Winters coming;all inclusive rugby thread.

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 – Member

Just 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 – Member

England 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 – Member

I 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 – Member

It 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 – Member

Pigface.
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.

Just found the telling off of all 30 players… Owens starts with “look, I’m not going to make a big deal out of this.. ” 😀

Also, didn’t he once have a comically large mobile phone to call up the TMO?

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.

Nurse!! he’s out of his bed again.

For the record can you point out myinsulting, rude and borderline racist posts? Or my posts that are not about the rugby. ( not including posts about Gav, they are clearly not about the rugby)

First weekend was awesome wasn’t…..three dire weekends since.

Should be a cracker next weekend.

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.

Based on home advantage, Wales having a team with experience of winning the championship, having parity in the scrum and a quicker back row, I’d go with Wales winning the game but losing the championship on points.

In which case – according to Graham’s mindreading – all of Wales will be happy because we’ll be the moral victors as England should have lost to Italy today and we can bitch about it for the next year. 😉

Well that wasn’t very pretty!
Think we can now dismiss the notion that Italy are the comedy side of the 6N.
I thought Italy looked the more adventurous and dangerous.
If we play like that in Cardiff we will get thumped and rightly so.
I know the focus is on the WC but a Slam en route would be nice.

DanW – Member
It is easy to criticize but what is the STW massif’s consensus on the better refs around at the moment?

Me! 😆

Actually, is anybody else a little less confident about a lions series based on the 6N?

Idlejon

You may joke but I would be surprised if you didn’t go on the ScrumV forums and other sites and did not read what you just posted about the moral victory.

graham, but everyone who posts on a forum is an idiot, right? 😆

I decided a long time ago that people who post on rugby forums are a special type of person. They aren’t representative of the rest of the supporters.

duckman – Member

DanW – Member
It is easy to criticize but what is the STW massif’s consensus on the better refs around at the moment?

Me!

Oh sorry, duckman is the best ref in the world easily. Especially when he wears his starspangled lurex kit…

I haven’t exactly heard a huge amount of humility coming from the west of the UK for a large number of years.

even I don’t think this is true, can we keep it nice please, I would hate for the english to lower themselves, so mind your manners yeah?