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[2020 Autumn Nations Cup] England vs France (06/12/20)

They'll be some talk about Farrell being undropable due to being captain, well honestly I never like a back as captain anyway and I do think we have options now in Curry/Itoje who I do think will be playing for some time.
 
I really enjoyed that game. After reading some of the columns etc that have been coming out in the last week or so I tried viewing the kicking as an offensive tactic rather than just a release or escape, and I genuinely enjoyed watching how both teams (yes, Eng kicked a lot more than France but France did kick a lot as well) were trying to manoeuvre the opposition back 3 to gain an advantage. Yes England could have run it a bit instead, but as Warburton said last week the quickest, safest and best way of advancing up the field is to kick it.

Well done to France, they were very very good. Most of us thought it would be a fairly straightforward win for England, and now we truly have egg on our face!

My thoughts on England:
- They won based on defence. Even with France throwing it about a bit they still only scored once. England's defence is seriously good - even on an off day. They are not an easy team to beat.
- Allied with that, discipline has been seriously good. A bit of an off day yesterday but otherwise there have been precious few silly, annoying and unnecessary penalties given away.
- My expectation (hope) is that this was a series all about developing the defence and one specific game plan. Clearly the team will have been a bit traumatised by the WC final loss. The easiest way regain self belief is by stopping opponents scoring against you. It was interesting listening to EJ saying before the match that generally the team that comes second in the WC thinks they've done ok and so tend to stagnate. He is obviously very aware of that so I have confidence that he'll not let that happen.
- I would like to think that come the 6N the focus in training will be less about defence (because it has been 'perfected' this autumn) and more about executing the attack. lets not forget that this was basically a nothing tournament, with the 6N coming very shortly aftwerwards. It would not surprise me if EJ was very deliberately not wanting to show his attacking cards for 6N opponents to spend the next couple of months analysing and finding ways to counter. Let's not forget as well that our attack coach is very new in the job and it does take time for that side of the game to start paying off.
- My only gripe is the lack of game time for some of the less established players. I would not have wanted to see a full XV of new players, but i would have liked to see options developed in some of the positions without obvious backups.
- 1-7: No real complaints, not an area of the team I am worried about in any way. I feel sorry for Dunn but he is clearly 3rd choice so was always going to be moved out when LCD came back. Sinckler looks to be out of form but still pretty effective. Stuart has been brilliant. I'm a big fan of Genge. George, Itoje, Launchbury generally excellent. Thought Hill looked pretty good when he came on yesterday. Flankers looking very good indeed.
- No 8: Who is BV's backup? Is it Curry, Earl or someone else? What happens if BV gets injured again? Would have been a perfect time to get someone else getting some game time.
- 9: I don't need to add anything else to what has been said by all of us many many times
- 10: I said earlier in the tournament that i wanted us to move on from Ford. I have changed my mind. I want Ford to continue as first choice 10. I do not want our second choice to be Farrell, i want it to be someone else (Simmonds, Umaga, Malins?).
- 12: Farrell generally had a bit of a stinker of a tournament. I think he looks a bit jaded. Whether from the WC, Sarries situation, overplaying or what i don't know. I don't want to see him at 10 again unless we have an injury crisis. Do i believe he is our best 12? Tbh i don't know. But when he is playing well he is always in my team. Which puts him at 12.
- 13: Do Ford, Farrell and Slade all fit well in the same team? Is Slade better at 13 than Farrell is at 12? What happens if two of them are injured?
- Back 3 I'm not too fussed about. There's always room for improvement and personally i prefer Daly at wing rather than FB. But tbh he's done ok and the back 3 are all pretty interchangeable these days. I would have liked Thorley to get some game time though.

Overall, while I'm not ecstatic about how we've been playing, we have won all games but one this year which ain't bad. Yes, opponents have been rebuilding but IMO so have we, just not in the obvious way of new players or coaches. Our set piece and defence are formidable. If we were playing that WC final again now, I am confident that we would not be beaten up in the same way. Attack will come over the next few years.
 
BPM said:
I don't think our pack is the problem. Our forwards are creating a good platform, it's just not being used very well ...

Who do you think is going to do a better job of getting us 'well beyond the gain line'?
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Its a solid platform, but it's not really getting us behind defences. Slade's try v Wales was a rare example of a forward picking a smart line and going round a wall rather than through it....the support was there and job done.

Dombrandt runs the smartest lines, looks for space and offloads well to support. This is exactly what we're missing. He may well not be the finished article but the rest of the pack is experienced and can pick up any slack. It's all about balance of skills.

Someone said earlier about Binny that it would be good if he ran at soft shoulders rather than looking for contact. Agree, but I suspect that's more instinct than tactical. Ever since he was a kid he's been the biggest in the playground able to trample opponents. But we've seen this autumn how opponents are finding him easier to deal with, partly as they've got more powerful themselves and partly because his game's fairly easy to analyse. Binny got the reputation he did, not for being rock solid, but for giving the team momentum by getting us on the front foot and tying in multiple defenders. The latter aspect has largely gone from his game. Can we teach an old dog a new trick?

BTW liked the look of both Woki and Macalou on the flank for France. Both listed as slightly lighter than Curry but a fair bit taller at 6'5.
 
I think the forwards and team are getting into the positions we want them in but our execution is poor. Lets look at it from a taken opportunities Farrell left 12 points out there (one those kicks was mildly hard but you'd expect them to be taken, but also one is ET so we'll say 9). There was the touchline defense so that a potential 7 and we should of got over. Farrell once kicked possession away within 10 meters without penalty advantage. Daly twice failed to draw in his defender by passing two early one was a clear opportunity Watson has the class to finish. There was also one time where Youngs waited an age to get the ball out the ruck whilst he waited for more suport and France set their defense (I can't remember what happened after this).

Take France and they took every opportunity they had.

So we are placing ourselves in positions to win games and win them comfortably if we had a better strike rate on legitimate chances. And you look at these mistakes and the same names keep coming up in them so it is a personnel problem rather than tactics and the guys not sticking their hand up are not in the forward pack.
 
Old Hooker said:
Its a solid platform, but it's not really getting us behind defences. Slade's try v Wales was a rare example of a forward picking a smart line and going round a wall rather than through it....the support was there and job done.

Dombrandt runs the smartest lines, looks for space and offloads well to support. This is exactly what we're missing. He may well not be the finished article but the rest of the pack is experienced and can pick up any slack. It's all about balance of skills.

Someone said earlier about Binny that it would be good if he ran at soft shoulders rather than looking for contact. Agree, but I suspect that's more instinct than tactical. Ever since he was a kid he's been the biggest in the playground able to trample opponents. But we've seen this autumn how opponents are finding him easier to deal with, partly as they've got more powerful themselves and partly because his game's fairly easy to analyse. Binny got the reputation he did, not for being rock solid, but for giving the team momentum by getting us on the front foot and tying in multiple defenders. The latter aspect has largely gone from his game. Can we teach an old dog a new trick?

BTW liked the look of both Woki and Macalou on the flank for France. Both listed as slightly lighter than Curry but a fair bit taller at 6'5.
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Dombrandt has been great for Quins over the past couple of weeks. He does run smart lines indeed - 150m made, 3 tries and crucial involvement in at least 1 more. BUT, 90% of his metres were made out wide where he was put in to space by a good pass or kick. He's not busting tackles and dragging Quins over the gainline. Also 11 tackles made and not much involvement at the breakdown so there's lots of slack to make up.

Unless England fundamentally change what we want from our 8, he isn't going to improve the side. Picking him and asking him to do Billy's job would more than likely be a big failure. We just don't station our 8 in the wide channels. Dombrandt is one of our best players so it totally stands to reason we set up to play to his strengths. I just don't see that he'd ever be given the same license to roam/minimal work load with England.
 
Well, I'm a bit behind everyone else but I have watched the game now. Thought France did very well, certainly could have won it... but at the same time England could have won comfortably if Faz had got his eye in. Or possibly if he'd kicked one or two to the corner? Hard to say in that one, as our lineout and mauls were far from secure.

Unimpressed by the kicking game. There were some great patches; clever kicks through to touch to pin France back, and a couple where we were in a position to immediately tackle the catcher... but by and large it did feel like a lot of kick tennis. One of the reasons EJ gives for kicking being so good is that it pulls the opposition defence about and creates gaps, but I noticed that France were very disciplined in that regard. They chased hard when it was on, but most of the time they were content to keep a decent defensive shape. I think that, coupled with good cover from their backs, really stifled England's plan A. I suspect this is Shaun Edwards' doing; we've always struggled to kick Wales into submission too.

Billy had a good game, but I had an interesting thought; when he carries he goes into tackles in a different manner to most of our forwards. He straightens his body into the contact, which gives him more force to throw people but means he becomes more upright. He's a big enough lad that he doesn't get turned over in a choke tackle often, but it does take him longer to get to ground and present the ball. Most of our other forwards kind of hunch over the ball as they go into contact, and can generally present it very quickly.

So what is better for England's attack? Making a couple of extra metres in the carry or saving a couple of seconds on the recycle? Feels like it should be the latter.

I don't think any of the backs had a good day at the office. As an entire unit their passing was poor, frequently forcing the catcher to be static and sometimes simply passing behind. Daly will (rightly) get a lot of stick for not drawing the defenders but everyone was pretty lacklustre overall. It might be a consequence of France dealing with our kicking game so effectively; if your space-generating tactic simply doesn't work then it's going to be so much harder for the backs. Maybe if they had more space then they might have gotten away with poor passing and such.

As an overall, I think our pack is in really good shape. Looked like a solid unit, and a lot of new/second choice players got game time. Dunn can feel hard done by, and whilst I'd like to see someone else play 8 I did feel like Billy was playing himself back into form by the end, so that's a positive in my eyes.

But I don't really think we got anything useful for the backs. Unless Ben Youngs retires to pursue his calling as a living statue it feels like Robson is going to be chasing down George's record of most caps before getting a start. It was good to see Lawrence, Marchant and Malins get a look in, but I feel that all I can really say about our backs is 'we miss Tuilagi'.
 
BPM said:
Dombrandt has been great for Quins over the past couple of weeks. He does run smart lines indeed - 150m made, 3 tries and crucial involvement in at least 1 more. BUT, 90% of his metres were made out wide where he was put in to space by a good pass or kick. He's not busting tackles and dragging Quins over the gainline. Also 11 tackles made and not much involvement at the breakdown so there's lots of slack to make up.

Unless England fundamentally change what we want from our 8, he isn't going to improve the side. Picking him and asking him to do Billy's job would more than likely be a big failure. We just don't station our 8 in the wide channels. Dombrandt is one of our best players so it totally stands to reason we set up to play to his strengths. I just don't see that he'd ever be given the same license to roam/minimal work load with England.
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Unfortunately you could probably have written that exact same post about Ben Morgan.

You make a lot of fair points. And if our game plan is to run headlong into brick walls 2 yards from the SH, retaining possession but not making all that much ground then Binny's undeniably the man. But we wouldn't have to play that much wider before someone with more subtle skills could start making a difference.
 
BPM said:
Dombrandt has been great for Quins over the past couple of weeks. He does run smart lines indeed - 150m made, 3 tries and crucial involvement in at least 1 more. BUT, 90% of his metres were made out wide where he was put in to space by a good pass or kick. He's not busting tackles and dragging Quins over the gainline. Also 11 tackles made and not much involvement at the breakdown so there's lots of slack to make up.

Unless England fundamentally change what we want from our 8, he isn't going to improve the side. Picking him and asking him to do Billy's job would more than likely be a big failure. We just don't station our 8 in the wide channels. Dombrandt is one of our best players so it totally stands to reason we set up to play to his strengths. I just don't see that he'd ever be given the same license to roam/minimal work load with England.
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Maybe the question then needs to be asked if the tactic of having a big lump at 8 running into brick walls has run its course and we need to be looking at a different type of 8? Ultimately we pick Billy to do a job and he does it but the impact on the game isn't that great. Even if you had another player doing Billy's role, would they really make that much less ground in attack or suck in fewer defenders? It's rare that a player makes any ground when double tackled and Billy is always double tackled because he is so predictable. What really ties players in a line breaks where everyone gravitates to the area to plug the gap. Nobody gravitates towards a player who has been double tackled and clearly stopped dead.

I think many of the alternatives at 8 could do the running at brick walls to a degree of competence similar to Billy V but on top of that offer a hell of a lot elsewhere. The only thing I will say though is that Billy has found his form again in defence and nobody gets down his channel ever. Given what Jones says, it's probably that that is the deciding factor rather than his attack. I think playing Billy V in attack as we do is now a dead end, the same as Roberts once he was figured out. You just can't carry players like that in attack, there needs to be some deception so the opposition can't risk fully committing. Hell all he needs to do is get a good offloading game and pop passes to other supporting forwards to massively increase his worth, or be used as a dummy runner more, or even just hit a line at speed. He very rarely does any of that, he fulfills 1 very specific role in attack and it seems that is simply to setup rucks for the next phase and nothing else.

On a more general note, England really have to work on passing the ball to players running at pace. Too many passes go above or behind players killing momentum when we have an overlap. That's a basic skill they should be executing and we would not have scored that try in the dying seconds against Wales a while ago if the passing had been like it's been recently. Youngs seems absolutely terrified of passing to a player running at pace and frequently will ignore them in favour of a static player or throw it at them so they have to check their run to catch it. You can kiss goodbye to any sort of attacking play until you can do this frequently and accurately.
 
Do peeps here think that the loss of Scott Wisemantle from the coaching staff has had an effect on the backs attack? They weren't that bad in the RWC.
 
Yes. Quite possibly ...

My main point re. Billy is that it's not just a case of putting someone else in the 8 shirt, it's about replacing the role he plays. The can be done by someone in a different position, but then the question is who that is and what compromise does it create elsewhere.

Simmonds and Dombrandt are both excellent players but in both cases, we would require someone else to take on the heavy carrying role Billy is currently doing. Who does that? Most of our pack are decent carriers but no-one else repeatedly needs two defenders or more to stop them,

Whether Billy is the best player is definitely debatable, but he is the best fit for how Eddie wants to play. We could use him a hell of a lot better/more intelligently. As ragerancher says, the opposition pretty much know what to expect from him. If he's going to carry in to contact we need to take advantage of the fact that he's gang tackled and quickly recycle. Generally we don't do that very well. As an alternative, Billy could be an excellent decoy and he also has the skill level to put others in to space instead of taking the contact himself (he's actually quite a good passer of the ball). We just don't see that variety which makes it all too predictable.
 
I don't understand why Simmonds isn't the player that comes on between 55-60 mins. With his pace and impact surely he would be the go to 8 against a tired defence. You want impact players and he fits that role with bells on.
 
Not Eddie Jones said:
Honestly though, do you really think this will be the way the England team plays in 2023? Given all that we've seen under Eddie?
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I see no reason for this to change too much with the refusal to give other players game time, no 9 case in point, I don't know what to tell you but unless Youngs encounters a major injury he seems to be the sole scrum half with others getting a last 20 on a good day, happy to be proven wrong.
 
Jimbo said:
I see no reason for this to change too much with the refusal to give other players game time, no 9 case in point, I don't know what to tell you but unless Youngs encounters a major injury he seems to be the sole scrum half with others getting a last 20 on a good day, happy to be proven wrong.
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Brown was our only 15 and Robshaw and Hask essentially the only flankers who could get a look in at one point.

Post lions we will see the same turnover that we did last time
 
noah_jo said:
Brown was our only 15 and Robshaw and Hask essentially the only flankers who could get a look in at one point.

Post lions we will see the same turnover that we did last time
Click to expand...
Imagine if Youngs doesn't go with the lions...
 
I get that people want changes, I just don't get why people think Eddie is against changes. All through his long and successful coaching career he has constantly reinvented his rugby and his teams. The current England team is a far cry from the team that won the 2016 GS in his first tilt at the job, and the current England tactics are a long way from the tactics he was using with England back in 2018, and a million miles from those he used with Japan, for example. He's always talking about change and reinvention and keeping ahead of trends and developments in the game, so there's absolutely no reason to think he's sitting there right now thinking 'Cracked it! We'll just play exactly the same way with exactly the same players and we'll win the next World Cup'. There will be changes, and they will all be designed to do one thing and one thing only: win. If people don't like the way his teams win, that's fair enough, but winning's his meal ticket and that's all he cares about. So if right now he can win a ton of games by kicking it because no-one's yet worked out how to stop it, he will. Once defences do adjust to stop it, he'll change his tactics to attack whatever space is created by their adjustments. The kicking isn't aimless. There are plenty of good explanations about what England are doing and why its clever and it's working on youtube channels like Squidge Rugby and Two Cents Rugby. For me, kicking is a big part of the game, that's why it's called rugby football after all. It's just strange that while using kick-led tactics they've entirely abandoned the drop goal...:confused:

Btw, did a quick Google and found that 15 of the 38 players in the England 2019 6N squad were not in the ANC squad. So roughly 3/8 of the squad has changed over the last year and a half. Going further back, there were 22 players in a squad of 39 from the 2016 6N that were not in the ANC squad. That's almost 2/3rds turnover of players during his 5 year reign. Compare that to Gatland's Wales or Schmidt's Ireland over the same period and there's nothing like that level of change.

One year into the 4-year cycle between World Cups, I'm absolutely chuffed where England are at. There'll be plenty of change before the 2023 showpiece, so in the meantime, I'm just gonna sit back, not fret, and enjoy that winning feeling. :cool:
 
There's nothing wrong with youngs game, he's a good kicker from the ruck, and the Gary owen, he's fit and a decent passer. He's solid, what he's not gonna do it is keep the defenders around the ruck guessing, or make a noticeable line break. I just don't think he has either the zip or the X factor. South Africa's defence is very much like England's now but when they last played they were a little quicker and more physical. I think Youngs will get caught out by faf de Klerk, he's just not quick enough off the base.
 

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