[2019 Six Nations] England vs France (10/02/2019)

[Tayga]

I'm quite surprised many think France might be able to do enough to win. I get the argument of the first 30-40 minutes of the Welsh game - IF they could keep that up for 80 minutes but some of the players could barely walk at half time. Atonio looked like he just got out of bed at half time.

I don't think the score will be silly but I still expect England to win very comfortably, especially with that team.

 

[Tayga]

I'm quite surprised many think France might be able to do enough to win. I get the argument of the first 30-40 minutes of the Welsh game - IF they could keep that up for 80 minutes but some of the players could barely walk at half time. Atonio looked like he just got out of bed at half time.

I don't think the score will be silly but I still expect England to win very comfortably, especially with that team.

 

[Bruce_ma gooshvili]

France play great for 40mins and Brunel makes wholesale changes? Fickou on wing, Basteraud back, Ntamack binned after one game. One of the rare occasions I dont know what is going through Brunel's mind.

 

[Tayga]

My sixth sense says the French will be competitive for more than just 40 minutes this time round -
Just like our back three looks a source of strength for us conversely the French back 3 looks a really weird selection - huget, Penaud and Fickou ( all great players) are being played out of position . And I can't see the sense of dropping Ntamack who had a good game against Wales for Bastareaud whose only purpose as far as I can see is to stop Tuilagi but who offers relatively little creatively . That sums up France - their selection policy is just maddeningly inconsistent with lots of chopppng and changing one game to the next. Still I think that their pack will turn up and we will be in a game for 60 minutes.

 

[Scotty]

France play great for 40mins and Brunel makes wholesale changes? Fickou on wing, Basteraud back, Ntamack binned after one game. One of the rare occasions I dont know what is going through Brunel's mind.

Ntamack being benched makes sense to me, with the pressure being put on ireland last week, if i was a coach i wouldnt put a young lad on his second cap against manu especially with the physicallity and pressure of last week from all players, which i think will be the plan again.

 

[Vieux Talonneur]

Interesting take on France from Ben Ryan. I don't think he's FrenchFan in disguise.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2019/feb/06/france-building-rugby-force-england-six-nations

 

[BPM]

The old adage is you never know which French team will turn up .
But they will be hurting after that Wales fiasco and I expect this to be a tough contest. Whilst France have lost 15 of their last 18 games I am under no illusions that they will turn up on Sunday and give it a real go.
And the autumn Japan game does show we can be inconsistent - still I would expect us to win by 10/12 points on the basis that we are at home , and in confident mood after the Irish game .
But I expect that it will be a dogfight for the first 60 minutes after which our fitness will probably tell - The French team looked exhausted in the second half against Wales. And they have often lost games that they should have won in the last few minutes ( South Africa in the autumn and V Ireland last year)
The Irish game shows that we are a fit side that can bring intensity for the full 80 mins. France have not shown that for some time now but Sunday's game could be the exception that disproves my fitness theory - look at top 14 rugby , it is all stop start with 4 or 5 minutes less ball in play time than in our own Premiership.

I also think the French will up their game and it will be close for 3/4 of the match, but our bench looks considerably stronger. Several of their players are winning 2nd or 3rd caps, or in Chat's case, haven't been with the squad.

I wouldn't put the Japan game in as a comparison/example given that we played an experimental team that featured hardly any of our current starting lineup.

 

[Scotty]

@Tayga you quoted my post and didnt say anything??

 

[Tayga]

Magne said this week that France have no choice but to give youth its

@Tayga you quoted my post and didnt say anything??

 

[Tayga]

Apologies -still getting to grips with the technology !!

 

[Tayga]

Hi Scotty , you could be right but as Magne said France are at the stage where the current crop have failed and it is time to give youth its head .
If I am not mistaken Ntamack and Demba Are the only two guys from the World Cup winning u20 side to have been called up for the senior team - Ntamack had a good game and he might dtruggle with many but am not sure Bastareaud offers better solutions - France will lise a lot of attacking potency as he is basically too slow and over the hill - Curry will just chop him down in

 

[spartan32]

Bastareud is clearly meant to challenge Manu. Maybe The French are hoping if they can keep Manu quiet our game plan will fail?

I'd say we have plenty of Capable ball careers. Manu, Mako, Billy, Curry and Wilson, all able to carry well into traffic and make yards, and big Bast can't be everywhere. I can also see Slade making a bit of a fool of him as he's not exactly slight of foot in attack or defence.

We need to play positive rugby and push for early scores. The French are generally pretty tempromental and if you get on top of them early their heads tend to go down and the silly passes come out and they fall to pieces.

 

[Tayga]

Bastareud is clearly meant to challenge Manu. Maybe The French are hoping if they can keep Manu quiet our game plan will fail?

I'd say we have plenty of Capable ball careers. Manu, Mako, Billy, Curry and Wilson, all able to carry well into traffic and make yards, and big Bast can't be everywhere. I can also see Slade making a bit of a fool of him as he's not exactly slight of foot in attack or defence.

We need to play positive rugby and push for early scores. The French are generally pretty tempromental and if you get on top of them early their heads tend to go down and the silly passes come out and they fall to pieces.

 

[Scotty]

Bastareud is clearly meant to challenge Manu. Maybe The French are hoping if they can keep Manu quiet our game plan will fail?

I'd say we have plenty of Capable ball careers. Manu, Mako, Billy, Curry and Wilson, all able to carry well into traffic and make yards, and big Bast can't be everywhere. I can also see Slade making a bit of a fool of him as he's not exactly slight of foot in attack or defence.

We need to play positive rugby and push for early scores. The French are generally pretty tempromental and if you get on top of them early their heads tend to go down and the silly passes come out and they fall to pieces.

Slade has a decent running game tbh and if we can get manu running a hard line between the 12 13 chanels if bast is slightly wrong footed then slade could make a bresk or least have the time to put someone in a gap.

Wonder if Manu and Slade will swap positions in defence to put big manu vs big bast***d.

 

[spartan32]

Reporting around this game is bizarre, it's almost like some pundits don't know what to say. Guardian fella saying England's score line was down to Irish errors on a couple of key scores. When are scores not down to errors on the part of one side? Isn't the point that you place the opposition under enough pressure that these errors occur creating opportunity? In comparison how many All Blacks try's came from errors of the other team?

It's just such a pointless and reductive thing to say. It's almost like no English pundit wants to openly say that the England performance last week was really well rounded and world class. Having looked again I don't think Ireland underplayed at all, they just couldn't react to England fast enough and didn't have enough ideas on the pitch to work around what they were facing.

As for France, I'm just going to say it. They can only hope that last weeks performance isn't replicated. If it is they don't stand a chance. Yes they have some great individual talent but against a well drilled, organised side, that just won't cut it. England are strong, fast, and have enough skills on the pitch to change the game plan on the fly to suite both conditions and opponents.

I am going to chose to believe that this England team can replicate the vintage of 2003. They have strength in depth, great skill sets, youth and experience, and a positive mind set. There is no reason that they cannot go on to grand slam this year and with that head of steam going into Japan I imagine the world will take serious notice.

Don't care what Jones says. The build up to Japan is defo under way, and we need to make up for the last one.

Score for tomorrow:

England 30 - 12 France

 

[BPM]

Bold, but your optimism is not unjustified.

As I said earlier in the thread, the first quarter is key. Possibly even the first 5 minutes. France will be fired up, but if we can come out of the blocks like we did last week, against NZ and in the first test in SA, it will massively dent their confidence.

As much as France want to make a statement after last week, let's not forget, we also want revenge for them beating us last season.

I also think the last 20 will be interesting. The French bench is inexperienced and while they may bring some youthful exuberance, I'm not sure it's anywhere near as strong as our bench.

 

[Scotty]

To me this game is ours to lose really but if we play like last week we will win.

But to me the important thing is us getting a TBP. The reason being it is not unthinkable for england to lose to wales or scotland. We have a TBP from arguably the hardest game already and will get one from italy realisticly. I cant see us getting bowled over by wales or scotland meaning if we lose one of them we should get a LBP but 1 loss and we are in a points battle. It will be hard to get one from wales and come scotland we should know what we need to do so this is the game to target it, not over the win but if we get a 12+ point lead at any point then go for the corner, pile on the pressure, i dont want to see the scoreboard just ticking over if we have the momentum. It will win us the game but BPs could be what wins us the tournement if say ireland england wales all lose one.

 

[spartan32]

To me this game is ours to lose really but if we play like last week we will win.

But to me the important thing is us getting a TBP. The reason being it is not unthinkable for england to lose to wales or scotland. We have a TBP from arguably the hardest game already and will get one from italy realisticly. I cant see us getting bowled over by wales or scotland meaning if we lose one of them we should get a LBP but 1 loss and we are in a points battle. It will be hard to get one from wales and come scotland we should know what we need to do so this is the game to target it, not over the win but if we get a 12+ point lead at any point then go for the corner, pile on the pressure, i dont want to see the scoreboard just ticking over if we have the momentum. It will win us the game but BPs could be what wins us the tournement if say ireland england wales all lose one.

That's crazy talk. Firstly if we can turn over Ireland at home we can certainly do it to a welsh side who are much weaker and Scotland at home should not be an issue even with their upturn.

Secondly you always tick the board over until such time as there is no feasible way the opposition can come back. Over confidence has been our undoing in past. We need to win this next game and that's all

 

[BPM]

I think Scotty was talking about the Scotland game when he said 'go for the corner, pile on the pressure'.

In any case, let's not get complacent. First up, we need to beat France. To a certain extent,form goes out of the window for Le.Crunch. We're certainly capable of a bonus point win, but TBH, I'll take any win.

I don't think Wales are as strong as Ireland, but each game has it's own intricacies and beating Ireland away doesn't automatically mean we can do the same in Cardiff.

I'll be very disappointed if we don't get a BP at home against Italy, but let's take each game as it comes. The 6 Nations is always unpredictable so as great as last week's win was, I definitely don't want to get carried away.

 

[Reiser99]

That's crazy talk. Firstly if we can turn over Ireland at home we can certainly do it to a welsh side who are much weaker and Scotland at home should not be an issue even with their upturn.

Secondly you always tick the board over until such time as there is no feasible way the opposition can come back. Over confidence has been our undoing in past. We need to win this next game and that's all

I agree, winning all your games guarantees you win, simple. That doesn't mean you don't take your opportunities or you don't commit to an attack, but Exeter have been caught out a few times by going for tries and not kicking points. We are capable of getting the bonus point, but then so are France if they turn up and we don't. I agree when players say they are focused on this game. Go out, play like you did against Ireland and if the opportunity for a bonus point presents itself then take it.