England do look rather rudderless to be honest, not sure why Dombrand keeps getting picked, doesn't seem to offer anything. Nice to see Smith trying to do something different.
Short career as captain for Genge?
It isn’t Genges fault, although he is moping around slowly a bit with the body language. The defence out back is shocking, we are slow at the breakdown, and aren’t holding on to the ball giving it back easily to a superior team.
England are lucky France aren’t in form.
Players showing solidarity with Linker by refusing to turn up?
Well that's just pathetic. I'm an 1/8 Welsh again today 🤣🤣🤣
England getting the humping they deserve here. All boding well for the WC.
Beautiful try
Your right it's not Genge's fault but he so obviously wears his heart on his sleeve and when he can't see a positive he can't captain, can't inspire, can't lift his team.
That's an awful spanking
Embarrassing
he can’t captain, can’t inspire, can’t lift his team.
nor Farrell it would seem.
Or the coach at half time
they were somehow 5th best everywhere in a two-team game
from the Guardian blog
I would laugh but we are playing them next week 😱😱😱😱😱
Thank God England have an easy one to regroup with next week. 😀
Part of the problem is that England haven't had any real leaders (certainly none with any intellegence) on the field for about 15 years - basically since Martin Corry.
And there's none in the current squad, except Ford, who's still coming back from injury.
Also England still are clueless at 12 and 13.
As an English fan I'm glad that happened. France where fantastic.
England need to rebuild and start again. Getting shot of Farrell for a start.
Me too, England are abysmal, despite Scottish amour for how great our team are, the juts keep showing every game how pedestrian they are.
I'm wondering if Borthwick should do a Galthie and just sack all the old boys and start again.
Out on my bike to calm nerves. Strongest Ireland team for years; what can go wrong? Lots.
Well this could be a cracker.
And breathe....
Great game so far
Don’t know if the telly gives it out properly but it is absolutely electric here.
A pen and two tries *believe* 🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻
Irish lineout better than the Welsh one when they have no hookers!!
It’s only a surprise if you believe that VanderFlier is a real human.
It’s only a surprise
Not that surprised tbh!
Was there and what was striking was the how France were always in position, in attack or defence, moving players around to create space, and doing it quickly. England just lumbered about the pitch, seemingly unaware of where the French players were. Other obvious bit was England slow down into contact, France speed up, run harder try to break the tackle. Frustrating day, not looking forward to Ireland
Noticeable disintegration from Scotland as soon as the subs started coming on.
Fraser Brown being shown up by a flanker.
Really impressed with the number 1 side in the world in the face of a fair amount of adversity to turn the screw in the third quarter. Fair shift by Healy at hooker too. 😀
A good win for Ireland, no 1 team for a reason.
Meh; better team won,Ireland are bloody good! Off to Bennett’s for ale with guys I have been going to Murrayfield with since we were schoolboys. I have seen some absolute pish here over the years, we aren’t that anymore.
Yup
Where do you attack them? Where is the weakness? Scotland have been impressive in attack this se3ason but could not find a way past. Impressive discipline as well
Meh; better team won,Ireland are bloody good! Off to Bennett’s for ale with guys I have been going to Murrayfield with since we were schoolboys. I have seen some absolute pish here over the years, we aren’t that anymore.
A fair assessment duckers. Have a cracking evening.
Ireland were the better team by a fair margin. I think a win next week will make this a good six nations for Scotland.
Good game but the best team,(in the world) won. Scotland are heading the right way when I'm disappointed they lost
Scotland appeared to give Hansen the freedom of the city of Edinburgh everytime he got the ball in midfield in that second half for some reason. Once Scotland got behind they forced it too much and when they started attacking wide off poor ball and the forward effort had dropped off and the weren't getting front foot ball they were easy pickings for Ireland.
You have to wonder why the didn't try booting it to the corner and pressure the Ireland lineout.
Fair play to Ireland they got through some really tough breaks to win fairly easily in the end.
... yeah, it was a bit disappointing that Scotland stuck to the same script and didn't try to negate that impressively fast Irish defence in the second half. It should have been obvious fairly quickly that the second half was going differently to the first.
Ireland were the better team by a fair margin. I think a win next week will make this a good six nations for Scotland.
Nope - this is supposed to be the best Scots team for a generation - 4 wins would be good, 3 is the minimum anything less is failure
Not quite sure which is the fourth game you expected to win to turn it from being a failure tbh. Results have gone more or less according to form and rankings haven’t they?
EDIT: sorry, thought you’d written that three would be a failure.
The World Rankings show the gulf between the top 4 and the rest. Scotland could reasonably expect to be 3rd after Ireland and France and it looks like that might be the case.
Yes - but if we want to be amongst the best we needed to beat at least one of France or Ireland and we have not. We need to beat teams above us in the rankings
@tjagain I wish I shared your optimism. I suspect this six nations and hopefully the forthcoming world cup will be a highpoint for Scotland in terms of the quality of rugby played although that won't necessarily equate to tournaments won or a run to the late stages of the world cup.
