Rugby Union 2013-14

[PaulWinch again]

I'd definitely have Wade over Nowell, purely on the basis that Wade is a natural finisher.

[Jon Crofts]

A most excellent afternoon spent in the company of Welshists at my local rugby club, a sound beating, could and should have been by 10 more points, Wales offered little and got what they deserved, nothing.  Can't remember the last time the Welsh midfield were so piss poor.

[nigel]

Just got in from watching England beat Wales, pretty comprehensively IMO. (I've had a few beers, so excuse the ramblings) 
Mike Brown was, again, fantastic.
But, Courtney Laws was absolutely awesome.

Couldn't find a relevant thread, so please merge if needed.

[peter w]

Very sloppy performance if the truth be told. They were there for the taking and we could have given them a real beating and I think a more cohesive, experienced unit would have. That's to take nothing away from that attacking intent, even from inside our own 22 and you could see Wales were wary of it,. But all of Wales points come from stupid penalties. The sort of stuff you wouldn't expect to see at level lower than The English Premiership.

I put that down to over-eagerness. I think that's something that they will learn. And I also think that's why they deserve, ultimately, not to win the title this year. Although the Triple Crown is a encouraging as it is to threatening to other teams. We deserve to come up just short this season for the silly mistakes. But, this team has the potential to be a whole lot more.

Lawes was stand-out. Absolutely brilliant. He has become the player the hype told us to expect and has been awesome. Carries on in this vein of form and his legacy will outstrip Johnson's if we win the next World Cup and because of him, and I believe it would be, we won the one after that.  I will say that as well as Lawes as being playing Robshaw is crucial to this team. You can see that Lancaster called it right with him.

[PaulWinch again]

Think you're being very harsh, I agree the penalties were sloppy but the performance on the whole was excellent. We absolutely battered Wales and showed an expansive game which is developing rapidly.

[nigel]

Think you're being very harsh, I agree the penalties were sloppy but the performance on the whole was excellent. We absolutely battered Wales and showed an expansive game which is developing rapidly.

Agree, Wales hardly threatened the England line, and had they not got a top drawer kicker, in Leigh Halfpenny, three of the penalties would have been out of range.
I refer to Scotland v France, had Halfpenny, or Owen Farrell, been playing for Scotland, Scotland would have beaten France.

[PaulWinch again]

The killer is losing to France when we never should have. However England are already a good side and I fully believe we'll go on to be great.

[peter w]

Think you're being very harsh, I agree the penalties were sloppy but the performance on the whole was excellent. We absolutely battered Wales and showed an expansive game which is developing rapidly.

Agree, Wales hardly threatened the England line, and had they not got a top drawer kicker, in Lee Halfpenny, three of the penalties would have been out of range.
I refer to Scotland v France, had Halfpenny, or Owen Farrell, been playing for Scotland, Scotland would have beaten France.

But this kind of backing up my point. defensively we did well the few times we had to but we then rushed our attacking play and handed the ball back to Wales. We conceded almost immediately after every time we scored. Defensively poor in midfield I thought too and poor Welsh play cost them one, if not, tries. But yes we're a team that will improve in this area.

[PaulWinch again]

I don't think we're defensively poor in the midfield. The way we stopped Wales' main attacking plan was very impressive.

[villan1975]

Lots of sad welsh faces in Hereford tonight. Agree with pretty much everything said. To reiterate, what an athlete Laws is,Brown always gets over the gain line and we really do have the basis of a good squad now. As others have said but for fifteen minutes of silliness in the France game we have been the best and most consistent side by some distance.

[PaulWinch again]

"We've tried to remove the fear of failure and go out and play," admitted Lancaster afterwards. "While your heart is in your mouth a bit, and sometimes we played in the wrong areas, our intent got its reward."

I think those quotes show where Lancaster wants to go, he's a very impressive coach.

[taylorsworkrate]

Burrell's excellent performances have now created a situation where Manu could be used as a pretty devastating impact sub in the last 20 minutes.

Any coach would sell their own grandmother for that option.

[paul_e]

The disallowed Burrell try was the moment of the match for me, the skill levels from Lawes and Burrell in the build-up were above anything we'd have seen from England in the past, Lawes catch and pass in particular was exceptional.

Penalties - giving away 3-4 in the kicking range of someone like Halfpenny is pretty much a given so we only gave a couple of extras away.  When you then take into account that 2 were highly debatable it looks a lot less like something to beat England with.

The debatable ones:

1. Lawes getting back to his feet.  The tackler has to be holding you whilst you have a knee on the floor to 'complete' the tackle, for me that wasn't the case, the tackle was made, contact broke and then once Lawes was back up the guy grabbed his foot, I think they got that one wrong.

2. Hartley taking the man in the air, for me this was a misapplication of the law, Falatau jumped into Hartley as much as anything, ruling this as a penalty is basically saying that if you get a bit of a hospital ball and you're going to get clattered as you take it you should jump as you make the catch so you get a penalty, which is clearly wrong.  Add to this the fact that North clearly caught Nowell and carried him in to touch earlier in the game and I think this one was poor.

Whilst I'm on the ref I thought the yellow card (to me Wilson suckered him into it) was harsh but more importantly how fucking stupid is Gethin Jenkins?  If the ref has warned you twice to drive straight you make sure you're whiter than white for the next couple of scrums.

[Dr Butler]

spot on paul_e, the ref warned them a few times about driving straight in the scrum, Jenkins was either driving upwards or at an angle.

[Jon Crofts]

Agree re the Lawes 'tackle' he wasnt tackled, he was being held onto after an intitial tackle attempt was made, Hartleys taking the man in the air was as ridiculous a decision as you could wish for.

I have to say I was worried about the England scrum before the game and sure enough, first scrum Wales got the nudge on and it looked like it was going to be their day.  They managed to cheat their way, or at least get every single decision at the scrum go their way in Cardiff last year, glad to see a few wrongs put right out there yesterday.

Worst thing about BBC 6 Nations coverage still has to be having to listen to Jonathan Davies during half time and post match, he's like an annoying smurf on helium, smug little twat had the grin wiped off his face yesterday.