Well as someone else mentioned, England have somehow managed to make a world class pack somehow very weak of late…..as much as I think that he’s a tit, we really are missing Hartley.

They’d better start showing some form pretty quickly though as a team sheet that contains

10: Farrell
12: Burgess
13: Variety

**** me!! An average inside centre at 10, a flanker/RL player at 12 and a defensive lump of an inside centre at 13 😯 are we really playing that against Wales?!?!? If Wales weren’t so depleted and out of form I’d be predicting an absolute smashing!!!

In many ways, it is a team especially for Wales. Their main channel would have been at the 10. Defending with Farrell Burgess and Barritt nullifies that. I think England have decided the best way to beat Wales is defend hard and kick your points. That’s Farrells game.

who was England’s 10 Dan last time England beat Wales? Can’t see the ball getting out to England’s wings. If England loose at least May can get blamed for it on here as usual. 🙂

Agreed, but Ford was on good form last year, and Farrell injured. I actually think Farrell linked well when he came on against Fiji, and in the first France game.

He did. Some people just become too entrenched and don’t like the whole “play on form” thing.

I have to say i don’t get all the Farrell Hate stuff. He has played well over the last few years in some big games against the SH teams.

Im sure I will get struck down by lightning, but I think he kicks goals as well as Wilkinson, kicks better out of hand, runs better, passes as well, and tackles as well.

If the Romanians had some half backs they’d be quite dangerous.

Farrell hate 🙂

Well he had a long spell where his place kicking % went a bit iffy, has no distribution skills, has a temper, is petulant…. But he can tackle and kick for territory well which is safe enough for SL. I don’t hate him but he’s not a patch on sir Johnny 😉

Sir Johnny was a metronomic goal kicker, which was exactly what England under Woodward needed. He was never a back line igniter though.

Pretty clear what sort of game England intend to play against Wales, I think the rise tinted definition is tight and controlled. Ford is a much better player than Farrel works totally one dimensional. You can’t possibly compare Farrell’s kicking to Wilkinsons, Farrel is a reliable-ish short range kicker. H/P and Wilkinson are more comparable.

Gutted for Japan who just ran out of puff, 4 days not enough to recover from such a Herculean effort.

Not sure we should have won the 2007, we where under pressure and playing catch up. The try/no-try was a big moment but I felt we couldn’t have too many complaints.

You would be,see also Samoa and the USA in the next few days,who will also run out of steam,be cheated by the ref/irb scheduling etc.

Chatting about rwc so far with mates. Especially the seemingly great play from “lesser” nations. Think its because they play rugby and the tier one teams actually now play some bastardised version, which is predictable to each other.

So it’ll be Dr Chin against the Mutant Burgess in the midfield. There will be some sore bodies come Sunday morning, TBH I’d be surprised if both 10’s see out the game. Gatland had better be booking Mr Miyagi for the half time rub down.

JJ’s injured, my arse.
It’s a bluff and he’ll be back next week.
It’s what Sam was brought to Union for.

I’ve heard this from elsewhere.

Ford is on the bench, being saved for injury to Farell & the Aus game IMO and not “demoted” as reported by some pundits.

Personally I now see this as previously described; Defend and Kick. Although this time around we do have an decent attacking back three should it get loose in the second half.

It shows respect to Wales back line, lets hope we pull it off and Burgess shows us the talent we’ve been promised.

The Welsh premiership is experimenting with 6 pts for a try, 2 for any kick, this season.

Sin bins were introduced to combat technical infringements iirc, rather than foul play. The irony is that we’re told that the refs are supposed to be targeting things like chop tackles and neck rolls (guaranteed card apparently) and then completely ignore or miss them. I’ve seen a neck roll in every game, with an especially nasty one in the Aus-Fiji game which was replayed a couple of times being ignored by all officials. As far as I remember nobody has been carded for it?

What’s the point in making these announcements? (The same goes for targetting straight put ins, rolling on the floor, etc, etc, ad infintum.. 🙄 )