International Rugby

[Aldridge Villa]

Painfully turgid especially with the talent at our disposal. Looks like creativity has been coached out of them.

[PaulWinch again]

I suspect they’re looking at stats and reading them wrong when it comes to kicking. It works if you use it as a variation - if you do it all the time teams will work you out.

[AV84]

Matt Dawson fapping himself blind on BBCs live text. No idea what game he was actually watching but that's the most complete performance he's seen from Borthwick's England, apparently.

[paul_e]

I suspect they’re looking at stats and reading them wrong when it comes to kicking. It works if you use it as a variation - if you do it all the time teams will work you out.

yep, exactly, it's something you go to if you're not going forward after a few phases, England seem to have forgotten the bold bit.

I think that gets backed up by the fact that when the heat and pressure got to Japan and they dropped the intensity suddenly England were keeping ball in hand. It's easy to put it down to purely the change in personnel but I think it's more fundamental than that.

[paul_e]

Matt Dawson fapping himself blind on BBCs live text. No idea what game he was actually watching but that's the most complete performance he's seen from Borthwick's England, apparently.

He was a very good 9 but everything I've seen of him since confirms he's a fucking moron.

[edgysatsuma89]

Matt Dawson fapping himself blind on BBCs live text. No idea what game he was actually watching but that's the most complete performance he's seen from Borthwick's England, apparently.

He was a very good 9 but everything I've seen of him since confirms he's a fucking moron.

Absolutely. I completely avoid any of his articles, I just can't handle the sheer bollocks he comes out with.

[Exeter 77]

Matt Dawson fapping himself blind on BBCs live text. No idea what game he was actually watching but that's the most complete performance he's seen from Borthwick's England, apparently.

To be fair that wouldn't be especially difficult.

[Brazilian Villain]

This England team is the most poorly coached I've ever seen us, even a hint of a gameplan and we'd have put 40 points on what is a very limited Japan side. That the only reason we have a meaningful lead is one of the biggest flukes you'll ever see can't disguise that Borthwick has made us far worse than we were under Jones.

Even pre-match, Matt Williams picked out a few plays from the Argentina game and said that the players didn't look like they knew what they were supposed to be doing. Basically thought that England were a badly coached team, and said that the attack coach should be embarrassed to be picking up his pay cheque from the RFU.

[AV84]

It's interesting that Ireland's current attack coach, and head coach, are both English.

[LeeB]

I watch Rugby in the same way imagine some Rugby fans watch Football, sometimes engaged but other times mocking and scornful, but I think that's also because by and large for my entire life England have always been shit to watch, even when they were good.

And even with my untrained eye I can see it's not the case elsewhere, as I've enjoyed watching games they don't play in. It really feels like it's engrained in the culture to focus entirely on the physicality of the game at the expense of any kind of flair.

[paul_e]

I watch Rugby in the same way imagine some Rugby fans watch Football, sometimes engaged but other times mocking and scornful, but I think that's also because by and large for my entire life England have always been shit to watch, even when they were good.

And even with my untrained eye I can see it's not the case elsewhere, as I've enjoyed watching games they don't play in. It really feels like it's engrained in the culture to focus entirely on the physicality of the game at the expense of any kind of flair.

England rugby suffers from the same problem as the football team does and cricket team did until recently, avoiding defeat is more important than winning so all the coaching, selection and development gets focused on ideas to make us harder to score against and it makes the entire thing sterile and boring. What Bazball has done in the cricket has shown that by focusing on scoring more than the opposition (as opposed to making the opposition score less than us) we've taken the same group of players and created an exciting and dynamic team that people can be inspired by. Rugby and football have the potential todo the same but it needs a change in attitude at the very top.

[LeeB]

As I thought Paul, and you can draw parallels with the attitudes we've endured at the Villa compared to what we see now.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

I watch Rugby in the same way imagine some Rugby fans watch Football, sometimes engaged but other times mocking and scornful, but I think that's also because by and large for my entire life England have always been shit to watch, even when they were good.

And even with my untrained eye I can see it's not the case elsewhere, as I've enjoyed watching games they don't play in. It really feels like it's engrained in the culture to focus entirely on the physicality of the game at the expense of any kind of flair.

If it's excitement you want, Portugal is where it's at. Not a second wasted, 110% effort, I couldn't take my eyes off the screen for the full game. That said, it was like watching a Villa U21 team against a top PL team, they fill your heart with promise but the result is pretty predictable. Like football, money is king and there's little chance for 2nd tier countries to grow and develop when new competitions are designed for maximum revenue rather than the good and future of the game.

[paul_e]

I watch Rugby in the same way imagine some Rugby fans watch Football, sometimes engaged but other times mocking and scornful, but I think that's also because by and large for my entire life England have always been shit to watch, even when they were good.

And even with my untrained eye I can see it's not the case elsewhere, as I've enjoyed watching games they don't play in. It really feels like it's engrained in the culture to focus entirely on the physicality of the game at the expense of any kind of flair.

If it's excitement you want, Portugal is where it's at. Not a second wasted, 110% effort, I couldn't take my eyes off the screen for the full game. That said, it was like watching a Villa U21 team against a top PL team, they fill your heart with promise but the result is pretty predictable. Like football, money is king and there's little chance for 2nd tier countries to grow and develop when new competitions are designed for maximum revenue rather than the good and future of the game.

The key for teams like Portugal (and even more established sides like Fiji, Tonga, etc) is for them to get more regular games against the top sides and that isn't a fault of the format of competitions (although reforming the 6N and championship would help) but rather the process of setting up tours and friendlies which see the same 9-10 countries playing each other and the 'smaller' nations struggling to find games because of it. During the game last night they gave a stat of the number of games each team had played since the last world cup and England were more than double that of Japan. Covid played a part in that but even without that England, etc have far more opportunities to give out caps and try things than the teams who are trying to catch up.

[edgysatsuma89]

I seem to remember a brief comment on a podcast in reference to the Rugby scene in Portugal improving. Is that the case?