England v Scotland

[WetAndCold]

I've only got one thing to say to the idea that Hape was great today:

Lolage :lol:

 

[scottydog]

Where is the 4rth official.....disgraceful

Can anyone honestly enlighten me........England try, even the commentator who is english states on TV forward by at least a yard to croft never a try !!!!!!!. Englands final penalty comes initially from a line out........how come its an english line out when an english boot kicks it out!!!!! But the biggest crime has to be our sin binning... a truely terrible decision that should never have been ......from the words of the english panel we had a "few breaks" where is the 4rth official with TV review. Some will say im bitter.....of course i am especially when its against 16 men ...........officials should be ashamed.

 

[Teh Mite]

My English calls:
Corbesero - Held his side of the scrum reasionable, didn't do much else
Hartley: Strong lineout, did bugger all else
Cole: Stole a lineout bet wasn't on the pitch
Palmer: Most notable thing was knocking on a god-awful pass from Youngs which should have been a try.
Deacon: Meh.
Wood: Quiet. Did bugger all wrong but nothing note worthy. Probably will be dropped for next week. Should have scored the try.
Haskell: Was fairly good if we're honest. The standout forward.
Easter: Mr consistency scores himself the umpteenth 6/10 rating of his career.
Youngs: Bloody awful
Flood: Bloody awful (2)
Cueto: A Few good runs and plenty of effort. Not much created though.
Hape: Makes England permanently play with 14 men.
Tindall: Nothing anywhere near the standard he produced against France.
Ashton: Did nigh-on bugger all.
Foden: Englands best player by a considerable margin. Chris Pattersons heroics stopped the try (somehow), but otherwise was faultless.

Thompson: Made a much better impact then Hartley. Be tempted to start him in Ireland
PDJ: Better then Cole was.
Shaw: Was he on the pitch? Worse then Deacon.
Croft: Fantastic. Must start next week. Future England skipper, surely.
Care: Controlled his pack which Youngs didn't do. Slower passing but much more controlled and thoughtful.
Wilko: About as good as he's been for a long time. Not a massive statement, but there was notable improvement over Flood.
HMS Banahan: Broke Kellock. Did bum all else.

Poite: Can't manage a scrum. Shocking match.
Ref no 2: See Poite.

 

[Prestwick]

My message to Ireland for next week:

 

[TRF_Ezequiel]

The TMO (Television match official) is only there to be used to check if a grounding of a try was correct. The TMO is not to be used for, let's say, a knock on in the middle of the field

 

[TVH11]

When i saw this thread ***le i thought it was gonna be about yesterday's game
But there was an element of forward pass in the try, and yesterdays innocent was a huge mess up. I do feel sometimes that there's a call for more TMO use, but drawing the line is the huge question. Would be interesting to see it implemented for a short while to see how "dependant" ref's would be on it. If there was over dependance on the technology then i'd say no to it personally, but thats just me. But instances like today and yesterday do produce a case for the uses of it

 

[Prestwick]

Theres only so much tech you can bring in. And before today we didn't even know about using the same ball!

 

[no-1-rugby-fan]

It was a crap game today, so boring and lacking in quality.

 

[full15]

What a weekend of games!

Wales were lucky and England held on despite some poor discipline in the second half... Do you think Johno will stick with current set up? Im not too sure, at flyhalf Flood was excellent, but Wilko seems to be settling in quite well to being out of the limelight too.

 

[Prestwick]

I wouldn't put too much store in the performances of Flood and Wilko as well as Youngs and Care as they all (bar Wilko) had to perform behind a pack that was simply being outmuscled at the breakdown.

You could be Dan Carter and if your pack is as fair weathered as the Northern Hemisphere and all your talent frankly counts for naught as Will Genia and Quade Cooper found to their cost late last year.

So I'm going to say any rating for the half-back pairings for England today are frankly meaningless because the pack performed so poorly. Whats the point in downrating Youngs when every time he went to pick up the ball Scotland turn you over because Wood, Easter and Haskell are out on the wing tap dancing with Ashton and Cueto? Seriously.

The more pertinent question is why didn't first Jackson and later Parks use the very potent Lamont/Ansbro centre pairing which could well be the pair to watch in years to come? I'm going to go out on a limb and say that maybe removing Jackson (who could kick drop goals) and putting Dan Parks (who can't) in his place wasn't Robbo's finest hour. Actually that and screaming at Roman Poite for having the temerity to tear a muscle in the middle of a Scottish attack.

 

[coonor]

I bet the southern hemisphere teams our quaking in their boots seeing the quality of the Six Nation teams this year :lol:

 

[Teh Mite]

At least England, Scotland and France are capable of beating them.

 

[durbutter]

At least England, Scotland and France are capable of beating them.

and Munster.

 

[TRF_Ezequiel]

France beat New Zealand who are in the group together, Scotland beat South Africa but play Argentina and England beat Australia but play Argentina as well

 

[gingergenius]

not going to worry too much about this performance. England were poor, but in fairness the Scots played as well as they possibly could, and came with one plan and one plan only, which was to disrupt our fluidity. Still, we got the W and that's all that counts, and I imagine Ireland will have a gameplan with a bit more ambition.

Having said that, we didn't play well, and we'll need to do a lot better to win in Dublin. Ireland may look clueless, but they've got a million times more class than Scotland and it could hurt us unless we're careful.

Player-wise - I disagree completely with Bullitt on Cole, I thought he was excellent. Hartley was ****, Haskell excellent (4 games in a row), Youngs was ****, Foden good and everyone else meh.

Banahan had a half to put his hand up, and in fairness to him he didn't do much wrong. Still, he's being groomed to be an English SBW and he's got nowhere near enough talent for that - my list of potential English centres for post RWC includes neither Banahan or Hape.

 

[mtymon]

i knew todays game would be like it was, as scotland had nothing to lose and put in a good performance on the back of that mentality. england looked like they were scared of losing instead of going out and giving it all they have as they have done in the past. they didnt look confident and were frustrasted. i hope they pick their game up off the back of this game and the media stop dismissing teams like scotland when we play them! its never a given and the scots always raise their game against us. i think we can perform if we stay calm and stop forcing passes and hold on to the bloody ball in the contact area! "look after the pill" as johnno used to say. cut out the errors, be more clinical and the pack needs to front up. yes not over commiting does work if you have quick ball you can leave the opposition forwards behind in a ruck, but scotland were in fast and counter rucked for turn overs far to easy! would have liked to have seen our forwards react to it and start putting more players in and just stamping some authority and attitude in the breakdown giving the bcks a better base instead of scraps. come on england lets turn this around!

 

[King_D'Arcy]

The best moment of the whole competition so far was the disoriented fox running around the pitch before the match...

Three cheers for the Twickenham Fox!

Hip Hip!

 

[mtymon]

also just watched the game back, alot of my scots mates are saying there was a forward pass in the england try. but was there a hint of a forward offload in the run up to the scots one? thought there was, could be wrong but if so makes it even stevens on that front.

 

[mtymon]

The best moment of the whole competition so far was the disoriented fox running around the pitch before the match...

Three cheers for the Twickenham Fox!

Hip Hip!

horay!

 

[King_D'Arcy]

Hip Hip!