I certainly think the Scottish performances, and the way they try to play the game will keep both SA and the Irish honest.Despite the evidence of yesterday and the 6N I still look forward to the London Times deflecting from the shit show on their own doorstep by describing our game against Tonga as a third place decider as they have done a couple of times.
This is a high water mark in Scottish rugby that I don’t think we will ever see again and I am going to enjoy the hope. Not having a go, but that must be worse if you support England? There are folk that comment on newspaper pieces how they would have won the last WC if Shinkler has not been hurt. Post on here how nobody beats England,they beat themselves etc. Having that level of expectation driven by the media ( Smith/Doumbrant/Arundel as the messiah,anybody?) must be grim. I know we are shite, but I am also aware I will be in Bennett’s bar by 5.30 going “meh” with guys I have been going to Murrayfield with since I was 12.
What a game that was. entertaining, open, lead and momentum swinging and some great skills on display. 4 tries and in with a chance against a top french side gearing up for a realistic tilt at the WC.
Stats make interesting reading:
Scotland made more metres, a lot more passes and runs and had the majority of possession. France had the territory.
Scotland missed 22 tackles mainly out in the backs. Thats not good enough. Kinghorn made 0 tackles missed 3, Steyn missed two as did Tuipiloto with Finn missing 3
Penalties along with those missed tackles cost us. Pretty evenly spread out.
Dempsey top in yards run for Scotland, tuipiloto nothing - I think they marked him out of the game
https://www.espn.com/rugby/matchstats?gameId=596378&league=289234
I understand the talismanic effect Farrel has for England at 10 but Ford is a much better 10
I think if Farrell were to get a 6 match ban, it could be very fortuitous for England's chances at the world cup. Possibly van Poortfliet being injured too, as he has been very unconvincing imho.
This morning news is they’ll like be no mitigation for Farrel due to this being his 4th same offence. But to be fair Ford was one of few players playing reasonably well yesterday. This biggest cheer at Twickers was when Ben Earl took his shirt off.
If stays like this I see Borthwick going after the RWC tbh, I’m not sure I’ve seen such a bad England team in my lifetime.
Must be a low point for English rugby so better days will come in a year or two especially when the financial issues are sorted .
For Scotland, I think Duckman is right we better enjoy the next year or two. The last time we had a team like this was 1990.
So, this is the way things are; we're playing exciting, thrilling rugby, we have the best stand off in the world, our strength in depth is such that THREE Lions are struggling to make the starting XV and might miss the squad altogether and the mood in the camp is positive and focused.
We're doomed I say. Doomed.
We’re doomed I say. Doomed
Two Scots meet on a sunny day.
1st Scot "Lovely day"
2nd Scot "Aye.We'll pay for it!"
Just watched the England Wales game! Holy shit England are ****ed. I mean Wales are rubbish, we know that, but England with those players should have destroyed that Wales team. How Wales lost in those last 10-15mins I have no idea, just awful. Then I looked at the right five on the pitch at that time. Mathias (first cap, barely regional level), Parry (Ospreys second choice), Lewis ( struggles to start for Cardiff), Rhys Davies (second choice lock last season for Ospreys), Christ (Exeter flanker, about ten years old.) I mean, that is gross, real dross.
Anyway France Scotland now for some light relief!
England are dire, the irony being that they now look like Tigers did before Borthwick took over. One-paced, one-dimensional. There for the taking.
France lost a couple of key players to injury - Baille and N'tamack - has there been any news on them?
As for Farrell - it's hard being critical of modern players - they are expected to make dominant hits, whilst being entirely safe and being a clairvoyant. But Farrell is repeatedly at fault and it is literally his job we are talking about. He ought to be better at it by now.
I like Ford, but he narrows the defence because he is such an obvious target for big ball carriers. He doesn't often get run over totally, but he loses the team more metres in defence than Farrell. Given that the team with go forward often gets the benefit of the doubt with penalties, Ford is problematic.
France Scotland was a good game but I thought Scotland should had around 240 000 more yellow cards for the constant penalties they conceded.
How many weeks for Farrell? Got to be at least 4 and I wouldn't be surprised with 6.
Dunno what you mean AA - we were unfairly pinged for diving in every ruck, being brilliant in mauls and being shite in the scrums. Biased ref! 😉
Farrell (prediction) dropped from the squad into a lowly team somewhere then sits out a four match ban on their bench. Suddenly stepped back up to the team 10 minutes before first kick off.
Trying to predict the disciplinary panels is a mugs game. Entry is 6. He has lots of previous, should be looking at 8 expect no more than 4
JVP and Romain Ntamack both ruled out of the whole RWC.
JVP has struggled to consistently transfer club form to country - so Mitchell coming in is OK. But Youngs is soooo slow to pass the ball. Not that this really matters because there isn't a cat in hell's chance England are going beyond the quarter finals.
Ntamack is a big loss for France, although I rate Jalibert highly. But they are very used to playing around Ntamack - particularly Danty.
Ntamack is a huge loss, great player.
JvP isn't, he's rubbish.
Great shame for both players though, it must be heartbreaking after all the work they have put into it.
Ntamack is a huge loss, great player.
JvP isn’t, he’s rubbish.
Great shame for both players though, it must be heartbreaking after all the work they have put into it.
Indeed, especially for Ntamack who was likely to play every game, in his home country and potentially win. He's a big loss for the competition.
Cyrille baille looks a doubt too - that’s also a big loss
Mitchell is twice the player JVP is, with Ford also playing instead of Farrell,England would be a better team.
Mitchell does so much that there are games where he just runs out of puff. He is a very good 9. JvP always seemed to be a strange pick.
Baille would be a big miss for France, I agree. He's the latest in the line of very good, technical french loose heads. He is instrumental in many scrum penalties as he shows what refs call a good picture. He gets under the opposing tight head and reduces their effectiveness whilst staying up himself.
I also have to agree about JvP. As a Tigers fan I was excited to see what initially looked like a breath of fresh air, but he hasn't kicked on like he should have. Too much inaccuracy.
You have to question the wisdom of warmup games before a world cup. Certainly players need to stay sharp and resilient, but the attrition rate (one way or another) last weekend was too high.
One other thing - Dan Biggar. It is time that a very simple rule was introduced - one that Wayne Barnes once improvised off the cuff with Ma'a Nonu. If you ask for a card for an opposition player, you get one - irrespective of the sanction against the other player. You say "that's got to be a red" you get an instant red - with all the bans that come with it.
That wouldn't make a blind bit of difference, Biggar has been doing that forever so I suspect he is too old to learn not to.
Well, it would have an effect on Biggar (and the plenty of other players who do this) as their teams would be playing with 14 or less for more time than they currently do. Assuming he is too old to learn.
It would also change the tenor for younger players to amend their behaviour now.
To quote the legend that is Nigel Owens:
"This is NOT soccer!"
JvP is a player for the future. He's been brought into the England side early (too early). His club play is fine - bettering Youngs quite often. It's never helped when he has a carp 12 playing at 10, aka Farrell.
I still think Youngs consant pondering and box kicking the leather off the ball is a tactic he's being asked (told) to follow and he's doing what the boss asks.
Whe Ford went to Barf about what 8 years ago, there was a constant 'who will do George's tackling for him' jibe. But in reality it's just not true. Ok he'll never knock an oncoming lock back 5m, but he holds his own. and has very good technique (unlike Farell) to make up for the smaller stature.
The problem with rugby now re the actions of Bigger is that refs seem to miss so much and it's only when a player who has been hit high lies on the floor milking it and another player points to him and says high tackle, red card that the ref and the video ref seem to wake up and and look at it. Had Basham not stayed down and had someone ( not Bigger he's too hot headed) not pointed out to the ref what had happened are we convinced the video ref would have stepped in. I'm not.
More specifically regarding Bigger he may well have been captain at that point as Beard took over but then got binned so he was entitled to talk to the ref. I also think he was entitled to tell Faz to get ****ed when Faz told him not to. I agree with Gatland though that he should have walked away and focussed on getting the inexperienced Welsh players together rather than have a shoving match with Faz.
Just watched Scotland / France. Very good! Felt like an actual game of Rugby compared to whatever it was I watched at Twickenham.
<p style="text-align: right;">Oof</p>
Springbok team to face Wales in Cardiff:
15 – Willie le Roux (Vodacom Bulls) – 86 caps, 65 pts (13T)
14 – Canan Moodie (Vodacom Bulls) – 6 caps, 10 pts (2T)
13 – Jesse Kriel (Canon Eagles) – 61 caps, 60 pts (12T)
12 – Damian de Allende (Panasonic Wild Knights) – 72 caps, 50 pts (10T)
11 – Cheslin Kolbe (Suntory Sungoliath) – 25 caps, 81 pts (12T, 3C, 5P)
10 – Manie Libbok (DHL Stormers) – 7 caps, 45 pts (1T, 11C, 6P)
9 – Jaden Hendrikse (Hollywoodbets Sharks) – 12 caps, 12 pts (2T, 1C)
8 – Jasper Wiese (Leicester) – 22 caps, 5 pts (1T)
7 – Pieter-Steph du Toit (Toyota Verblitz) – 69 caps, 30 pts (6T)
6 – Siya Kolisi (captain – Hollywoodbets Sharks) – 75 caps, 45 pts (9T)
5 – RG Snyman (Munster) – 26 caps, 5 pts (1T)
4 – Jean Kleyn (Munster) – 2 caps, 0 pts (Ireland 5 caps)
3 – Frans Malherbe (DHL Stormers) – 61 caps, 5 pts (1T)
2 – Malcolm Marx (Kubota Spears) – 61 caps, 75 pts (15T)
1 – Steven Kitshoff (Ulster) – 74 caps, 10 pts (T)
Replacements:
16 – Bongi Mbonambi (Hollywoodbets Sharks) – 60 caps, 60 pts (12T)
17 – Ox Nche (Hollywoodbets Sharks) – 19 caps, 0 pts
18 – Vincent Koch (Hollywoodbets Sharks) – 45 caps, 0 pts
19 – Franco Mostert (Honda Heat) – 65 caps, 15 pts (3T)
20 – Marco van Staden (Vodacom Bulls) – 12 caps, 0 pts
21 – Duane Vermeulen (SA Rugby) – 68 caps, 15 pts (3T)
22 – Grant Williams (Hollywoodbets Sharks) – 4 caps, 0 pts
23 – Damian Willemse (DHL Stormers) – 31 caps, 36 pts 36 (2T, 4C, 4P, 2D)
according to wales online, Farrell red card rescinded and now free to play!!
outrageous if true and what statement of player welfare concern does it send
"the committee found that a late change in dynamics due to England #2’s [Jamie George] interaction in the contact area brought about a sudden and significant change in direction from the ball carrier. In the committee’s opinion, this mitigation was sufficient to bring the player’s act of foul play below the red car threshold"
still doesn't explain why he led with his shoulder an made no attempt to wrap his arms
Bit of a odd decision given the game needs to err on the side of player protection. Anyone got a link to a vid of the tackle, I'd like to see again
edit - just looked at it again. There is no way any mitigation from George pushing the welsh player justifies rescinding the red card in my view.
Gob-smacked! I thought he'd get something ridiculous like 3 a week ban - but to get off totally!
Wow. I guess faced with the choice of being pilloried for giving him a short ban given his history of high and dangerous tackles or actually banning him from the majority of his last world cup they took the 3rd nuclear option of clearing him of the incident entirely. Not watched the incident at great length so I'm guessing they must have a different set of images to look at from all the you tube analysts and rugby pundits to come to that conclusion.
WTAF! I'm just watching the England game over the top of my work laptop, just saw this news at the same time Farrell walks down the tunnel and the pundits say "well thats that for the RWC"
Old Farts again eh? Really does the game no credit to know its fixed like this.
Really does the game no credit to know its fixed like this.
Absolutely agree.
Just watched it on YouTube and it looks irresponsible to say the least, slightly worse that the Stewart tackle in the 6 nations.
On Amazon too.
AAAAAA-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Seriously?
To me yes, why what's your opinion?
If he was a Samoan he would have been banned until the next world cup never mind this one. Joke decision.
Does this mean Zander will be getting off too... .....nope , didn't think so..... still, England's opponents will be happy....
Absolute joke, only mitigation there is that england really really want him to be available for the world cup
Just imagine the poor saps on the committee. No worries me old cobbers, he'll rock up, plead guilty we'll give him 6 and remove 2 for good conduct and pleading guilty. Home in time to throw a few snags on the Barbie and crack open a cold one. What he's pleading not guilty. **** we either throw the book at him and he misses the world cup or......or hang on a moment.....
I must admit I think I thought he was in serious trouble before the hearing, his record meant any ban had to be substantial. I never thought they would simply find him not guilty. Gordian Knot thinking!
That is quite unbelievable, and as others have said, looks crap and sets a dangerous precedent. I cannot see George’s actions caused any major deviation in the Welsh player’s direction and Farrell was never set to do anything other than use his shoulder.
And I say this is as an England fan.
