England v South Africa - 16/11/2024 (17.40)

[Reiser99]

England v South Africa: Jamie George says hosts have 'evolved' since World Cup defeat

Captain Jamie George says England have "evolved" from the side beaten by South Africa in the World Cup semi-finals last year.

www.bbc.com

The poster brenin brings up some good points in the comments section

Is there a term for when you evolve into something worse?

 

[Vieux Talonneur]

Borthwick's banging on about the law changes again. Don't want to turn the high ball stuff into Aussie Rules etc.

I think it's a good thing, and winning a competitive catch of a high ball is a real skill, at least much better than the 'innocent' blocking that's more akin to American football. When you think about how hard obstruction is penalised in any other phase of play that was totally inconsistent. But then again so's some of the anal stuff around whether a pass is forward by millimetres when the same ref is allowing the ball to be put into a scrum straight to the no8's feet.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

You'd have thought he'd be all for it considering he's coach-by-numbers and Steward, Freeman and Roebuck all have crazy good numbers under the high ball

 

[Don't Skip Leg Day]

Listening to good the bad the rugby on my long drive (after I'd gone through the other pods this week) and I find it really arrogant and annoying that they hold this, 'England are only millimetres off' view. It's all fine margins ********.

But we haven't improved and we arnt winning. I think we have great players and just need better selections and tactics. But I don't see that as fine margins, that's all controllable from a coaches point of view.

 

[Lé Ddanno]

Listening to good the bad the rugby on my long drive (after I'd gone through the other pods this week) and I find it really arrogant and annoying that they hold this, 'England are only millimetres off' view. It's all fine margins ********.

But we haven't improved and we arnt winning. I think we have great players and just need better selections and tactics. But I don't see that as fine margins, that's all controllable from a coaches point of view.

Is that the Goode and Hamilton one? Fuxking unbearable.

 

[Duck a l'Orange]

Is that the Goode and Hamilton one? Fuxking unbearable.

Haskell, Tindall, Alex Payne.

 

[Leonormous Boozer]

You'd have thought he'd be all for it considering he's coach-by-numbers and Steward, Freeman and Roebuck all have crazy good numbers under the high ball

I do hope this rule doesn't bring us back to 2011-2019 when box kicks were more prominent and where wings and fullbacks were essentially the exact same player prototype with slightly different strengths and weaknesses.

Fullback has become a bit of a specialist playmaking position in the past 4 years and wings are far more varied types of player and it makes the game more entertaining aesthetically and tactically.

 

[TRF_stormer2010]

Steward pretty much neatralised our kicking game in the RWC SF. That said, the selection of Williams, Libbok and Fassi suggests to me that we will probably not be looking to employ the box kick as much as in the past.

On the defense of the high kick (expecting a number of testers considering the new interpretations of blocking the kick chase), Fassi is our best proponent only rivaled by Moodie. On the wings though I would not have been surprised to see Moodie exactly because of that but Kolbe and Arendse don't need much setup to get breaks which again tells me we are looking to move the ball rather than kick and chase if in the correct field positions.