Some great mic work - the sound of the hits hurt on the sofa!!!!
england need Clancy on side.
Crickey, England will need to finish better than this in Cardiff.
Can all the other ground staff go to Twickenham and learn about pitches.
Oops, I thought the pundits were being a bit too over-confident pre-match. Interesting match now!
England are playing like they have gone to sleep at the moment.
Not fancying their chances against wales if they play like this next weekend
What was that numpty guscot saying, England to win by 5 tries
How come in first half England stood up in a scrum when Italy was going forward, and ref reset scrum. Now other way round and England get penalty. Clancy is better than Joubert but only just.
most refs seem to decide in their own minds who should win beforehand.
On the balance Italy should have won.
Bollocks. Italian prop stood up loads and got pinged once. The loose head only got a bind on a handful of occasions.
England were very very poor today but job was done and that's 4 wins from 4. Pretty happy with that overall.
The Italians must also be annoyed with being given very little penalty advantage which usually resulting in England regaining possession bizarely whereas England were allowed to play for much long, get over the gain line many times yet still come back for their original penalty. Not that is really made much difference as Italy still need a goal kicker.
I don't think anyone should be too shocked by England today. They have not played well and have offered very little in attack throughout the 6N but have got through games by being the least bad, bad team in the game and have had a lot of help with Farrel's goal kicking...
Lucky England. Italy one offload away from a try under the sticks and a draw. Then again England butchered two nailed on try opportunities.
They'll be rubbing their hands together in the Valleys over next week's game
Odd match that.....
...but sets up a classic next week. Advantage the reds after this weekend. But will that be a wake up call for England. Started 1h well but couldn't capitalise. Weird.
Not sure if the welsh will be that happy considering just how well they played yesterday!
7 points then 😛
Will come down to error count.
Could easily be a single point either way, and I cannot even come close to figuring out who will win it
I wonder why you think it will be 7 points!
Well done Italy though. There is no doubt that we have a genuine 6N and that is an excellent thing. Those pundits and the glory England snaps of historic matches by the BBC made me nervous from the off. That was the Beeb not the England team at fault there. You underestimate Italy at your peril these days.
Well that was rather more exciting than I'd anticipated.....ref was very harsh on Italy other than not seeming to care that their front row stood up in nearly every scrum.
Very impressed with Vunipola today. Woods played well given he isn't an 8 but I think that we are in danger of coming up short in the back row against Wales.
Set's up a classic next weekend, I guess that Wales are favourites.
because england are +43, whereas Wales are +29 so its 14 points between us. So if whales win by 7 then they will be +36, but that will be -7 for us making our difference +36, and wales have more tries than us so they win. It's the Welshes game to lose. Bugger.
Teams with a proper attack would have put 4 tries on Italy there. What happens to the England that came from behind to beat NZ by scoring tries?
Tuilagi ineffective today. Haskell pretty average, and you could see Flood and anyone who managed a break searching desparately for support runners.
Set's up a classic next weekend, I guess that Wales are favourites.
The mighty unbeaten white orcs, the All Black destroyers versus a team that couldnt buy a win until a few weeks ago and have only beaten a shambolic France, Italy and a poor Scotland... Yeah right pull the othe one its got bells on!!
Don't start playing wales' chances down now. You can't be welsh unless you think that they will walk it at home to england.
Cheers for the numbers toys. Was taking the pi**.
Lol good one a_a.
Anyway, I blame Flood, he started the old trundlemuppet moves in this game and it spread like wildfire, everyone going into contact trying to break tackles and never getting the offload. Bag-o-shite.
edit sorry, grahamt, literal interpretation, doh.. Yes I expect us to get trounced on sat, wales play at least 50 times better against england. Hard to see this going well.
stevewhyte - MemberJust how much did Wales pay Joubert?
Rather less than England paid Clancy it would seem?
14 penalties to 5 in England's favour - that's absolutely rubbish.
Clancy penalised an Italian for not rolling away from a ruck but ignored good ol'Toby prone at the base of an Italian attacking ruck within the English 5m? He pinged Italy for sealing off, something which England did repeatedly in the last 30 minutes. There are so many more examples. And as to ignoring Owens' advice about the supposed Italian knock-on, jeez.
England were very, very lucky today. When even Clive Woodward criticises the ref you know something is going badly wrong.
England didn't look like they had a plan about which channel to attack as the attacks were very singular.
Neither side committed many to the breakdown in defence hence a busy midfield.
AA. You called me an idiot last week, but you insist on being insulting rude and bordering on racist let alone blind about the English. I don't understand why you can't keep it to the rugby as fwiw most if your comments (albeit one sided) are well made. Spoils your contribution IMO.
Bear - MemberEngland didn't look like they had a plan about which channel to attack as the attacks were very singular.
They had a plan but it was to play conservatively until they'd kicked Italy out of the game, hence the short kicks to touch etc. They didn't see Italy as a threat before the game. There's a word for this sort of behaviour... 😆
I think the consensus was the Joubert was shocking yesterday, more so than Clancy. Woodward eluded to that in the post match forum today.
The SRU should really make a formal complaint, and that should be the last 6 nations game he is in charge of.
Clancy was poor today, but not to the same degree.
Granted Wales have not lit the 6N on fire either but the way the forwards played yesterday must be very encouraging. Before the 6N no-one really wanted the ball and they lacked any real physicality and hence the team as a whole really struggled. Yesterday was the complete opposite of that and the England pack today seemed to be playing like Wales before the 6N! Italy did well to give them a real hard time and just lacked that extra bit of class to get the win.
Certainly England's to lose. You would have to expect a tight game or Wales folding completely. Wales as run away winners against England seems highly unlikely regardless of how England have been so far.
Edit: By the way, who is refereeing England Wales? I seem to remember it is Owens but that would be daft...
Walsh ref, joubert running theline. Danw, I was optimistic before the italy game, but england were just crap today. It was like a 24 month time warp..
Steve Walsh is ref for England Wales.
Lets hope its not Steve Walsh. Also we needed a proper 7 today - and need one desparately vs Wales to avoid us pinging ourselves out of the game.
Edit: beaten by idlejohn. Doh, we need to win with tries then...
It is easy to criticize but what is the STW massif's consensus on the better refs around at the moment?
They have a very tough job and are left to lots of interpretation but none the less...
Owens stands out as very fair and consistent for me. Granted he has been known to do some daft things like call all 30 players in to a huddle and ask them to play nicely but still... 😀
Seems Walsh has a history of "England hating" which is nice 🙂
stevewhyte - MemberI think the consensus was the Joubert was shocking yesterday, more so than Clancy. Woodward eluded to that in the post match forum today.
Joubert was poor, but then the Scots hardly helped themselves did they? Woodward was talking about the reffing in general, in response to JD's comments about Clancy.
Owens is the best in terms of consistency.
graham 1980 you don't know much about us Welsh then 😆
Nigel laying the law down 😆
Pigface.
I haven't exactly heard a huge amount of humility coming from the west of the UK for a large number of years.
I do think that on current form wales will win next weekend.
However it could be a blip in englands form on this weekend.
Probably due to inexperience on the part of england causing them to tighten up. I'm hoping that england can play well next weekend and not choke like they did in dublin a couple of years ago.
I do expect that the welsh are expecting a win (cricket score) as they cannot tolerate the thought of england getting a slam.
DanW - MemberIt is easy to criticize but what is the STW massif's consensus on the better refs around at the moment?
I rarely see a decent ref these days. The few that are around seem crippled by the constant changes in emphasis on what they should be looking at. (This week it will be hands in the ruck and tip tackles are red cards, next week it will be offside at the line-out and shoulder charging the ruck is the red card of the day..)
You are right the thought of the saes getting the slam is just awful but I am in no way thinking of a nailed on victory. Actually the nerves are already kicking in.
grahamt1980 - MemberPigface.
I haven't exactly heard a huge amount of humility coming from the west of the UK for a large number of years.
What do we need to be humble about? The suppporters are aware that we have a side that has won GS's in the last few years but doesn't get the consistency it should. A good team when it wants to be. You'd have to be pretty stupid not to see that.
I do expect that the welsh are expecting a win (cricket score) as they cannot tolerate the thought of england getting a slam.
I'll refer you back to Pigface's comments about not having a clue about us Welsh.
I do expect that the welsh are expecting a win (cricket score) as they cannot tolerate the thought of england getting a slam.
You are a mind reader? Let's just hope it's a good game, eh? This years championship hasn't exactly been a classic thus far.
