[RWC2023] England vs Chile (23/09/2023)

[Vieux Talonneur]

You'd think any weaknesss in defence would be exposed more at 10 then 15? Or you mean the added difficulty of tackling someone at pace/stepping when defending at 15?

Bit of that, bit of instinctively being in the right place and a bit of dealing with the high ball. Not saying he can't do it, just that he hasn't.

Given his size I think he's quite physical and committed and at 10 you can be hidden a bit. At 15 you're totally exposed.

 

[dirty harry]

I cant imagine Smith being anything other than a liability at 15 against a decent team.

We regularly see him flailing in defence when hidden out wide now, if he were regularly the last line of defence I think England would leak like the ***anic!

Steward, despite his deficiencies is a given. He will only get better as he matures, and his lack of agility and pace can be mitigated by experience

 

[Cruz_del_Sur]

Granted I'm ten wines in but I couldn't figure out what this means

My understanding: those at the top are doing little to close the gap between tier 1 and tier 2, if anything. What needs to be done is quite obvious yet all they do is congratulate a handful of tier 2 nations on their achievements during a WC (generally putting up a fight of sorts, think Uruguay vs France B on their worst day), watch how tier 1's score +50 point margins on the rest of the pool games, and then forget about it for 4 more years. Repeat ad nauseam. A couple of pictures during the anthems for PR purposes and that's it.

What Chile did to get to the WC is nothing short of amazing. They used to lose to other South American nations by quite a margin. 5-7 years ago Canada used to beat them by 50+ and now they took their world cup spot. That's amazing. There is so much they can do internally, they need help and that help needs to come from the top.

 

[Ragey Erasmus]

Normally I hate the whole ignoring a players strengths and focusing on potential weaknesses but a 15 simply must be solid in the air and strong both in the tackle and positioning in defence. Steward has the turning circle of a barge, which is really being exposed intentionally. Smith is small, not particularly strong and doesn't practice much in the air to my knowledge. Remember when Daly was getting targeted and how bad it looked? It would be even worse with Smith. Given how frequently Stewart is being exposed, why would anyone think Smith won't be?

He has great attacking vision but weaknesses will be exploited internationally. It's whether what he offers will offset the weakness and I don't think it will. Given how often we kick, our opposition will often be in possession and have numerous chances to kick to Smith and expose him, far more often than he will have a chance in an attacking move, especially given how **** poor our attack is. If we had a solid defence and were running good attacking moves then maybe but we don't, we constantly hand over possession. His weakness will be exploited and his strengths nullified by our own tactics. He should not be 15 as long as our tactics remain unchanged.

Against Chili he faced a grand total of 0 kicks under pressure, never had to make a last ditch tackle or perform any of the defensive duties of a 15 for the entire game. He won't have that luxury again against any team that makes the quarters.

 

[Which Tyler]

Yep, that's why he needs 20-30 matches there, and a couple of pre-seasons training for it before it should be tried at international level as anything but emergency cover or what's essentially an opposed training run.
Which in turn, is why it'll never happen under competent coaches.

 

[whocaresaboutthetruth]

It's the hope that kills. Hope has to be based on something; not the performances so far this year IMO rather than wins. This is just the pool stage as well. It all changes come knockout time.

Hope kills what?…hope?..I'll base my hope on the fact we're top of our group and haven't lost a game so far and seem to be improving game by game.we've shown in the pretty recent past we can compete with the so called top tier teams in one off games if we play the right game so why not be positive about our chances

 

[Jimbo]

I mean you intimated it...

Having watched Ireland SA, every team on the other half of the draw should thank their lucky stars!!!

36-0 would be a dream result for England currently

I think your taking everything way out of context here, having England competitive against most even if not top 3 or 4 is positive giving what we've seen between the two WC cycles, absolutely nothing wrong with feeling a little more positive about it now than prior to the WC, no need to be so negative, will it be enough to win the WC, most certainly not but doesn't mean we need continued doom and gloom and to ignore some positivity, IMO far to much is made of the pools, your either good enough and back yourself against all comers or you don't, you can't really expect to be crowned WC whilst saying oh pool of death etc and trying to make comparisons, it's not a new thing if I recall correctly England in 2015 were in a 'pool of death' If memory serves Eng, Wales & Aus were all ranked pretty highly then.

 

[Mrs. Peter Quinn]

Hope kills what?…hope?..I'll base my hope on the fact we're top of our group and haven't lost a game so far and seem to be improving game by game.we've shown in the pretty recent past we can compete with the so called top tier teams in one off games if we play the right game so why not be positive about our chances

It's very very sus to claim we are getting better. We were worse against Japan unless I'm going mad in which case I'll put my hands up, but I don't see how you can compare a fixture against Chile to games against top 10 sides.

This aside, reflecting on our chances, I still think there are half a dozen teams at least who are favourites against us, to varying degrees, which I think about as follows, starting with the closest fixture imo.

Teams who would maybe be ever so slightly favourites against us but it's almost even and I wouldn't bat an eyelid if we beat them: Wales

Teams who are ahead of us at the moment but we know we are capable of winning against them: Scotland

(Not sure where to put Fiji, either somewhere between Wales and Scotland or firmly with Scotland. Also I would have put Argentina with Scotland before this tournament)

Teams who would be v heavy favourites against us but who do have off days if you get to them and if you squint, you can imagine circumstances in which we could turn them over with a big performance up front - New Zealand and France (Yes I realise this is highly optimistic)

Teams against who there is literally no path to victory: Ireland and South Africa.

This is the crux of the point I'm making, those two teams playing as they are act as a hope killer for me. If you simulated this game 20 times I can't see us winning.
It's not even that they are so good, I mean clearly they are very good, but it's more a combo of their utter solidity, defence, set piece and consistency, and how their strengths interact with ours. With NZ I think you can get to them and strangle them out of the game but that's not possible with the two sides who played yesterday.

Sorry if this is a downer but hey.... In a sense maybe I'm being positive here as I'm essentially saying we *could* beat the other sides in the competition....

 

[BPM]

I guess it depends on how you define a positive outcome for England.

Given the draw, I think the QFs were a minimum expectation and the SFs are a fair expectation. Anything more than that is unlikely and TBH, isn't expected.

We've all but achieved the minimum expectation and are definitely capable of beating any of the likely opponents from Pool C. I'd be pretty happy if we make the SFs.

We're not as good as any of the teams we'd meet in the SFs. Honestly, I think our only chances would be if the QFs are so brutal that they play their final a few weeks early (a little like we did vs. NZ in 2019), or a red card to a key opposition player.

 

[Mrs. Peter Quinn]

I guess it depends on how you define a positive outcome for England.

Given the draw, I think the QFs were a minimum expectation and the SFs are a fair expectation. Anything more than that is unlikely and TBH, isn't expected.

We've all but achieved the minimum expectation and are definitely capable of beating any of the likely opponents from Pool C. I'd be pretty happy if we make the SFs.

We're not as good as any of the teams we'd meet in the SFs. Honestly, I think our only chances would be if the QFs are so brutal that they play their final a few weeks early (a little like we did vs. NZ in 2019), or a red card to a key opposition player.

Yeah given the draw, not reaching a semi would be a very poor outcome and as you say we then get it handed to ous. But that's dangerous because then we have to watch England play again in the 3rd place playoff. Be careful what you wish for.

Good point about the role a red card could play though. Imagine if we got lucky with that a few knockout games running and we just cheesed our way to the trophy.

 

[Jimbo]

I guess it depends on how you define a positive outcome for England.

Given the draw, I think the QFs were a minimum expectation and the SFs are a fair expectation. Anything more than that is unlikely and TBH, isn't expected.

We've all but achieved the minimum expectation and are definitely capable of beating any of the likely opponents from Pool C. I'd be pretty happy if we make the SFs.

We're not as good as any of the teams we'd meet in the SFs. Honestly, I think our only chances would be if the QFs are so brutal that they play their final a few weeks early (a little like we did vs. NZ in 2019), or a red card to a key opposition player.

Very well reasoned and sums it up for me, tbf to England they have exceeded expectations at times, I say exceeded as I had the Arg game at a pen either way flip of a coin stuff pre game, down to 14 for almost the entirety of the game I'd have seen nothing but a Arg win, still expecting us to reach the min expectation of a QF. Genuinely don't expect bar a miracle we go much further but if we are hard to beat and show some good attacking rugby that's an improvement, (hoping yesterday gives some belief in that area) I'd hope for massive changes post WC but we are where we are now.

 

[LeinsterMan (NotTigsMan)]

Starting at 15 v Chile is the most illogical reason to start someone in more serious games

I'm all for starting him v Samoa also at 15 if Borthwick wants

But reality is the most Smith can hope for is a bench spot as a 10/15 cover which I would take

All this talk about how based on this game Smith should be starting there for the rest of the World Cup is why only a few people can be coaches

 

[Duct Tape]

He will be playing for Racing in France next season so won't be eligible for England.

Getting Back to this after a little research, could others shed some more light on this (my question was in reply to why Arundell could be playing his last game for England).

https://www.world.rugby/organisation/governance/regulations/reg-8


Reviewing Regulation 8 on eligibility, I'm guessing he qualifies as an Englishman by birth and probably also meets the parent or grandparent clause, and has possibly lived in the UK a total of 10 years or more. So even if he eventually fails the 5 years of consecutive residence (8.c) it doesn't matter as the other items are each individually inclusive, separated by an "or".

I don't see where the subsequent articles would exclude him (albeit skimmed much). Clearly if he plays for another "union" he's out but don't see similar exclusivity for a club.

Appreciate elucidation by more educated folks. Guessing there's something I'm missing here. Thanks.

 

[ncurd]

Snip

Great research sadly your missing the part where the RFU has a policy of only picking players playing for English clubs. Except under exceptional circumstances (like clubs going under).

 

[Duct Tape]

Great research sadly your missing the part where the RFU has a policy of only picking players playing for English clubs. Except under exceptional circumstances (like clubs going under).

Thx @ncurd Same internal rule for other countries or uniquely observed in England?

 

[ncurd]

Thx @ncurd Same internal rule for other countries or uniquely observed in England?

Each union has its own policies.

 

[Geordie]

Surely Arundell is exempt as Irish went under.

Jack Willis, Marchant and Ribbans won't be available after the world cup

 

[TRF_Olyy]

Surely Arundell is exempt as Irish went under.

There's been no confirmation either way but it's a slightly different situation as Worcester/Wasps folded mid season, so the rule was modified so that it didn't penalise moves during that same season - Irish went under (technically) during the 22/23 season, so the player movements are for the 23/24 season

It's harsh but I wouldn't make an exception for him - by all accounts he had multiple offers from Prem sides but chose to move abroad, that's different from the Wasps/Worcester players who had to move abroad because there was no room for a midseason signings

 

[BrokenWing]

There are offers, and then there are offers…
Unless you see the numbers involved those offers could pale in comparison to the one he took and the state the prem is in there's no guarantee he wouldn't be doing exactly the same again next season.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

Ok, still doesn't mean the rules should be bent for him