[2021 Six Nations] England vs France (13/03/21)

[Not Eddie Jones]

Well, my optimism turned out to be sound. Le Crunch is the one 6N match I absolutely want to win every year, and recent ones have been proper crunchers! Great stuff. And much better from England. Still some concerns as lots of other posters have noted, but the most promising thing for me was the variety in attack - offloads, cut-out passes, switch passes, inside moves, outside moves, attacking kicks. It all kept France guessing and eventually got us the winning try. Lots of line breaks too.

It's also worth noting that England have been behind in each of their last 6 games. Whereas last year we generally controlled the game, built a score then strangled teams, recently we've got plenty of practice at playing from behind. It's really something that England need to master if they want to win a WC, and its good to see that we've managed some come-from-behind wins (including a couple of last-minuters against a strong France to boot). It makes me even more optimistic going forwards.

 

[Not Eddie Jones]

Jesus, where did I say you weren't good or that your wins don't count? Nice strawman.

Yeah, whatever. I've got better things to do.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

Welsh Exile raging about England winning so much that he's going back 2yrs to chirp about England beating a side that Wales haven't beaten in over half a century

You love to see it

 

[Leonormous Boozer]

Welsh Exile raging about England winning so much that he's going back 2yrs to chirp about England beating a side that Wales haven't beaten in over half a century

You love to see it

To be fair, he hasn't said anything massively outrageous and been fairly complimentary. That performance has been talked about as the best of all time, and it's not so incredibly uncommon that it's stupid bringing it up, it wasn't... And it wasn't his original point.

The thin skins in the Best of British rivalry is fairly gas from both sides, tends to ruin plenty of discussions worth having though.

 

[bushytop]

Welsh Exile raging about England winning so much that he's going back 2yrs to chirp about England beating a side that Wales haven't beaten in over half a century

You love to see it

Tapped into one of your greatest hits for this one

I'd imagine you're gonna 'love' it even more as the week goes on as @Welsh Exile is on only day 2 of an 8 day bender!

 

[TRF_Olyy]

That is legit how the Welsh posters are acting in this thread, thank you for posting

 

[bushytop]

That is legit how the Welsh posters are acting in this thread, thank you for posting

Not quite how I intended it but...

 

[bushytop]

The thin skins in the Best of British rivalry is fairly gas from both sides, tends to improve plenty of arguments worth having though.

FTFY

 

[Welsh Exile]

Welsh Exile raging about England winning so much that he's going back 2yrs to chirp about England beating a side that Wales haven't beaten in over half a century

You love to see it

Ok bud. I'm not raging. In case you haven't been following the tournament we're on course for a 2nd grand slam in 3 years so I'm very very happy believe it or not. I know you think I'm a liar though so you can believe I'm frothing at the mouth it makes you feel better bud.

 

[ncurd]

God I hope France win next week. It's going through be insufferable otherwise in a year they were gifted 3 wins.

 

[Welsh Exile]

God I hope France win next week. It's going through be insufferable otherwise in a year they were gifted 3 wins.

Well you just said it, you don't have to give Wales any respect for a 2nd GS in 3 years. You can just say we were lucky, or paid the refs off or were just generally undeserving. Easy.

 

[ncurd]

Well you just said it, you don't have to give Wales any respect for a 2nd GS in 3 years. You can just say we were lucky, or paid the refs off or were just generally undeserving. Easy.

If I could find a Welsh supporter who actually acknowledge they've been very lucky this year instead of GOING WOOOOOO GS without actually winning it yet. I think we'd feel a little different.

 

[ForumWhore]

Wales have been lucky this year, not sure anyone questions that. But their best performance was against England and a game they eventually deserved to win. They'll need to be very good to beat France and if they do that, deserved grand slam.

They'll gloat of course, but Wales are always just a few games away from a losing streak or getting beat by a 5th tier side. Let them have their moments.

 

[Jimbo]

My point is NZ had a bad day at the office. You can dispute that if you want and I don't mean to take anything away from England as they played very well but NZ weren't at the races.

I agree in part but come on the NZ team have no where near the consistent excellence they once did, SA, Eng, Arg, Ire, Aus have all recorded recent victories over them, it wasn't really a one off poor game from them.

 

[ForumWhore]

If I could find a Welsh supporter who actually acknowledge they've been very lucky this year instead of GOING WOOOOOO GS without actually winning it yet. I think we'd feel a little different.

Most Welsh rugby fans I know acknowledge they've been a bit lucky. But in a tournament where there's actually very little between most of the participants, luck is always going to come in to it at some point.

 

[Welsh Exile]

If I could find a Welsh supporter who actually acknowledge they've been very lucky this year instead of GOING WOOOOOO GS without actually winning it yet. I think we'd feel a little different.

We've ridden our luck for sure but you can acknowledge that but at the same time give us a bit of respect. I know it's hard.

 

[bushytop]

If I could find a Welsh supporter who actually acknowledge they've been very lucky this year instead of GOING WOOOOOO GS without actually winning it yet. I think we'd feel a little different.

Thing is I have seen very few Welsh fans not acknowledge that if we hadn't have been against opponents committing red card offences which were correctly picked up, we'd have struggled to get the W. Nor have I seen many Welsh fans say that two of our four tries (well definitely one of them but probably two) against England shouldn't have stood (one was a penalty anyway though and on the other one we had a penalty advantage... so let's say we'd have had 6 at least there rather than 14).

The thing is, everyone reads and interprets posts in whatever way it reinforces ones prejudices the most.

 

[Welsh Exile]

For what it's worth the only game I'm confident we would've lost if it wasn't for a card/TMO decision is the Ireland one but even then it's how you would define luck. I would've said we would've been unlucky had POM not been sent off but yeah I guess we were lucky POM was a ******* idiot early on otherwise we probably would've lost.

We were in the ascendency against Scotland prior to the red but no doubt the red helped us win the game. But again, I think in the current climate we would've been very unlucky had Fagurson not been sent off so it's all down to how you spin it.

I think we still would've beaten England without the dodgy knock on call but you can't really say either way with any confidence, unlike the Ireland game.

 

[ncurd]

Wales have been lucky this year, not sure anyone questions that. But their best performance was against England and a game they eventually deserved to win.

Yeah but when you've been given an 8/14 point advantage you'll never really see a true reflection of who deserved to win or who were the better team on the day. The only thing we know from that game is Wales were the better team when given a headstart.

 

[bushytop]

For what it's worth the only game I'm confident we would've lost if it wasn't for a card/TMO decision is the Ireland one but even then it's how you would define luck. I would've said we would've been unlucky had POM not been sent off but yeah I guess we were lucky POM was a ******* idiot early on otherwise we probably would've lost.

We were in the ascendency against Scotland prior to the red but no doubt the red helped us win the game. But again, I think in the current climate we would've been very unlucky had Fagurson not been sent off so it's all down to how you spin it.

I think we still would've beaten England without the dodgy knock on call but you can't really say either way with any confidence, unlike the Ireland game.

It's not even worth it bud, you can be as magnanimous (or not) as you like but the prevailing narrative outside of Wales 'should' we actually manage to pull the Grandslam off will be it was undeserved. While within Wales it will be that we rode our luck a little at the start but built our performances game by game.

its all good though, 'if' we pull it off it really doesn't matter what people think.