International Rugby

[Brazilian Villain]

As a a neutral, it just felt like the 'Championship decider against France on the final weekend'' chat was a bit premature.

[AV82EC]

As a a neutral, it just felt like the 'Championship decider against France on the final weekend'' chat was a bit premature.

Amen BV, though obvs not a neutral.

[UK Redsox]

Did consider popping down the road to Caerdydd. Plenty of tix still available

Forget a calculator, might need Deep Thought to keep track of this

[Gareth]

Did consider popping down the road to Caerdydd. Plenty of tix still available

Forget a calculator, might need Deep Thought to keep track of this

We thought of doing the same.

It’s like a 3rd round FA Cup tie where a big money bags PL team draws a limited but game League Two side

[UK Redsox]

Concede over 50 points at home and yet the consensus is that Wales improved significantly from last week.

That just shows how crap they are.

[paul_e]

Concede over 50 points at home and yet the consensus is that Wales improved significantly from last week.

That just shows how crap they are.

As I said last week:

England didn't play particularly well but easily got 48 points and probably left another try or 2 on the field, I was a bit disappointed that we lost our patterns of play when Spencer came on, we really need a better option as the backup 9. The pack were mostly very good, I do though still have problems with how often Earl seems to play for himself and I thought Curry was really dumb with his yellow card. Itoje was a little unlucky that he came on right when we were on a warning but he always plays on the edge of the rules so it's always a risk.

Nothing from that changed this week with the big difference being Scotland planned for our 'truck it through the middle or kick for territory' approach and played to make a fucking mess of the breakdown and run it back rather than getting drawn into kick tennis. As soon as they got their gameplan right we had no response and everything that we see as the strengths of our game got flipped on us.

Borthwick needs a plan 'b' and that's been obvious for a long time. He got lucky with it at the world cup because the players basically forced him to change things up and there were promising signs last year but then the Lions took all our better players away and left him to fall back into old patterns and we did ok so he abandoned all the more progressive stuff that was working this time last year. That time a defeat to Scotland made him switch things up so I have some hope that will happen again but I don't trust him not to regress again at the first chance.

England need to change things up before the next world cup if they want to make the most of the depth we have available and the obvious choice, as much as I dislike it, is Phil Dowson. Saints are the club in English rugby who are creating a sustainable identity to their play based around English players with the skillset to mix things up and play winning rugby. Got the title in 2024, euro final last year (but largely sacrificed the league for it) and are top of the league again and looking good in Europe. There's already about 15 players who are either with England or England A and a bunch more coming through in the U20s so England at every level are heavily reliant on Saints players anyway.

[Crown Hill]

Wishing I was at VP rather than Twickenham next week!

[Tony Daleys Shorts]

England unbelievably sloppy in the opening 20 minutes.

[paul_e]

That first 20minutes from Ford is about as poor a fly-half performance as I've ever seen at this level.

[CorkVilla]

Some performance by Ireland. Didn't see that coming after the first two games.

[Brazilian Villain]

Some performance by Ireland. Didn't see that coming after the first two games.

It's just as well Ireland are in decline. Otherwise, it might have been one-sided.

[cdbearsfan]

England are always shit against Scotland, Scotland are always shit against Wales, Wales are always shit against everyone else.

I did tell you.

[paul_e]

Ireland were good but, just like last week with Scotland, England made it so easy for you.

I have a couple of slight niggles first, I'm not sure how Ireland didn't get a yellow in aftermath of our late first half try where Beirne (I think) clearly took out the 9 10yards from the tryline as we had an overlap, I can't see any way to justify giving the Steward yellow and then not giving that one, especially when we were already playing advantage for 2 previous penalties in the same set. This mistake was then compounded nearly immediately by not giving a clear penalty by Ireland moments before giving a bizarre yellow card to Pollock who didn't seem to do anything that could even be misinterpreted as a penalty.

That isn't meant as an excuse, we deserved fuck all from the game and Borthwick got it about as wrong as he possibly could've (and is now responsible for 3 of the 4 highest points we've conceded at Twickenham, which is just unforgivable incompetence) alongside an absolute horror show from Ford which really should signal his last appearance for England. Many people have accused him of needing a sedan ride from the pack to be effective and the last 3 games have proven that in the most dramatic fashion, motm against a shockingly poor welsh team where he had as easy an 80minutes as he'll have had in his career only to follow it up with 2 games where he was put under pressure and he completely melted.

Aside from that we let Ireland generate quick ball whenever they wanted and then defended narrow, which gave them all the space in the world out wide and let them dominate territory, we kicked far too readily and very poorly and our only real tactic has reverted to the bosh down the middle that Borthwick was failing with before. With 18 months until the world cup he's got to go, England have the quality and depth to be a very good side but we're led by a coward who wants to play rugby that died out a decade ago.

[nigel]

Can’t argue with any of that, also add the hit on Curry.
Definitely must be Ford and Steward last England game for me.