JB

And breathe! I can’t remember being as happy about a result and performance in a league match. Possibly the 7-2 but it’s close. Incredible stuff.

Yeeeeeeessssss! Moreno the best player on the pitch

Just an incredible half performance-wise. Couldn’t have hoped for much better. Every player has improved massively. Only issue is only leading by 1. Nervy second half to say the least.

Absolute bollocks. If you want to set your morals aside to support a team owned by murderers, war criminals and human rights abusers then fine, but others are going to have an issue with it. It’s instinct for most decent people to not want such people to succeed. I love watching Villa but, ultimately, football is a game and I wouldn’t continue to support us if we were in the same situation. The Newcastle fans who’ve embraced it because their team might win a few more football matches should be ashamed and I’d suggest that makes you a pretty shitty person.

Moments of magic are clearly underrated!

Moment of magic. Who’s their caretaker again??

Another Eton old boy. Funny how they always manage to fall into these positions eh. His wife is a writer on recent seasons of Sunny and does the podcast. Mentioned on one of them that he was in William’s class. I remember finding it mildly annoying when watching one of the episodes of Welcome to Wrexham that Reynolds and McElhenney seemed to see him as their man of the people.

I’m hoping that there’s a lot that they’re keeping up their sleeve. I understand why and liked the way they changed things up a bit with BotW but replaying OoT, MM and SS since has made me realise how much I miss dungeons. I’m glad it wasn’t just me who didn’t like the Divine Beasts. They were really dull IMO. Based on what I read before I played it, I expected something along the lines of Shadow of the Colossus, so they were even more of a let down. I’ve got a love/hate relationship with BotW. It’s one of my favourite games of all time and I’ve sunk hundreds of hours into playing it repeatedly but, weirdly, I also think it’s overrated. There are some incredible moments and the controls and combat are a dream but it’s got a fair few significant flaws. It’s so, so repetitive and exploration becomes a bit of a chore after a while. When you do your millionth trial by combat shrine, you realise that there isn’t all that much variation within the game. I’ll still be getting TotK on release day though and got very high hopes for it!

Thanks mate. I caved and watched it. Not too much that hasn’t been seen in the trailers.

Is this at all spoiler-y? Any major surprises given away? Trying to resist watching to go into the game as cold as possible!

I’m not sure. England’s attack has been very poor and wasn’t much better with 15. I can’t recall us even coming close to scoring a try.

Nonsense. Curry fully committed. Not every collision after the ball has gone is a late hit.

I completely understand the defender’s duty of care and how seriously any head contact needs to be taken - within the letter of the law it might well have been the correct decision - but if that’s a red card then the rules are ****. It was a unavoidable collision and Keenan has moved into Steward. Their needs to be something into the rules that prevents contests being ruined by complete accidents.

That is utter **** bullshit. I’m not sure what Steward’s alternative course of action is there.

There are also little 0.01% things that don’t help England like other teams having really rousing anthems and us having literally the shittest dirge ever.

Splendid. Difficult to pick an MOTM as Mings, Cash, Moreno and Luiz all played really well. Can Emery be our manager forever please?

Yep and he’s not been alone in that. The gap between a being a good Premiership player and a decent international is increasingly vast. English rugby is relatively **** for the foreseeable I reckon.

Yes Dougie! Fully deserved - we’ve been brilliant so far. Really pleased we’ve been able to make it count. Well played Bailey, too.

Meh. Some nice attacking interplay at times but otherwise a pretty flat performance. It’s a shame as West Ham were crap. A better side would’ve punished our high line. Thought McGinn and Mings played very well.

State of the game if that’s a pen. The rules need to get on top of players going down too easily.

Agreed, and that wasn’t what I was saying. I like Borthwick and I really, really want Sinfield to be good, given what a great bloke he is. I was just thinking out loud about how ridiculous it is that Edwards has never been involved in the England set up over the years. And tbf, that score line isn’t happening to a Shaun Edwards defence.

Shaun Edwards has been coaching with great success at international level for the best part of 20 years. It’s a bit mental that his home country haven’t done whatever it takes to get him on board.

It’s almost difficult to believe that one group of men playing at the highest level of professional sport can be so significantly physically stronger and more powerful than another. France just dominating every physical contest and making it look easy.

It’s men against boys. France are significantly quicker and stronger of body and mind. Even our supposedly big lads like Dombrandt are being manhandled. There are so, so many levels between these two sides at the moment.

Italy are making a complete mess of this. A bit more composure and they’d be winning. Decision making, passing, discipline all very poor. Too desperate.