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[Natwest 6 Nations] Round 3 : Scotland Vs England 24/02/2018 16:45

That was a tough watch, but on reflection, I'm ok with us losing that match as long as we recognise that our weaknesses were seriously exposed. As others have said, the concern is that EJ seems to have really stuck his colours to the mast with some of his selections. If we are going to make changes, it feels like we are really approaching cut-off time and can't really afford to delay much longer at all.

As for Scotland, fantastic performance and absolutely bossed the breakdown. Perhaps not Owens' finest game but like people before have said, even with a different ref, Scotland would obviously have won. Huw Jones just seems to be getting better and better - at risk of sounding a bit knee-jerk, it maybe highlights our lack of go-forward in the midfield, but it's not a problem easily solved. I would still love to see Daly given a go at 13, but with Jones seemingly decided that he's a winger, I'm not holding my breath on that one.

Shades of Pocock & Hooper from Barclay & Watson today, they were a proper nuisance and I think give a real blueprint of how to beat and England side playing a backrow with little to no breakdown ability. It's surely time to end the Lawes at 6 experiment, but it's a little unclear as to what we would do to solve the balance issue. Robshaw/Underhill doesn't offer a whole lot in attack - it's a real shame Simmonds is injured beacuse 6. Robshaw/Underhill 7. Simmonds 8. Hughes looks a nice balance. As a side note also, I though Hughes played pretty admirably considering his long absence and had him down as my MOTM for England (not much competition, I know). Very hard to pick a MOTM for Scotland, but I'd probably go for one of the flankers.

All in all, as ever, the pack is crying out for more carriers and more breakdown ability - not an easy problem to solve, but that's why EJ is getting paid enormous wedge. 2 very hard games to come.

Would love to see Scotland play like that consistently - if they do so against Ireland, it'll be a wonderful match.

The breakdown work can quickly be fixed imo ! By sorting the front row and playing a fetched type player . It's not a coincidence that our ruck clearing is better when Harry Williams comes on . He's an incredible ruck clearer . Jamie George vastly better than Hartley at it too .

Is the Curry lad (can't remember if it's Ben or Tom that had a few games for England last year for now or still out injured ?
 
The breakdown work can quickly be fixed imo ! By sorting the front row and playing a fetched type player . It's not a coincidence that our ruck clearing is better when Harry Williams comes on . He's an incredible ruck clearer . Jamie George vastly better than Hartley at it too .

Is the Curry lad (can't remember if it's Ben or Tom that had a few games for England last year for now or still out injured ?

He's to young and fresh at the moment but if Jack Willis could play for England the way he has been for wasps he would go a fair way to fixing the breakdown.
 
You can't have this many decisions go against you and win. Right decision for the no try, but it represents how little has gone in our favour
Now you know how we felt against you lot during our last match at Twickers ;) .

I was pretty interested to see how the Scots would go in this one, as I always felt an upset was on the cards in light of England's increasingly pedestrian performances of late. Most of their games they've fallen over the line, just winning and managing to be marginally less sloppy than their opponents, or they've just massively got the rub of the green (like they did against the Wallabies).

Interested to see how they react next week - France have degenerated into effectively being a 2nd tier nation, so you'd think they should win, but how convincingly they can do it will be interesting.
 
Some calls didn't go our way in this match, that's true. But that's not the reason we fell woefully short.

Our back row is a total mess and was blown away by Scotland's. I think this issue has been well covered by the entire thread. We all know what needs doing, let's just hope EJ sorts it.

The other issue for me is passion. We just didn't seem to have any. The Scots came out really wanting that game, and it came out in all the things they did. England just looked slow and a little disinterested. How you solve that problems is anyone's guess, but something needs to be done.

On the positive side we did seem to be winning collisions in attack and making steady progress up the field, before getting in the red zone and cocking it all up.

Maybe we needed to lose. As has already been eluded to we had started to look a little stale. Maybe this will stick a poker up the arss of the players and coaches alike. If not the French will start to fancy their chances and the Irish will rip us a new one.

Well done to the Scots. Played some nice rugger and thoroughly deserved their win. I trust some epic hangovers are being felt this morning.
 
I do find it amazing the forwards have a game where not a single one had a real noticeable moment where they well. Yet some people have immediately pulled out the knives for the Ford/Farrell axis by getting rid of Ford (I think many people are just grinding old axes). When it had nothing to do woth loosing yesterday and probably would offended up with same result had Dan Carter been playing 10 yesterday.
 
This French team are no great shakes. Yet their results against both Ire and Sco could easily have gone the other way and we only just squeezed past them at HQ last year. It's another potential ambush.
 
Is the Curry lad (can't remember if it's Ben or Tom that had a few games for England last year for now or still out injured ?
Tom is the one who toured with England, But he's currently injured.
Ben is in incredible form, though - He was supposed to play for England last summer but got injured and replaced by Tom.
I don't think they're too young whatsoever considering how much they're bossing it in the premiership.
 
I do find it amazing the forwards have a game where not a single one had a real noticeable moment where they well. Yet some people have immediately pulled out the knives for the Ford/Farrell axis by getting rid of Ford (I think many people are just grinding old axes). When it had nothing to do woth loosing yesterday and probably would offended up with same result had Dan Carter been playing 10 yesterday.

The problems were 95% up front, but the forwards getting a stuffing simply highlighted my long held reservations on Ford / Faz. If you do play them, your 13 really needs to be a carrier. That's not really Teo's position - although Manu hasn't been pulling up trees, he's fit and I do wonder if Eddie might be slightly tempted.

When our backs did have possession, one thing that stood out was the shocking standard of passing - head high, ankle high, but seldom out in front at midriff level giving the receiver the chance to run straight onto the ball.
 
Tom is the one who toured with England, But he's currently injured.
Ben is in incredible form, though - He was supposed to play for England last summer but got injured and replaced by Tom.
I don't think they're too young whatsoever considering how much they're bossing it in the premiership.

The back needs some breakdown skills and fast twitch fibres for sure. Any news on Simmonds?
 
This French team are no great shakes. Yet their results against both Ire and Sco could easily have gone the other way and we only just squeezed past them at HQ last year. It's another potential ambush.

They have an incredibly powerful (if slow) pack, with a solid defence. Makes them harder to beat than you would think. Also, Teddy Thomas scored some freakish solo tries. Without him the Ireland and Scotland games wouldn't have been so close really.
 
Anyone else hate the bonus point system? If england beats france but ireland beats scotland. Then final game england need a try bp to win against ireland, if ireland get a bp win and england dont in round 4 then table will look like

Ireland 19
England 13

Yay super saturday nothing to play for. Now i understand ireland will have earned the win amd we cant take it away from them but to have 3 games with pretty much nothing to play for is so pointless for the fans.

I know arguments will be made well england should have earned a LBP or beat scotland. Premiership and pro 14 it works over a long season but 6N was all for trying it but havnt liked it both times its been used for the 6N
 
I prefer BP to the who can whip Italy the hardest system we had before.
 
England needing a BP win against Ireland would make a pretty good finale. At least we'd avoid a tight penalty borefest.
 
Yes but could end up in a situation where by england cant win regardless of bp

True then maybe England need to go for a BP win in Paris in order to avoid that situation. I don't think we should change the scoring system just because one championship doesn't go to the final week.
 
I think the bonus point system is great and there is no need to change it because some English fan is sad their team mightn't be good enough to still be in it on the final weekend.

If England are mathematically out on the final weekend that is their fault, not some imbalanced and skewed points system.
 
Although I have no major issue with the points system, what I will say that I really don't like is that technically a team could get the grand slam and still lose the championship (if they win all 4 games, 5x4=20 while another gets BP wins in 4 and a losing BP, (4x5)+1=21). To me that seems ridiculous. Grand slam winners should win regardless of points.
 
I don't have a problem with the BP system, we only have ourselves to blame for not scoring BPs in the games we win or getting one in our loss. We decided to play rugby too late against Scotland and the loss of that BP will be the punishment. If Ireland go into the final game already as winners, it's because they deserved it the same as England did last year.

Also no, the grand slam winners always win as 3 extra BPs get added for a grand slam
 
Although I have no major issue with the points system, what I will say that I really don't like is that technically a team could get the grand slam and still lose the championship (if they win all 4 games, 5x4=20 while another gets BP wins in 4 and a losing BP, (4x5)+1=21). To me that seems ridiculous. Grand slam winners should win regardless of points.

GS winners get an extra 3 BP so they win no matter what...
 

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