[2025 Six Nations] Wales vs England - 15/3/25

[Don't Skip Leg Day]

Daly used to train with England at inside to cover of there was in injury (in Eddie jokes days), so guessing it's either him or Earl who actually have experience in that shirt.

 

[Welsh Exile]

I'm happy to look at the stats between 1 and 30 mins, and then 50 to 80 mins...

12 - 6 and 17-0

Now I will say we scored 2 tries during the red card which is great, we won the red card 12-3, but not scoring a point after the red, for near 30 mins of rugby tells you everything you need to know.

I criticised Gatland all the time BTW, choosing Ben Tgomas at 10 was laughable, bringing Howley back should have been a sackable offence, but Gatland was never our problem.

Let's look at the lions tour, outside of Morgan and Tomos William's we may not have a 3rd lions, that's a WRU humiliation of closing the development centres, and ruining the game in Wales.

Bit do you honestly feel like we were ever competitive? Watching Wales fans cheering like a tier 2 nation for scoring a try late on v Scotland when the game has gone and they had removed their key players was embarrassing.

I'm also realistic in thinking we are not going to be competitive, but I'd we are not going to be competitive, at least expose young high potential players to the int arena, not whipping the likes of Dee, Anscombe, Tompkins, and Rowlands...

Do you honestly believe that we have the players to compete with Italy? Man for man they are probably in the positive columb against us for the first time in history...

Let's put a combined team together...

Fischetti
Lake
Ferrari
Canonne
Jenkins
Negri
Morgan
Wainright
Tomos
Garbisi
Ioane
Menoncello
Brex
Roger's
Capuazzo

There are arguments to be made for Cannone over Wainright, and Nicotera over Lake who is injured.
Garbisi is poor, but I'd prefer him to Thomas or Anscombe any day.
Sadly no competition in the centres, we don't Come close, and our young wingers are so inexperienced and one dimensional I could make the argument for an all Italian backline outside of Tomos.

Do you disagree with any of this? Even the Italian bench is stronger than ours was/is.

You can put Lewis Hamilton in a clapped out Skoda, he wouldn't stand a chance of being competitive in in a street race

For the record I havnt heard a word from Gatland since he left, he just clearly has a razor sharp mind akin to mine

You're happy to look at stats that suit yours and Gatlands narrative (funny how you've said the same thing Gatland said the other day)

Be honest, had we played Ireland under Gats and they had 2 men sent off for the whole game in the first 5 mins we still lose that game heavily scoring no tires so it's a bit rich you talking about arguably the best side in the world missing a player for 20 mins. Let's talk about Kerevi getting binned for 20mins when Australia put 50 on us shall we.

Even players like Jenkins are coming out saying there was no progression and we're on a better path now. Every pundit, man, woman and dog has seen positive change except for you, and Gatland probably. lol.

 

[Leonormous Boozer]

arguably the best side in the world

Hey hey hey, we're terrible again thank you very much.

 

[Welsh Exile]

Hey hey hey, we're terrible again thank you very much.

Yeah, that "arguably" is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Just let me have my moment with Harry will ya.

 

[Vieux Talonneur]

You're happy to look at stats that suit yours and Gatlands narrative (funny how you've said the same thing Gatland said the other day)

Be honest, had we played Ireland under Gats and they had 2 men sent off for the whole game in the first 5 mins we still lose that game heavily scoring no tires so it's a bit rich you talking about arguably the best side in the world missing a player for 20 mins. Let's talk about Kerevi getting binned for 20mins when Australia put 50 on us shall we.

Even players like Jenkins are coming out saying there was no progression and we're on a better path now. Every pundit, man, woman and dog has seen positive change except for you, and Gatland probably. lol.

Player in things are better under new coach shocker.

Was Gatland the root cause? No. Would someone else have made a better fist of it? Probably a bit, but not massively.

Has the English coach hugely turned things round? A bit, but until Scotland put their feet up Wal were every bit as bad as they had been.

I'll be disappointed if Eng don't win this relatively comfortably.

Oh and I didn't realise until recently that the fabled Hymns and Arias was flipping Max Boyce from the flipping 70s. Time to move on….

 

[Welsh Exile]

Player in things are better under new coach shocker.

Was Gatland the root cause? No. Would someone else have made a better fist of it? Probably a bit, but not massively.

Has the English coach hugely turned things round? A bit, but until Scotland put their feet up Wal were every bit as bad as they had been.

I'll be disappointed if Eng don't win this relatively comfortably.

Oh and I didn't realise until recently that the fabled Hymns and Arias was flipping Max Boyce from the flipping 70s. Time to move on….

I would go further:

"Players playing better under new coach after previous coach had lost the dressing room" shocker.

Gatland isn't the root cause of Welsh rugby woes, no one in the Milky Way was saying that. But he, and his coaches, were the root cause for how badly coached we look. They're also solely responsible for instilling belief, changing mindsets and creating an positive culture that produces results. And that's before the tactics, how we set up etc etc.

Sherratt had been very clear on his first day, there is sweet F all he can do really wrt to changing much but he can focus on mindset and instilling belief and getting the players playing with intent.

Even at our worst under Gatland I always said the reason why we're not close to top 4 is because of players but the reasons we can't compete with Italy and are worse than Georgia are largely psychological and tactical.

We were outplayed across the park against Scotland for most of that game but even when we were, due to how we approach the game, I always felt like we could score tries, something that was lacking under Gatland and Howley.

I don't expect to beat England but I honestly would be surprised if you won comfortably just because I fancy us to score 2 or 3 tries. Just hope you don't score 10. Ha.

 

[Flankers' paradise]

Daly used to train with England at inside to cover of there was in injury (in Eddie jokes days), so guessing it's either him or Earl who actually have experience in that shirt.

I'm sure he made his debut at 12 in the 2016 6n replacing Faz.

 

[Vieux Talonneur]

Re this England game...

With Smith, Smith, Mitchell, and Daly England have kicking options, multiple, both sided and all over the park...

Which is quite ironic given Borthwick's gone on record saying that he wants us to move the ball and play with pace.

Also Earl will cover 12, even if there's an injury early doors.

 

[dirty harry]

You're happy to look at stats that suit yours and Gatlands narrative (funny how you've said the same thing Gatland said the other day)

Be honest, had we played Ireland under Gats and they had 2 men sent off for the whole game in the first 5 mins we still lose that game heavily scoring no tires so it's a bit rich you talking about arguably the best side in the world missing a player for 20 mins. Let's talk about Kerevi getting binned for 20mins when Australia put 50 on us shall we.

Even players like Jenkins are coming out saying there was no progression and we're on a better path now. Every pundit, man, woman and dog has seen positive change except for you, and Gatland probably. lol.

1. Again I havnt seen Gats comments. But when it comes to rugby analysis you cannot take periods of men missing as performance, it's not just about the missing player, it's about the other team playing a different style mostly conservative to manage the time. Either way our performance can't be judged against that accurately.

15 v 15 stats are very startling and definatlet in line with previous performances.

2. It's not that I'm defending Gats, I stated a couple of times he probably needed replacing and new fresh blood included, and that he should've gone after Howley. You however have this idea Gats was awful, and well it's not as simple as that. If the players aren't there, noone can make them beat top teams.

3. Young players who have hardly won any games are always going to praise the new coaching set up

 

[dirty harry]

Which is quite ironic given Borthwick's gone on record saying that he wants us to move the ball and play with pace.

Also Earl will cover 12, even if there's an injury early doors.

He's not going to come out and talk about his gameplan directly is he lol.

Borthwick is struggling, there are similarities between he and Gats, both inherited poor squads and galvanised for a quickly approaching a RWC, the difference probably has been that Borthwick has had so much depth player wise, plenty of talent and plenty of power at his disposal.

I'd argue Borthwick isn't making enough of what he has, but it's enough to be in with an outside shot on final day.

I honestly think a 6 year old could coach this England team to a 6 point win tomorrow.

If England rock up, kick to test Wales back field and target the set peice they win by 20+ IMHO. If they get too greedy too early, and things go poorly they may only win by 5-7

 

[IT157]

Where did I mention Gatland?

Our performances aren't improved, where do you think it has?

- yes we don't have Thomas wandering around like a drunk baby elephant in the backfield anymore, but he still fucks the ball out of hand, and kills any kicking game. We replaced him with Anscombe who looks a shadow of his former self.

- scrum and lineout had a bumper performance against Irealnd, mostly in a 20 minute period. Both re collapsed against Scotland.

- Defence leaked 4 tries in 28 mins ve Scotland and the game was gone.

Let's be real, Ireland were what 12 points to 6 up on 30 mins when they got a red? That red pretty much disrupted their flow, and we scored either side of half time as they were managing the red card. When they returned to 15 not only did we not score, they won the game from there on in 17-0...

The problem with sport fans is that they rely on feelings to judge performance too much, it feels great to score and get back into a game, but the highlights are game contextual, like the Ireland red, or Scotland securing the BP win and bringing their stars off the park.

This is a really underrated point.

 

[Crash Hamster]

This is a really underrated point.

See also "England lost narrowly to Ireland", after the Irish switched off with the game comfortably won.

 

[Welsh Exile]

He's not going to come out and talk about his gameplan directly is he lol.

Borthwick is struggling, there are similarities between he and Gats, both inherited poor squads and galvanised for a quickly approaching a RWC, the difference probably has been that Borthwick has had so much depth player wise, plenty of talent and plenty of power at his disposal.

I'd argue Borthwick isn't making enough of what he has, but it's enough to be in with an outside shot on final day.

I honestly think a 6 year old could coach this England team to a 6 point win tomorrow.

If England rock up, kick to test Wales back field and target the set peice they win by 20+ IMHO. If they get too greedy too early, and things go poorly they may only win by 5-7

The thing is, if we win tomorrow, you'll always have an answer. It'll be because some England player got sent off, or did something stupid, or the ref gave us some blatant bad decision. If we put in a performance like we did against Ireland we should run them close and with it being at home and England I fancy us to make a good game of this. In fact I'm going to go big and increase my £5 treble on Wales, Ireland and France to £6.