[2025 Six Nations] Ireland vs England - 01/02/25

[Lé Ddanno]

I get the feeling that Borthwick has invested so much in Slade and Lawrence he's going to keep going and hope a partnership develops.

And they're both on Enhanced Contracts, which is more pressure to stick with them

 

[ncurd]

I think he went ok just his mistakes were clear and he seemed to panic under pressure. I don't think dropping him will do his confidence any good. I'd probably play him again.

I agree my only issue is France will probably exploit those mistakes better than Ireland did. (They didn't cost us much this weekend were just worrying unlike Mitchell's takling)

 

[Don't Skip Leg Day]

We improved our defence, looked more organised in attack and actually played good rugby in parts.

France are beatable with this England team if we put together a full 80 rather than this brilliant 40 and then poor 20m we usually do.

Not sure why so many people are down on this team, we actually looked like we have improved for once.

 

[BrokenWing]

France are beatable with this England team if we put together a full 80 rather than this brilliant 40 and then poor 20m we usually do.

And therein lies the problem.

That's exactly what was said before the Ireland game.

They may have improved in some places, but are still making the same brain dead mistakes in others.

 

[Leonormous Boozer]

Even though I didn't drink yesterday, I think my body subconciously expected to be hungover asf after an international and is feeling bet up.

Anyway, it let me rewatch the game with a particular focus on Ireland's 10s, noting each error. This is dorky stuff.

Prendergast (errors first followed by positives)

First 5mins - Up and under that didn't go deep enough.
5-10 - kick went a bit long and didn't find grass, M Smith did well to field and link with Lawrence. Murley try a few phases later.
20-25 - average touch finder, 25-30m gain
30-35 - Missed a pull back pass from Beirne, neither blameless but England offside in the same phase also.
Missed pass the phase before the try
35-40 - Missed conversion.
In the Earl linebreak prior to the penalty, he's the outside man in a dogleg. More of a misread from Doris of an excellent Mitchell pass for me.
45-50 - ran over by Lawrence, not sure many 10s do better there and it resulted in a very small gainline advantage.

Restarts excellent.
Played ball to the line and set Hansen through a gap, yellow card at the next ruck after M Smith infringes under pressure.
Heavy involvement in consecutive phases to bring Ireland from halfway into the 22, attack breaks down between JGP and forward runners.
Set the shape for the first they and provided Ringrose the ball with time to hit a wide pass to Lowe.
Tactical kicking mostly positive apart from execution erros above, he executed the gameplan with JGP. England had to deal with lots of ball just outside their 22 and they didn't kick to compete but to find grass. Garryowen after the try was a peach, swirled like **** up there and found grass.
Great pass to Bundee for the second try, kept Mitchell's bodyshape inward with his own by keeping Keenan as an option until the ball was released.
The distance he gets out of his line kicking is very good.
Showed a lot of maturity in varying the play through multi-phase and attacking edges.
Promisingly busy performance in a first six nations game. Not without error and while the occasion got to him at times, he bounced back.

Crowley
65-70 - blinkered attack / poor body shape to not give himself a passing option on England's line, gets isolated turned over.
70-75 - Missed showboaty offload to Henderson, attempt to rub salt in the wounds and not worth criticism.
75-FT - Missed tackle for last try.


Continued the very good tactical kicking approach, more contestables after Smith moved to 15.
Great offload to set up the kick and dump Murley into touch.
Far busier in attack than autumn. I think he had more attacking involvements in 20 mins there than his NZ game and second half v Argentina combined which led to his dropping.
Generally looked for the pass far more than autumn where he was quite blinkered at times and ran into a lot of traffic, mistake above aside.
Reminded anyone that needed reminding that he's a legit starting option. For me it wasn't enough to get the 10 jersey next week if Prendergast currently has that jersey and Ireland aren't taking a horses for courses approach with the two. Like this week, I'm happy with either and if, like Prendergast this week, he's a better tactical option next week, I back him to go well from the start. Squad game these days.

Ireland

Redzone attacking issues were down to JGP, Aki and Ryan, lots of handling and positional errors there.
Sheehan coming on at 50mins is a cheat code.
The strike play for Beirne's try is so good, total pattern reversal from the first 60mins. Caught England on the hop.
The aggression in D is unbelievable. Highlight is JGP and Doris dumping Itoje before the average exit leading to Ireland's last try. Blanket defence with no emphasis on jackling back in vogue?

Solid performance, 7-8 / 10. Gradual improvement before hitting top gear v France could lead to a special achievement. Love Easterbuy, carries himself so well.

England

England's maul D very good, Ireland's 100% lineout not as effective as expected as a result.
Their breakdown and scramble was very good too. The only criticism I'd have is that they did give Ireland a lot of room on the edges, I don't think they expected Sam to be able to attack them so well. If the above wasn't so good and / or Ireland were more accurate in the first half that could have led to more points. I think it led to three 22 entries from the middle of the pitch and one or two easy exits retaining possession from just outside Ireland's 22.
Tom Curry was unbelievable, caused as much trouble as Ardie Savea did here in autumn. Deserved his try.
England are very risk averse on the ball until they run out of gas and try a speculative grubber / garryowen. Smith and Slade can spread the ball well but the attack is reliant on flat and mostly wide passes to hard runners beating defenders on the edges, it's a lot of work for little gain v international defences.
Murley was targeted heavily 2nd half and didn't deal with it. Learning experience.
F & M Smith axis is good, too exposable in the backfield to be a starting option though.
I think unless Borthwick and co can give M Smith more structure and options in attack, this team might suit Fin to start after and depending what happens v France. He's not a gamebreaker in the same way but his ability to hold the defence and distribute is better. Based on club ability I think his management and territorial kicking could be better and would give this England team a few more weapons than they'd lose until M Smith comes on at 55mins

Tough to judge the performance as a whole. I think the players did well but are hamstrung by a coaching team lacking guile and innovation.

Ref

Itoje's lineout call was definitely influenced by poor ref management on his, Itoje had been in his face a lot in the minutes leading up to it.
Lowe was lucky not to see yellow, maybe saved by it being a soft one-armed push and finger point rather than anything massively aggressive. Probably the one time Itoje should have focused more on rowing to bring attention to it rather than getting straight in O'Keeffe's face. Still, BOK didn't follow his own warning and have a home crowd decision.
I thought he was mostly good phase to phase.

Anyway, onto Scotland week. I love Scotland week.

 

[AngloScotsHybrid]

I get the feeling that Borthwick has invested so much in Slade and Lawrence he's going to keep going and hope a partnership develops.

And yet the irony is he left Slade out of the world cup squad so cant be that big a fan.

 

[Vieux Talonneur]

Obviously can't take one match up in isolation but O'Sullivan's and Kidney's Irish teams were significantly worse than Farrell's Ireland. Farrell has a 66% win (well Easterbuy for one) record over ye and O'Sullivan and Kidney (post 03) were 80%.

As an opposition fan I fear the current England side more than the 2004 - 2013 iterations.

A really frustrating run of fixtures for England recently but apart from the Oz game it's 6 losses to top 4 teams, with another one to come next week and it's generally accepted that there's a gap to bridge from top 4 to the rest. Don't think Scotland or Australia do any better in that run of fixtures and probably get a couple hammerings too. Argentina did beat SA and NZ but their bad performances are worse than England's. It has been so tough for them.

I suspect you're fearing more about what we might be able to do rather than what we are doing.

Yes, there is a gap between the top few and the rest. But why aren't we one of those top 4? Our player base is big, there's a good amount of talent. our union is (probably) still one of the richest, our coach is allegedly the best paid in the world etc.

We made a straightforward horlicks of Aus, that should have been a win every day of the week.

The one that really gnaws away at me though is the first test in NZ when Smith left his kicking boots at home. That should have been won, and imagine the mindset shift with an away win in NZ under the belt, instead of which we've taken on the mantle of nearly men. Not having a crack at Smith here, just saying that a positive result would have instilled the confidence that any successful team needs and we clearly don't have.

I'm partly frustrated that just as we look to be taking positive steps we regress.

The attack had been looking better and then vanished. The history books say we scored 3 yesterday, but Murley's try aside, we didn't really make too many dents while the game was live.

The defence was looking like the real deal in the latter part of last year 's 6N and in NZ. We conceded 3 to Fra and 2 to Ire and in each of the NZ tests…..all bar one of those matches was away, very definitely on the right lines. Then in the Autumn - all at home - we let in 3 to NZ, 5 to Aus and 4 to SA. Yesterday away was going to be tough but we still leaked 4 more, some very definitely avoidable.

All you can ask of any team is that the coaches get the best out of the players available. They're not and don't really look like doing so. With our resources we ought to be properly competitive more often than not.

 

[Vieux Talonneur]

Not Itoje's finest moment. Fairly innocuous but also intentional.

🚨Irish supporters aren’t happy as cameras pick up a nasty moment at full-time between Itoje & Hansen .. – BenchWarmers

 

[AlRums]

Realistically he's probably are fourth choice wing. He is slightly older and has more club appearances then Freeman, Sleightholme, IFW etc.

I think he went ok just his mistakes were clear and he seemed to panic under pressure. I don't think dropping him will do his confidence any good. I'd probably play him again.

Maybe Italy or Wales, but not against France or Scotland. He will be a major target for the high ball.

 

[AlRums]

Not Itoje's finest moment. Fairly innocuous but also intentional.

🚨Irish supporters aren’t happy as cameras pick up a nasty moment at full-time between Itoje & Hansen .. – BenchWarmers

Not great from a captain, shows petulance. (Ignored the test of the article, it was all Irish whinging after that)

Itoje's interactions with the referee seemed to be a la Biggar, argue everything and not constructively communicate. That's the impression I got.

 

[Geordie]

A good point, but we're now losing to a terrible Australia (who we have established dominance over since the second test summer tour 2010) and Fiji at home, along with every other record breakingly terrible stat of the last four or five years. I just can't remember things ever looking so reliably bleak for us over an extended period.

Not sure they're terrible...they have a very good coach putting things right.

 

[Ragey Erasmus]

Not Itoje's finest moment. Fairly innocuous but also intentional.

🚨Irish supporters aren’t happy as cameras pick up a nasty moment at full-time between Itoje & Hansen .. – BenchWarmers

Are all English players pig-headed idiots with no self control? England really need to get a proper disciplinarian in either at coaching or as captain (preferably both) and bash a few heads together until these idiots stop with all this crap discipline.

 

[Lé Ddanno]

Are all English players pig-headed idiots with no self control? England really need to get a proper disciplinarian in either at coaching or as captain (preferably both) and bash a few heads together until these idiots stop with all this crap discipline.

Stop picking Sarries as captain would help

 

[Geordie]

Are all English players pig-headed idiots with no self control? England really need to get a proper disciplinarian in either at coaching or as captain (preferably both) and bash a few heads together until these idiots stop with all this crap discipline.

Yes

 

[Leonormous Boozer]

I suspect you're fearing more about what we might be able to do rather than what we are doing.

Yes, there is a gap between the top few and the rest. But why aren't we one of those top 4? Our player base is big, there's a good amount of talent. our union is (probably) still one of the richest, our coach is allegedly the best paid in the world etc.

We made a straightforward horlicks of Aus, that should have been a win every day of the week.

The one that really gnaws away at me though is the first test in NZ when Smith left his kicking boots at home. That should have been won, and imagine the mindset shift with an away win in NZ under the belt, instead of which we've taken on the mantle of nearly men. Not having a crack at Smith here, just saying that a positive result would have instilled the confidence that any successful team needs and we clearly don't have.

I'm partly frustrated that just as we look to be taking positive steps we regress.

The attack had been looking better and then vanished. The history books say we scored 3 yesterday, but Murley's try aside, we didn't really make too many dents while the game was live.

The defence was looking like the real deal in the latter part of last year 's 6N and in NZ. We conceded 3 to Fra and 2 to Ire and in each of the NZ tests…..all bar one of those matches was away, very definitely on the right lines. Then in the Autumn - all at home - we let in 3 to NZ, 5 to Aus and 4 to SA. Yesterday away was going to be tough but we still leaked 4 more, some very definitely avoidable.

All you can ask of any team is that the coaches get the best out of the players available. They're not and don't really look like doing so. With our resources we ought to be properly competitive more often than not.

I'm afraid of what they can do which is beat Ireland like last year.

Your last post sums it up well though and if I was an England fan I'd 100% be in favour of an overhaul. However from a rival perspective you have players to hurt a team and sometimes even with a bad coach that can see a team throwing caution to the wind and putting in a big one-off performance. That wasn't as big a worry back when.

Not Itoje's finest moment. Fairly innocuous but also intentional.

🚨Irish supporters aren’t happy as cameras pick up a nasty moment at full-time between Itoje & Hansen .. – BenchWarmers

Bit grubby alright. Different leg but wonder if Hansen being identified as a player with a leg injury played into it.

I love a bit of scrapping and posturing but that's a bit too much. Don't care about a citing either way though.

 

[AlRums]

Matt Dawson: England's Six Nations gameplan leaves them vulnerable

England don't have the replacements to sustain their high-tempo gameplan, leaving them vulnerable to late surrenders says World Cup winner Matt Dawson.

www.bbc.co.uk

I often wonder if Dawson ever watches the same game I do.

 

[Leonormous Boozer]

Matt Dawson: England's Six Nations gameplan leaves them vulnerable

England don't have the replacements to sustain their high-tempo gameplan, leaving them vulnerable to late surrenders says World Cup winner Matt Dawson.

www.bbc.co.uk

I often wonder if Dawson ever watches the same game I do.

What do you disagree with?

 

[IT157]

Matt Dawson: England's Six Nations gameplan leaves them vulnerable

England don't have the replacements to sustain their high-tempo gameplan, leaving them vulnerable to late surrenders says World Cup winner Matt Dawson.

www.bbc.co.uk

I often wonder if Dawson ever watches the same game I do.

?

Not the biggest fan of Dawson but that article is accurate. What exactly do you disagree with?

 

[Saintjay]

Bench had about 83 caps total. Borthwicks latest is about building more caps in the starting XV so expect little to change for the weekend.

I couple of journos were saying they think England are becoming cap obsessed. Not sure if that's related to the you need X amount to win a world cup that's banded about every so often.

England lost the penalty count 11-8 so not a massive difference.

Think Dawson was pretty spot on tbh.

 

[Lé Ddanno]

Need to move some dead caps like Slade, George offski sooner rather than later if we're looking at 2027