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If I was Welsh I'd be quite annoyed!
I love Carre, he just looks like a big lad dragged out of the crowd....can't scrummage though😥
Why do people rate Farrell at the moment, nothing much to show today apart from lost points
Eng will lose this. 5 points is not enough.
ads678
Full Member
Eng will lose this. 5 points is not enough.
My thoughts too. Pretty woeful stuff.
Well it was fun whilst it lasted!
Well done Englandshire.
Phew! COYE!
Fairly underwhelming game of rugby .......
God, that was awful.
Dissapointing from wales, you ran out of ideas in the last 10 mins, made it easy for quite a sedate effort from england. Sorry to do you down, but I was honestly expecting some fireworks.
England did get the defence mostly sorted, for me I think that was what won it really.
The england attack from kicking is the dullest thing in history and seems to have the lowest return rate of anything.
Wales were so slow and ponderous at the breakdown, one up runners getting exposed and turned over. Aimless, clueless and pointless in attack, England could just kick it to them without worrying about what was coming back.
Another miserable Wales game. Well done England.
How many points did Farrell miss. wiki says 2 x pens and 2 x conv? Thats 10 points?
The English defence a lot better, the breakdown is better, and we have a back line that can attack. If they could stop making mistakes they could be top-mid table. I wouldn’t put it past them to maybe beat France relying on France to have a bad game.
Farrell goal kicking has gone from a certainty to 72% putting extra pressure on the team. Steward is the real deal. Lawrence makes a huge difference being a proper ball fetching ball carrying
12.
Not sure what else.
Not sure what else.
World Beaters!
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
I nearly gave up watching with 10 minutes to go. Only the hope Wales would produce a flash of inspiration kept me going. Welsh kicking game seemed to be designed to help England.
Listened to the Italian game in the car and they sounded like they continue to improve
Pretty sure I’m going to be behind the sofa at some stage tomorrow though. French have to raring for a good game at home.
Oh well, at least it was nice to see LRZ put the after burners on. At Kingsholm last weekend he was seriously rapid in front of a sell out. He seems to have developed the nack of running only as quick as he has to - that was a mere jog today. 😆
Dreadful game of rugby. Roll on France Scotland tomorrow
I thought Grady did well for a first cap, he's a keeper...maybe wing for a while. Tshiunza worked his arse off, he is here to stay. Carre and Lewis as props offer far more about the field than Francis and Thomas but can they hold their own at scrum time. Little Timmy Tompkins added value too. 1/2p is an empty shirt in attack. AWJ is pointless and Tips doesn't seem to have much left in the tank.
Steward is the real deal.
He can catch and he can bosh, but he is very one paced.
AA - not everyone can be like Gav…..
Not everyone can be no, although Henson was very one paced at 15 too. But the love of Steward I really don't get, on a fast track against a team with pace and the ability to put players in space I'm not sure he'd be what I want at 15. Against a brain-dead Wales team who just kept kicking poorly at him he was very good..
Dissapointing from wales, you ran out of ideas in the last 10 mins,
Ran out of ideas before kick off by the looks of it.
AA to be fair to AWJ from our point of view he was a pain in the arse. That is his job I think.
Wales were lucky that Farrell was having an off day or it would have been 30-10.
Agreed about Grady, and Christ. You do have some new talent and when they find the rest of the new squad you will back to all guns blazing. Reffell was good too.
Torygraph thinks Farrells tenure is limited.
The same could not be said of Farrell, who surprisingly was the weakest link in the England back line. His kicking at goal was well below par, missing four attempts and at times seemed every more uncertain with his kicking out of hand, knocking one cross-field effort straight into touch, and failing to put the Wales back three under enough pressure.
What would have encouraged Borthwick however was that a second game in succession for Lawrence and Slade proved to be much more effective. One wonders when George Ford returns to full fitness if the England captain could find his position under threat.
Well that's that after 6minutes.
Aye🙄
That's 2 reds surely?
Well that's the game ruined.
That’s 2 reds surely?
Would have thought a yellow and a red at the least but wouldn't have been able to argue against two reds either.
Not that it's going to make much difference. This is going to be a bloodbath.
That's a france red. Moaus leading with the head.
Would have thought a yellow and a red at the least but wouldn’t have been able to argue against two reds either.
They both hit him in the head and both were high he didn't dip after the first contact
Game back on.
Aye
That’s a france red. Moaus leading with the head.
Watching a bit behind, but yes
The ref saying he didn't see a high level of danger in the diving head butt! Unreal. Glad he was talked in to sending him off as it was blatant.
It was really obvious live. Oh aldrit off. Tough
We'll be watching 7's by half time!
Game back on.
Slam back on too 😀
I thought that was on the try line actually. And I'm not a Scotland fan.
I'm pretty sure it brushed a blade of whitewashed grass.
Slam dunked
Mmmmm looked closer than the short discussion deserved.
Lovely
I bloody hate adverts, would almost rather listen to John inverdale and sir Clive wibblewobble haver shite that... That's the way, motorway.
I bloody hate adverts
I had thought all consonant named host’s games were shown on BBC?
This is a hard watch, as usual Finn the best and worst thing for Scotland.
BBC Scotland showing "never ending story".
Brave performance by Scotland
We needed an almost perfect game to come back from 19-0. Unfortunately a few mistakes cost us.
We need D'Arcy back, changes the back line. Steyn and DvdM are too similar.
Crackin'game to watch. Great comeback
Great game
That was the game of the weekend.
I think Ireland need to be worried. Scotland grown in confidence enormously.
Well that was pish. Now let's patch up the wounded and head to Ireland
Cracking game, the better team won but I am delighted by the way we clawed ourselves back into it. I never bought into any Grand Slam hype but feared the worst when we were so far behind and scoreless and a man down.We are starting to look like a team with a plan and the players to execute it.
5plusn8
Free Member
That was the game of the weekend.
Only if you were neutral 😀
I was hiding behind the sofa after the 1st red and 2nd try thinking it was going to be a long game. Very happy the officials worked together for the 2nd one though.
Coaxed out from behind the sofa for the 2nd half as it hadn’t got a lot worse. Finn was almost trying too hard and a bit of me wonders if he had done less of the offloads when under pressure and tried to set the ball back up if we could have built a bit of pressure instead of creating more.
French deserved to win but very happy the way we clawed our way back into it. Hope Huw Jones is still fit for next game he was immense in attacking lines
Anyone want to suggest reasons how this was not two red cards...I can't fathom it.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1629863842900475908
Player dipping slightly and arms wrapping around I guess.
Player dipping slightly
So why is that not mitigation for the second impact?
Ref and TMO totally shit the bed not looking at it. You might be able to argue the 8's first contact was lower so maybe yellow, but to completely ignore it is a dereliction of the duty of care the ref has.
Watching live I had no idea which player was about to be sent off
Yeah at least a yellow and a red for me. 8 maybe came off shoulder but definite head contact.
Don't think the ref would have given the French prop a red if the lino's hadn't told him to.
Not a great ref imo.
Yeah at least a yellow and a red for me. 8 maybe came off shoulder but definite head contact.
I think you may be right....I don't get how a whole set of a ref, touch judge and video ref miss it...
Fagerson first point of contact is the shoulder.
So why is that not mitigation for the second impact
As the commentary said, the second player made no attempt to wrap his arm, so automatic foul play and can't be mitigated. For me, first player should have had a yellow.
The ITV commentary is godawful tho....you'd think Scotland were the best team in the world the way they were talking
The ITV commentary is godawful tho….you’d think Scotland were the best team in the world the way they were talking
Yep ****ing dire, at one point Scotland did a load of Finn Russell inspired fumbles backwards and then knocked on...apparently that was great play!!
Ben Kay gets on my tits, as does Austin Healey when he's on BT. And I say that as a life long Tigers fan.
The ITV commentary is godawful tho….you’d think Scotland were the best team in the world the way they were talking
Now you know how the rest of the UK feel like every time england play any game from tiddly winks to football!!
Scott Hastings isn't the best and the rest were awful. Why wasn't Andrew Cotter doing it?
It was a shame that France scored a bonus point try at the end, messed up my predictions. Will we have the predictions competition results soon? 😃
. Why wasn’t Andrew Cotter doing it?
He's BBC..was doing Wales England on Saturday
This is frankly awful.
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/sport/rugby/rugby-news/twelve-welsh-rugby-players-earning-26323668
How can you build a national team if you don't pay the club players properly, this is bad news as it seems like it will make it really hard for Wales to be internationally competitive.
What a real shame.
Professional rugby in Wales is dead in the water.
Imagine signing Liam Williams... Cardiff say he's worth say £200k, WRU say don't worry we'll pay 80% so he gets 400k...then WRU a year of so later say we are not paying that now and by the way we've cut your budget.....it's the same for others like Faletau and Adams. If they could offload those 3 they could sign say 12 players. Meanwhile according to Tobey on twitter two players who have played over 300 times for Cardiff have been offered 30k next year.
Expect a fire sale soon.
Cutting the budgets of teams who already cannot complete in the URC much less Europe is just going to see the game die. I expect the long term WRU plan is to see regions fold and then they can pick up the ashes and produce 2 'super' regions.
Is 2 teams a bad idea then? Scotland only have 2 and they are doing OK?
(I have no idea just curious)
Scotland only have 2 and they are doing OK?
and how many grand slams have they won in the last 20 years? Or Six Nations championships?
Two regions might not be too bad if people could be coaxed to support them but it needs to be done proactively not by just cutting and cutting slowly until the current ones go belly up
I really do think Welsh rugby is ****ed for the next 3-5 years. I think we have to move towards a fully WRU owned model with fewer regions, but it's going to take huge amounts of pain to get there.
I read a good article at the weekend comparing the Welsh hybrid model to the Irish one....Will try to find it.
Does Wales have the same problem Scotland does, ie, the only place that could really be described as a 'rugby stronghold' has no one living there?
There's between 2.4 and 4.2 million people living in the Central Belt (depending on which definition you use) so it makes sense to put the teams there. Saying that, the fact that a Glasgow Edinburgh derby struggles to attract 25,000 fans tells you all you need to know about the popularity of rugby amongst those 2-4 million.
Even though The Borders only has 115,000 living there you would get far higher attendances as a percentage of the population, if it wasn't for the fact you couldn't set up a pro side based in the borders without pissing off the inhabitants of the 10 other towns where that side wasn't based.
The traditional strongest clubs were where the population is most concentrated....all along the coastal plain with Llanelli, Swansea, Neath, Bridgend, Cardiff, Newport plus the big valleys clubs - Pontypool etc.
I think any of the regions would give their right arms for an attendance of 25,000. I went to Ospreys/scarlets on boxing day (so local derby)..attendance was 11,500. 2 weeks later for Ospreys/Montpellier it was less then 2000.
I questioned a statement on here a couple of weeks ago about football being the national sport of Wales...I still think if asked any of my friends what the national sport of Wales was, they'd say rugby. But the regions have never attracted the same loyalty, and the worse they get (if they can't afford to get/keep good players), then even less people will go and support them.
England appear to have dropped Smith and replaced with Ford. Not clear if it's an injury or a specific reason, but given Farrell's less than convincing performance on Saturday, that seems quite a surprise decision.
Doesn’t surprise me with Ford coming back in. Borthwick looks like may have decided Smith/Farrell doesn’t work and that Lawrence/Slade looks good. Can’t get rid of Farrell straight away because he is captain but Smith not ready to run the show yet. Ford sits between the two and probably would be best suited to Englands style of play and actually inject some life into the back line.