Rugby - The Game They Play In Heaven II

[finbar]

No, it's only indicative of how rubbish the Tahs can be. Over the past couple of seasons, despite having one of the better backlines in the comp, the only constant was that possession would be kicked away. New coach this season, lots of promises about utilising the team's skills, and what happens? Today they were starved of possession by the Force, but what did they do when they got the ball? Booted away possession. On the couple of rare occasions when they didn't boot it away, they scored tries. Just mindless stupid rugby. Halangahu, the 10, is a complete waste of space. Until he goes, and Berrick Barnes slots into 10, the Tahs are a lost cause.

[Havak]

Do Ireland simply have better players? IMHO not from 1-3 or at 6. Nor at 9 or 13 either. 15 is well matched. It's too broad a brush for me to say they simply have better players. And I think you forget they were beaten in Dublin by the previous England regime just six months ago. Ireland have a six nations jinx on England but they are far from a great side. Quite beatable. I hope England can realise that.

I'm a little sorry to see my prediction after the first round come true and Scotland drawing a blank. For the sake of Scottish rugby Robinson must go. There is simply no creativity or direction in them on the field. The talent of those young players requires a different key to unlock it.

[finbar]

Italy were 20% less poor than Scotland. Cripes, at times Scotland made us look like dashers. Same old same old same old mistakes from Scotland, plus a few new ones. Unbelievably rubbish lineout effort. Turnip cannot stay on after that effort. I suspect he will resign tonight or tomorrow.

[kittenOFchaos]

Italy were 20% less poor than Scotland. Cripes, at times Scotland made us look like dashers. Same old same old same old mistakes from Scotland, plus a few new ones. Unbelievably rubbish lineout effort. Turnip cannot stay on after that effort. I suspect he will resign tonight or tomorrow.

First off, congratulations to Italy on their well deserved victory. Their forwards competed manfully and their backline was impressive in comparison to the Scottish backline. If they can sort out a place kicker then they'll win far more games and todays result would never have been in doubt. Italian rugby is going places...more players than the Scots and plenty of supporters as evidenced by the crowd today. I really wish Scotland would ban football and concentrate on rugby.

I am surprised how uninvolved I was watching that game, in fact I applauded the Italian drop goal. The Scottish players gave me nothing to cheer on - their 6 Nations campaign simply fizzled out.

Given how much possession we achieved against the other sides I really expected us to see alot of the ball today and make something of it. The Italians and our own completely ineffectual lineout prevented that. Ross Ford should hang his head in shame - he has two of the tallest men in the 6 Nations to aim at and he still missed the mark. Since his debute 6 Nations De Luca's involvement in a Scotland shirt has been farcical. In his first 6 Nations campaign I'm pretty sure he managed to drop every ball that comes this way. In this one he has done much right but both his yellow cards were totally moronic. It is one thing to give away a yellow to prevent a score, to do it for no advantage is pure stupidity. He shouldn't get another chance, but he will as we've so few options.

Should Robinson go? Well, we can't ditch our players given our limited options but we can sure as hell get rid of coaches. If the players liked him so much we wouldn't have seen such a gutless performance. As for Robinson, I love how passionate he is, but he isn't good at selecting players and doesn't use the bench well and his teams lose games.

Scotland without a kicking game atm...Dan Parks, for all his faults would have cleared our lines effectively most of the time. I find it amazing that we've coaches out there that don't ensure their team have an excellent place kicker (Italy) and someone with a boot to clear their lines (Scotland). Without that you may as well not bother.

[kittenOFchaos]

Do Ireland simply have better players? IMHO not from 1-3 or at 6. Nor at 9 or 13 either. 15 is well matched. It's too broad a brush for me to say they simply have better players. And I think you forget they were beaten in Dublin by the previous England regime just six months ago. Ireland have a six nations jinx on England but they are far from a great side. Quite beatable. I hope England can realise that.

Even by your own analysis you have Ireland with 9 superior players and I think you're being generous to the England front 3.

What England do have in their favour is they are at home, that they're working their socks off and are off the back of a great result. Ireland I feel waste the quality they have. We'll see.

In other news Wales have started well - a great try by Cuthbert.

[kittenOFchaos]

Well Havak, I'll confess I was wrong re: the front row. The English front row are destroying the Ireland scrum.

48 minutes in. Finally Darcy is gone - he is a shadow of himself this year.

It is still very close, but if Ireland can't sort out the scrum I don't see them winning.

Edit: Yup, England's scrum FTW and I'm 0/3 today.

[Havak]

Congratulations to Wales.

A small technicality if I may kOc - those nine positions were simply ones where I could not categorically claim England had the better players and I did not mean to imply that Ireland automatically did therefore.

I think their locks are a stronger combination even with POC gone and I expected Heaslip to shine (I clearly cursed him there as he then didn't but as his tight five were in reverse....). Their wingers perhaps shade it. On the flip side I was hardly aware Sexton was on the pitch in the first half and Ireland do now have serious problems at scrum half.

I also already knew Ben Youngs shines behind a dominant pack so I'm not as carried away about that as the BBC pundits were about his 'revitalisation'.

But all in all an enjoyable game kOc. Nice to be putting some dents in that Ireland jinx at long last.

Cole has rightly drawn a lot of flack in this forum the last few seasons but today he was superb. Kidney can cite "sore shoulders" all he likes but his only loose head was muscled out the game and the tight head then placed there couldn't hack it. Keith Woods pointed out the Irish provinces have ten non-Irish qualified front row players on their books - he was not happy about it.

[finbar]

Yes, congrats to the Welsh. Best team in the tourney. They've developed a tougher mindset which makes a huge difference. Now we have to wait and see whether they can do it against a couple of SH teams. France? Frustrating to the end.

The only question for me is whether Ireland were worse than Scotland. Relatively speaking, you'd have to say so. Dan Cole looks a much better scrummager when his giant paw isn't on the ground but I don't know why Corbisiero was allowed to bore in sideways for most of the match. Very destructive, but very illegal. Anyway, Ireland fell apart under the pressure. Kidney is as conservative a selector as Turnip. There is some good young Irish talent coming through but he persists with the likes of Darcy at least two years past his use-by date. He has been castigated by Irish supporters through the tournament, now the vitriol will only increase.

England were tough, strong, committed. Did the job well. With the shambles that Ireland turned into, they should have put a score on Ireland. They won't put a score on anyone with the current mindset and midfield set-up - Manu is their only means of attack, and Ireland's only success yesterday was sitting on him and shutting him down - but I'm going over old ground. There's going to be a tidal wave of support for Lancaster to be given the job permanently. I think it's naive. We shall see.

The highlight of the tournament for me was the look on Tom Croft's face when he flubbed that pass heading for the try line. Priceless!

Oh, and the lowlight of England's performance yesterday had to be Manu's Exocet-like attempt to destroy one of the Ireland players near his own try line. Not a hint of a sign of an arm to create a tackle. Luckily he missed.

[finbar]

Italian rugby is going places...more players than the Scots and plenty of supporters as evidenced by the crowd today. I really wish Scotland would ban football and concentrate on rugby.

Italy suffers the same problem in terms of football. It's a religion here. Rugby is a niche sport played only in the far North East of the country. But the die-hard fans are happy to travel to Rome. Given the difference in overall populations, the player numbers here are probably about the same as Scotland. In Scotland's case, though, they have serious talent - Gray, Rennie, Denton, Hogg, etc - that Italy could only dream of fielding. Italy have one quality player - Sergio P. - one up and comer - Benvenuti - and a lot of triers. The unfortunate fact is that Scotland's talent isn't being exploited. They're not growing as a team. Turnip apparently remains defiant and wants to continue. That's a big part of Scotland's problem. And you can be very very sure that Scott Johnson, as soon as he arrives, will be networking himself into Turnip's job.

[kittenOFchaos]

The only question for me is whether Ireland were worse than Scotland. Relatively speaking, you'd have to say so. Dan Cole looks a much better scrummager when his giant paw isn't on the ground but I don't know why Corbisiero was allowed to bore in sideways for most of the match. Very destructive, but very illegal. .

If England were boring sideways, why didn't the Irish simply bore back if the referee was allowing boring to go on?

I haven't seen any journalism claiming that the Irish pack were in trouble due to boring.

I have read that Court is not a tight-head - is that correct?

If we think back to Ireland against Wales, Scotland, France and Italy it was amazing how Ireland fell apart today.

[finbar]

It's hard to bore back when you're being pincered as Ross was, to begin with, then Court, later. Corbisiero was driving in, Hartley driving diagonally across, isolating the tighthead. As Brian Moore pointed out, the only thing the Irish could do was for Best to bind tighter to his tighthead. That, obviously would weaken his bind on his loosie, causing more problems on the other side. Ultimately, the England front row was just too strong, especially when Court - a promising young loosie - was dropped into the tighthead job. As Havak pointed out that Keith Wood pointed out - there are too many foreign props amongst the Irish provinces, with the foreigners - Afoa, etc - being the best. England had a lesser verison of the problem a few years ago but they've recovered as the likes of Corbisiero and Cole have come through. Though, it has to be said, it's thin pickings after those two. Hullo Matt Stevens!

[kittenOFchaos]

Still doesn't explain why the Irish don't try to bore ahead of the English bore.

Alternatively, instruct Court to make a massive hit and then go down injured and then off. Result - uncontested scrums.

[finbar]

The Irish weren't good enough. The bottom line is that the England front row were superior regardless. Healy used to be rubbish, improved, but he's always in trouble against a better scrummager. Court was lucky not to be yellow carded. Not sure why he wasn't, unless Nigel wanted to avoid uncontested scrums.

[Havak]

The other factor is that Best lacks power and bulk too. It was literally a case of the Irish coal face being outmuscled.

And congratulations Tigers. After the opening loss to Scarlets in the LV I didn't think we had any chance of that piece of silverware.

[MOBIUS]

The other factor is that Best lacks power and bulk too. It was literally a case of the Irish coal face being outmuscled.

And congratulations Tigers. After the opening loss to Scarlets in the LV I didn't think we had any chance of that piece of silverware.

Was nursing quite a hangover today after an almighty street party last night! Best thing they ever did was build the stadium right in the centre of town!