[2022 Six Nations] Italy vs England (13/02/22)

[Scotty]

Tbh im guessing Smith and ford on together is a what happens if Marchant goes down.

 

[Not Mike Brown's Sock]

Really excited to see Smith, Manu, Slade next game

 

[TommiG88]

Really excited to see Smith, Manu, Slade next game

That would be good, and put some proper wingers in would be perfect

 

[Bada-Bing!]

We need a nastier pack, proper non utility wingers, a decent scrum half and centres paying in position. In other words England need a lot.

And that was England's B team.

 

[Lé Ddanno]

But that's not who they want to interview.

They need someone with hair.
But not by Exeter's stylist


Way ahead of you

Not even close!

 

[Protalus rampart]

Steward has missed a couple opportunities to offload

And that was England's B team.

Other than the 2nd row (and Youngs...) that was an EJ first team.

 

[pagliaccio_euforico]

Please, do it in a game that matters

 

[Scotty]

Most important thing today is we kept them to nil, smith looked good on the front foot, kicking he did well and in defence. Especially with quicker ball.

 

[LIONSxv]

I honestly think Eddie has lost whatever he had. He clearly doesn't know his best XV or anywhere close to it. Good players have regressed, talented young players underwhelm and players are continually picked out of position
Then we have the abomination that is Charlie Ewels he is without doubt one of the worst forwards I have ever seen picked for England. Isekwe subbed off and then we loose the next 2 lineouts with Ewels the jumper
What is most frustrating is their clearly a lot of young talented players that are unable to show it at international level.

 

[Which Tyler]

Not even close!

I married a frogeuse - now that's dedication!

 

[Reiser99]

So positives:

• We looked better in attack overall. Made metres and at times hand so good phase play.
• Randall brought a lot more tempo to the game and created more variety.
• Defensively we kept them to nil.
• Thought Steward was solid under the high ball, though could have off-loaded to Smith at one point.
• Malins looked a bit better on the wing today.
• Slade is good at 12.
• Smith played well with a fantastic pass to Daly.
• George looked back to his best.
• Isiekwe was solid at 5.
• Itoje, Curry and Dombrandt seemed to work ok, but this was against an Italian defence.

Negatives:

• Far too many knock ons, 6 knock ons and 14 handling errors altogether according to the stats. (Supposedly only 1 by Genge, but I thought it was more)
• Percentage wise we missed 10% of our tackles which is more than Italy.
• Scrum was under pressure and not good enough.
• 12 penalties conceded in the end equal to Italy, so discipline not good enough still.
• Stuart doesn't look good enough for international rugby, but no obvious replacement, though I'd have a look at Collier.
• Most significant thing Ewels did was win 3 line outs, otherwise stats suggest he did very little.
• Majority of our play was scruffy and not good enough.
• This was against a poor Italian side who were not as good as last week.
• Thought Marchant didn't have a great game.

Conclusions: We played better, but hard to judge against this Italian side and definitely some areas of concern. I still feel the majority of the problems are caused by EJ. A lot of these players are young and haven't played together, they need to be given more opportunities to gel as a team. As Lionsxv said, I don't EJ knows who his best team is. I also don't think he gets enough out of the players. An average coach is like 5+5=10, a great coach is 5+5=12. Jones is like 5+5=6 or 7.

 

[Scotty]

So the decision to bring on Ford and take off Marchant seems a daft 1 but doesnt bother me, but i cant believe he took Randall off and lowered the tempo and made us kick kore.

 

[curtbob7]

TBF, Jonny Hill made a pretty good argument for Ewels having this many case until the last 12 months or so. Delighted that Isiekwe is getting a chance though

The alternative to Stuart is Cole

Or Joe Heyes.

 

[LeinsterMan (NotTigsMan)]

It's a classic Italy game
We looked alright, no one really looked like they should be dropped outside of making way for Lawes and maybe Manu.

But comparing to last week against a Scotland at Murrayfield is pointless of course it will be better.

It's like singling Ewels who I'm not a fan of but he put in the 4th highest amount of tackles in the squad there was hardly any difference between him and Isiewke yet one had a good game and the other didn't?

Or our attack looked better but also looked scruffy? Which is it.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

Or our attack looked better but also looked scruffy? Which is it.

The latter

I didn't think our attack looked particularly good
Player vs player we were better so could break tackles, hit the right angles on the counter etc. but in terms of attacking structure and set plays I saw nothing to suggest we'd improved by any significant margin, if we had we'd have hit 50/60pts against how poor Italy looked

 

[ncurd]

The latter

I didn't think our attack looked particularly good
Player vs player we were better so could break tackles, hit the right angles on the counter etc. but in terms of attacking structure and set plays I saw nothing to suggest we'd improved by any significant margin, if we had we'd have hit 50/60pts against how poor Italy looked

It's almost like you can't stick a bunch of talented chaps together and expect them just to play amazing heads up rugby. Attacking structures take games to bed in and time playing together it take l9nger in international rugby because of how little they play together.

Ah well not like we spent the last 2 years with the attacking plan of hoof it.

 

[Bruce_ma gooshvili]

The thing about England to me is a lack of variety during a match. At Murrayfield it was a fair proportion of forward focussed attack for a lot of the game. Whereas, in Italy it seemed pick & goes and attacks around the fringe were off the menu for long spells.

Who is the English general on the field? Mix it up during the game, or even during a possession. Make the defence guess. Look for defensive tendencies and tailor your tactics accordingly. Whereas it seems to a casual observer like myself that it is a case of 'EJ told us to do this, so we'll do this until halftime regardless of game circumstances'.

If I was English I'd be having an ulcer watching them play so far, although admittedly once you've got the winning BP why risk any sort of injury by actually trying.

 

[Don't Skip Leg Day]

It's a classic Italy game
We looked alright, no one really looked like they should be dropped outside of making way for Lawes and maybe Manu.

But comparing to last week against a Scotland at Murrayfield is pointless of course it will be better.

It's like singling Ewels who I'm not a fan of but he put in the 4th highest amount of tackles in the squad there was hardly any difference between him and Isiewke yet one had a good game and the other didn't?

Or our attack looked better but also looked scruffy? Which is it.

It's both though, our attacked looked better because Italy are Italy (undrilled, made loss of mistakes etc). I don't think anyone on here is talking about the second coming but we will always look better against a weaker team.

As for Ewels ans Iseikwe, neither of them did anything I can say I was impressed by.

 

[Reiser99]

The thing about England to me is a lack of variety during a match. At Murrayfield it was a fair proportion of forward focussed attack for a lot of the game. Whereas, in Italy it seemed pick & goes and attacks around the fringe were off the menu for long spells.

Who is the English general on the field? Mix it up during the game, or even during a possession. Make the defence guess. Look for defensive tendencies and tailor your tactics accordingly. Whereas it seems to a casual observer like myself that it is a case of 'EJ told us to do this, so we'll do this until halftime regardless of game circumstances'.

If I was English I'd be having an ulcer watching them play so far, although admittedly once you've got the winning BP why risk any sort of injury by actually trying.

Problem is it is well known that if you don't listen to Eddie, you are out.

 

[Vieux Talonneur]

Well, I suppose the defence coach will be happy.