Go on - please make Toonie an offer he can't refuse
England dire, Jones has dirt on someone at Twickenham otherwise he would have been out months ago…..
England need more creative players to support Smith. Should drop either Farrell or Tuilagi, prob swap Billy V out for a more pacey 8.
I think Jones' plan is to use big straight running players to soften up the position with the idea to switch to a more flair he later - but it's too much of a gear shift after 50 minutes.
TBH it's so turgid if I was an England fan and paid the Hughes sums for a Twickenham ticket I'd feel pretty short changed
It was a wierdly boring game, Argies better though.
England were dire, but I don't want to undermine Argentine performance, they did a great job.
England seem to be able to make something less than the sum of its parts. A group of incredibly tlaneted palyers making talentless perfomances.
Should drop either Farrell or Tuilagi
Can we have them?
Argentina were pretty dire too. I think we have a bit of NH bias and don't notice when Argentina beat Aus and NZ. They will be competitive with NH sides and performance judged on that
Kinda weird how Argentina’s standard of rugby has risen so much in, I dunno, is it nine or ten years (?) competing with AUS/SA/NZ in the championship. Contrast that with Italy still being, let’s face it, a bit dire* after more than 20 years in the 6N.
Anybody else have an opinion on this one?
*that’s probably a bit unfair but they’re pretty much last all the time unless one of the other 5 have a complete wobbly of a tournament.
EDIT: Admittedly, I think maybe Argentina were perhaps starting from a slightly higher plane.
So the marmite Mr Russell. Apparently "out of form" I mean he has only had one man of the match award this last month, missed a couple of goal kicks and only played a half of the last match only scoring one try and all his kicks. He needs to do more!
bad highlights of the last racing match
I wouldn't mind so much the Russell situation if we had another 10 of a decent standard. I remember when we had steady old Chalmers and mercurial Townsend as our choice at 10. If the coach decided Townsend was not the man he wanted we had Chalmers to take over. currently we have Russell and no other international standard 10. Ross Thompson may come good but neither Hastings nor Kinghorn is good enough. If we had a Chalmers available then its a decent choice. We don't
England v Samoa in the RL world cup semis should be a cracking match.
TBH it’s so turgid if I was an England fan and paid the Hughes sums for a Twickenham ticket I’d feel pretty short changed
I resemble that statement. Argentina tries were worth watching. Although the atmosphere was pretty flat in the stadium. Nice post-match pizza and train home now. Son1 wants to watch the league semifinal- he plays semi-pro.
Aus NZ semi is local to me. Would normally be a cracker but NZ have been struggling. Might chance my arm if there are still tickets
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/nov/06/levi-davis-missing-spain-barcelona-bath-rugby-union
Worrying news, hope for a positive outcome.
More on Finn from the racing coach
anagallis_arvensis
Full Member
Not looking forward to Wales playing them next week!Posted 19 hours ago
Swap you?
Finns back!
Every reason we should have got rid of Eddie while we had the chance right here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/63554585
TLDR, so busy naval gazing about the style of Rugby England should play the RWC just 11 months before they do, he forgot to coach them how to beat Argentina
Holy **** we are screwed.
What gets me about that nonsense in particular is look at Ireland - top of the rankings and playing very well. Are they not preparing for the WC?
Well thats a team that knows how it plays. England don't know how to play. Thats Eddie Jones and his Gazillion selections / positional movement / reliance on POWER!!! and Owen Farrell, and 1 injury prone Centre.
A good point I think.
Ive argued this for years. There is no substitute for pace.
These embedded videos never ever work for me.
Anyway I agree, Nowell has lots of qualities, but he is not a speedster.
I argue Steward isn't the slowest but the others is fair.
Eddie thinks we are going to out power everybody, doesn't he remember South Africa, or that we didn't play like that to beat the AB's? I guess thats what he means by rethinking our strategies, but he's left too late. IIRC they spent 4 years developing the vs NZ game, so he's going to change them into.. ahem... world beaters in 11 months?
Delusional, I think we'll beat Japan and Eddie will go "See, told you so..." but we need to remember they are not the Argentinian team that has been playing so well.
Thats the issue though, every time we win the press say we are world beaters. No matter the circumstances.
Like beating Italy is always promoted as a great display of brilliance...
Never mind, we can just support one of our neighbours in WC instead. I like seeing decent rugby, maybe Ireland will make a decent perfomance this time.
The funny thing is, look at the womens game, England just squeaked past Canada last weekend, and Canada are all amateurs. Eng play a similar game to the men and Canada at times were running rings round us. Whilst we did beat the Black Ferns earlier, they are a new team and I think we are going to get walloped by them on Sat. (0630 on ITV)
Ooof no. The Roses have a power game, but they also have some incredibly skilled and pacey backs, so I can't agree on that point. Also, Canada are the top ranked Amateur side, have several players playing unpaid in top teams, and have pretty much the same game as England, not all is what it seems there - very much the unstoppable force against an immovable object in both directions.
Fair I don't know that much about them but it looked like they were lucky to beat Canada.
No-one watching / commenting on the WRWC final?
England 4-3 in tries in the first half but also down to 14 after a clear and obvious red card after about 20 mins, for a high tackle head-on-head contact.
As the HT panel just said, right now England's maul is living rent free in NZ heads and if we can get set piece ball in hand anywhere from about 15 yards out we look like scoring. But I suspect we'll be run ragged at the back as tiredness sets in.
Rugby has a big issue with red cards. They aren’t stopping HonH contact, but they do destroy games as a contest.
If we really want to stop Head contact we either need to stick or twist. Up the bans or find another way.
That try at the start of the 2nd half shows how uphill this is now.
Well….. if the first 1 was a red……
Going to be an interesting last 6 mins
Hmmm.... if it wasn't for the England girl needing treatment and they'd got that lineout played. Instead the TMO interferes, I didn't think they were supposed to for small matters
and I'd have been inclined to take the penalty advantage back there, kicked for a lineout and gone to the maul again.
(as it is we have one but 15m further back)
Oh, and another chance.
Wow! That's punchy
The TMO, imho doesn’t have the authority to overrule on that line out. Then they score from the decision.
Those last few line outs, we seemed to only have 1 jumper & it was easily read by NZ
End of the day it was the right decision as she didnt touch it, but there were 30/40 small things like that in the game.
Wow. That was a real game.
I feel for the winger who got the red, but England made a few other mistakes that cost them, not just the final lineout as well. Against NZ you can't be giving them any half chances.
The NZ players repeatedly were interfering with Jackallers in offside positions and it never got picked up, all game. Dragging back players going to compete for the ball, I know it's all forwards dark arts but it was getting silly.
I was wondering, I'm only really a passing acquaintance with the subtleties of the forwards laws, but in comparison to the men's game there seemed to be relatively few breakdown penalties - offsides, entering from the side, etc. A couple for rolling away and a couple for off feet. Are there less because it isn't reffed as hard (as MrHoppy suggests) or do the players just contest less and play less close to the edge?
Second - the final penalty and the kick to touch. I assume there must be a law against setting up a maul from a tapped penalty, otherwise they'd have been 5m out, 15m in, and without the risk of the throw in going as it did?
No, it’s possible, but harder. You need to be careful of accidental offside. The line out has restrictions on where defenders can be too.
Unfortunately I missed the WRWC final. It does however make more suspect the idea of Eddie Jones supposed strategy of preparing for the 2023 World Cup with no value placed on winning games up to that point. The England women’s team went into the Tournament perfectly prepared, as clear favourites and largely due to the red card did not win. That said, England are in the easier side of the draw and if they should get some luck, then it could go well for them.
Which game to watch now - Ireland v Fiji, or Italy v Australia - I’m inclined towards the Italy game as being more exciting. Thoughts?
It’s a shame, with such large tvs nowadays, that you can’t watch both at once.
10 minutes in and Italy’s attack appears to have more variety than Wales, Scotland and England have shown in their games so far.
Wow Italy’s 2nd try was very nice!
Also their handling skills are very good.
No-one watching / commenting on the WRWC final?
I enjoyed that. Not having a dog in the fight makes it much more fun to watch. Close games like that always make me wish they could both win, really painful to watch the reality sink in to the losing team when the final whistle blows.
Another gorgeous Italy try from Capuozzo. This game is great for the neutral.
Fiji are proving awkward and lively opponents for us. Good game.
