[2017 RBS Six Nations] Round 4: England vs Scotland (12/03/2017)

[Every Time Ref]

Well that little disagreement is all done and dusted, anyone want to talk running lines and defensive positioning?!

Alpha, it might all seem a bit strange and unnerving for someone only used to watching Schmidt's Ireland but stick with it and you'll find line breaks and tries and stuff are actually quite fun!

 

[Leonormous Boozer]

Well that little disagreement is all done and dusted, anyone want to talk running lines and defensive positioning?!

Alpha, it might all seem a bit strange and unnerving for someone only used to watching Schmidt's Ireland but stick with it and you'll find line breaks and tries and stuff are actually quite fun!

Leinster;
Played: 23
Tries Scored: 107

Cheeky *******!!

 

[Every Time Ref]

Leinster;
Played: 23
Tries Scored: 107

Cheeky *******!!

I said Ireland ...

 

[Goodey]

Well that little disagreement is all done and dusted, anyone want to talk running lines and defensive positioning?!

Ok - I think something you might have missed was how good Nowell and Watson coming off the wings were, even if they didn't get the ball. No one was following them (the scottish back three being out of position thanks to injuries is probably a big part of this) and contributed to the confusion England caused in midfield.

Here's Farrell passing to Ford just before England's second try. Hughes (dummy runner) and Joseph are angled across the move towards the right wing, but Nowell (blue scrum cap) is running the other way from behind the lineout.

By the time Ford gets the ball it looks pretty much 50/50 whether Nowell or Joseph is the reciever. Nowell's angle keeps Huw Jones pinned wider than he'd like, anticipating the run at the left wing.

And by the time Joseph has run onto the ball, Jones is having to dive full length to his left to get anywhere near him.

Straight through, try.

 

[Which Tyler]

Not worth it

 

[Every Time Ref]

Ok - I think something you might have missed was how good Nowell and Watson coming off the wings were, even if they didn't get the ball. No one was following them (the scottish back three being out of position thanks to injuries is probably a big part of this) and contributed to the confusion England caused in midfield.

Here's Farrell passing to Ford just before England's second try. Hughes (dummy runner) and Joseph are angled across the move towards the right wing, but Nowell (blue scrum cap) is running the other way from behind the lineout.

By the time Ford gets the ball it looks pretty much 50/50 whether Nowell or Joseph is the reciever. Nowell's angle keeps Huw Jones pinned wider than he'd like, anticipating the run at the left wing.

And by the time Joseph has run onto the ball, Jones is having to dive full length to his left to get anywhere near him.

Straight through, try.

That's a good point, I hadn't really seen that. A big advantage to playing Nowell, or any winger who likes to come infield.

Actually the Ford-Joseph-Nowell combo there is basically the "Diamond" set up that Bath used to do under Mike Ford, but with Ford giving the pass to the short crash runner rather than behind the back. Makes me wonder if it was a pre-decided move or Ford played what was in front of him - if Jones had bitten in on JJ earlier would the ball have gone out the back to Nowell? I suspect it would

 

[Yoshimitsu]

Just for fun

As per the 2017 laws "A tackle occurs when the ball carrier is held by one or more opponents and isbrought to ground.A ball carrier who is not held is not a tackled player and a tackle has not takenplace.Opposition players who hold the ball carrier and bring that player to ground, andwho also go to ground, are known as tacklers.Opposition players who hold the ball carrier and do not go to ground are nottacklers."

Seymour wasn't held and brought to the ground, he was hit and knocked to the ground, the wrap has to be completed for a tackle to take place not just attempted, it was clumsy by Hughes, maybe not a YC (I'd need to see it again) but not a legal tackle.

Now that everyone is friends again can I join in just to be annoying. This is one of the things about the laws that makes interpreting them fun.

"A tackle occurs when the ball carrier is held by one or more opponents and is brought to ground."

There's a few clauses there worthy of attention. So for a "tackle" to occur "holding" is a prerequisite. If the player is not held and goes to ground anyway, they are not tackled and are free to play on. This happens many times in a matches. A player attempts to make a legal tackle yet loses the "hold" element and thus is deemed not to have tackled the player. However, the impact of their actions quite often leads to a player being brought to ground (falling over) That does not confer illegality on the part of the attempted tackler, it just means the tackle is not completed and thus in law neither the player attempting to tackle is treated as the "tackler" and the player who may have been knocked over is not a tackled played and therefore for example do not need to release the ball, they are free to play on.

The player must attempt to use their arms in a tackle which Hughes does (to be fair I've seen more effort to do it properly). However, Seymour falls out of the attempted tackle and hits the ground like a bag of spuds as it seems the much maligned Hughes carries a fair bit of bosh when he needs it.

This bit does confuse me:

"Opposition players who hold the ball carrier and do not go to ground are nottacklers."

It's perfectly possible to bring a player to ground without losing your own feet. Brown could have done it with Daly but chose to plough him into the ground. If you therefore bring a player to ground, but stay on your feet (even if you hold them all the way to the ground you're not a "tackler"?

 

[TheSaffycen]

Both our wingers like to move off their wing. When Daly got tackled for the yellow he was on Nowells wing, both like to just roam about. Daly is probably more comfortable working in the tight areas being a 13.
With the game as a whole, I watched this morning and was impressed. Finally a full 80 minute performance and Scotland did look blown away, they just couldn't seem to stop the tide. I don't blame them as they didn't expect England too start with so much precision and pace from kick off. Brown tackle was so stupid, put Scotland on the back foot and they really just crumbled. The analysis by Everytimeref is spot on but none of that is incredible, they haven't pulled off anything that should be a first phase try.
England's fitness is so superior to Scotland's as well, beyond 60 minutes it was very tough for Scotland and the finishers had so much power.

 

[pagliaccio_euforico]

As per the 2017 laws "A tackle occurs when the ball carrier is held by one or more opponents and isbrought to ground.A ball carrier who is not held is not a tackled player and a tackle has not takenplace.Opposition players who hold the ball carrier and bring that player to ground, andwho also go to ground, are known as tacklers.Opposition players who hold the ball carrier and do not go to ground are nottacklers."

Seymour wasn't held and brought to the ground, he was hit and knocked to the ground, the wrap has to be completed for a tackle to take place not just attempted, it was clumsy by Hughes, maybe not a YC (I'd need to see it again) but not a legal tackle.

Just cause something isn't a tackle doesn't mean it's illegal. Law 10 is where you will find what actions are illegal in terms of tackling.

- - - Updated - - -

Now that everyone is friends again can I join in just to be annoying. This is one of the things about the laws that makes interpreting them fun.

"A tackle occurs when the ball carrier is held by one or more opponents and is brought to ground."

There's a few clauses there worthy of attention. So for a "tackle" to occur "holding" is a prerequisite. If the player is not held and goes to ground anyway, they are not tackled and are free to play on. This happens many times in a matches. A player attempts to make a legal tackle yet loses the "hold" element and thus is deemed not to have tackled the player. However, the impact of their actions quite often leads to a player being brought to ground (falling over) That does not confer illegality on the part of the attempted tackler, it just means the tackle is not completed and thus in law neither the player attempting to tackle is treated as the "tackler" and the player who may have been knocked over is not a tackled played and therefore for example do not need to release the ball, they are free to play on.

The player must attempt to use their arms in a tackle which Hughes does (to be fair I've seen more effort to do it properly). However, Seymour falls out of the attempted tackle and hits the ground like a bag of spuds as it seems the much maligned Hughes carries a fair bit of bosh when he needs it.

This bit does confuse me:

"Opposition players who hold the ball carrier and do not go to ground are nottacklers."

It's perfectly possible to bring a player to ground without losing your own feet. Brown could have done it with Daly but chose to plough him into the ground. If you therefore bring a player to ground, but stay on your feet (even if you hold them all the way to the ground you're not a "tackler"?

The term tackler has to deal with the gate that is formed to play the ball. Tacklers can play the all from any angle while nontacklers have to come through the gate.

 

[Every Time Ref]

Both our wingers like to move off their wing. When Daly got tackled for the yellow he was on Nowells wing, both like to just roam about. Daly is probably more comfortable working in the tight areas being a 13.
With the game as a whole, I watched this morning and was impressed. Finally a full 80 minute performance and Scotland did look blown away, they just couldn't seem to stop the tide. I don't blame them as they didn't expect England too start with so much precision and pace from kick off. Brown tackle was so stupid, put Scotland on the back foot and they really just crumbled. The analysis by Everytimeref is spot on but none of that is incredible, they haven't pulled off anything that should be a first phase try.
England's fitness is so superior to Scotland's as well, beyond 60 minutes it was very tough for Scotland and the finishers had so much power.

No absolutely, I agree they shouldn't have been first phase tries - Scotland defended badly and got punished. But the thing is, all the positioning errors, all the bad decisions were forced by England's accuracy and speed.

It's easy to watch a try in isolation and pick out the defensive errors which caused the gaps to appear, but that simplifies it massively. Defence is an enormous, complex, 15-man system with multiple facets and hundreds of places for things to go wrong. And they do go wrong, time after time in even the best defences - if you watch any unremarkable first phase set between any two teams, where no line break was made and nothing significant happened, the chances are you will be able to find a number of mistakes in positioning and decision-making which never made the replays, or the discussions on forums because they did not turn out significant.

I'm rambling a bit, but what I'm getting at is that good attacks find those mistakes, force those mistakes and move the ball to where those mistakes happen. I'll bet that Eddie Jones and his coaching team had watched those unremarkable phases and seen those insignificant mistakes in video analysis, seen the potential to turn them into line breaks and created or adapted strike moves to exploit them - and they did it extremely successfully. It's easy to say "if X mistake hadn't happened...", but often without Y piece of attacking play X either wouldn't have happened or wouldn't have mattered.

What's really appalling from the Scottish perspective is the inability to adapt to what was happening. Three tries all scored off lineouts, all from the same player being put into a gap ( and I think even between the same two defenders) is awful.

 

[Raggs]

It shouldn't have been first phase, but when you have a decision maker like Ford, with multiple options running off him, they'll happen. Defences have to bite on someone, either stay too wide and Hughes makes a ton of yards, or bite in on Hughes and miss Joseph (who had a hell of a lot of finishing off for his and Watson's for the most part).

 

[The Jones Boy]

Erm... are you partially, or selectively, deaf (and blind)? Arms were clearly used, which is why the TMO came in when the ref was considering a yellow and told the ref he did use his arms. If the man had the ball it wouldn't have been even a penalty...

One arm was used, the other never made it into contact (that is abundantly clear on the replay) and that was because it was a premeditated contact. He could have pulled out and made an effort not to clobber the chaser but he didn't.
It was cynical.
It was a chest high clothesline, one armed and the TMO couldn't have got it more wrong.
If it had been at any other ground it would have been a straight yellow.
Did it change the game?
No.
Not one iota.
Did the chaser milk it?
Maybe, I'm not sure.

 

[Bruce_ma gooshvili]

Scotland/Population

5.295 million

England/Population

53.01 million



England 1,990,988 registered players.

Scotland 38,500 registered players.

Truly David vs Goliath.

It's quite sad how much pleasure the English get from beating the wee man over and over.

Another funny stat, England have a 3rd of the registered players in the world. 1,990,988/4,504,188

England can only beat what is put infront of them and deserve any congratulations and plaudits they get. Besides, the way Scotland go about player recruitment their potential player pool is 6 billion people!

I do get the the point though. Combining player numbers with TV money and other revenue, England and France should be utterly dominating the 6N and international rugby year in, year out. Any time they lose out to a relative minnow is almost as bad as getting horsed by 40 points at Twickers. It simply shouldn't happen.

If France finish 5th that for me will be the biggest national failure of the entire tournament along with Italy (not that I blame Noves). The 6N has been very fortunate that England and France have had sub par coaches and player development for most of the past decade. I fear those times are swiftly drawing to an end and we might revert to the old days of the winner of France vs England having a 90%+ chance of being the champions.

 

[BraddersTheDog]

One arm was used, the other never made it into contact (that is abundantly clear on the replay) and that was because it was a premeditated contact. He could have pulled out and made an effort not to clobber the chaser but he didn't.
It was cynical.
It was a chest high clothesline, one armed and the TMO couldn't have got it more wrong.
If it had been at any other ground it would have been a straight yellow.
Did it change the game?
No.
Not one iota.
Did the chaser milk it?
Maybe, I'm not sure.

I disagree. It was slightly late yes, but there was certainly some effort to wrap his arm. A clothesline is a straight elbow. What he did wasn't a clothesline. It was a poorly timed (although I've seen far worse), chest high attempted tackle which, had it not been slightly late, would not have attracted a penalty.

I think he knew what he was doing when he hit him late, but in the context of late hits, there are far worse. The fact that he is massive made it far more impactful. I did not view it as a yellow card, and fwiw I didn't view the hit on Daly as a red, more so a yellow.

 

[McTallshort]

Does it matter?

 

[Maverick1987]

I'll hold my hands up and admit I was wrong here, I thought he pulled out as soon as contact was made after the first still from memory. (I had had a couple pints during my shift)
@Which Tyler, maybe learn a thing or two from Goodey's argument... Swearing at people usually stops looking cool after you turn 16, people can make mistakes too!

Would be good to hear from smartcookie about this if someone can tag him but as far as I'm aware you only have an obligation to wrap the arms, if the attacker bounces off you that's fine . You don't have to go to ground with them ....

 

[pagliaccio_euforico]

You just have to try to grasp the player

10.4.g

 

[BraddersTheDog]

Does it matter?

Just joining in a discussion which has clearly sparked some interest.

 

[Scotty]

So this is what happens when the fwds get go forward the the entire game. Lots of time for the backs with electric pace of jj or watson and power of hughes or vunipolas. Wheb going fwd a team like england lookf amazing. With the injuries its what we didnt have the first 2 games

 

[Ospervat]

pictured: no arms

???

I know I'm not a doctor but could somebody please tell me which part of the anatomy that is marked in red.