Rugby: General Chat

[Rds1983]

5 hours ago, Kiwivillan said:

Can't see ABs beating SA the way we've played last 2 games. We won in part because opposition errors up until last game 2nd half at least. Won't get away with way we started vs Pumas against SA. 

After two massive and draining games against France then England I'm not sure how much SA will have left in the tank to play AB.

[Rds1983]

7 hours ago, luckyeddie said:

This is where the ABs excel, their basics are virtually flawless, but they add excitement to their game. The single biggest difference to all other nations is that they aim to run through gaps rather than players. I think this is because they don't player age grade rugby as children but by weight categories, so they never learn to just plough through a smaller player, but go round them.

I help coach the u6s and u7s at my local team. You see it with the kids already basing their game on just physicality, on being bigger and faster than others. Rather than passing or looking for gaps it's smash and run with the big kids excelling and the little ones struggling. Completely the wrong approach but it comes from on high so nothing we can do.

[Rugeley Villa]

Well I’ll be cheering on South Africa. I just love their style of play .

[Panto_Villan]

I honestly think the All Blacks are an easier game for England than South Africa. There’s something about the way the Boks play that England just can’t deal with, and the All Blacks just aren’t quite as good as they used to be.

It’s so frustrating when you’re losing all your scrums, even your own ones. You can’t win if you lose 30+ metres of territory any time someone knocks the ball on. It’s not really something that’s easy to fix either.

[luckyeddie]

3 hours ago, Rds1983 said:

I help coach the u6s and u7s at my local team. You see it with the kids already basing their game on just physicality, on being bigger and faster than others. Rather than passing or looking for gaps it's smash and run with the big kids excelling and the little ones struggling. Completely the wrong approach but it comes from on high so nothing we can do.

I also think it is self defeating, as rugby is supposed to be the sport for all shapes and sizes, but kids will turn their backs on rugby if only big kids win and smaller kids are used as cannon fodder.

Also guys like Billy Vunipola become one trick ponies, and when they are worked out become ineffective.

[theboyangel]

We lost that on the scrum. Fair play to SA they tweaked their setup and we couldn’t compete with it.

a rather surprising and disciplined performance up until then and played a good tactical, albeit attritional game plan.

looks like England will be stuck with Borthwick for the time being but hopefully he acknowledges the likes of Vunipola, Dan Cole, Joe Marler (both great to have around), Johnny May etc are finished at International level and we can look forwards to the next WC and build a team for then and not the immediate future.

I’d keep Lawes in the team for the transition period to keep the experience in there though but not many of the current over 30s should continue being selected. 
 

Edited October 22, 2023 by theboyangel

[LondonLax]

12 hours ago, sheepyvillian said:

By not being brave enough to run with the ball and back themselves when it really mattered. That's exactly what SA did.

I suspect if you had tried to play an open game it would have been a similar score to Friday night. You came with a game plan which suited your strengths and it almost came off against the World number 1 side. 

[luckyeddie]

15 minutes ago, theboyangel said:

We lost that on the scrum. Fair play to SA they tweaked their setup and we couldn’t compete with it.

a rather surprising and disciplined performance up until then and played a good tactical, albeit attritional game plan.

looks like England will be stuck with Borthwick for the time being but hopefully he acknowledges the likes of Vunipola, Dan Cole, Joe Marler (both great to have around), Johnny May etc are finished at International level and we can look forwards to the next WC and build a team for then and not the immediate future.

I’d keep Lawes in the team for the transition period to keep the experience in there though but not many of the current over 30s should continue being selected. 
 

I'd like to see a significant clear out of the old guard and bring in the younger players, it may cause a couple of years of pain , but we should be competitive for the next WC. I hope we don't just limp on with these older players who obviously won't make the next WC.

[theboyangel]

1 minute ago, luckyeddie said:

I'd like to see a significant clear out of the old guard and bring in the younger players, it may cause a couple of years of pain , but we should be competitive for the next WC. I hope we don't just limp on with these older players who obviously won't make the next WC.

That's my biggest fear too. I can see him sticking with a lot of the old guard but I believe we need to start the 'cull' now and pull together a team with the nucleus that will be more than able to play the next WC

If that means phasing out the likes of Ford, Farrell, Care, Tuilagi etc then so be it. 

We need to build around the likes of Marcus Smith now and find a World Class scrum half (although Mitchell hasn't done too badly)

[Panto_Villan]

I dunno. I don’t think it’s necessarily good to clear out older players en-masse because if it means we have a couple of years of disastrous performances it’s arguably worse for young players’ development than being introduced into a winning team that performs well on the pitch.

I think there needs to be recognition we need to move on from our older players, but in the form of an organised phase-out (perhaps over a year or two) rather than mass cull.

[sheepyvillian]

21 minutes ago, LondonLax said:

I suspect if you had tried to play an open game it would have been a similar score to Friday night. You came with a game plan which suited your strengths and it almost came off against the World number 1 side. 

I would still rather play the way Ireland did and at least look like you're capable of scoring tries. 

As I said in a previous comment we have been playing the same risk free rugby since the days of Woodward, even South Africa have added some dynamism to their usual forwards dominating rugby, yet we just refuse to even attempt to take a risk. 

We could have won that game last night, but we were too cautious in that second - half and fortune favoured the side who were prepared to be brave.

[sheepyvillian]

I really hope us reaching the semi-finals doesn't mean Borthwick gets another 4years.

[one_ian_taylor]

14 hours ago, sheepyvillian said:

By not being brave enough to run with the ball and back themselves when it really mattered. That's exactly what SA did.

Not sure it is. They used scrum penalties  to get into a field position where they could go over from close range. I'd  be interested to see what the stats were for both teams making yards with  the ball in hand v kicking  yards - I'd  expect England to be a lot more weighted towards  kicking,  but not expecting the difference  between the teams to be night and day. 

The scrum won SA the game at the end of it all. They had to ditch their running  fly half early because it was all going pear shaped, and their replacements out matched England's - not just  front row but also at scrum half, where De Klerk helped galvanise them and Care's kicking game was nowhere  near as accurate  as Mitchell's,  which gave SA too much breathing  space

 

Edit: Eng - 234 metres with ball in hand, SA 184.

Kicking metres - Eng 666 v SA 522

Edited October 22, 2023 by one_ian_taylor

[theboyangel]

1 hour ago, Panto_Villan said:

I dunno. I don’t think it’s necessarily good to clear out older players en-masse because if it means we have a couple of years of disastrous performances it’s arguably worse for young players’ development than being introduced into a winning team that performs well on the pitch.

I think there needs to be recognition we need to move on from our older players, but in the form of an organised phase-out (perhaps over a year or two) rather than mass cull.

I agree there should be a phasing out of certain players from the current squad, particularly Ford, Farrell and Lawes but I think we have options already available to replace the likes of Cole, Marler, May, Tuilagi, Vunipola, Daly etc to get by without them for the next Six Nations and beyond. They've all given great service to the National team but their time is over. 

However, after last nights scrum failure - none of the the current front row are safe either (including Sinkler and Genge) - they just couldn't handle the South Africans. 

[LondonLax]

10 minutes ago, theboyangel said:

I agree there should be a phasing out of certain players from the current squad, particularly Ford, Farrell and Lawes but I think we have options already available to replace the likes of Cole, Marler, May, Tuilagi, Vunipola, Daly etc to get by without them for the next Six Nations and beyond. They've all given great service to the National team but their time is over. 

However, after last nights scrum failure - none of the the current front row are safe either (including Sinkler and Genge) - they just couldn't handle the South Africans. 

The scrum was fine in the first half. It was once the second string came on in the second that it all went pear shaped. 

[sheepyvillian]

30 minutes ago, one_ian_taylor said:

Not sure it is. They used scrum penalties  to get into a field position where they could go over from close range. I'd  be interested to see what the stats were for both teams making yards with  the ball in hand v kicking  yards - I'd  expect England to be a lot more weighted towards  kicking,  but not expecting the difference  between the teams to be night and day. 

The scrum won SA the game at the end of it all. They had to ditch their running  fly half early because it was all going pear shaped, and their replacements out matched England's - not just  front row but also at scrum half, where De Klerk helped galvanise them and Care's kicking game was nowhere  near as accurate  as Mitchell's,  which gave SA too much breathing  space

 

Edit: Eng - 234 metres with ball in hand, SA 184.

Kicking metres - Eng 666 v SA 522

We never once remotely looked like scoring a try. Regardless of stats, that's a fact. It was risk -free effective, at times, rugby,  and it's been that way for far too long. I guarantee, come the five nations, we will be back to where we were before the  tournament began. France and Ireland are way ahead of us in the way they play the game. I'm afraid under Borthwick, it's still going to be the same old England. 

[Panto_Villan]

50 minutes ago, theboyangel said:

I agree there should be a phasing out of certain players from the current squad, particularly Ford, Farrell and Lawes but I think we have options already available to replace the likes of Cole, Marler, May, Tuilagi, Vunipola, Daly etc to get by without them for the next Six Nations and beyond. They've all given great service to the National team but their time is over. 

However, after last nights scrum failure - none of the the current front row are safe either (including Sinkler and Genge) - they just couldn't handle the South Africans. 

I’d agree with you except maybe Marler and Cole, for the reasons you outlined in the second paragraph. Nobody has a good time if you can’t at least compete at the scrums.

[Panto_Villan]

12 minutes ago, sheepyvillian said:

We never once remotely looked like scoring a try. Regardless of stats, that's a fact. It was risk -free effective, at times, rugby,  and it's been that way for far too long. I guarantee, come the five nations, we will be back to where we were before the  tournament began. France and Ireland are way ahead of us in the way they play the game. I'm afraid under Borthwick, it's still going to be the same old England. 

You’re exaggerating a bit though. You claimed we’d played that way since Woodward but at the last World Cup we looked pretty dangerous in attack and even blew away the All Blacks in the semis with multiple tries. South Africa then absolutely humiliated us in the finals.

[sheepyvillian]

9 minutes ago, Panto_Villan said:

You’re exaggerating a bit though. You claimed we’d played that way since Woodward but at the last World Cup we looked pretty dangerous in attack and even blew away the All Blacks in the semis with multiple tries. South Africa then absolutely humiliated us in the finals.

Who doesn't exaggerate a bit? We did blow away the All Blacks with some fine attacking rugby, but you can count on one hand the last time we played like that. 

We need to be playing that way as a rule, not just now and again. It's no surprise that the best games were the quarter- finals with SA, France, Ireland and the All Blacks. There's no reason why England can't be playing dynamic attacking rugby, we just need the right coach. 

[one_ian_taylor]

32 minutes ago, sheepyvillian said:

We never once remotely looked like scoring a try. Regardless of stats, that's a fact. It was risk -free effective, at times, rugby,  and it's been that way for far too long. I guarantee, come the five nations, we will be back to where we were before the  tournament began. France and Ireland are way ahead of us in the way they play the game. I'm afraid under Borthwick, it's still going to be the same old England. 

Oh, I agree  with you there and about England's style generally. Part of that came down to botching the couple of decent visits to SA's 22. I just disagree that SA looked braver and more proactive.  They  had one decent chance, which  they converted,  but it was also set up by some very pragmatic rugby - set piece and kicking.  At the end of it all, it wasn't  much more than SA just about managing to out England-England  in the second half