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Can we take North of and wrap him in cotton wool please
I'd like to see an autumn tournament for teams like Italy, Georgia, Spain, Romania etc. Winner then gets to play win that season's Six Nations. Yes they'll probably get thumped, but at the moment it's unfair on the other teams who have no meaningful competitive fixtures outside the four year World Cup cycle. Ten years ago I was all in favour of giving Italy a bit more time, but I think now they've had their chance.
In theory it should be relegation from the Six Nations (and anyone who says "well you're a Scotland fan, you would say that" has a point to be honest) but the reality is that money talks and there's no way the competition is going to lose one of the original five.
And there's the fact I fancy a trip to Tbilisi for an away match.
@tjagain I would not disagree, but I was also trying, and obviously failing, to be moderately amusing...hence England comment.
As a scotland fan if scotland finish bottom and cannot win in a play off then they deserve to go down
there is a tier 2 six nations I thought with Georgia, Romania . Spain etc?
Sorry Fazini - I seem to have had a sense of humour bypass!
Can we take North of and wrap him in cotton wool please
Thanks Wayne
Italy cannot get a decision can they - High tackles being missed and every bounce of the ball is against them. Its tough enough for them without having one of those days
Glad they got that try, blank score sheet would be fairly depressing for them.
Italy cannot get a decision can they – High tackles being missed and every bounce of the ball is against them. Its tough enough for them without having one of those days
That's right TJ, Scotland obviously morally should be top!!
As a scotland fan if scotland finish bottom and cannot win in a play off then they deserve to go down
there is a tier 2 six nations I thought with Georgia, Romania . Spain etc?
Deserve to? Absolutely yes. But as I said, money talks. Not just rugby but look how much the international weekends bring to Edinburgh. Not just the money, they are great social weekends too. It just won't happen.
I think there is a second tier tournament but it would give it much more meaning if victory meant a place in the Six Nations. I recall seeing an interview with some Georgian players. Dedicated to their sport but gutted at the way Georgia gets denied a place at the top table, even if it's just the occasional season. Felt very sorry for them.
I still think a play off between the bottom of the 6N and the top of 6N 2 is the way to go - with Georgia and maybe Romania getting guaranteed autumn international matches
Georgia at the moment really are not good enough
Rugby does need to get its house in order with the smaller countries - IIRC Fiji only played 6 tests between the last 2 world cups ( one of the PI teams anyway)
No one has toured Fiji / PI since Scotland went years ago again IIRC
AA - some days the bounce goes for you ( Scotland / England this year) some days it goes against you ( scotland / Wales this year)
Its just one of those things that happens in rugby. Happening to Italy today.
I think it would be good for Italy as well, constantly getting beaten must be fairly rough. Playing in a second tier and winning a few games would probably do them no harm.
AA – some days the bounce goes for you ( Scotland / England this year) some days it goes against you ( scotland / Wales this year)
Its just one of those things that happens in rugby. Happening to Italy today.
48:7 so far, that's not the bounce of the ball its being comprehensively outplayed by a better team.
Sorry to butt in, but Josh Navidi has been immense.
I agree AA - If you care to look at my first post it said Its tough enough for them without having one of those days
Italy would dominate a second-tier tournament though.
Its tough enough for them without having one of those days
They are just playing a team better than them, nothing to do with one of those days.
Let's hope the next match is a bit better!
Italy deserve a try for that last fifteen minutes.
Fizzled out in the last quarter, but a good win. A touch too easy really. It won't be the same next week!
C'mon England - if ever there was a time to live up to their self claimed "greatest team ever"!
Allez Les Bleus
Oh look a balanced commentary team.
I’m confused by Jones. At the RWC he said that team was done. Yet here they still are, performing badly.
So we have a replacement lock because this one talks, but at least Mallins has shown form. IMO he should drop Farrel for Laurence and put Itoje in charge. Maybe we’ll see that after 70mins when we are desperate.
Italy would dominate a second-tier tournament though.
Initially yes, but Georgia aren't that far behind. They have a pretty decent pack and if rugby is going to develop they need to get more good quality games. Ditto Japan, the Pacific Island nations etc.
Get in!! Oh hang on, who do I need to cheer for?
Knock on, surely!
Allez Les Bleus
Swing low
This should be a good game if both teams maintain their attacking focus! Seen more than England than the rest of the tournament out together!
Makes a big difference not giving away penalties all the time!
Oh look no huddle this time
Think you maybe have jinxed them Robbo.
Haha I know! Sorry about that.
Cripes that was good!
French showing England what a decent back line does. What a great move.
Good game
Ah robbo I'm Scottish so it's all good.
Bloody France coming with no obvious game plan and just making it up as they go along. How are we expected to create a regimented set of defensive tactics when they don't even have a script!
Cracking game so far. No idea who will come out on top.
Much better game and the best attacking I have seen from England for a long time but boy do france look good in the backs!
Any chance we can swap Steven Varney for Gareth Davies please?
Oh, great, now for the diverse analysis team. It’ll make a change from the diverse commentary team.
I’d welcome a bit of Inverdaleitis about now.
Cracking so far , that second try for France was great.
I hate ITV
Good to see Watson get some ball, he is class but woefully underused by England
I hate ITV
Me too. Next year behind a paywall, will be grim.
Think next try going to be vital.
I don't get it England have a few fantastic centres who play rugby well. Slade and Farrell are steady but no spark. And Farrell needing the rip in every tackle will get him binned.
England so much better with Ford at 10 ..
But England have Youngs at 9 to kick the ball away instead of Farrell at 10. Mind, Farrell can also kick it away at 12 now.
Just like that!
Pretty obvious forward pass to May for that big kick.
I thought England looked better against Wales. They just seem to be throwing the ball about aimlessly.
What wascFaz up to at the end?
Well played England
Well that was an interesting call for Itoje’s try.
Anyway c’mon England 😀
Again I’m 3 minutes behind 🤦♀️. Great result!
"One of the best games we've seen in a long while" eh what? Seriously? It looked a total mess to me.
Me too
I thought it a good game - one of the most entertaining this year
England got out of jail at the end there
I still think tmo discussions need to be off camera so frank exchange of views is allowed. A few times this competition a " naw you're talking mince" would have been more welcome than "look again".
Well done England still think it should be a young guns team.but EJ wants to keep his job.
I enjoyed it. Good end to end rugby, first half particularly. England looked to be slightly the better side so a narrow win probably a fair result.
One of the best games we’ve seen in a long while” eh what? Seriously? It looked a total mess to me.
+1
England are world beaters even when they look like they could barely beat Aberavon U21s. 🙄
England deserved that after the rub of the green against the Welsh. Also after the French conducted their own investigation into the covid outbreak and found no breaches of Quarantine...To see it blow up in their faces...so sad/too bad/never mind.
Looking at the table is a bit odd until France and Scotland catch up, middle of the table is all pretty close. Any of the four teams could still end up in any of the four places and I guess France could in theory still overtake Wales.
Well that was an interesting call for Itoje’s try.
I thought he got it down when I watched the replay. But Itoje obviously didn’t think he got it down because he carried on fighting to get it to ground, and made one of those ‘Wow!’ faces after the try was given.
Eddie Jones - England got ‘emotional fatigue’ in the Welsh game. 🤣 Eddie, you really are a ****!
Good game up to about 60 minutes, both teams seem to run out of gas, especially the French
Think Itoje try was legit, and, either way a bit of luck, good or bad is all part of sport
I wanted an England win for Wales’ sake, but I’d be really put out if I was French. Having looked at the Itoje ‘try’ several times, I don’t see how they could have overturned the infield decision.
A Scotland win tomorrow will make it a very exciting end to the tournament.
Thought there was an angle which showed it pretty clearly.
Entertaining game, I’d love to see france play the All Blacks now.
And for all the talk about the French back line their back row is pretty decent too!
Thought there was an angle which showed it pretty clearly.
I thought that from what you could see, you could infer that the ball must've touched the ground in the initial movement. However, you couldn't ACTUALLY see it. Not sure what the rules are on this, but I'm not gonna argue with two top level refs.
I’d love to see france play the All Blacks now.
French game plan seems to be run everything, fling the ball around and hope. Doesn't look like much in the way of game control but I'm not an expert. Next match will be interesting.
thought that from what you could see, you could infer that the ball must’ve touched the ground in the initial movement. However, you couldn’t ACTUALLY see it. Not sure what the rules are on this, but I’m not gonna argue with two top level refs.
I agree that whilst it looked like a try not sure the evidence was there to turn the infield no try.
This from the BBC report on England/France:
But victory went some way to re-establishing England's credentials as the northern hemisphere's superpower, in world rankings at least.
The 2019 World Cup runners-up had slipped to fourth, below France, after defeats by Scotland and Wales in their opening three games of this year's campaign.
Today's victory takes them back above their opponents to third.
But, with Wales and Scotland upwardly mobile and France a few minutes away from a first win at Twickenham since 2005, any claims to being Europe's number one side are far from conclusive.
Re-establishing England's credentials as a superpower? Claims to be number one? WTAF? 🙂
Its ridiculous, and makes us look stupid. I was going to comment yesterday on Idle Johns post that only he and Martin Johnson had made that inflection post game, yet here we are...
Eddie's also in the press saying it was a decent game but England still aren't at their best - hasn't he been trotting out that line for his whole England coaching period?
There were positives though, Ewell's went well as did the rest if the pack, Ford was on it, Farrell played like a centre, and Watson & May were sharp. Malins could have had a very much worse full match debut and did OK.
I just wish a little realism was injected into this team, we here that same old lines being trotted out, "more to come", "more to give", "not perfect". I get the impression that most of the time they don't actually enjoy the game.
Can't wait for Squidge's analysis.
The French do great rugby, for me the Ireland France game was amazing and this one was probably as good, may be not quite. French attack looked devastating when it was on, we were quite lucky to close them down in the end though. 2nd French try, was down to England stupidity in defence, they looked like headless chickens and left it wide open.
I'd say we won the 2nd half convincingly, but probably only due to some French inexperience. Jones idea that we will become the best team in the world by WC? I know its just branding bullshit he spouts, but I'd say the French look more likely than England.
See I don’t read that as bigging England up, he says about in world rankings as it made England rise above france but he goes on to imply that with other nations appearing to be on an upward curve it is debatable if that is their true position. I don’t see that as a piece of one eyed journalism unless you read one part of a sentence.
How can France be so good and come away with a L?
Fabulously entertaining but sadly that doesn't win games.
As for the ball down at the end. Do you need to see it touch the grass or is it enough to see the maker's name, which you know is 6" from the tip, 4" above the turf? In the end we want correct outcomes don't we, not hair splitting over how well the law is documented.
I don’t see that as a piece of one eyed journalism unless you read one part of a sentence.
But victory went some way to re-establishing England’s credentials as the northern hemisphere’s superpower, in world rankings at least.
No, I can’t see that either.
Or quote the last paragraph?
As for the ball down at the end. Do you need to see it touch the grass or is it enough to see the maker’s name, which you know is 6″ from the tip, 4″ above the turf? In the end we want correct outcomes don’t we, not hair splitting over how well the law is documented.
You need to have enough evidence to overturn the on field decision. For a touchdown I don't think the "clear and obvious" guidance is included as it would be for a knock on or forward pass but you have to be sure. My feeling is the video ref was only just able to say that.
Hopefully Baird and kelleher get on and play a bit.
Anyway. Come on green.
I feel that Ireland might do a big shift today. Defo gonna win.
I forgot to heed tj’s old advice about making room behind the sofa.