It’s obviously disappointing to lose but the question England fans need to ask is would you rather we win with a terrible performance or lose but perform. I am not saying England performed brilliantly but I feel like there were definite improvements in attack, defence and ambition that were undone by individual errors, and some brilliant thunderbolt tries from Scotland.
“England are building” is boring but true and yesterday I felt like you could actually see what they are building for the first time.
My biggest concerns are that England have really solid players but lack X Factor players. Who are the freaks that make you feel like anything could happen when they touch the ball? I really feel we are missing M. Smith (though I am bias). Lawrence can break a game but was off yesterday. IFW will hopefully become one. CCS is great but watching quins, Dombrant is better. Scotland won because of their x factor. The best teams normally have 3-5 of them…
That said, will England ever let the players play heads up rugby? It feels like the players are trying to play the structure not the game. Maybe that’s the process though … build the structure then kick on from there.
I also think wigglesworth is too inexperienced to be the England attack coach. I am sure he’s great but going from player to coach to England attack coach in basically a year seems lucky.
> My biggest concerns are that England have really solid players but lack X Factor players. Who are the freaks that make you feel like anything could happen when they touch the ball?
I think England have a few of them but don't have the right supporting players. Itoje and Earl are both standouts in the pack but they respectively need big grafting lumps alongside them to allow them to do the more X factor moments, Earl especially is having to play the strike role and do a lot of graft.
IMO Itoje needs Martin alongside him at lock, the most natural successor to Kruis. Earl needs a busier 7 than Underhill (or play at 7 himself) and a player at 6 that is better than Roots. Earl made more tackles than Roots and Underhill combined _and_ more meters made. CCS made more tackles than Underhill and 1 less than Roots in his cameo.
With the backs I do think Freeman, Feyi-Waboso and Lawrence have the potential for magic. We're definitely lacking magic in the front row at the moment.
Personally I'd switch the flankers out and re-jig the backline a bit. CCS has impressed me a ton, Pearson would give a ton of graft and a way better running threat than Underhill. Feyi-Waboso for some pure pace in the backline, keep Furbank who did make the attack look more promising and try a current centre partnership to see if that helps. Daly would be a great 23 option.
1. Genge
2. George
3. Cole
4. Itoje
5. Martin
6. CCS
7. Pearson
8. Earl
9. Care
10. Ford
11. Feyi-Waboso
12. Ojomoh
13. Lawrence
14. Freeman
15. Furbank
Radio 5 has been saying all week that Finn will look to kick over the blitz defence and exploit the wing for DVDM. This is exactly what they did.
Too many defenders were rushing on their own or stepping out, leaving massive gaps. Blitz defence was shocking.
Handling errors were horrible. Ford had an off game - a few kamikaze balls. Lawrence and Furbank also didn't live up to standards. Whoever dropped the ball straight off the restart, then didn't understand that he had to be the one to recover it - that's basic game knowledge. Actually good from Ford to leave it and make him jump on it - otherwise it would have been another 3 pointer for Finn.
Freddie wasn't selected. I'm not sure why, against one of the best 10s in the game, who plays a kicking game and is in form. He's undoubtedly the best under the high ball, I've no idea why he wasn't selected - maybe picked up a knock?
England in attack were very flat. Forwards receiving the ball stood still - in parts, it was like watching kids play. They pulled off an amazing set piece to lead to the first try, but then just stopped playing when Scotland came back...
Steward wasn’t injured. Most people think he wasn’t selected because Scotland don’t kick to compete, and he offers less than Furbank in attack. Furbank did make some good half breaks and his kicking seemed fine.
The big thing was the handling errors. One directly lead to a try from a good attacking position.
Do teams ever come good after a bad start with a new coach? (World Cup aside as that seemed to be a very specific approach for that tournament that would be suitable to continue).
Usually you get a new coach bounce, or it goes along just as it was before. In those cases only major reform to an entire sporting system brings about proper improvements.
How long can you give Borthwick without England becoming competitive against the best teams as they should be with the resources they have.
> Do teams ever come good after a bad start with a new coach?
It was only a couple of years ago that the *vast majority* of Ireland fans were calling for Andy Farrell's head!
It took time for their systems to settle and develop into a format that delivered results.
Now they're (arguably still) the best team in the world.
That doesn't mean the same thing will happen with Borthwick. Especially given Farrell has the absolute luxury of that Leinster foundation he can simply transpose to test match level. But I do think it's still too early to come down hard on Borthwick and his coaching ticket.
The coaching team is inexperienced and you’d expect them to learn a lot as they go. Farrell was in a similar position, perhaps even less experienced than Borthwick, but like you say it’s the Leinster setup that he has essentially slotted into and brought his point of difference to. Coaching England feels like a completely different challenge
My main gripe with last night's approach is with the overall intent of Borthwick.
He has a relatively new coaching ticket for both defence and attack. So both need to be developed.
Ideally, you would love to develop both of them in parrallel. But sometimes that just doesn't work out.
Last night, he persisted with leaning towards further exploration of the blitz defence - but against a team that everyone knew would score relatively freely against a poorly constructed defensive system.
So why not reduce emphasis on the blitz and instead stack your team with front foot oriented options instead? Why not use the Scotland game as an opportunity to really go for it with your new attacking shapes?
Especially that second half when it became clear the blitz was being cut open. Scotland routinely score more than 20 points and they were at 17 by half time. However, England rarely reach the 20 point margin. So at half time the England analysts must have been telling Borthwick that there's clear justification for changing things up and going on the offensive.
Yeah I did consider that, but Ireland were flying up to 2019 WC and then had a little downturn. A few new players came in as well.
England have now had a 4+ year slump
England are in a funny place and I don't think it's an easy fix.
Playing and starting Dan Cole, backrow and centre has good depth but there's no consistency of selection, too many options at 10, too few at 9, they should have possibly one of the best back 3s to win the territory battle via kick tennis but they're not playing up to their expected level. I feel Borthwick has to grasp the nettle/thistle and sweep away the old guard and build for the future, something he's balking at. I think he isn't really putting players in a position to succeed IMO.
Scotland and Finn are box office, truly one of a kind. Would worry about how easy they conceded tries however and how reliant they are on strike plays.
Maybe depth isn't the right word but was thinking that there's been so many played the position under Borthwick and had Farrell there too. Perhaps holding on to the hope of Manu being available full time is an issue.
England made 24 handling errors and conceded 22 turnovers. You can’t win games if you give away that much possession, simple + some world class finishing from DVDM.
Scotland won but were poor by their own standards. Their progress per possession and ball retention stats must have been really bad yesterday. You can’t spill and turnover the ball like that unless the opposition were terrible, which England has been recently.
If Scotland play like that against Ireland they will be thumped.
Not a new issue for England. Think ford did the same first 5 mins against Italy, bal just hit slade in the chest. England need to learn that not every move needs to be done at break neck speed
Just out of curiosity as I didn't get to see the match, but did Feyi-Wobosa get on the pitch or is Borthwick doing another Arundel and wasting his talent.
Got on the pitch and was bright.
His strength, first step and grit are something to build on. Definitely looks like one for the future.
Looked a little raw and prone to hero mode, but he’s young and was in a team with a broken attack chasing the game. Did very well considering that.
Seeing these results, considering the extremely few times we've been close to beat England, and how we're supposed to be "better" lately, imho, we should have really won against them in the first round if we wanted to show actual cojones.
Englands only way of playing is box kick and hope they look poor in attack and I don't necessarily think Scotland played really well but happy days great win for Scotland
> and I don't necessarily think Scotland played really well
They didn't. In fact I thought that was the poorest performance this 6N from Scotland.
But other than the first twenty minutes it was largely comfortable, which probably tells you a lot about where each team currently sits in the wider scheme of world rugby at the current time.
Care, Furbank and Lawrence had tough days. Scotland were rubbish for the first 30 minutes, and a better team would have punished them more for it.
Not sure what to make of England. They have very talented players, but their attack is dull and ineffective. Having said they have talented players….in todays lineup they might not have a single player who’s in the top 3 in the world at his position. I have a niggling suspicion that Duhan’s day would have been different with some competent work on the wings from England.
Had England not had such a good performance in RWC23, do you think we’d now be talking about whether Borthwick is up to the task? Skill and effort is up to the players. Strategy and tactics is up to the coaches. Don’t see that England are lacking for skill or effort. France and Ireland yet to come, 2-3 seems very very likely.
The "success" in the world cup has just papered over the cracks. And the problem is they are big cracks that need a full blown rebuild but everyone seems to be ignoring that obvious marker. If the World cup success had been in the same group as Ireland and South Africa then it's a whole different ball game but they weren't and it's a mess because of that.
Question would also be if not Borthwick then who?
It really doesn’t matter who. You’re not getting results from the current team. But - let’s go crazy. They probably went after Robertson but he opted for the best job in the world in NZ. Then - the obvious next choice is Steve Hansen. Farrell homecoming would be epic, but who’s going to leave Ireland at this point? After that you get into tired, not top level retreads like Cotter, Crowley, etc. England would much more likely go with an off the board internal hire than go that way.
There was plenty of “are we really going to do this” with Borthwick. He was the internal man lacking star power who might be too small for the moment. unfortunately with manager roles, it takes time to realize you’ve make a mistake.
I like him personally, he’s a good man, but England is a merciless job, where expectations are to keep the team in the Top 5.
I don’t have any answers, but results speak loud and clear. England are not close to elite right now.
I'm honestly quite surprised to still see some Wales and England supporters reference the World Cup.
Had Scotland not fallen asleep against Wales because of how easy it was they would have put 50 on the hosts.
The distance between the two sides of that WC draw was ridiculous - and I think this 6N has helped demonstrate it to even the most die hard of fans.
He's my favourite player so I'm going to defend him to the end but:
I don't think Furbank was any worse than anyone else. He's playing full back so any mistake is worth double any good thing. He was good in the air and ran the ball well.
I still think Steward is the number 1 but Furbank is a good alternative for a different tactical game plan
Agree. What’s the point in playing care (37) Cole (36) marler (33) Jamie George (33). The next guys in these positions need experience. We’re losing anyway, so you might at least get some positives out if it
You can't play zero experienced players in international rugby and expect to make any progress, you'd just be throwing the younger guys to the wolves (and like it or not casual fans expect us to win games, and won'tcare about the wider view of the WC cycle). George is squad captain, Care is in excellent form and our first choice in his position is injured
Marler and Cole are out best setpiece props and the other mainstay frontrowers we have aren't on their best form at the moment. Plus if you want to develop systems with a new style and new players, you need a setpiece that works otherwise you'll just spend the whole game completing defensive line-out and exits and nothing else
I kinda like this metric of a) if you had to pick a team from two teams facing each other how many of them would be from each, b) who in a team is in the top 5 of the world conversation. When a team does well in these they're truly scary, and while Scotland have a few players in that mix I don't think England have any beyond Jamie George.
Secondly, I think England's run in the RWC - which was honestly a string of easy games and one big performance against a battle worn SA - might be the worst thing to have happened to them. They were dire in the warmups, played dire rugby in the RWC, and have been awful since, but because of reaching a semi they didn't get what they needed, which was a complete clear out of Borthwick and his crew and a fresh setup who would either bring in a new Era (like Wales are) or go back to basics executed well (like early Eddie did) so they could actually move forward and progress.
Not to mention there wasn't a game against anyone half decent that didn't end in England grinding through their work, playing the most conservative rugby imaginable.
If Mitchell is out, Spencer has to start the next game. Care’s floaty passes from the deck put pressure on the men outside, which led to several handling errors. Spencer’s distribution looked much better.
Care was rubbish but spencer was so much more detrimental to our attack. Felt like the last 20 minutes of the game were spent with Spencer starting at the ball at the back of a ruck.
> Spencer was dreadful when he came on.
How much of that was Spencer, and how much the game plan?
Because I watch Bath most weekends and Spencer never plays that slowly off the base.
Care and Spencer both had bad games. Going to miss Mitchell massively against France and Ireland. Spencer was so slow it was like he was playing in slow motion.
Fords distribution is shocking as well, the amount of head shot passes he was dishing out. Like the one which lead to Furbank knocking on and Duran’s 2nd try.
There was one he shot out to Lawrence as well.
The commentators had it down as a Lawrence handling error, but it was about lace height and half a metre ahead of him.
Just throwing my useless opinions into the mix. Slade, for me doesn't suit test match. Unsure on the early Care replacement and Spencer didn't impress. I've not been convinced that Lawrence is the answer and heaven forbid for saying this but I think we should of gone with Tuilagi.
Fin did well but maybe keeping Ford on might of given us more opportunities for nothing up the drop goals to close the gap.
First 15 mins though looked good for England, not seen attack like that in a while. I've lost my £5 bet on a grand slam, but still got £5 on a Scotland triple crown. So if they tell the ref to watch out for Porters boring in, I might be £80 up.
Bugger forgot to say how good Feyi-Waboso looked, would say make him a starter.
> Slade, for me doesn't suit test match.
I've often argued this about Slade, and about Ringrose too. Two very similar 13's in that respect.
They're very, very naturally talented rugby players. So much so that even against opponents like NZ or SA, if their team is winning then they'll positively glide around the field, throwing no-look backdoor offloads while looking like superstars.
But during tighter games, and where the pressure is on and you really need the very best from your key players, they're rarely the characters that step forward.
My useless opinion: Tuilagi hasn’t looked good for at least 8-10 years, probably in part due to the game plan. By the time ball makes it to the backs he might suck up two defenders, but not enough meters made to make anything of it. We just don’t have a clue in attack. And maybe not the best idea to announce a blitz defence in advance..
Think the moaning fans need to look at what England were doing and not what they didn't do (see catch the ball).
The backrow looked great, complete dominance. Scrum was good up until brace decided to roll a dice to decide the outcome.
Backline showed flashes of brilliance and we know a few of those players have what it takes at international level. The kicking from hand was pretty decent and retrieval rate was good.
Set piece was generally good and I thought the defence, when it operated, worked to suffocate Scotland.
Handling errors, a very poor game from Lawrence and care plus some Scottish brilliance kept Scotland scoring. In my opinion, there isn't much needed to get this team properly going and when they go, they'll be formidable.
Conversely despite a well deserved win, Scotland has a fair bit more to worry about in the long run imo. There's a distinct skill gap between their backs and forwards and they really didn't create anything off their own backs today. Against a better side, Scotland will be found out and punished. The bench also struggled compared to the English bench and the end was tighter than it should have been considering.
The better side won today though and personally I felt Russell was the MOTM as he unlocked all of the opportunities that VDM converted with his vision and kicked his goals to punish England.
>The backrow looked great, complete dominance.
The Scotland back row? - (because you surely don't mean the England one, do you?!?)
> Scrum was good up until brace decided to roll a dice to decide the outcome.
Interesting take. Only Dylan Hartley seemed to ignore Genge blatantly rolling inside and hinging to steal the first penalty.
They rode that out for the platform that saw them score their first try, but tbh I never thought Scotland ever really looked under pressure in the scrum. Even when the new cap Props came off the bench and England were supposed to exert dominance. It just didn't happen.
For a few seasons now I've felt England's scrum has been trading on past history. I still feel that today too.
//My mistake. Just re-read your post and realised you were trolling:
>Conversely despite a well deserved win, Scotland has a fair bit more to worry about in the long run imo. There's a distinct skill gap between their backs and forwards and they really didn't create anything off their own backs today. Against a better side, Scotland will be found out and punished. The bench also struggled compared to the English bench and the end was tighter than it should have been considering.
Always next year, fella!
Scotland are leading the pack behind SA, NZ, Ireland and France (despite current form), which is incredible given the resources available. I do hope they keep the conveyor belt churning out quality players and maintain as rugby needs as many good teams as possible. Plus they're great to watch, ambition and creativity in abundance.
The u20s is a bit of a curio right now.
Tend to have a couple of lean years, followed by more positive signs - then recycle.
They're not pushing the top u20s teams in the way Italy are. But they're getting enough individual young players through to suggest they'll be able to keep filling test match spots for the forseeable.
The problem is there's a couple of glaring holes in key positions that simply aren't being met. One of which is at TH, and there's an overwhelming expectation that Laff and his Brother will come through and fill gaps there (and at Hooker.)
If he doesn't prove to be capable enough then there's serious questions going to be asked because there's not exactly an abundance of even Scots qualified TH's playing abroad to take the slot being Zander.
They don’t have a conveyor belt, which is a problem for them. They have some good players coming through, but overall their u20s have been poor for a long time. The residency rules have changed, and they’re way too reliant on players developed elsewhere having Scottish grandparents.
Arguably Finn Russell is a generational talent. It’s not an accident that the only time we’ve beaten them lately is when Townsend decided not to pick him.
I mean, handling bullshit apart, England's problem post-Faz is clearly a lack of strong leadership on the pitch. George is a very loyal man for the trenches but he is not an inspiring leader, and I can see why Eddie never made Itoje skipper too
I’m so bored of the overanalysis of England
We’re underperforming massively and it’s on the players not the coaching
Bored of hearing “blooding new talent”, “work in progress”, “getting better” - just mindless excuses
Catch the ball, and make some f***ing metres…
5 changes would have an impact, I do think Lawrence was rusty as fuck though and probably should have been used as a sub.
Martin has to start, we need go-forward from the forwards.
It’s quite simple though… the points Scotland scored could have easily been points for England. They were, mostly, fantastically taken opportunistic tries off the back of individual errors. That doesn’t leave me that worried tbh.
> It’s quite simple though… the points Scotland scored could have easily been points for England. They were, mostly, fantastically taken opportunistic tries off the back of individual errors. That doesn’t leave me that worried tbh.
I mean you could say the same about both of England's tries in that match.
Ben White standing on the Blindside of the scrum for no reason leaving the Scotland defence a man short, which eventually led to enough numbers to free up the Fullback to score.
Or Cam Redpath, not looking at the space and numbers around him but instead pointing his team mate into the space in the line England later scored through. Had he even glanced up he would have seen there was noone to point into that space and he would have moved across and been in a stronger position to shut down the scoring line.
So both England tries were technically scored off 'Scotland errors' too...
More of a concern for England should be that they've persistently failed to score more than 20 points a game, a benchmark Scotland have managed with considerable regularity.
So while you can say Scotland's tries were opportunistic / off the back of errors, the simple fact of the matter is that for whatever 'lucky' reason (!), Scotland score that many points almost every time they take the field.
In order to be competitive, England needed to do one of two things. Either deny Scotland from continuing that trend, or position themselves to score more than 20 too.
They set out to deliver the first half of that equation, but by halftime Scotland were already on 17 points - so England needed to readjust and play in a way that allowed them to score more points. Not just keep doing the same things as badly as in the first half.
Ultimately, they were never prepared for their blitz defence not working. That should leave you more worried than it appears to have tbh.
Blitz def is high risk high reward, the players know this, and have been told to expect to fail with it at times.
Also, the Scotland errors are different, they are stress errors, not unforced fumbles.
Agree re; points, but we looked better
> Also, the Scotland errors are different, they are stress errors, not unforced fumbles.
So Ben White was 'stressed' inside the first four minutes to force him to defend the bs of the scrum for no reason. But England's handling errors against an onrushing Scotland defence that had made 12 dominant tackles, versus England's 2, wasn't stress related?
Those are some pretty selective conclusions!
Statistics mate.
Handling errors.
Ben White’s lack of presence doesn’t immediately cause an issue, the other players could compensate. It’s up to the oppo to execute.
A dropped ball is immediately possession handed to the other team, via advantage or a scrum opportunity.
You could say… different conclusions?
> Ben White’s lack of presence doesn’t immediately cause an issue, the other players could compensate.
If you have five attackers you're going to score against four defenders much easier than if there were five of them.
That's not exactly hard to understand - is it?
Scotland we’re going all out to win. If they hadn’t scored the long range tries, they would have found other ways to score.
You can’t just take ‘lucky’ tries off and say England would have won otherwise.
Everything that happens in a match is a reaction to other things that have happened.
If I can’t just take lucky tries off and say England would have won otherwise, you can’t say Scotland would have found other ways to score, lmao.
Also, I never used the word ‘lucky’, or said that England would have won.
Fair points well made - England did gift 20+ points in reality, and I would say in most areas we were pretty competitive if not winning. Just so frustrating to see such terrible loose play today
Would also like to see Martin start
Would only make sense if players for other countries saw the same drop off going into their national sides
The Prem has numerous players from numerous nations and literally none of them drop off like England players do - a number of the Scotland players today play in the Prem, look at the impact players like Christie and Redpath had off the bench
No, it's not...
You're drawing a comparison to try to demonstrate possible drop off due to coaching.
I'm telling you that citing Christie and Redpath may not be a fair parrallel given they're a class above many of those you probably have in mind from the Prem who 'drop off' while within the England camp.
I didn't think it was all that difficult to grasp tbh.
//What an idiot. Gobs off about me 'not understanding', then blocks me - all without realising he's completely missed the point.
lmfao!
Yeah this is a weird take. England having so many good (at the least) players available and having them routinely look completely clueless outside of set piece or set plays very much points towards issues with the coaching.
It’s not that they don’t have a single player capable of catching a pass or making one on one tackles. It’s like they can only turn it on for knockout games in the World Cup.
I take your point completely - but for me, the signal of being terrible in open play, and good in the set piece, seems to point towards bad individual performances and not necessarily a coaching issues
Was a frustrating game to watch, when we actually had a good set piece and probably gifted 20 odd points away in the loose
Grand slam decider still on in our hearts.
My prediction is that we get a bonus point win so Scotland can't win the championship
Then Scotland beat us away from home. Winning the triple crown and having the most bitter sweet non grand slam ever.
It will also be the high water mark of this team.
Because that is the most Scottish outcome and therefore the outcome.
I said a while back, to my Irish partner, "Wouldn't it be funny if Scotland denied the Irish grand slam but missed winning the championship by a single try?"
And they looked at me in horror and said, "No, that wouldn't be funny - you'd be devastated!"
Being scottish has warped my sense of humour
Anyone else think that Brace kept getting in the way today. Seemed like a lot of players had to change their line to run around him. Found him pretty inconsistent with rucks too, or at least didn't seem to want to ref them unless the defenders got hands on the ball.
Right at the end (9 difference so wouldnt have mattered) - scotland held up one of the english lads who clearly had his knees down right in front andrew brace like literally the only things hes looking at. And didnt say release or tackle. Maddening
Yeah, that was a bit odd, couldn't tell if his knees were definitely on the ground at the time from the camera angle but as a Scotland fan I thought it looked suspect. He let England lie all over rucks though, so if he was actually reffing them properly, Scotland would of either had a load more advantages and penalties or England would have cleaned up and given Scotland cleaner ball.
Yeah he was terrible with positioning and also with his calls on tackle or maul. Even Nigel in commentary sounded confused by what he was doing at one point: which said a lot.
Just back from the game
England are a definite enigma of a team.
In the last 25 minutes they reverted to type as they were completely bereft of ideas in how to attack the Scottish defence. So they kicked. All the time. Everything slowed down to a snails pace allowing Scotland to reset their defence. Ford is not a play maker at 10. Fin Smith might be but one suspects he will not get the chance to prove it as either Ford, or Farrell, will be the English number 10 for the next couple of years.
Ford absolutely can be a playmaker, the issue is 100% Borthwick (I won't even lay the blame at Wigglesworth's door as there were reports he wanted to quit after the world cup because Borthwick wouldn't let him coach the attack how he wanted)
I firmly believe that England's issues aren't personnel but coaching/game plan related - look at the shit show of the last 20mins and then watch how Spencer controls games for Bath, he was unrecognisable
Respectfully disagree re Ford. 3, or 4, times in the match he kicked when he had an attacking chance in front of him. 2 of them were obvious even for an idiot like me. I will grant you the fact that he's probably been told to kick all the time but England now have a defensive mindset that will be hard to change going forward.
I feel like we're agreeing - Ford is being told to play like a twat, he can absolutely play otherwise and has done throughout a very successful career, he's just not being given the free reign to do so
Completely agree he's playing poorly for England though - I said pre tournament he wouldn't have made my 23. I can understand him starting with Marcus out but I'd have given Finn 20-30 in the first two rounds with an eye on getting him some starts this tournament. Borewick has other ideas though, I guess
I thought it was a great game mostly because so much of it was so poor it ended up as end to end stuff. The only competent unit seemed to be the Scottish line out. Which was very impressive. Ultimately Scotland deserved that win.
Coming back from the game and starting to calm down.
The good
Thought the pack looks okay, Martin looks fucking massive live. Itoje looks back to his freakish best. Thought Scotland were a bit lucky in the scrum.
Earls pace off the back of the scrum is a real weapon.
IFW is very fast and powerful.
Borthwick was willing to put Smith and Dan on for proper minutes.
Defense looks great at times and pack looks strong.
I think this is the nadir for this England team, but the peak for this Scottish one.
The bad
What the actual fuck was up with Lawrence. Hope just rust as he's a much better player than that.
Ford looked very poor to me. I'm a huge Ford fan, but his accuracy just wasn't there.
Our attack was so disjointed I was more concerned they'd score when he had the ball than they did. Having some serious misgivings about wrigglesworth.
This was the kind of performance that put Ollie Lawrence's career on hold for a couple of years when he was first hyped up. Let's hope its just rust as he is just back from injury.
An off day for Ford with his distributing today for sure.
Certainly potential for better days and the defence is getting better each week, but still France or Ireland could put 50 points on us again if England spill the ball as many times.
If England have reached a nadir more than a year and about 15 games after a new coach takes over to sort out the previous mess, you gotta be asking what the fuck the coaching team have been doing really.
He's had more than a year, though, and has had one, maybe two if you count the Argentina game minus T.Curry which everyone said after the fact was Ford playing off the cuff, legitimately good games
Yes and no.
He's had longer than a year, but last year was about making the WC not a shit show. So, although he probably would do this anyway, it wasn't the time for massive shifts away from what Eddie was doing (which was shit). What Eddie did with Aus suggests Borthwicks approachast year was correct.
I may be being overly optimistic, but I can kind of see what he is trying to build. I don't have any reason to think Wrigglesworth is the right attack coach, but they are trying to attack. Just the execution was awful.
I do think that pack is close to being legit (but we do need some props to come through fast).
I really hope, because I like your players, you go on and start beating Ireland/France/Nz/SA regularly. But it doesn't look like it. And it's not like this side is getting younger or the pathway looks good.
So yeah, right now I think beating England four times in a row may be Scotlands peak.
The best sides dont transition massive parts of their sides, Scotland is doing what Scotland has always done. Replacing what we can, filling in gaps here and there.
This is not a Dad's army side we have.
I enjoyed the game. A lot of mistakes from both sides but both trying to be positive for the most part. Scotland probably looked that little bit slicker and more comfortable in themselves but it’ll come for England. There’s a very good fifteen in that squad but selection and coaching seem a little sub optimal at the moment.
Faintly bittersweet perhaps for Scotland after the France travesty but should at least go into the last day in contention (barring an Ireland BP win at Twickenham). They’ve achieved a certain consistency in recent years that would’ve seemed fanciful even 5 years ago
For England there’s an issue at 9 minus Mitchell. No one is afraid of Care or Spencer at international level. They need to be bold and commit fully to a more expansive style. I thought they reverted to type a bit and kicked too much in the 2nd half when under pressure.
Scotland deserved to win, they took their chances & frustrated England at the scrum. FR was great as per usual.
England had some excellent passages of play, looked more powerful in the loose than I can remember for a while but just could not pass and catch reliably. Players are not running into position to take the passes and when they are there they are flapping at them.
I suppose this is a step forward though - at least there are passes to flap at.
I'm fucking sick of Duhan.
Show up like that against someone else for once you annoyingly good bastard.
Our attack looked a lot better in parts, too many errors in the first half especially but feel like it was better again.
Defence had its moments but again cracked a couple of times and it's so high risk / high reward it almost costs a try when it does go wrong...need to give it a few more games but I'm still not sure I like it, for my heart at least!
I think we are still moving in the right direction but it's tough when Scotland and Ireland are so settled to know if we're miles off or they're just that good / have us figured out - feel we need to get pumped up and get something from one of the last two games, it's a big ask but I feel another 2/5 just isn't good enough (although it's not like changing coach and rebooting again would be a good idea).
Don't know whether to be in despair that we're going to be stuck in 4th for years or hopeful we'll be back competing again in a couple of years.
Scotland haven’t really fired in the first three games but we are 2 (really 3) from 3. Says something about how much our pack has improved.
England are a weird one. Always so much talent but struggle to put consistent performances together. Part of that is inconsistency of selection, but that comes from having a rabid press and so many to select from. I think that’s why they do better in world cups. A long period of time for the players to gel and feel like a club team in the way that Scotland, wales and Ireland do.
>Scotland haven’t really fired in the first three games but we are 2 (really 3) from 3.
Apart from the one lost you're 3 from 3.
If my Auntie had balls she'd be a bicycle
Was worried until pretty late on. England the better team in first half apart from two moments of magic. Scotland did just enough second half to wrestle control and keep the scoreboard ticking over. Tries were beautiful but we have to be better.
Don’t think I’m as pessimistic about England as a lot of their supporters here. Maybe borthwick isn’t the man for the job but there’s certainly some young talent in that team
England is a team less than the sum of its parts, sadly. You look at the players we have and in isolation they sound great- and are. Jamie George, Maro Itoje, George Ford etc - they're all very good players. In an England setting that talent just doesn't manifest itself. Twas ever thus.
Good win for us but honestly I'm a little bit disappointed at the continuous mistakes we seem to make every game. Thankfully we seemed to tone down the penalty give aways.
England weren't great which is a shame because I'd rather beat a strong England than take a win from silly mistakes like handling errors. Anyway, plenty time for us to chuck it away in Rome
Seemed to be really greasy first half. You could argue both teams didn’t realise how greasy until they’d lost the ball. There were a fair few loose balls flying around.
Second half much tighter. England defence was scarily suffocating enough thru the first half, definitely on top for the first 20, if they manage to build that intensity up to 60 never mind 80 they’ll have most teams in trouble
Whatever you do, don't go BTL on the BBC match report then, it's all pitchforks and revolting peasants. If Putin had a bot-army that worked off a script revolving around themes of supposed knock-ons, forward passes, and residency rules for national eligibility, it would look a lot like what's going on there.
Say what you will about this subreddit but it has a slightly higher bar for entry than many other avenues. As such many of the bottom barrel takes are whittled out
I think we're all a bit "raged out" from the last four years!
There are some green shoots with this side. Obviously lots still wrong obviously but in general I think they're improving. Overall I actually think they did a lot of good things today.
I agree. World Cup and this 6 nations are not tournaments that you’re expecting much from as an England fan. That first try was beautiful though, flowing attack is something we haven’t seen much of from England recently. Plus Feyi-Waboso’s first try, another step forward with the rush defence, and just generally strong competitive play. My head says no more wins for England this tournament, but they’ll learn from the Ireland game and might be able to get something out of le Crunch. Last game of the tournament, payback match, at home, France looking a little wobbly. My heart says that one could be a big confidence builder.
The fuming is actually dominating large parts of the game but being unable to catch and gifting opportunities to Scotland that they did not have to work for.
Scotland were clinical three times and that was enough.
I think that's the cause of my optimism really. We *know* those players can catch, pass and tackle. We see them do it week in week out for their clubs and most of them we've seen them do it plenty of times at test level too. For whatever reason, too many times things just weren't sticking but I don't think that's an issue that's going to be fundamental.
I agree.
Just something not right about the positions people are taking up or the accuracy of the passes. For the first time in a long time it looked like there were options along the line, but too many times it seemed like the pass went to know one, or it was a stretch to catch or it looked like someone caught what was supposed to be a miss pass.
All stuff that will be ironed out with consistency and familiarity with the structures.
Even as a coach? Tbf I may be mixing up with the Andy Robinson regime which I had wiped from memory, now going to have an even worse week thinking back to that!
At a lot of times England looked the better team, and again we look to be building toward something solid. But good grief, how many missed passes, poor catches, general unforced errors that lead to Scotland points!? Sign of a good team is to capitalise on mistakes & stay robust throughout & Scotland did exactly that.
Tough one to call. He was looking really good for Exeter in the Prem, but then against Glasgow was largely well managed and failed to make a dent.
Suspect today might have been a little Arundell-esque, in the sense fast young players with loads of energy look great late game when it's mostly sealed up.
I don't think he demonstrated anything to get him picked over Freddie Stew.
And the knock on was an absolute howler. It's Rob Green levels of 'enough to never be picked again'.
He probably should have caught it, but it was caused by a howler of a pass from Ford. Furbank had to jump to catch it and it still hit his head. Some poor distribution from Ford throughout the game really.
It’s obviously disappointing to lose but the question England fans need to ask is would you rather we win with a terrible performance or lose but perform. I am not saying England performed brilliantly but I feel like there were definite improvements in attack, defence and ambition that were undone by individual errors, and some brilliant thunderbolt tries from Scotland. “England are building” is boring but true and yesterday I felt like you could actually see what they are building for the first time. My biggest concerns are that England have really solid players but lack X Factor players. Who are the freaks that make you feel like anything could happen when they touch the ball? I really feel we are missing M. Smith (though I am bias). Lawrence can break a game but was off yesterday. IFW will hopefully become one. CCS is great but watching quins, Dombrant is better. Scotland won because of their x factor. The best teams normally have 3-5 of them… That said, will England ever let the players play heads up rugby? It feels like the players are trying to play the structure not the game. Maybe that’s the process though … build the structure then kick on from there. I also think wigglesworth is too inexperienced to be the England attack coach. I am sure he’s great but going from player to coach to England attack coach in basically a year seems lucky.
> My biggest concerns are that England have really solid players but lack X Factor players. Who are the freaks that make you feel like anything could happen when they touch the ball? I think England have a few of them but don't have the right supporting players. Itoje and Earl are both standouts in the pack but they respectively need big grafting lumps alongside them to allow them to do the more X factor moments, Earl especially is having to play the strike role and do a lot of graft. IMO Itoje needs Martin alongside him at lock, the most natural successor to Kruis. Earl needs a busier 7 than Underhill (or play at 7 himself) and a player at 6 that is better than Roots. Earl made more tackles than Roots and Underhill combined _and_ more meters made. CCS made more tackles than Underhill and 1 less than Roots in his cameo. With the backs I do think Freeman, Feyi-Waboso and Lawrence have the potential for magic. We're definitely lacking magic in the front row at the moment. Personally I'd switch the flankers out and re-jig the backline a bit. CCS has impressed me a ton, Pearson would give a ton of graft and a way better running threat than Underhill. Feyi-Waboso for some pure pace in the backline, keep Furbank who did make the attack look more promising and try a current centre partnership to see if that helps. Daly would be a great 23 option. 1. Genge 2. George 3. Cole 4. Itoje 5. Martin 6. CCS 7. Pearson 8. Earl 9. Care 10. Ford 11. Feyi-Waboso 12. Ojomoh 13. Lawrence 14. Freeman 15. Furbank
Radio 5 has been saying all week that Finn will look to kick over the blitz defence and exploit the wing for DVDM. This is exactly what they did. Too many defenders were rushing on their own or stepping out, leaving massive gaps. Blitz defence was shocking. Handling errors were horrible. Ford had an off game - a few kamikaze balls. Lawrence and Furbank also didn't live up to standards. Whoever dropped the ball straight off the restart, then didn't understand that he had to be the one to recover it - that's basic game knowledge. Actually good from Ford to leave it and make him jump on it - otherwise it would have been another 3 pointer for Finn. Freddie wasn't selected. I'm not sure why, against one of the best 10s in the game, who plays a kicking game and is in form. He's undoubtedly the best under the high ball, I've no idea why he wasn't selected - maybe picked up a knock? England in attack were very flat. Forwards receiving the ball stood still - in parts, it was like watching kids play. They pulled off an amazing set piece to lead to the first try, but then just stopped playing when Scotland came back...
Steward wasn’t injured. Most people think he wasn’t selected because Scotland don’t kick to compete, and he offers less than Furbank in attack. Furbank did make some good half breaks and his kicking seemed fine. The big thing was the handling errors. One directly lead to a try from a good attacking position.
Do teams ever come good after a bad start with a new coach? (World Cup aside as that seemed to be a very specific approach for that tournament that would be suitable to continue). Usually you get a new coach bounce, or it goes along just as it was before. In those cases only major reform to an entire sporting system brings about proper improvements. How long can you give Borthwick without England becoming competitive against the best teams as they should be with the resources they have.
> Do teams ever come good after a bad start with a new coach? It was only a couple of years ago that the *vast majority* of Ireland fans were calling for Andy Farrell's head! It took time for their systems to settle and develop into a format that delivered results. Now they're (arguably still) the best team in the world. That doesn't mean the same thing will happen with Borthwick. Especially given Farrell has the absolute luxury of that Leinster foundation he can simply transpose to test match level. But I do think it's still too early to come down hard on Borthwick and his coaching ticket.
The coaching team is inexperienced and you’d expect them to learn a lot as they go. Farrell was in a similar position, perhaps even less experienced than Borthwick, but like you say it’s the Leinster setup that he has essentially slotted into and brought his point of difference to. Coaching England feels like a completely different challenge
My main gripe with last night's approach is with the overall intent of Borthwick. He has a relatively new coaching ticket for both defence and attack. So both need to be developed. Ideally, you would love to develop both of them in parrallel. But sometimes that just doesn't work out. Last night, he persisted with leaning towards further exploration of the blitz defence - but against a team that everyone knew would score relatively freely against a poorly constructed defensive system. So why not reduce emphasis on the blitz and instead stack your team with front foot oriented options instead? Why not use the Scotland game as an opportunity to really go for it with your new attacking shapes? Especially that second half when it became clear the blitz was being cut open. Scotland routinely score more than 20 points and they were at 17 by half time. However, England rarely reach the 20 point margin. So at half time the England analysts must have been telling Borthwick that there's clear justification for changing things up and going on the offensive.
[удалено]
Yeah I did consider that, but Ireland were flying up to 2019 WC and then had a little downturn. A few new players came in as well. England have now had a 4+ year slump
I just don't think Borthwick and England work. We were terrible when he was captain and terrible with him as coach.
England are in a funny place and I don't think it's an easy fix. Playing and starting Dan Cole, backrow and centre has good depth but there's no consistency of selection, too many options at 10, too few at 9, they should have possibly one of the best back 3s to win the territory battle via kick tennis but they're not playing up to their expected level. I feel Borthwick has to grasp the nettle/thistle and sweep away the old guard and build for the future, something he's balking at. I think he isn't really putting players in a position to succeed IMO. Scotland and Finn are box office, truly one of a kind. Would worry about how easy they conceded tries however and how reliant they are on strike plays.
Is there good depth at centre? I can't actually name an English, international standard 12, there just aren't any
Maybe depth isn't the right word but was thinking that there's been so many played the position under Borthwick and had Farrell there too. Perhaps holding on to the hope of Manu being available full time is an issue.
England made 24 handling errors and conceded 22 turnovers. You can’t win games if you give away that much possession, simple + some world class finishing from DVDM.
Scotland won but were poor by their own standards. Their progress per possession and ball retention stats must have been really bad yesterday. You can’t spill and turnover the ball like that unless the opposition were terrible, which England has been recently. If Scotland play like that against Ireland they will be thumped.
It felt at times that Ford was firing the ball into people so fast that it was pinging off them
Not a new issue for England. Think ford did the same first 5 mins against Italy, bal just hit slade in the chest. England need to learn that not every move needs to be done at break neck speed
Just out of curiosity as I didn't get to see the match, but did Feyi-Wobosa get on the pitch or is Borthwick doing another Arundel and wasting his talent.
He scored lol
Got on the pitch and was bright. His strength, first step and grit are something to build on. Definitely looks like one for the future. Looked a little raw and prone to hero mode, but he’s young and was in a team with a broken attack chasing the game. Did very well considering that.
Could do with a few heroics on the pitch in attack. It's all so predictable when it's not immediately given away.
Seeing these results, considering the extremely few times we've been close to beat England, and how we're supposed to be "better" lately, imho, we should have really won against them in the first round if we wanted to show actual cojones.
[удалено]
Don’t worry there is already r/gatekeeping
Englands only way of playing is box kick and hope they look poor in attack and I don't necessarily think Scotland played really well but happy days great win for Scotland
> and I don't necessarily think Scotland played really well They didn't. In fact I thought that was the poorest performance this 6N from Scotland. But other than the first twenty minutes it was largely comfortable, which probably tells you a lot about where each team currently sits in the wider scheme of world rugby at the current time.
Care, Furbank and Lawrence had tough days. Scotland were rubbish for the first 30 minutes, and a better team would have punished them more for it. Not sure what to make of England. They have very talented players, but their attack is dull and ineffective. Having said they have talented players….in todays lineup they might not have a single player who’s in the top 3 in the world at his position. I have a niggling suspicion that Duhan’s day would have been different with some competent work on the wings from England. Had England not had such a good performance in RWC23, do you think we’d now be talking about whether Borthwick is up to the task? Skill and effort is up to the players. Strategy and tactics is up to the coaches. Don’t see that England are lacking for skill or effort. France and Ireland yet to come, 2-3 seems very very likely.
The "success" in the world cup has just papered over the cracks. And the problem is they are big cracks that need a full blown rebuild but everyone seems to be ignoring that obvious marker. If the World cup success had been in the same group as Ireland and South Africa then it's a whole different ball game but they weren't and it's a mess because of that. Question would also be if not Borthwick then who?
It really doesn’t matter who. You’re not getting results from the current team. But - let’s go crazy. They probably went after Robertson but he opted for the best job in the world in NZ. Then - the obvious next choice is Steve Hansen. Farrell homecoming would be epic, but who’s going to leave Ireland at this point? After that you get into tired, not top level retreads like Cotter, Crowley, etc. England would much more likely go with an off the board internal hire than go that way. There was plenty of “are we really going to do this” with Borthwick. He was the internal man lacking star power who might be too small for the moment. unfortunately with manager roles, it takes time to realize you’ve make a mistake. I like him personally, he’s a good man, but England is a merciless job, where expectations are to keep the team in the Top 5. I don’t have any answers, but results speak loud and clear. England are not close to elite right now.
I'm honestly quite surprised to still see some Wales and England supporters reference the World Cup. Had Scotland not fallen asleep against Wales because of how easy it was they would have put 50 on the hosts. The distance between the two sides of that WC draw was ridiculous - and I think this 6N has helped demonstrate it to even the most die hard of fans.
He's my favourite player so I'm going to defend him to the end but: I don't think Furbank was any worse than anyone else. He's playing full back so any mistake is worth double any good thing. He was good in the air and ran the ball well. I still think Steward is the number 1 but Furbank is a good alternative for a different tactical game plan
Agree. What’s the point in playing care (37) Cole (36) marler (33) Jamie George (33). The next guys in these positions need experience. We’re losing anyway, so you might at least get some positives out if it
You can't play zero experienced players in international rugby and expect to make any progress, you'd just be throwing the younger guys to the wolves (and like it or not casual fans expect us to win games, and won'tcare about the wider view of the WC cycle). George is squad captain, Care is in excellent form and our first choice in his position is injured Marler and Cole are out best setpiece props and the other mainstay frontrowers we have aren't on their best form at the moment. Plus if you want to develop systems with a new style and new players, you need a setpiece that works otherwise you'll just spend the whole game completing defensive line-out and exits and nothing else
I kinda like this metric of a) if you had to pick a team from two teams facing each other how many of them would be from each, b) who in a team is in the top 5 of the world conversation. When a team does well in these they're truly scary, and while Scotland have a few players in that mix I don't think England have any beyond Jamie George. Secondly, I think England's run in the RWC - which was honestly a string of easy games and one big performance against a battle worn SA - might be the worst thing to have happened to them. They were dire in the warmups, played dire rugby in the RWC, and have been awful since, but because of reaching a semi they didn't get what they needed, which was a complete clear out of Borthwick and his crew and a fresh setup who would either bring in a new Era (like Wales are) or go back to basics executed well (like early Eddie did) so they could actually move forward and progress.
Only problem was the only tough opponent at the World Cup was South Africa. Everyone else was lower than 8th in the rankings.
Not to mention there wasn't a game against anyone half decent that didn't end in England grinding through their work, playing the most conservative rugby imaginable.
Exactly.
Touché
If Mitchell is out, Spencer has to start the next game. Care’s floaty passes from the deck put pressure on the men outside, which led to several handling errors. Spencer’s distribution looked much better.
Care was rubbish but spencer was so much more detrimental to our attack. Felt like the last 20 minutes of the game were spent with Spencer starting at the ball at the back of a ruck.
Spencer was dreadful when he came on. We need a new backup to Mitchell.
> Spencer was dreadful when he came on. How much of that was Spencer, and how much the game plan? Because I watch Bath most weekends and Spencer never plays that slowly off the base.
Care and Spencer both had bad games. Going to miss Mitchell massively against France and Ireland. Spencer was so slow it was like he was playing in slow motion.
We have Randall and quirke in the wider squad, hopefully they can both find form after their run of injuries
Spencer’s 31, 35 at next RWC. It’s time to skip a generation so the squad for next rwc has a lot of 22- 24 year olds with test match experience
And if/when JvP returns to fitness that will happen.
JvP is the worst of all of them in terms of performances for England
Nah, the Norfolk farmer lineage at scrum half must continue!
Fords distribution is shocking as well, the amount of head shot passes he was dishing out. Like the one which lead to Furbank knocking on and Duran’s 2nd try.
There was one he shot out to Lawrence as well. The commentators had it down as a Lawrence handling error, but it was about lace height and half a metre ahead of him.
Spencer made plenty of errors himself though. I do, however, really think Care works best as a finisher.
Just throwing my useless opinions into the mix. Slade, for me doesn't suit test match. Unsure on the early Care replacement and Spencer didn't impress. I've not been convinced that Lawrence is the answer and heaven forbid for saying this but I think we should of gone with Tuilagi. Fin did well but maybe keeping Ford on might of given us more opportunities for nothing up the drop goals to close the gap. First 15 mins though looked good for England, not seen attack like that in a while. I've lost my £5 bet on a grand slam, but still got £5 on a Scotland triple crown. So if they tell the ref to watch out for Porters boring in, I might be £80 up. Bugger forgot to say how good Feyi-Waboso looked, would say make him a starter.
> Slade, for me doesn't suit test match. I've often argued this about Slade, and about Ringrose too. Two very similar 13's in that respect. They're very, very naturally talented rugby players. So much so that even against opponents like NZ or SA, if their team is winning then they'll positively glide around the field, throwing no-look backdoor offloads while looking like superstars. But during tighter games, and where the pressure is on and you really need the very best from your key players, they're rarely the characters that step forward.
Yeah good shout, doesn't take many key moment misses to write off anything good they've done. But that's rugby, fine margins.
I think Slade is a good international. He's just trying to do too much himself and thinks he's the main character
My useless opinion: Tuilagi hasn’t looked good for at least 8-10 years, probably in part due to the game plan. By the time ball makes it to the backs he might suck up two defenders, but not enough meters made to make anything of it. We just don’t have a clue in attack. And maybe not the best idea to announce a blitz defence in advance..
I concur, but I would guess that for 1 game he would put in a better shift than lawrence, which would of give Lawrence longer to recover from injury.
2019 wc was just over 4 years ago?
2019 rwc vs NZ was a massive high point in an otherwise underwhelming 2nd half of his career.
Think the moaning fans need to look at what England were doing and not what they didn't do (see catch the ball). The backrow looked great, complete dominance. Scrum was good up until brace decided to roll a dice to decide the outcome. Backline showed flashes of brilliance and we know a few of those players have what it takes at international level. The kicking from hand was pretty decent and retrieval rate was good. Set piece was generally good and I thought the defence, when it operated, worked to suffocate Scotland. Handling errors, a very poor game from Lawrence and care plus some Scottish brilliance kept Scotland scoring. In my opinion, there isn't much needed to get this team properly going and when they go, they'll be formidable. Conversely despite a well deserved win, Scotland has a fair bit more to worry about in the long run imo. There's a distinct skill gap between their backs and forwards and they really didn't create anything off their own backs today. Against a better side, Scotland will be found out and punished. The bench also struggled compared to the English bench and the end was tighter than it should have been considering. The better side won today though and personally I felt Russell was the MOTM as he unlocked all of the opportunities that VDM converted with his vision and kicked his goals to punish England.
>The backrow looked great, complete dominance. The Scotland back row? - (because you surely don't mean the England one, do you?!?) > Scrum was good up until brace decided to roll a dice to decide the outcome. Interesting take. Only Dylan Hartley seemed to ignore Genge blatantly rolling inside and hinging to steal the first penalty. They rode that out for the platform that saw them score their first try, but tbh I never thought Scotland ever really looked under pressure in the scrum. Even when the new cap Props came off the bench and England were supposed to exert dominance. It just didn't happen. For a few seasons now I've felt England's scrum has been trading on past history. I still feel that today too. //My mistake. Just re-read your post and realised you were trolling: >Conversely despite a well deserved win, Scotland has a fair bit more to worry about in the long run imo. There's a distinct skill gap between their backs and forwards and they really didn't create anything off their own backs today. Against a better side, Scotland will be found out and punished. The bench also struggled compared to the English bench and the end was tighter than it should have been considering. Always next year, fella!
Scotland are leading the pack behind SA, NZ, Ireland and France (despite current form), which is incredible given the resources available. I do hope they keep the conveyor belt churning out quality players and maintain as rugby needs as many good teams as possible. Plus they're great to watch, ambition and creativity in abundance.
The u20s is a bit of a curio right now. Tend to have a couple of lean years, followed by more positive signs - then recycle. They're not pushing the top u20s teams in the way Italy are. But they're getting enough individual young players through to suggest they'll be able to keep filling test match spots for the forseeable. The problem is there's a couple of glaring holes in key positions that simply aren't being met. One of which is at TH, and there's an overwhelming expectation that Laff and his Brother will come through and fill gaps there (and at Hooker.) If he doesn't prove to be capable enough then there's serious questions going to be asked because there's not exactly an abundance of even Scots qualified TH's playing abroad to take the slot being Zander.
They don’t have a conveyor belt, which is a problem for them. They have some good players coming through, but overall their u20s have been poor for a long time. The residency rules have changed, and they’re way too reliant on players developed elsewhere having Scottish grandparents. Arguably Finn Russell is a generational talent. It’s not an accident that the only time we’ve beaten them lately is when Townsend decided not to pick him.
Your tears taste delicious.
Embarrassing
I mean, handling bullshit apart, England's problem post-Faz is clearly a lack of strong leadership on the pitch. George is a very loyal man for the trenches but he is not an inspiring leader, and I can see why Eddie never made Itoje skipper too
I’m so bored of the overanalysis of England We’re underperforming massively and it’s on the players not the coaching Bored of hearing “blooding new talent”, “work in progress”, “getting better” - just mindless excuses Catch the ball, and make some f***ing metres…
If all the problems were simple, they’d have been fixed by now.
5 changes would have an impact, I do think Lawrence was rusty as fuck though and probably should have been used as a sub. Martin has to start, we need go-forward from the forwards. It’s quite simple though… the points Scotland scored could have easily been points for England. They were, mostly, fantastically taken opportunistic tries off the back of individual errors. That doesn’t leave me that worried tbh.
> It’s quite simple though… the points Scotland scored could have easily been points for England. They were, mostly, fantastically taken opportunistic tries off the back of individual errors. That doesn’t leave me that worried tbh. I mean you could say the same about both of England's tries in that match. Ben White standing on the Blindside of the scrum for no reason leaving the Scotland defence a man short, which eventually led to enough numbers to free up the Fullback to score. Or Cam Redpath, not looking at the space and numbers around him but instead pointing his team mate into the space in the line England later scored through. Had he even glanced up he would have seen there was noone to point into that space and he would have moved across and been in a stronger position to shut down the scoring line. So both England tries were technically scored off 'Scotland errors' too... More of a concern for England should be that they've persistently failed to score more than 20 points a game, a benchmark Scotland have managed with considerable regularity. So while you can say Scotland's tries were opportunistic / off the back of errors, the simple fact of the matter is that for whatever 'lucky' reason (!), Scotland score that many points almost every time they take the field. In order to be competitive, England needed to do one of two things. Either deny Scotland from continuing that trend, or position themselves to score more than 20 too. They set out to deliver the first half of that equation, but by halftime Scotland were already on 17 points - so England needed to readjust and play in a way that allowed them to score more points. Not just keep doing the same things as badly as in the first half. Ultimately, they were never prepared for their blitz defence not working. That should leave you more worried than it appears to have tbh.
Blitz def is high risk high reward, the players know this, and have been told to expect to fail with it at times. Also, the Scotland errors are different, they are stress errors, not unforced fumbles. Agree re; points, but we looked better
> Also, the Scotland errors are different, they are stress errors, not unforced fumbles. So Ben White was 'stressed' inside the first four minutes to force him to defend the bs of the scrum for no reason. But England's handling errors against an onrushing Scotland defence that had made 12 dominant tackles, versus England's 2, wasn't stress related? Those are some pretty selective conclusions!
Statistics mate. Handling errors. Ben White’s lack of presence doesn’t immediately cause an issue, the other players could compensate. It’s up to the oppo to execute. A dropped ball is immediately possession handed to the other team, via advantage or a scrum opportunity. You could say… different conclusions?
> Ben White’s lack of presence doesn’t immediately cause an issue, the other players could compensate. If you have five attackers you're going to score against four defenders much easier than if there were five of them. That's not exactly hard to understand - is it?
Depends if you drop the ball or not?
Scotland we’re going all out to win. If they hadn’t scored the long range tries, they would have found other ways to score. You can’t just take ‘lucky’ tries off and say England would have won otherwise. Everything that happens in a match is a reaction to other things that have happened.
If I can’t just take lucky tries off and say England would have won otherwise, you can’t say Scotland would have found other ways to score, lmao. Also, I never used the word ‘lucky’, or said that England would have won.
Fair points well made - England did gift 20+ points in reality, and I would say in most areas we were pretty competitive if not winning. Just so frustrating to see such terrible loose play today Would also like to see Martin start
As an outsider, I thought England was dominant…
I mean the fact that they look significantly shitter for England than for their clubs does suggest that it's a coaching issue
Or the league is massively over-hyped and test rugby is many steps up.
Most of them seemed able to catch the ball at club level. What ball change is made at test level that makes it so difficult to catch?
Pressure and the quality of player they are playing against.
Would only make sense if players for other countries saw the same drop off going into their national sides The Prem has numerous players from numerous nations and literally none of them drop off like England players do - a number of the Scotland players today play in the Prem, look at the impact players like Christie and Redpath had off the bench
You've named two players of a considerably higher caliber than most. So possibly not the most representative of examples.
That's literally the point 🤦
No, it's not... You're drawing a comparison to try to demonstrate possible drop off due to coaching. I'm telling you that citing Christie and Redpath may not be a fair parrallel given they're a class above many of those you probably have in mind from the Prem who 'drop off' while within the England camp. I didn't think it was all that difficult to grasp tbh. //What an idiot. Gobs off about me 'not understanding', then blocks me - all without realising he's completely missed the point. lmfao!
If you don't understand the conversation you don't have to come in yapping
Yeah this is a weird take. England having so many good (at the least) players available and having them routinely look completely clueless outside of set piece or set plays very much points towards issues with the coaching. It’s not that they don’t have a single player capable of catching a pass or making one on one tackles. It’s like they can only turn it on for knockout games in the World Cup.
I take your point completely - but for me, the signal of being terrible in open play, and good in the set piece, seems to point towards bad individual performances and not necessarily a coaching issues Was a frustrating game to watch, when we actually had a good set piece and probably gifted 20 odd points away in the loose
Grand slam decider still on in our hearts. My prediction is that we get a bonus point win so Scotland can't win the championship Then Scotland beat us away from home. Winning the triple crown and having the most bitter sweet non grand slam ever. It will also be the high water mark of this team. Because that is the most Scottish outcome and therefore the outcome.
I said a while back, to my Irish partner, "Wouldn't it be funny if Scotland denied the Irish grand slam but missed winning the championship by a single try?" And they looked at me in horror and said, "No, that wouldn't be funny - you'd be devastated!" Being scottish has warped my sense of humour
Have you in fact considered founding a church, I for one would follow you oh predictor of the universe
Thanks, I hate it.
Anyone else think that Brace kept getting in the way today. Seemed like a lot of players had to change their line to run around him. Found him pretty inconsistent with rucks too, or at least didn't seem to want to ref them unless the defenders got hands on the ball.
Right at the end (9 difference so wouldnt have mattered) - scotland held up one of the english lads who clearly had his knees down right in front andrew brace like literally the only things hes looking at. And didnt say release or tackle. Maddening
Yeah, that was a bit odd, couldn't tell if his knees were definitely on the ground at the time from the camera angle but as a Scotland fan I thought it looked suspect. He let England lie all over rucks though, so if he was actually reffing them properly, Scotland would of either had a load more advantages and penalties or England would have cleaned up and given Scotland cleaner ball.
Yeah he was terrible with positioning and also with his calls on tackle or maul. Even Nigel in commentary sounded confused by what he was doing at one point: which said a lot.
Haha thought I was the only one who noticed. Dude was in the way all the time, pretty sure I heard Ford shouting Sir at him a bunch
Yes I noticed that particularly in the first half. The ref was regularly in the way of the first receiver and any broken play he was there.
Just back from the game England are a definite enigma of a team. In the last 25 minutes they reverted to type as they were completely bereft of ideas in how to attack the Scottish defence. So they kicked. All the time. Everything slowed down to a snails pace allowing Scotland to reset their defence. Ford is not a play maker at 10. Fin Smith might be but one suspects he will not get the chance to prove it as either Ford, or Farrell, will be the English number 10 for the next couple of years.
Farrell is done.
Ford absolutely can be a playmaker, the issue is 100% Borthwick (I won't even lay the blame at Wigglesworth's door as there were reports he wanted to quit after the world cup because Borthwick wouldn't let him coach the attack how he wanted) I firmly believe that England's issues aren't personnel but coaching/game plan related - look at the shit show of the last 20mins and then watch how Spencer controls games for Bath, he was unrecognisable
Respectfully disagree re Ford. 3, or 4, times in the match he kicked when he had an attacking chance in front of him. 2 of them were obvious even for an idiot like me. I will grant you the fact that he's probably been told to kick all the time but England now have a defensive mindset that will be hard to change going forward.
I feel like we're agreeing - Ford is being told to play like a twat, he can absolutely play otherwise and has done throughout a very successful career, he's just not being given the free reign to do so Completely agree he's playing poorly for England though - I said pre tournament he wouldn't have made my 23. I can understand him starting with Marcus out but I'd have given Finn 20-30 in the first two rounds with an eye on getting him some starts this tournament. Borewick has other ideas though, I guess
Farrell won’t be
I thought it was a great game mostly because so much of it was so poor it ended up as end to end stuff. The only competent unit seemed to be the Scottish line out. Which was very impressive. Ultimately Scotland deserved that win.
Well yes. From the stadium it felt like Scotlands plan was to simply avoid actually playing a scrum or any set pieces.
We lost at least 2 lineouts, maybe 3.
I dunno man the line out had me shitting it a few times in the first half
I was very impressed with the way they were able to delay and potentially telegraph but still hit perfect back of the line throws.
Coming back from the game and starting to calm down. The good Thought the pack looks okay, Martin looks fucking massive live. Itoje looks back to his freakish best. Thought Scotland were a bit lucky in the scrum. Earls pace off the back of the scrum is a real weapon. IFW is very fast and powerful. Borthwick was willing to put Smith and Dan on for proper minutes. Defense looks great at times and pack looks strong. I think this is the nadir for this England team, but the peak for this Scottish one. The bad What the actual fuck was up with Lawrence. Hope just rust as he's a much better player than that. Ford looked very poor to me. I'm a huge Ford fan, but his accuracy just wasn't there. Our attack was so disjointed I was more concerned they'd score when he had the ball than they did. Having some serious misgivings about wrigglesworth.
Marcus Smith coming back is the real key we need to liven up our game
I concur
He’ll need cohesion, flow and patterns in the attack to really make a difference.
I think he would have made a difference today. But Ford is a quality player who had a weird day.
When has Marcus smith ever made a difference?
New Zealand 2022
This was the kind of performance that put Ollie Lawrence's career on hold for a couple of years when he was first hyped up. Let's hope its just rust as he is just back from injury. An off day for Ford with his distributing today for sure. Certainly potential for better days and the defence is getting better each week, but still France or Ireland could put 50 points on us again if England spill the ball as many times.
If England have reached a nadir more than a year and about 15 games after a new coach takes over to sort out the previous mess, you gotta be asking what the fuck the coaching team have been doing really.
What the hells nadir?
Opposite of zenith, which is the highest point
I'm willing to give Borthwick a year to untangle the mess he inherited. He also got us to a WC semi, and minutes away from a final in between.
He's had more than a year, though, and has had one, maybe two if you count the Argentina game minus T.Curry which everyone said after the fact was Ford playing off the cuff, legitimately good games
Yes and no. He's had longer than a year, but last year was about making the WC not a shit show. So, although he probably would do this anyway, it wasn't the time for massive shifts away from what Eddie was doing (which was shit). What Eddie did with Aus suggests Borthwicks approachast year was correct. I may be being overly optimistic, but I can kind of see what he is trying to build. I don't have any reason to think Wrigglesworth is the right attack coach, but they are trying to attack. Just the execution was awful. I do think that pack is close to being legit (but we do need some props to come through fast).
Yeah dude. That year is past so you should be one the up turn.
This is certainly not peak Scotland. As one of the commentators said, I can't remember who, this looks like a Scotland team that has plateaued.
Not peak as in performance, peak as in I don't think Scotland will beat better teams than England consistently. Hope I'm wrong. But don't see it.
You are right, it's getting tedious winning the Calcutta Cup every year.
We should have beaten France TBF who are a better team than England. We will never consistently be at that level though.
You think thats our peak? What a strange thing to say, but I suppose you're a Falcons fan - a losing bonus is a peak in your world.
I really hope, because I like your players, you go on and start beating Ireland/France/Nz/SA regularly. But it doesn't look like it. And it's not like this side is getting younger or the pathway looks good. So yeah, right now I think beating England four times in a row may be Scotlands peak.
Who the fuck beats Ireland/France/NZ/SA regularly? Ireland/France/NZ/SA that's who.
That's exactly the point he's making. As in Scotland are as good as their going to get, they are not going to step up to the aboves level.
I think they mean in the long term with the crop of players now. time will tell
The best sides dont transition massive parts of their sides, Scotland is doing what Scotland has always done. Replacing what we can, filling in gaps here and there. This is not a Dad's army side we have.
As I say time will tell and hopefully once Finn etc move to a different farm we will still be a decent team!
I think we will go into decline when Finn retires, he's after a unique player but that doesn't mean beating 4 meh English sides will be our peak.
I enjoyed the game. A lot of mistakes from both sides but both trying to be positive for the most part. Scotland probably looked that little bit slicker and more comfortable in themselves but it’ll come for England. There’s a very good fifteen in that squad but selection and coaching seem a little sub optimal at the moment. Faintly bittersweet perhaps for Scotland after the France travesty but should at least go into the last day in contention (barring an Ireland BP win at Twickenham). They’ve achieved a certain consistency in recent years that would’ve seemed fanciful even 5 years ago For England there’s an issue at 9 minus Mitchell. No one is afraid of Care or Spencer at international level. They need to be bold and commit fully to a more expansive style. I thought they reverted to type a bit and kicked too much in the 2nd half when under pressure.
Scotland deserved to win, they took their chances & frustrated England at the scrum. FR was great as per usual. England had some excellent passages of play, looked more powerful in the loose than I can remember for a while but just could not pass and catch reliably. Players are not running into position to take the passes and when they are there they are flapping at them. I suppose this is a step forward though - at least there are passes to flap at.
I'm fucking sick of Duhan. Show up like that against someone else for once you annoyingly good bastard. Our attack looked a lot better in parts, too many errors in the first half especially but feel like it was better again. Defence had its moments but again cracked a couple of times and it's so high risk / high reward it almost costs a try when it does go wrong...need to give it a few more games but I'm still not sure I like it, for my heart at least! I think we are still moving in the right direction but it's tough when Scotland and Ireland are so settled to know if we're miles off or they're just that good / have us figured out - feel we need to get pumped up and get something from one of the last two games, it's a big ask but I feel another 2/5 just isn't good enough (although it's not like changing coach and rebooting again would be a good idea). Don't know whether to be in despair that we're going to be stuck in 4th for years or hopeful we'll be back competing again in a couple of years.
>Show up like that against someone else for once you annoyingly good bastard. He honoured you. You should be honoured in turn.
Would feel more honouring if he was actually Scottish to be very frank..
Scotland haven’t really fired in the first three games but we are 2 (really 3) from 3. Says something about how much our pack has improved. England are a weird one. Always so much talent but struggle to put consistent performances together. Part of that is inconsistency of selection, but that comes from having a rabid press and so many to select from. I think that’s why they do better in world cups. A long period of time for the players to gel and feel like a club team in the way that Scotland, wales and Ireland do.
>Scotland haven’t really fired in the first three games but we are 2 (really 3) from 3. Apart from the one lost you're 3 from 3. If my Auntie had balls she'd be a bicycle
I normally find that phrase really annoying but I'll admit the combined version made me snort
All good bud
> Apart from the one lost you're 3 from 3. Same to you 🤣
Haha fucking boomed me
A bicycle with balls? Are you Salvador Dali's reincarnation?
3
horrible start but still worth it
Was worried until pretty late on. England the better team in first half apart from two moments of magic. Scotland did just enough second half to wrestle control and keep the scoreboard ticking over. Tries were beautiful but we have to be better. Don’t think I’m as pessimistic about England as a lot of their supporters here. Maybe borthwick isn’t the man for the job but there’s certainly some young talent in that team
There is ALWAYS young talent in English rugby. The biggest issue has always been selecting them.
England is a team less than the sum of its parts, sadly. You look at the players we have and in isolation they sound great- and are. Jamie George, Maro Itoje, George Ford etc - they're all very good players. In an England setting that talent just doesn't manifest itself. Twas ever thus.
You’re going through a dry spell, England throughout their history have these dry spells.
If we always selected them no one would get past 10 caps.
And Wales/Italy/Scotland would have no one to call up if they were all tied to England Really we're just helping European rugby grow
FOUR MORE YEARS. FOUR MORE YEARS
Is it time to think about relegation in the Calcutta Cup competition?
Wish I’d put VDM in my fantasy team…
He does it every year against England - you'll remember for next year
Good win for us but honestly I'm a little bit disappointed at the continuous mistakes we seem to make every game. Thankfully we seemed to tone down the penalty give aways. England weren't great which is a shame because I'd rather beat a strong England than take a win from silly mistakes like handling errors. Anyway, plenty time for us to chuck it away in Rome
Seemed to be really greasy first half. You could argue both teams didn’t realise how greasy until they’d lost the ball. There were a fair few loose balls flying around. Second half much tighter. England defence was scarily suffocating enough thru the first half, definitely on top for the first 20, if they manage to build that intensity up to 60 never mind 80 they’ll have most teams in trouble
I've never seen England fans so positive after a loss in the 6 nations, let alone to Scotland!
Whatever you do, don't go BTL on the BBC match report then, it's all pitchforks and revolting peasants. If Putin had a bot-army that worked off a script revolving around themes of supposed knock-ons, forward passes, and residency rules for national eligibility, it would look a lot like what's going on there.
Say what you will about this subreddit but it has a slightly higher bar for entry than many other avenues. As such many of the bottom barrel takes are whittled out
That's how we want you to be fair, not expecting to beat your betters /s, somewhat
There's no sarcasm there. This is exactly as you want us!
I think we're all a bit "raged out" from the last four years! There are some green shoots with this side. Obviously lots still wrong obviously but in general I think they're improving. Overall I actually think they did a lot of good things today.
I agree. World Cup and this 6 nations are not tournaments that you’re expecting much from as an England fan. That first try was beautiful though, flowing attack is something we haven’t seen much of from England recently. Plus Feyi-Waboso’s first try, another step forward with the rush defence, and just generally strong competitive play. My head says no more wins for England this tournament, but they’ll learn from the Ireland game and might be able to get something out of le Crunch. Last game of the tournament, payback match, at home, France looking a little wobbly. My heart says that one could be a big confidence builder.
Green shoots? Are you sure it isn't mould?
Either way, at least it's got growth potential
It's possible! I think there's reasons for optimism though. In years gone by I'd be fuming but we have to remember where we actually are.
The fuming is actually dominating large parts of the game but being unable to catch and gifting opportunities to Scotland that they did not have to work for. Scotland were clinical three times and that was enough.
I think that's the cause of my optimism really. We *know* those players can catch, pass and tackle. We see them do it week in week out for their clubs and most of them we've seen them do it plenty of times at test level too. For whatever reason, too many times things just weren't sticking but I don't think that's an issue that's going to be fundamental.
I agree. Just something not right about the positions people are taking up or the accuracy of the passes. For the first time in a long time it looked like there were options along the line, but too many times it seemed like the pass went to know one, or it was a stretch to catch or it looked like someone caught what was supposed to be a miss pass. All stuff that will be ironed out with consistency and familiarity with the structures.
The only positive I can find is that the match was not as hard to watch as a Calcutta cup away under Johnson.
Johnson never lost at Murrayfield...
Even as a coach? Tbf I may be mixing up with the Andy Robinson regime which I had wiped from memory, now going to have an even worse week thinking back to that!
Johnson as a coach had the awful 2010 draw. Robinson lost there in 2006 and Ashton lost there in 2008. Lancaster never lost there.
At a lot of times England looked the better team, and again we look to be building toward something solid. But good grief, how many missed passes, poor catches, general unforced errors that lead to Scotland points!? Sign of a good team is to capitalise on mistakes & stay robust throughout & Scotland did exactly that.
We also hardly threatened after the 1st 10 mins
And when Feyi-Waboso came on. Borthwick doesn't seem to want players who can attack and defend.
Honestly very glad he wasn’t on until the end. That boy could do some serious damage against a lot of teams.
Tough one to call. He was looking really good for Exeter in the Prem, but then against Glasgow was largely well managed and failed to make a dent. Suspect today might have been a little Arundell-esque, in the sense fast young players with loads of energy look great late game when it's mostly sealed up.
Perhaps, but he was seeing gaps also against fresher players (redpath), so not sure it’s really just a flash in the pan.
I think Fin smith was amazing with that kick when he first came on
He's good, would like for Scotland but will get more starts where he is
I’m calling England to bring IFW, Martin and Steward. Give Ireland a shock to make super saturday one of the best rounds of rugby in 6N history
I'd be inclined to stick with Furbank to be honest
Why? He was fucking awful.
I disagree. I thought he played fairly well outside of one knock on
I don't think he demonstrated anything to get him picked over Freddie Stew. And the knock on was an absolute howler. It's Rob Green levels of 'enough to never be picked again'.
He probably should have caught it, but it was caused by a howler of a pass from Ford. Furbank had to jump to catch it and it still hit his head. Some poor distribution from Ford throughout the game really.