs (ben) has no brain at times - Ditto Manu.  Both very good players but they made some big errors today.

What galls me most is that Wales didn't play well today, they just took advantage of us being predictable in attack, naive in the set piece and fucking stupid in defence (at times).  Gifting them a lead with stupid penalties made the job so much harder than it should have been.

[paul_e]

There's better young players coming through than Strettle, Wade and May come to mind. I'd definitely have Foden at full back.

Wade, May and Yarde are all great prospects, and there are 2-3 others just starting to break through as well.  Of those 3 May would be my choice because he's solid under the high ball as well, Wade and Yarde can look a bit ropey at times and probably need another year or 2 each.

[Rip Van We Go Again]

Utterly predictable.

As I said to my mate in the week.

'Wales will trounce England as they hate the Engish more than they love their own country.'

BCFC syndrome.

[UK Redsox]

I listened to the game on the drive home and was passing thro' Westbury-On Severn when that village's most famous son scored the first of his two tries.

Today should have cemented Alex Cuthbert's place in the Lions starting XV

[SoccerHQ]

No Rugby fan at all but watched the game and obviously Wales deserve it.

What I don't like about the 6 nations is the lopsdied nature of it, 3 home and 2 away or vice versa, think it would be better if it was bumped to 7 and all teams played 3 at home and 3 away.

Also great to see Italy improving so much from just wooden spoon fodder, makes it much more competitive.

[PaulWinch again]

Twelvetrees has to start ahead of barritt.

Mako V has to be ahead of Marler.

Goode hasn't got the pace to be an international outside back.

Brown can't play on the wing at this level, try him at full back or leave him out.  He was shit for both tries, poor decision to tackle a guy much bigger than him high for the first and then didn't make a decision for the 2nd when he needed to either go for the early tackle or move wide and block the space, instead he hung around waiting for someone else to make the decision for him.  He also made a big error throwing the ball infield to no one in the first half.  If you're caught on your own out wide go into touch, giving the ball away is asking to be counter attacked and we got lucky that their charge down wasn't better that time.

Starting a semi-fit Croft was insane.  He was utterly anonymous and forced Wood to 8 where he isn't a good enough ball carrier to have the necessary impact.  We work with Morgan so the replacement needs to offer something similar, not giving Billy V a run against Italy removed that option and is easily the worst decision he's made in the tournament.

Warburton and Tipuric exploited Robshaws weaknesses at the breakdown, this was always my worry if we came up against a side with a strong 7 (or 2 in this case).

Our front row need to learn to play the ref, 2-3 penalties/freekicks they got were caused by them being a bit devious and us not being wise enough to make it obvious.  Mako got caught by one right after he came on where the bind was on his arm and pulled him down so he missed his bind.  The ref was on the other side so he just saw it collapse with Vunipola the first to go and gave them the pen.

If Farrell isn't kicking the points he's a very average player at 10.

Youngs (ben) has no brain at times - Ditto Manu.  Both very good players but they made some big errors today.

What galls me most is that Wales didn't play well today, they just took advantage of us being predictable in attack, naive in the set piece and fucking stupid in defence (at times).  Gifting them a lead with stupid penalties made the job so much harder than it should have been.

I agree on Croft, I rate him very highly when fit but if not he shouldn't be playing. Disagree on Farrell I've seen him play very effectively as a 10 other than just kicking, but he didn't yesterday. That said the ball the backs got was poor most of the time. Goode is just not very good. The sooner Foden is back the better.

[N'Rexy]

Sorry Rip but your summation that 'Wales will trounce England as they hate the Engish more than they love their own country" is bollox.  Only the English were calling it this way. No-one in Wales judges the season on the result against England anymore.  And as for BCFC syndrome, we defended our title, have more titles and 'slams than you in recent times, and look set to provide a lot more of the Lions team. And yes I know England won the World Cup, but that was a while ago now...

[Jon Crofts]

Sorry Rip but your summation that 'Wales will trounce England as they hate the Engish more than they love their own country" is bollox.  Only the English were calling it this way. No-one in Wales judges the season on the result against England anymore.  And as for BCFC syndrome, we defended our title, have more titles and 'slams than you in recent times, and look set to provide a lot more of the Lions team. And yes I know England won the World Cup, but that was a while ago now...

A while ago or not England have their name on it whereas Wales don't and lets be really honest, Wales fully deserved to win yesterday, but worthy 6 Nations Champions?  Really, honestly?  They were average throughout until yesterday and somehow shrugged off the mediocrity that had infested their game whereas England just got worse game by game.  A tie would have been the fairest result!

[UK Redsox]

[tomd2103]

Sorry Rip but your summation that 'Wales will trounce England as they hate the Engish more than they love their own country" is bollox.  Only the English were calling it this way. No-one in Wales judges the season on the result against England anymore.  And as for BCFC syndrome, we defended our title, have more titles and 'slams than you in recent times, and look set to provide a lot more of the Lions team. And yes I know England won the World Cup, but that was a while ago now...

A while ago or not England have their name on it whereas Wales don't and lets be really honest, Wales fully deserved to win yesterday, but worthy 6 Nations Champions?  Really, honestly?  They were average throughout until yesterday and somehow shrugged off the mediocrity that had infested their game whereas England just got worse game by game.  A tie would have been the fairest result!

Having scored the most tries and not conceded one in four matches (three of those away from home), I would say that Wales deserved to win the tournament.   

[Jon Crofts]

I was quite expert yesterday in managing to hit mute every time just before that annoying c**t spoke.

[Proposition Joe]

Our front row need to learn to play the ref, 2-3 penalties/freekicks they got were caused by them being a bit devious and us not being wise enough to make it obvious.  Mako got caught by one right after he came on where the bind was on his arm and pulled him down so he missed his bind.  The ref was on the other side so he just saw it collapse with Vunipola the first to go and gave them the pen.

That and also the baffling reason that we contaminate the 6N with Southern Hemisphere refs like Steve Walsh.