RBS 6 Nations - Scotland Vs England (04/02/2012 - 17:00)

[Peat]

England only made 3 line breaks in total according the official statistics provided by the 6 Nations Press Area but does not say who provided those 3.

Three more than according to ESPN.

Tbh, you don't need stats to realise that England's centres didn't do a great deal in attack. Wasn't that sort of day though, so I won't jump to judgements just yet; besides, Tuilagi's back soon enough...

edit: Something else I'm happy about; the scrum. Went well despite all our fears. Another miracle for Rowntree...

 

[Ewan25]

Cusiter's passing was appalling. nearly every pass was above head height, slowing down momentum. usual butter fingers syndrome and Rennie not releasing the ball earlier was atrocious. other than that Rennie was good and Denton was superb. Parks has clearly had his day and if we weren't going to use him for positional kicking I have no idea why he was on the pitch. centres were dull and lacking invention. Kellock is having a great season with Glasgow why did Hamilton play in his place? I really am beginning to tire of watching Scotland make such fundamental errors. England well deserved their victory today. they were on the back foot most of the game and their defence was exceptional and it bodes well in the early stages of a new side. Congratulations England, you beat us in our own back yard with a bunch of new boys and kids. your defence was great and you took your chances well.

I'm away to stare at the ceiling. Scotland's best chance of beating England by a good margin in years, thrown away by a terrible performance. It's hard to take.

 

[Me 1]

Just thought I would try and start some controversy

What d'ya think?

 

[Feicarsinn]

Tomorrow would want to be bloody brilliant to make up for the time that game took off my lifespan.

 

[Ewan25]

I reckon Laidlaw just came.

 

[Seaton]

Suprised there's been no mention of Scotland's back three's performance particularly Rory Lamont's performance.

Evans ran up dead ends mostly, can't remember Jones getting the ball, Rory Lamont, well...

:/

 

[gingergenius]

Suprised there's been no mention of Scotland's back three's performance particularly Rory Lamont's performance.

After failing to put away a **** poor England team, I don't think any Scottish players deserve any kind of mention at all besides possibly Denton. Scotland should be utterly embarrassed not to have won by 10 points or more, and their players need no credit for yet another 'valiant' defeat.

 

[dullonien]

After failing to put away a **** poor England team, I don't think any Scottish players deserve any kind of mention at all besides possibly Denton. Scotland should be utterly embarrassed not to have won by 10 points or more, and their players need no credit for yet another 'valiant' defeat.

Not just me still up at such a silly time then.

 

[Teh Mite]

I can't be the only one who thinks Youngs is getting progressively worse every time he dons a rugby shirt - Tigers or otherwise. He should be 4th in the pecking order IMO (interestinly enough, Simpson looked good at FG despite his pack). Dicko must start the next game.

Flash didn't do much of interest. Looks like his head/heart wasn't in it. Sharples to start. Please? And while were at it, bin Strettle for May.

Foden was caught of position a couple of times, otherwise faultless.

Hartley was joint best forward with Botha.

Dowsons going to have a short test career. Morgan will start next week. Not sure what people were expecting when all of the back row players were blindside flankers by trade. Robshaw-Wood-Morgan for balance. Seymore on the bench until The Haskwit returns (TO DOMINATE).

Elsewhere on the pitch, Hodgson should be out - Flood owns the shirt now, within 2 years it should be Burns. Oh if only Booth and Catt hadn't done their usual trick for young and promising players by ruining Lamb.

The only reason Farrell can realistically claim a shirt again is if Dad shoe-horns him into the team. Even Tindall with a dwarf under one arm and a foxy Kiwi blonde under the other offers more go-forward. Tuilagi when he returns to partner Barritt. Trinder should be the choice for now.

Botha will feel hard done by once Lawes is fit again - he did nothing wrong, but Courtney is better at everything he does.

Work in progress overall IMO, but still an improvement on the Rob Andrew era

 

[retardedgenius]

lets be serious england didn't offer anything in attack, when they had the ball against a s**& scotland side, greig laidlaws try could have been given on another day and once laidlaw was on scotland created more chances in 10 minutes than parks did in the entire match

 

[Teh Mite]

I wouldn't blow that trumpet too loudly, had roles been reversed every celt on the planet would be praising the TMO for not awarding it. It was a 50/50 call and the question was "yes or no". When that is asked, it needs to be beyond reasonable doubt - which it wasn't. Has the question been "any reason who I cannot award a try", it likely would have been given.

Had there been no TMO, it would have been a 22 drop out and not another word would have been said.

 

[Mrs. Peter Quinn]

lets be serious england didn't offer anything in attack, when they had the ball against a s**& scotland side, greig laidlaws try could have been given on another day and once laidlaw was on scotland created more chances in 10 minutes than parks did in the entire match

Well lets be fair, according to stats England were only in possession for 23 minutes of the game. We had no decent possession in scottish territory, although this was our fault from poor ball retention and good breakdown work from the scots. But all in all if you want to spot a team who were wasteful with possession, of which they had lots, look no further than scotland.

have to say its incredibly disorientating watching the six nations in france with french commentary. but at the same time its nice not to be poisioned by the bile spilled forth by brian moore.

so england did well to win, but that shouldnt conceal the problems. our midfield didnt work. JTH impressed me when he came on, and while we are in the business of playing a 12 at 13 in barritt, id much rather the guy at 12 was JTH. Whats the point of farrell at 13? If we think hes good enough for this level, just play him where hes supposed to be, at 10. Hodgson wasnt great after all.

thought croft had an ok game by his recent standards, but he still needs to go the bench. clark needs to be in the team until wood comes back. omorgan and dickson in.

thought the back 3 went fine, and strettle worked well in defence making tackles and leaving barritt to compete.

I was impressed by how few penalties we gave away, and our defence of the gainline reminded me of wales last six nations.

I hope for all our sakes that one day england and scotland will play a match that someone, somewhere, will be able to enjoy...

 

[Seaton]

Oh contraire, I have seen many viewers in the southern hemisphere who take delight in watching a poor Six Nations game, thereafter announcing:

Northern Hemishpere rugby is crap, Tri-Nations best comp in the world, Superugby best club comp in the world (even though it is not even a club competition), etc...

 

[Teh Mite]

thought the back 3 went fine, and strettle worked well in defence making tackles and leaving barritt to compete.

He tackled more blades of grass then he did players. He looked like Matt Stevens at a cocaine party.

 

[welshglory]

Really? i thought Strettle defended well. He might not have tackled many players, but that was more down to lack of width in the Scotland attack than anything. He positioned himself and kick chased well i thought.

 

[Seaton]

I wouldn't blow that trumpet too loudly, had roles been reversed every celt on the planet would be praising the TMO for not awarding it. It was a 50/50 call and the question was "yes or no". When that is asked, it needs to be beyond reasonable doubt - which it wasn't. Has the question been "any reason who I cannot award a try", it likely would have been given.

Had there been no TMO, it would have been a 22 drop out and not another word would have been said.

Or rather had there been a ref with a memory longer than that of a goldfish*, he would have gone back for the advantage. I think it would have been a tad harsh were the try awarded, about as much control as a newborn has over it's bladder.


*Memory span of a goldfish is debatable, but you get the point

 

[Teh Mite]

Once you put your boot on a ball that should be advantage over IMO, but that's another debate for another thread.

 

[Seaton]

Once you put your boot on a ball that should be advantage over IMO, but that's another debate for another thread.

Fair enough, but I assume Laidlaw took the decision to chip on the basis of having an advantage to go back to.

Slap on the wrist for Mr Clancy for not calling advantage over never-the-less.

 

[gingergenius]

I don't see why a midfield that received virtually no ball and contained 2 players on debut is suddenly being branded a massive failure.

And I don't see why Callum Clark's name keeps popping up as the man to balance the back row when he's yet another 6 and he's really not yet set the world alight, barring a few fights...

 

[welshglory]

People who can't be pleased and fickle fans thats the answer. They like waiting till after the game and saying i told you so, even if they're not right.

To be honest i thought the England backline did pretty well with what little ball they had. It was never going to be an expansive game both teams were going to kick a lot of up and unders and pick and go around the fringes.

And people dont seem to realise that the only teams that usually rip Scotland apart at Murrayfield are France and NZ, every other team in the world struggles to break them down. Even Wales, although my fellow countrymen probably wouldn't like to admit it

When Wood's back i think your strongest backrow will be
6.Robshaw
7.Wood
8.Morgan