I thought the performance by the Scottish front row surprising, they owned England. Dombrant and Curry were poor as is VanPorvliet. Smith and Fas doesn’t work, Marlins scored two tries but is not a winger and Stewart at full back offers very little threat. Hassle Collins may have been coached by my mate as a junior but he didn’t seem much of a threat, what does Arundel have to do to get a game? Take away England’s forward dominance and they have little else. (Still.it could be worse for the Englanders, they could be Welsh)

Nope, a bald man wrestled the comb from the beautifully maned lion and is now waving his unshaven ball sack in the lion’s face while the lion pretends it doesn’t really matter because neither combatant was really on top form

Quality response BruceWee.

Touché.

😄😄

the Scottish front row surprising, they owned England

That isn’t true at all. https://www.sixnationsrugby.com/live_matches/live-england-v-scotland-3/#match-stats

I thought the performance by the Scottish front row surprising, they owned England.

I don’t think they owned them but I amot sure why you are suprised – Nel and Schooman are two top class props

Ever the cry when Scotland (a country of 5 million who don’t really play rugby much) beats England (a country of 60 million who not only invented but actually own the game).

Nope, a bald man wrestled the comb from the beautifully maned lion and is now waving his unshaven ball sack in the lion’s face while the lion pretends it doesn’t really matter because neither combatant was really on top form.

Feel bad about yourselves. You should.

I think this misses the point. Scotland deserved to win but both sides are pretty average. There was nothing I saw that would concern France or Ireland.

Nel and Schooman are two top class props

They are decent but far from top class, if they were top class they’d be playing for SA

Oh god it’s so bad that I agree with sir Clive wibblewobble, Scotland were swinging it away from the big smash. Then suddenly borthwick brings on Cole and Vinapola (sp?) You could Tel by how genge and sinkler trudged leaden footed off the pitch that they’d be worked hard and run around the pitch. The bench front row needs to bring power and speed.
Doesn’t matter what the stats say Genge’s looking physically broken sitting on the bench tells the tale (I think he’s a monster and I love to hate him but I’d never like to face him on a pitch).

This is funny.  Finn not content with being the playmaker decides to try for the wind up merchant role

Farrell no attempt to tackle resulting in duhans epic try. Also Russell giving Farrell shit as duhan scores. from rugbyunion

Little bit of needle here as well.  Fairly much a draw between them tho

Farrell makes Finn knock on in the tackle. One minute before DVDM try. from rugbyunion

🙂

Quality response BruceWee.

Touché.

😄😄

I honestly forgot I wrote that until I checked in here this morning. Which should tell you all you need to know what sort of state I was in when I wrote it 🙂

Anyway, I thought both teams actually played well. There were a lot of individual errors but I think that’s just a reflection of the sheer volume of rugby being played by both teams. Brainless penalties absolutely ruin games for me and most of the penalties awarded during the game were forced errors, from what I remember anyway.

Right, I’m off to check my phone and see if I sent any text messages last night.

Take away England’s forward dominance and they have little else. (Still.it could be worse for the Englanders, they could be Welsh)

Forward dominance was not that great either to be fair, quite a crap team, defence was woeful. Sorry you Scots but don’t get excited, you beat a bunch of halfwits, I don’t think this means anything for the rest of the 6N, bottom of the table is hotting up, it might all come down to the size of Italys win over England or Scotland to decide which of us gets the wooden spoon. Lets face it both England and Scotland only beat one other team last 6N and I can’t see much improvement.
Also with the Irish beating wales like that it means they will come at us and show why Gatland knows his stuff.

After seeing Ireland yesterday I think they will lose to France.

France
Ireland
Wales
Italy/Scotland/England

There it is again, ^^^ not a word of well played Scotland or you deserved to win but simply that having beaten England Scotland will have a battle to avoid the wooden spoon.

Get over yourself. Other people said well played, I’m just joining in the discussion. Do I have to precis every comment with a little tickle to make you feel better about beating one of the shittest teams in the NH?
Beat Ireland or France, then you will have something to talk about.
There is a difference between celebration and realism, enjoy your win, you were significantly better than us in every way. But surely you can see that the Scottish side is not that amazing. Last year, like England, you struggled against Italy and got put to bed by everyone else. World class my arse.

Nope, a bald man wrestled the comb from the beautifully maned lion and is now waving his unshaven ball sack in the lion’s face while the lion pretends it doesn’t really matter because neither combatant was really on top form

First half is great, and pretty much how we feel, but I disagree with the 2nd half. It does matter, because it shows how far we have to go, we haven’t had form for a long time. It’s not an excuse, we are just a bit shit. I can’t see that changing. If we had an excuse to be shit that would not be so bad, like if we only had 4 million people and not a lot of money, but we can’t even do that.

The thing is why should England fans have to caution how much they berate their own team for fear of insulting the team that beat us.
How often on the world stage against a top 4 nation does VDM beat 5 defenders? Is that a sign of a good opposition? No, it is a sign of a bunch of arrogant uncommitted ****.(Edit we are not even top 4..)
Do we have to thrash ourselves with birch, but not too hard because we don’t want to make Scotland feel bad about winning?

.(Edit we are not even top 4 5..)

FTFY

Well done Scotland for beating England. Enjoy it, a well deserved win, better than England in every way. Outplayed, better attack, better defence, solid set piece.

I think we are 5th, last time I looked, and as a measure of how shit we are, despite beating us, your win has not increased your ranking at all.

Edit – its not updated yet, this calculator has it https://rawling.github.io/wr-calc/
Changes to :
England 6 Scotland 5. I’ll take that comment above back.

Scotland did very well to beat England at Twickenham. An England who, according to the pundits I heard before the game, were on course for a Tournament decider with Ireland on the final Saturday 😂. However, I do think they now need to back this up with a win against Wales next week, a comfortable win against Italy at home, and a decent performance against Ireland (not necessarily a win), to have had a successful 6 nations.

I was surprised to hear an ex Ireland international talking before the match, about Ireland in the upcoming World Cup. How they will have a tough match in the quarter finals – I don’t see it as a given that they’ll get out of their group. Whilst they should, losing to both South Africa and Scotland is a clear possibility.

I am back to worrying about Wales coming 3rd to Australia and Fiji!

Sorry, I know all that is best left for now.

Do we have to thrash ourselves with birch

That seems like an unusual training method
I can’t see Scotland beating Ireland or France. Given the disparity in resources that really would be something. Injuries and suspensions hit the smaller nations harder though so it’s essential to keep your nose clean and keep fit. I would see a win over Italy and one other team as an acceptable 6N performance from Scotland. This year we might manage 3 wins a good performance over all and Wales look the most likely source of a possible 3rd win for Scotland imo.
Even given the drubbing we got last year

I would say it is going to be between Wales, England and Italy for the wooden spoon. Scotland don’t appear to be a particularly world class team, but I’d rank them above those three teams. They are behind Ireland and France.
But Scotland have massively improved with ball in hand over the years. I’ve always thought they had a good pack and they still do. But now they genuinely look threatening with the ball even from deep in their own half. That must surely be coaching influenced?

With regards to England, they genuinely look clueless with ball in hand. With ten minutes to go, it was all really predictable. Not one player seems able to break the line, during broken play the backs don’t appear to know where they should be forming up. Pretty much every pass in the last 10 minutes was to a stationary player.

It was an enjoyable game to watch as a neutral. Could have gone either way. I don’t think either team dominated any area. Scotland probably appeared to be the most organised defensively out of the two teams. On a couple of occasions big gaps appearing in the England defence. But as mentioned, either team could have won it.

I don’t think beating England is the same scalp as it used to be. Listening to BBC1 before the Wales Ireland game, the players were saying the same. I’m Welsh, but if we were to be beaten by England, I’m not going to come on here and congratulate the English fans or say well played England. I’ll give a critique and probably still say England are rubbish and they just beat an injury ridden Welsh team…..

Well done Scotland for beating England. Enjoy it, a well deserved win, better than England in every way. Outplayed, better attack, better defence, solid set piece.

I’d rank them above those three teams.

You can definitely rank them above Engand, they beat us.
It will be interesting to see how they go against Wales.

This is fast becoming another thread it’s not worth opening.

Looks like it wasn’t just a lion that had Bruce’s unshaven ballsack waved in their face. ( I am assuming ginger pubes as well)

Wales look the most likely source of a possible 3rd win for Scotland imo.
Even given the drubbing we got last year

it was hardly a drubbing imho 20-17. I think it was just that Scotland had high expectations, following their success against England the week before. Perhaps they didn’t have their minds in the right place. I’m sure they won’t make that mistake again this year. Scotland are clear favourites against Wales this year. The last Scotland v Wales match at Murrayfield could have easily gone the other way (24-25, with a lot of contentious moments iirc).

In the same way we have had Englands number in the last few years, Wales have had ours!

I think what pleased me most was that we won while not playing at our best.  England won the kicking duel which has been a strong point of ours and we didn’t get many breakdown turnovers.  Lineout went well with big Ritchie in there and he had a good game.  England tried to close Russell down which is a challenge he will always accept and did pretty well forcing him into more mistakes than he tends to make now – but in going after Russell that left holes in the England midfield which Russell / Scotland exploited.

Tactics were interesting in that we did not use many forward carries in close and the ball was getting out into the centres a lot.  Also as per recent games Scotland will run the ball back from deep.  Sometimes it pays off and sometimes it doesn’t

As for England?  IMO the main issue is 10/12.  It just doesn’t work with Smith / Farrell.  Defensively and offensively that is where Scotland won the game

Looks like it wasn’t just a lion that had Bruce’s unshaven ballsack waved in their face. ( I am assuming ginger pubes as well)

Bloody Glasgow fans, can’t take them anywhere.

England won the kicking duel which has been a strong point of ours and we didn’t get many breakdown turnovers.

That’s what surprised me as well. I was expecting Russell to be pinning England into the back corners all day and Ritchie winning turnover penalties for fun. I suspect these areas may have been a string focus for England and possibly that left holes elsewhere.

51 minutes in and it’s 21-22 in the Italy v France game 😀

C’mon Italy

good match.  Italy should win some games this year and could have won that one

Scotland finish the first weekend second in the table and 5th in the world rankings 🙂

@tjagain – that’s a fair and balanced view of the Scotland / England performance…..what’s going on and what have you done with the real TJ?? 😁
Genuine question now for TJ and the other Scottish folk, is the gradual improvement in the Scottish performances down to Townsends coaching, or the general improvement at club level? So better coaching at club level, consistently playing with and against top European players?
Historically the Scots have in my view had decent backs, but never really fired on all cyclinders. Now the back line appears to be very comfortable with ball in hand, from anywhere on the park. Forward and back link up player also massively improved.
As an outsider I simply see it as good coaching by Townsend, but that might be a bit too simplistic?

Both Glasgow and Edinburgh have been playing well and winning recently so confidence is high – and it would appear a happy camp playing a gameplan they believe in

I think its as much townsend learning from previous mistakes really – so he is now a competent coach which he has not been in the past.

Well done Scotland for beating England. Enjoy it, a well deserved win, better than England in every way. Outplayed, better attack, better defence, solid set piece.

I am off to buy an Italy shirt, it is easily our turn and based on form it will be us they beat.

(I am just jumping on the grenade, I already have two Scotland shirts and I expect another in the post this week.)

(edit)
Actually forget it. We won. Nah, mah.

100th, if you can enjoy your win, that would be great.

I’m glad for the sake of the thread that we’ve got #ENGvSCO out of the way early. And get a three-ish week break until #WALvENG. 😀

And get a three-ish week break until #WALvENG

Pretty sure most of the Welsh will be keeping a low profile 😄😄😄😄

So when Wales beat England are they gonna not enjoy it and its somehow the English’s fault too?

Is WALvENG a Friday Night Lights game?

no sat 25th feb 445 at millenium

no sat 25th feb 445 at millenium

Well that’s my birthday runied!!

Who isn’t enjoying it? You are looking desperate now. Look on the bright side, now you have got your annual explanation to us all that England lost it rather than Scotland winning it,that’s the Calcutta cup dealt with.

Well that’s my birthday runied!!

Just bet on England winning, then you either win and be happy, or you lose and make 50 quid.

Also AA – This is the 10th anniversary of the  6N where England were supposed favourites,  Ireland beat Wales at home, and then Wales beat England 30-3 and went on to win the 6N. Halfpenny was player of the tournament..
I seem to remember some memes with dragons and broken chariots. Arse.