Rugby - The Game They Play In Heaven II

[Havak]

Would Lancaster dare play mind games with the maestro of that art Mr Gatland?

If you are going to be tested might as well be in a furnace I suppose.

These encounters with Wales are as brutal as it gets and with Wales playing some pretty decent rugby (there I said it!) it is a big challenge for an inexperienced England. But it is at HQ so anything is possible. If Wales win the triple Crown they can genuinely start to think Slam I feel.

And it is the kick up the tush Ben Youngs needs I think. I do think I would have had Lawes straight in for Botha myself however.

[kittenOFchaos]

Hodgson, who scored the two tries England have managed so far in this year's Six Nations, is unavailable after cutting and spraining his left index finger in training this week.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-union/17113046

Pfft, what a lot of baloney.

It does mean that we get Farrell at 10 and that is probably what England needs most atm.

Oh yes, talking of baloney, what is with this "England needs to improve by 10% in all areas to beat Wales" nonsense.

[finbar]

It's called management speak. Platitudinous space-filling waffle. These days even boofy old retired props with Dumbo-sized ears resort to it. You wouldn't have caught Havak at it in his day.

[Havak]

Not least because he couldn't then, and cannot now, do sums very well.

Wales have played some nice rugby for sure. They are certainly a more settled side than England and look more cohesive in terms of what they want to do on the field (one can in fact see a game plan with them). They are I would say a better side than this England side is right now. But they are not unbeatable.

Up to 44 men will take to a field of rugby and absolutely anything might happen therein.

Clearly as an Englihsman there is nothing in life that compares to losing to Wales at anything and it is something we pray to the rugby god to avoid. But you know what if Wales win, and deserve it, I hope I am big enough to say well done. Clearly I will hope they then lose their next game but then one can only concede so much you know?

[kittenOFchaos]

I don't really feel I watched England Vs Wales as I had company. It felt enjoyable and England appeared to be much more potent in attack, in large part due to Manu Tuilagi being able to shrug off tacklers and break the gain-line (he seemed to fade as the game went on). That said, the Welsh threat was always clear and England did well on a number of occasions to keep them out.

England really needed to get more out of the 10 minutes with Priestland in the bin - too little was done. The English substitutions weren't helpful neither - particularly Youngs. I don't blame Youngs, the coaches should be able to recognise that he is out of sorts and needs time at club-level to regain any sort of form. As for whether Strettle scored...even if they had, it required a tricky kick.

England will take heart from the game as it showed they aren't far off the pace. In addition, it is clear than in Manu they have the sort of center they need and in Farrell a no. 10 with a skill-set very similar to Jonny Wilkinson.

[finbar]

Enjoyable game for a neutral. Good and bad for both sides. Wales struck trouble when they couldn't bosh their gigantic backs through the massive England defence and resorted to kicking. Badly. Priestland had a shocker in very many ways and I don't think I've seen a worse game from Phillips. And I've seen him play some shockers. Standing, dithering, confusing his team mates, deciding to plough straight into the ruck defence with no hope of breaking through, only of getting isolated and turned over. Or just dithering before throwing a looping pass. But, that aside, Wales showed something I hadn't seen before - real grit, nouse and discipline at a crucial time. Their game in the yellow card period was excellent. And England failed to capitalise in that period.

England are moving in the right direction. Good spirit, and what seems to be an entirely different mind set from the previous generation. But, for starters, they have to sort out the midfield. Farrell is scarily mature for his age, but, despite his couple of chip kicks, has no imagination. Alongside him is Barritt, a tackling machine but that's all. England are a man down in attack with Barritt in situ. The stamp of Sarries. Manu isn't fully fit yet, but he's a monster, and England's only avenue of attack, even if, at the moment, it's just to smash into the defence. Ashton now seems to have no role to play. His strength has been being on someone's shoulder at the right time with some space but the opportunities aren't there in this set up. Morgan at 8 started well but drifted out of the game. While he adds bulk to the back row, he seems to be primarily a carrier, so the back row still looks unbalanced to me. If the skipper is nailed on to start, I think they need to find a tough, down-and-dirty 6 - if one exists - to start in front of Crofty.

I have no idea why SL subbed Dickson unless he was injured. Poor Ben Youngs needs to take six months off away from rugby. And why Matt Stevens is even allowed into the England dressing room is beyond me. Those two subs really took away England's impetus. And Lawes' established habit of running into contact upright, not protecting the ball, cost England dearly.

[kittenOFchaos]

So, Scotland Vs France. My heart says Scotland, my head says France by 15-20 points.

In other news Sale beat Wasps to put us in range of the play-offs. Newcastle or Wasps in a battle against relegation. It has been incredible to see how quickly and far a great club like London Wasps has fallen in such a short time.

[finbar]

I've tipped France. I just can't see Scotland scoring enough tries.

I also tipped Sale. Good boys. Even hard-hearted insect-hating Havak must be feeling a twinge of compassion for Wasps.

On second thoughts ... sides of bacon might fly.

[finbar]

All square at half time. The French are scary they way they suddenly stop faffing around and throw the switch to overdrive. Scotland started well, good energy, line breaks, but where on earth are the support runners? Later, they reverted to old habits - putting it through a host of sets of hands twenty yards behind the advantage line. Complete waste of time and energy.

[finbar]

Poor old Scotland. With the likes of Hogg now onboard, now that Turnip has finally got around to selecting him, Scotland can pose some serious attacking threat. Unfortunately they're still undoing a lot of good work with simple handling errors. The pack was minced by the French but the likes of Rennie were excellent again. There are elements of a very good team in place. If someone can teach them the skills of game management they will be a lot closer to steppinng up. Meanwhile Turnip blames the ref, ignoring the self-inflicted damage. Still hard to know what to make of the French. Like the ABs, they can and will kill you from turnover ball. In fact, though it's still early, PSA seems to be instilling something of the ABs of a couple of years ago - absorb what's thrown at you, counter punch the oppo to death.

[Havak]

Sympathy for Wasps? The same kind of Sympathy the fox feels in the hen house maybe. Couldn’t be happening to a more deserving club.

Well done Wales. You took your chance very well. It gets very interesting now – France seem to have split personality syndrome again (between merely disjointed and insanely ridiculously shambolic I mean). Or if I was kinder like Finbar I would say they are an awesome counter attacking outfit who absorb pressure then strike (I’m just not convinced it is a deliberate approach!).

I personally think Wales can start to sniff a Slam.

Turnip has always blamed somebody else for everything. That it was Mr Barnes was something of a gift to him. My bug bear this season is the length of time refs are holding scrums at ‘pause’ – it is resulting in a raft of free kicks and penalties as one or the other side engages early?

England? Well even if Walshy had asked the more favourable TNMO question (“any reason...”) it was a damn hard conversion. I’m not as upset as Strettle about it. But it was nice to see a game plan at last (even if much of it was to kick the ball to Wales and let them do what they liked with it). They had clearly set out to stop the Welsh midfield dead and did a reasonable job of that. They do use Tuilagi primarily to commit defenders but Barritt inside him (formidable work rate that he has) limits what else they can do with Manu. Ashton as Finbar says has been utterly negated – but also he does seem to have stopped looking for work at all? And I agree with Finbar – Youngs needs time away from England (and maybe club rugby) as something has gone badly wrong there, he makes some howlingly bad calls these days.

[finbar]

To be fair to Ashton - and I think he's a prize prat, but that's beside the point - his forte was being in the right place at the right time when someone made a line break. No one's breaking the defensive line except Manu on occasion and he doesn't or can't offload. If anything, it probably reveals the limitations of Ashton's game and/or rugby experience. Strettle has a lot less trouble finding the ball and looking dangerous. Been England's most threatening back by a stretch.

Wales are going to run into the same problem against France they did against England. A very strong defence. They lost the plot a bit when they couldn't bosh the big buggers through the England line. They took to kicking, and badly. They won't want to try it against that French back three.

[Havak]

It is going to be interesting. Wales losing causes me no great concerns of course. Other than that it means a title for France most likely.

I see a small run for Falcons could cause Wasps real trouble. Consider me a Falcons supporter in the run in. Wasps in the second flight - life doesn't get much better than that. In fact let us relegate them and then make the Premierships a closed shop. That would be rugby perfection for this old crufter.

[finbar]

Danny Cipriani to Sale? Seems very very likely. He topped the S15 missed tackle stats for a long time last season before his various suspensions for misbehaviour. I think he still finished in the top three.

[kittenOFchaos]

I don't see why we'd want Cipriani. MacLeod is proving excellent at 10 and Rob Miller is a very talented 15.

Sale should be investing in prop-forwards.

Edit: Oh hell http://www.superxv.com/news/super15_...s.asp?id=33935

I remember some time back suggesting Sale pick up all the prize pillocks. So, we've now got Powell and Cipriani - who is next? Perhaps we can get Julian White.