[2015 Six Nations] Ireland vs England (Round 3)

[Every Time Ref]

Ah, so he's a fluffer

 

[lucky number 7]

Ah, so he's a fluffer

And a talented one at that.

 

[munstermuffin]

Hey Christian Grey has nothing on me 5 mins in my hands and walking on air.

Regards rustiness. Murray has been back few weeks and wasn't out long term so should be fine. Sexton will have benefitted from playing with Racing too

 

[ncurd]

All of this talk of couldn't, can't, won't - reminds me of pre Wales vs England 2013. Everyone agreed it was going to be tight but the vast majority of England fans, myself included, were adamant there'd be no drubbing. We'd shown ourselves to be too tight, too resilient.

80 minutes later...

To be fair pre-match it was only the most insane Welsh fans that even suggesting there would be a drubbing. It remains one of the most frustrating matches as an English fan I can remember watching and we've had crackers for that ***le over the years. England were rubbish playing nowhere near the quality they had in the first three games and deserved to loose. However when Wales started to pull away their dominance was compounded by the fact Steve Walsh wouldn't let England get a foothold back into the match. Letting Wales get away with stuff and then England doing exactly the same things minutes later and getting pinged for it. Tom Young's sheer bemusement at trying understand what on Earth Walsh wanted him to be doing in the scrum. The list goes on....

At the time I maintained England deserved to loose but not by the margin they did whether they'd have won the championship...I'm less covinced these days as I was back then.

This all said I joke about Walsh a lot but the last England game he did I found him a perfectly fair and consistent referee, sadly this is not always the case.

 

[msf]

Lucky number 7, if you think either May or Nowell (but particularly Nowell) has more about them than Watson, I don't think you know much about English rugby (no insult intended, I don't know much about Irish rugby, if fact I have no idea if Henshaw and Payne are any good or not).

Re: Nowell being adaptable, he might be, but playing at 13 for the last month (he played there in the LV too) won't help him to play left wing.

I think the reason why more kicks seem to go over the 11s head is because it is easier for a right-footed kicker to kick diagonally left-to-right.

I really don't see the logic for the switch at all, I don't see Nowell as being any better in the air than May, and whilst his positioning might be better, May is much faster (there was a game recently where there was a turnover, Nowell kicked it on, and May turned and easily beat Nowell to touch in down for a 22.)

 

[lucky number 7]

Lucky number 7, if you think either May or Nowell (but particularly Nowell) has more about them than Watson, I don't think you know much about English rugby (no insult intended, I don't know much about Irish rugby, if fact I have no idea if Henshaw and Payne are any good or not).

Re: Nowell being adaptable, he might be, but playing at 13 for the last month (he played there in the LV too) won't help him to play left wing.

I think the reason why more kicks seem to go over the 11s head is because it is easier for a right-footed kicker to kick diagonally left-to-right.

I really don't see the logic for the switch at all, I don't see Nowell as being any better in the air than May, and whilst his positioning might be better, May is much faster (there was a game recently where there was a turnover, Nowell kicked it on, and May turned and easily beat Nowell to touch in down for a 22.)

I think Watson is excellent. I just prefer May and Nowell. I think they both have world beater potential. Not to suggest Watson isn't but there's a spark to both Nowell and May that makes me incredibly excited whenever they get their hands on the ball.

In fairness most wingers should be able to hold their own retreating from a kick let alone Johnny mother****ing rocketboots May.

Nowell and May.
If they get their heads right are IMO two potentially world class Wingers

 

[msf]

Ok, sounds like you've watched them all, so I respect your opinion, but if I had to put my money on one of them playing in both the 2015 and 2019 world cups, it would be Watson.

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Oh, and hes young enough to play in 2023 too.

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I think Nowell is a decent player, but I think he can do more damage at 13. He basically always steps inside, because he isn't fast enough to beat someone on the outside like May. I don't mind him doing this in centres, since it's very difficult to make a classic outside break these days.

 

[LiRFCMatt]

I think Watson is excellent. I just prefer May and Nowell. I think they both have world beater potential. Not to suggest Watson isn't but there's a spark to both Nowell and May that makes me incredibly excited whenever they get their hands on the ball.

In fairness most wingers should be able to hold their own retreating from a kick let alone Johnny mother****ing rocketboots May.

Nowell and May.
If they get their heads right are IMO two potentially world class Wingers

In your opinion what makes May better than Wade?

 

[Patchey]

Well May does have at least some consistent sense of defensive positioning...

 

[LiRFCMatt]

Well May does have at least some consistent sense of defensive positioning...

He hasn't proved it in this 6 Nations!

 

[Patchey]

True, and it has probably cost him his place. But then he has shown it in the past and at Premiership level.

Wade, on the other hand, can tackle and has worked on his aerial game but is still inconsistent at best and doesn't seem to show any understanding of defensive positioning.

 

[LiRFCMatt]

True, and it has probably cost him his place. But then he has shown it in the past and at Premiership level.

Wade, on the other hand, can tackle and has worked on his aerial game but is still inconsistent at best and doesn't seem to show any understanding of defensive positioning.

Ok, fair points, I don't understand how May could be considered a future world-beater, or Nowell really for that matter.

 

[bw245]

The media regarding this game has been strangely quiet

 

[ncurd]

I think the bigger issue with May is at international level his attacking decision making seams to not be improving very quickly. Yes he scored against NZ and helped with the Cips try (but Cips gets more credit for that in terms of outstanding work he did initially then tracking May). But his mistakes are still outweighing the positive things he does, coupled with glaring defensive errors and Nowell performing extremely well in the Premiership and your going to loose your place. I'm all up for consistency in selection but on equal measure that needs to be tempered with competition for places, if your not performing you need to be dropped.

 

[Mrs. Peter Quinn]

Genuine question for folks:

Is Schmidts cleverness being over talked up?
I fully think that he's a top top coach, but at the end of the day, there' only so much trickery, besides which, your plan is only as good as your players manage to deliver it on the day.
I agree fully with Peat above, as I think small margins can cause big swings on a rugby field and not all of them are directly measurable or something which can be anticipated..
For example, we don't know how Schmidts Ireland would respond to going down by lots of points early on. Thus far we've mostly seen them in control throughout a match, though rarely running away with it. We know more about Lancasters England having seen them in a range of different situations and seen their responses.

My hopes for England are the following:

1) Strike early with a counter-attack before Ireland fully settle back into the speed of the game - so often we see early tries nowadays.
2) That the referee favours the attacking team, for example with regards to the breakdown. Garces was a typical French referee for the Wales game, insofar as he he didn't care overly about the breakdown, giving both sides a few extra moments for the clear-out. I ultimately think this favored England. Ireland are excellent at the breakdown and I think if this is refereed closely, we'll be outplayed here and it could be 'fatal'.

On an unrelated note, the six nations table as shown above is wrong in the Tries Scored, as France have certainly scored one.

 

[lucky number 7]

Ok, fair points, I don't understand how May could be considered a future world-beater, or Nowell really for that matter.

Because the flaws in their games if given time to adapt to international level can easily be ironed out.
Nowell mightn't have the toe of May but he has a very strong physical presence and has an awful lot of spark to him. Get him involved coming in off the blindside wing and taking strike lines through the middle and he could become a nightmare for defenders.
May also struggled for a while to adapt but he is improving and his pace and ability to glide past defenders so effortlessly is something we haven't seen from any winger consistently in the 6n so far.

Persevere with them and they have a very strong chance of becoming top quality.

Just an opinion of course but just as in 2009 when I predicted the rise of the ***anic SOB to become world class I feel I'm onto one with these two. Provided they are given some patience.

 

[munstermuffin]

To sum it up Henry. A coach can only do so much and is responsible for selection and tactics. But it depends on what players perform. And I like ye believe it'll be small margins. It could be our pack being collectively awful, Sexton having bad day with boot even injury forcing a reshuffle of tactics and positions. For either team anything can happen.

 

[goodNumber10]

May's decision making fullstop is poor, he looks like a rabbit in the headlights in defence, bites when he doesn't need to and falls of the tackle additionally like Yarde his sweeper defence is non-existant as well.. In attack he has almost zero work rate at this level - and yes England ask their wingers to hug the touchline, but Nowell and Yarde both manage to get involved carrying in the short channels etc...

I thought May had nailed it in the AI's but he seems to have regressed this 6nations. He really doesn't seem to get on well with Brown either, and they just dont' seem to be able to read each other.

Essentially he just doens't seem to be able to read the game at all at this level.

 

[thechosenfamily]

May has been returned to club, Nowell replaces him.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-union/31614557

Sorry if this was posted earlier

 

[B10]

Brown ruled out after not passing stage 3 of return to play protocol.