Wow, not looking forward to Cardiff in two weeks.
I'm just pleased Gashton didnt score....next week has me worried though!!
I’ll take that win. The last quarter was a bit crap but hey ho they didn’t score a point in the second half.
Cardiff is going to be huge. Hopefully Eddie and co will have something up their sleeves tactic wise to catch Wales off guard. We’ll be installed as favourites I’m guessing in the basis that Wales haven’t quite fired yet, which sets them up for a massive opportunity to pee on our chips!
Scotland will get the opportunity to get their championship back in track in a few weeks against what is a pretty dire French team.
Shit, two weeks of worry!!!
Hopefully at least Wales will play a full back at full back unlike ireland and france!
Hopefully Mako Vunipolas injury is a nice simple 3 week broken toenail!!!
Hopefully Eddie and co will have something up their sleeves tactic wise to catch Wales off guard. We’ll be installed as favourites I’m guessing in the basis that Wales haven’t quite fired yet
Dont really need a tactical masterplan when you have all those ball carrying monsters. England need to play their game. Gatland needs to come up with something!!
They’ve done some things well though have they not?
Like? They had no organised attack. The defence was regularly in pieces after two phases. They had no reliable line-out. The scrum was ok, I suppose. They were defending mauls with two or three men, until surprise, surprise, the maul started retreating. They weren’t aggressive at rucks. They were unfit.
The only curious bit is why England scored so few points in the second half.
When the slow mos are shown at the end you’ll see it was May’s hand that knocked on.
No it wasn't.
I’ve just watched it again. It was.
But it doesn’t matter, it was given. Yay.
Definitely a French hand. It’s blindingly obvious.
Yep not sure what they are on about, both angles show it was clearly the French hand - the lower one as a fist
The only curious bit is why England scored so few points in the second half.
They did come close but the changes seemed to leave them a bit disjointed. They will need to work on that a bit
The only curious bit is why England scored so few points in the second half.
They took their door of the gas and most of the subs came on at the same time disrupting the flow. Cole offers sweet FA as a sub. Sinkler (whilst a bit of a tit at times) carries hard and has good hands.
Despite it being a good performance, Lawrence D hit the nail on the head...If that had been the AB 's the foot would have stayed on the jugular for 80 mins. That said, as a Scot I'm not sure we can live with that power😕
With regard to the Sinkler incident - replays show the French guy hit Sinkler first, these Sinkler retaliated, then Frenchie retaliated back. Handbags. Either both in bin or neither.
Hamish - treat the May incident like a cricket review. Put both angles together and it’s obvious the French hand knocked it back.
Was that before he slapped him on the head?
Yes, and in the audio you can clearly hear Sinclair saying “he hit me first”, it was a hand in the face, not too bad and about the same level as the slap that followed it.
The ‘knockon’ was so clearly a french hand but I’m not at all sure about the penalty try. Gashton was clearly tackled off the ball however I’m not sure he had it under any control at all so would a try have been scored?
Anyway, this England team looks bloody good again. I reckon we’re world beaters again!
Yeah I did hear the audio but thought it was just a bit of hope he didn't see what I did 🙂
The Ashton penalty one was certainly one of those that looked blatant when he called it first but as you say he had some work to do to actually score, though it made very little difference in the end.
Anyway, this England team looks bloody good again. I reckon we’re world beaters again!
Sigh. There goes the Grand slam...
I do worry that Gatland will see this and thing about weathering the storm in H1 then coming on strong in H2 as a tactic, it seems and obvious thing to do, which is of course how the AB's beat us.
France were woeful. Absolutely dreadful.
So Brunel watched England dismantle Ireland with a smart tactical kicking game that preyed on Ireland playing a centre at fullback and - he picked two centres to play on the wing and a wing to play fullback!
England should really have notched 60+ IMHO. A few glaring chances went amiss and I don't think Tuilagi was all that great. For all his try scoring ability May still tackles like a powderpuff but I guess 3 tries scored to one given away is a good enough ratio.
I did enjoy Lawes knocking Fatty Bastareud backwards though!
Always a pleasure to see the England haters on here. Maybe some marginal decisions did go England's way..... it's debatable whether or not Ashton would've scored..... Farrell's try was definitely knocked back by a French hand imo, however it's great to say that the ref favours England isn't it!
Here's how we stand.....
Italy....tier 2 nation, borderline lucky to be in the 6 Nations, if they get a losing bonus point against a piss poor French team then it'll be an overachievememt
France.....just awful, like watching a cross between an U18 team and a semi pro team play
Scotland.... injuries have decimated them.....not dissimilar to England's injuries in the back row last year, but England have a lot more players.... from this point if they win another game it'll be a good return.
Wales.....whom knows....the firm time from the Autumn for the first time ever....next game is HUGE for them, they have a reasonable strength in depth, other than the fact that there's no clear cut ten, and the only decent 9 isn't eligible for selection (at the minute)
Ireland.....the form team in the world until a few weeks ago, now the gap to England and Wales isn't as big as it seemed.....on paper still the best NH team
England.....back to looking like 2016 world beaters.....we have no back up back row though (wasn't a 6 or 7 on the bench) and our second choice scrum half has played approx 9 minutes of international rugby.
Other than NZ seemingly being that little bit better, I genuinely think that heading into the coming RWC any of the worlds top 7 could beat each other on their day.
England could pick Robshaw or Shields instead of Wilson. Underhill injured or he would be ahead of curry. Hughes after Vunipola.
Jones likes the flexibility of Lawes/Itoje covering 6/7 on the match day bench. With 1/2/3/9/10 bench cover, you only have 3 more spots to cover 10 positions.
At 9, We have Care and Wigglesworth as backup too
I love the fact that we are whinging about having just annihilated France.
They weren’t great today. But maybe we made them look that poor & exposed the weaknesses we were presented with.
People make it sound like we were awful in the second half. We won it 14-0 and could have scored more. Not matching an almost perfect first half is hardly crime of the century.
Farrell’s try was definitely knocked back by a French hand imo
I agree, but just saw it replayed on the news and May looked ahead of the kicker.
I was also slightly surprised that they didnt have a second look at the first try as frenchies seemed to be randomly falling over all over the place and the had a good like at the French try for reasons I couldnt fathom. The pen try seemed harsh to me as it looked like Gashton had over run it.
According to Scrum V, England have never beaten Wales in a year that ends with a 9. 😁
ahead of curry.
Im not so sure, Currys putting a very effective shift in . He looks at home.
Regards the penalty try, even Owens said he "probably " would have scored . I'm sure the letter of the law is "definitely" and as soon as he said that I thought it would be disallowed.
The next French player was 5m behind Ashton. If he hadn’t been tackled without the ball he could have missed it 3 times and still scored.
This is the way Nige refs games. He always ignores minor technicalities to go with the attackers.
Nope - I went and looked it up
"A penalty try is awarded between the goal posts if foul play by the opposing team prevents a probable try from being scored, or scored in a more advantageous position. A player guilty of this must be cautioned and temporarily suspended or sent off.<span class="inline"> No conversion is attempted."</span>
How can you ever say definitely...... we've seen some horrendous handling in the in-goal area already this year, who's to say Ashton wasn't going to collect it, attempt a Splashdown and f' it up 😉
Scotland lose Wilson for the rest of The tournament.
Always a pleasure to see the England haters on here. Maybe some marginal decisions did go England’s way….. it’s debatable whether or not Ashton would’ve scored….. Farrell’s try was definitely knocked back by a French hand imo, however it’s great to say that the ref favours England isn’t it!
Wow, quite a bit of imagination there! I don't think anyone above has suggested the ref favours England, and for the record I support England. Doesn't stop me having an opinion when I think they've had the rub of the green though. Was definitely May's hand 🙂
"Was definitely May’s hand"
NO IT WAS NOT
Was definitely May’s hand 🙂
Go on, find a screen grab to back that up.....
They split screened it, showing both angles simultaneously. May didn’t touch it. One angle looks like he does, but split screen shows that was just foreshortening.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/47192062
about 4:40 on the video, conveniently JM has wrist strapping on to make it even more obvious
Scotland have injury worries re Jones and Hogg too. Their squad could be really stretched if they’re too broken to play much more.
From the replays that I saw, it did look like it was the French player who knocked the ball back. At the end of the day, what the ref / TMO conclude is all that matters.
Sinkler was very, very lucky to stay on the field with that scrum cap pull. Whether he was hit first or not, he effectively pulled the French players hair (if he wasn’t wearing a scrum cap).
That’s a red card offence. Unsportsmanlike conduct.
The Sinkler incident is frustrating because he’s actually played really well for us over the last two teats; he’s done pretty well at scrum time, carries well and shown up really well in the loose with some good hands.
And then he does something dickish. He got away with it, but that’s not the point. Another ref could easily have reached for a card. On the whole though, our discipline has been much improved so far.
Scotland are in real trouble with injuries. Just too many to cope with.
If we get many more injuries I'm expecting a phone call, used to be pretty handy twenty five years ago.
And then he does something dickish. He got away with it, but that’s not the point. Another ref could easily have reached for a card. On the whole though, our discipline has been much improved so far.
What I found interesting was Farrell coaching him - and clearly as they waked away Sinks was still looking to Farrell for advice, it felt very "junior" from a grown rugby player.
And that's what players / coaches say about Faz, he really, really is captain material. It's just us armchair pundits who think he's a petulant child!
Found a slo mo and it was indeed a French hand 😎
Why are we concentrating on Sinkler patting him on the head as opposed to the French thug who raked his face??
Hamish - I know why you thought otherwise though, the head on shot REALLY looked like May knocked on.
Why are we concentrating on Sinkler patting him on the head as opposed to the French thug who raked his face??
Always a pleasure to see the England haters on here. Maybe some marginal decisions did go England’s way…..
And we get criticised, give me strength!!
The irritating thing about Sinkler is that he appears to have an unofficial role of pissing people off. He does appear to be good at it. So its disappointing to see that he fell for his own tricks. He should have smiled at the bloke and patted him gently on the head. Would have had a much better effect.
