So who is to blame for Englands loss?

So who is to blame for Englands loss?


The Ref, Touch Judges, maybe the TMO?

In all honestly no not really, although they did miss a lot, which didn’t help the cause? North’s slapping the ball into touch just as Strettle was about to gather and dive for the line was a big call.

No in all seriousness Lancaster cost England a possible win against Wales, his timing of the subs were poor apart from Farrell (injury) and the mandatory prop subs the rest were the wrong call IMO.

But life moves on and in truth I think we can beat France and gift Wales a championship and a possible Slam, do they deserve it?

Probably.



Well played to the U20 by the way, England U20s 40 - 9 Wales U20s

I blame the Welsh, how dare they score more points than us!

Thread over

It’s easy to see why you have 8755 post Glas, It’s just a shame that very few have any rugby knowledge attached to them.

The media

If HERSH bashes your rugby knowledge you know it's time to retire!!!

You forgot the English Women too HERSH, they also beat Wales. Oh and there was a table tennis match on the weekend where Chris wordsworth beat Rhdri Jones by a full set...

How about the whole team for only managing to score 3 points in the 2nd Half? Despite how well they played I think there mental attitude was to stop Wales winning rather than to win the game for themselves.

Dayglo was wrong when he said England lost the game. Wales won it. I was however papping myself for most of the 2nd half...

Wales won simple.

As much as i was gutted...theres no point having sour grapes.

We must take encouragement from it.

The U20's are the future.

Enjoy the sweet taste of victory while it lasts,

But Cardiff thats my point the subs stopped the flow of the game from Englands point of view.

Yes because England have a tremendous record in converting under 20 success into...erm...help me Hersh, with my little knowledge I don't know how many of the starting England XV played for your under 20's.

The U20's are the future???

Go and collate the English U20's tourny victories with the NT's victories in the last X amount of years.

Being involved with both I can tell you 100% Englands U20's team will constantly be one of the best on the planet due to the ethos of the English regime, they chose their player pool on performance only and then give them the tools to win, IMHO that is a great way to win U20's games but gives a very poor service of quality players to the NT.

Thats because we have an A team too, Wales should try it and stop conning players into caps that they don't want.

I think Scott Williams ought to face the music for instigating England's defeat, that nasty slimy thief

Apart from Tuilagi I don't know either but there's some real talent coming through, just hope they aren't coached into mediocrity.

So basically HERSH your happy with your U20's providing your A team with almost international quality players like Banahan, Barkley etc...?

Yep. I blame the Welsh team for sneakily being better on the day. That's not allowed at Twickers!

Really though - does it have to be about blame? It's a shame we lost, but I think there were positives from the game. Certainly the best we've played this 6N, and I can see us getting better if the team is allowed to gel.

nobbled

Your right, except there are a few players need replacing to compete at the top table.

Courtney Lawes lost the game - should have passed the ball when we had a nice overlap.....but can you tell him? I would, but am a bit busy at the moment.....

That’s another issue, Wales only have a small pool of players to choose from but in many ways that’s a positive thing as players are given two, three maybe even 4 chances if they do muck up, England are always looking for a quick fix as there is always someone else who comes along.

How many chances did Shane Williams get?

I remember when he couldn't tackle anyone and was thrown into touch on a regular basis, but he did have a chance to come back.

It’s already too late for Banahan, Barkley, Allan, Lamb, Tait, Varndell, Monye, etc etc etc... I guess its one of the pit falls for having lots of competitive teams in a competitive league like the Jeff.

thebluesmancometh wrote:nobbled

Your right, except there are a few players need replacing to compete at the top table.

Is that because you think the players in question are already playing as well as they can? Who in particular do you think needs replacing? I know this is going to upset a few, but had Nick Easter been on the bench - and he is in the best form of his career IMO, it may have made an impact when Morgan tired later in the game. However, as we are supposed to be building for the future would that be a step backward? Personally I don't have a problem with having some experience on the bench in positions where we don't have particular strength in depth with youngsters.

One of the basic principles of sports psychology is to only apportion blame to those things within your locus of control (intrinsic). You can't train for extrinsic factors like the weather, referee decision, etc. but you can train to do better in the scrums, to do better at retaining the ball in the tackle (not being stripped), breaking down a defence, etc. This is what any good coach should be looking at - the internal blame factors for the loss. Fans should do the same too, but it's very hard!

Martin Johnson, no wait ...Rob Andrew

Ben Youngs

HERSH wrote:Thats because we have an A team too, Wales should try it and stop conning players into caps that they don't want.

cracker!

Bill Beaumont.

But that's not a quick fix, it's just wasting talent! Precisely as Graham Henry said. At the rate England have been going of late they're never going to get a squad that's used to playing together and many players are never going to get the chance to learn from their mistakes and get the experience that'll help them move on to bigger and better things.

England are currently quite a way behind France, Wales and Ireland at developing international class.

Morgan wasn't tired later on, he was tired after 20. He needs time to get international fit, and really work on his diet, whatever he claims I still have very worthy info that it is still awfull!

The 7 jersy is a big problem, Robshaw was the best 7 in England for a few years but those days are gone, he isn't at the height of his playing ability, and needs a better 7 in there.

A consistent lock partnership needs to be formed, can you honestly say Botha, Parling, and Palmer are or will be world class any time soon??

In Corbs and Cole there is a lot of potential and ability, but is Hartley the long term answer bwteeen them?

I think Croft is struggling at the minute but I beleive he is and will be class.

For me theres 2/3 clubmen playing SH, and Youngs has gone backwards at the rate of knots. At present I honestly beleive Blair, Laidlaw and Cusiter would all be English starters.

In Barrit and Farrell you have a pair of crackers who could form a long term top class partnership given the chance, if the Farrell at 10 bandwagon doesn't keep on, or if people don't wise up to Tuilagi pretty quickly.

I think the current back 3 could go well, with a better game plan, and more nous in the centre.

Sound critical I know but I think that 4/5, 7, 9 and 13 are all a bit of a worry for England at present, even if people don't see it yet.

There is a problem when you have quality wingers, and a 13 that attracts at least 2 defenders whenever he gets the ball, and you still don't get tries.

Not sure I heard that correctly, did you say quality whingers?

Well if you ask Blues man he'll tell you that the problem with Tuilagi is that he keeps attracting at least 2 defenders which puts the rest of the team off.

But yes. England had two bashing centers who make space for others, and good ball carrying from their forwards. They still rarely managed to exploit the gaps created from that. Thats a massive faliure.

Not too sure about Strettle and quality winger mind....

He attracts a 3rd defender as well, problem is all 4 always end up on the ground, and the ball has to be protected by a winger!!!

He is big, immensely strong, and amazingly powerfull, but for me the proof is in the pudding, all those carries into contact everytime, very few offloads and the ones made inneffective, 2 possibly 3 tries butched through lack of quick hands or foresight to make a pass.

He is a good player, but at this level you need to be a complete player, I am sure he'll do damage against weaker sides, as Basteraud did for france for a while.

seabisuit

Strettle arguably scored a final try, although not given, was a North cheating finger away from a 2nd, a tap tackle on North to save Fodens blushes early on, 2 or 3 key offloads to Barritt and Tuilagi to give England good go forward and pressure, and well, you tell me how good North and Cuthbert were going forward.

England just arent playing an offload game under Lancaster/ Farrell, they were despertaly trying to develope it under Johnson/Smith but it never really came off. However according to the ESPN stats Tuilagi made 3 succesful offloads ( same as the rest of the team combined), and 5 passes ( from 17 possesions) .. so assuming they are somewhere near correct counts it rather makes a mockery of your criticism of him. Especially as neither of the Welsh centers are credited with any.
They are playing a very simple brand of rugby at the minute, its not just confined for that. If the winger is havbing to secure the ball ask how long it takes the backrow ( selected for its mobility) to get on hand to help out. Ask why the other winger/ fullback arent immediatly in place to deal with it coming out.
Ask why Wales and France can get and exploit qiuck ball from their crash ball centers and England cant.

Sorry but if youre going to try and argue that Strettle is a better player than Tuilagi and George North then I suspect you will lose this ....

thebluesmancometh wrote:He attracts a 3rd defender as well, problem is all 4 always end up on the ground, and the ball has to be protected by a winger!!!

He is big, immensely strong, and amazingly powerfull, but for me the proof is in the pudding, all those carries into contact everytime, very few offloads and the ones made inneffective, 2 possibly 3 tries butched through lack of quick hands or foresight to make a pass.

He is a good player, but at this level you need to be a complete player, I am sure he'll do damage against weaker sides, as Basteraud did for france for a while.

Well, I think the good thing about Manu Tuilagi is he in not yet 21 years old and has a lot of improvement in front of him. Same for all the young 'uns playing out there now. With most players his age, the talk is all about what they can potentially do at some point - if they make it to the top level. With Tuilagi, it is already about what is able to do at the top level now, but also about the type of player he will develop into. And when he becomes the finished article, I think he will be immense.

I didn't say England aren't, which they aren't, but you can't expect you pack to go from one 5 metre line, to the other because Tuilagi who has Foden on his shoulder has died with the ball in hand 3 metres from the try line!

Wether England are or are not playing an offloading game, the ball has to stay alive out wide in the red zone.

I'm not saying he can't pass or offload, but that he doesn't have the nous to offload to someone in space, at the right time (yet)

One of those precious offloads were giving the ball to Ashton in the midst of the welsh pack.

Stats only tell you so much, Williams played half the time with half the possesion as Tuilagi but had the same yardage and a try to his name. STATS!

That is a very good question though, why are France and Wales securing quick ball from the likes of Roberts and Rougerie and capitalising and England are not? Is it a nous for the game, is it the game plan, a gel of the team mates, or are the English team getting it to Tuilagi and watching as he finds 3 men and goes down with the ball? You tell me, what I'm seeing is that Tuilagi is inneffective at this level (so far)

I'm not arguing he is better, but he certainly was better on Saturday, when the England statiticians are reveiwing the game they are going to see how crucial Strettle was to Englands performnce.

England played much much better than they have previously in the tournament. Wales were poor compared to their performances so far. Howevver, despite being poor, having a an outside half who had a nightmare and being down to 14 men for 10 minutes; Wales had more possession, more territory, made more breaks, beat more defenders, missed less tackles oh and scored more points. So a poor Wales really let England off the hook but still outperformed them to win. England lost because they werent good enough, seemples.

Bluesman,

You should have seen him two and half years ago on his senior debut for Tigers when still a schoolboy. he was able to make breaks and run ragged the then world and tri nations champions south africa.
Maybe he isnt effective at this level, but he has been effective at a higher level.

He may not be SBW on a good day yet but come on do you honestly believe England have had a center who has performed better over a series of games than Tuilagi ( name a bad one hes had for england?)or one available who you could be certain would?

Go ahead and review the Strettle performance...tackled badly, covered a lot of ground but mostly did so running from deep and crucilay didnt go on to beat defenders or put other people in space. and if youre going to accuse Tuialgi of butchering a try scoring opportunity then you have to accept strettle did the same. He didnt set up and try scoring opportunities for anyone else.

His record is one try in 10 games for England. Tuilagi 4 from 8. The only current England player with a better try scoring record than him is Ashton.

You arent going to convince anyone that he hasnt been a more effective player for England than Strettle and that he isnt up to scratch to play for a team of Englands quality (or lack of)

OK just watching the game back now. England have a series of attacking phases in that passage. After the intial break from Strettle and barritt the only player who offers the ball back in the tackle and presents it cleanly is Tuilagi. None of the support runners ( including strettle) manage to take it when offered and they fail to secure it cleanly for Dickson to use quickly. When he chose to run straight rather than popping the pass there was not enough room for either player outside him to get a clean run in, and two defenders covering them with others on hand to get across. Tuilagi only had to beat Warburton who he was taking on at pace, it took a monster tackle to beat stop him, and he did try and offload.
The next few phases all end in England players running straight into the nearest defender and going to ground without cleanly presenting the ball or attempting to offload ( including strettle).
Tuilagi then gets the ball again and spins a pass out wide trying to exploit the large amount of space there. The move breaks down as Roberts mows down his target from an offside position and somehow escapes a yellow ( gets a warning).

So far pretty much the exact opposite of what you claim happened was the case. Tuilagui was right to take on Warbuston, and did try to find the offload, unlike Strettle late in the drive.

Theres also a phase in there where noone is covering farrell on the left hand side of a ruck as play is moving right, Dickson doesnt even look ( and it doenst look like Farrell even notices) and chucks the ball into traffic rather than going into the gap.

A few minutes later the brilliantly effective Strettle retrurns a kick by running away from all his supporting players and into a crowd of red shirts, gets tackled easily and turned overturned over ...oh wait no he doenst because he held on and got penalised 30 meters out. Easy 3 points for Wales.
Next passage of play leads to wales kicking straight to Foden who runs back with much more pace and manages to offload to Strettle who runs straight into the nearest defender and goes to ground without making any effort to present the ball immediately. England go through the phases. Tuilagi gets possession by looping around and smashes the player infront of him down taking a further two to tackle him, looks for and gets a nice offload to Cole. Chris Ashton then loses teh ball in with a really stupid attempted chip through.
England win poession back on a good turnover, ball gets out wide to Tuilagi who takes out two defenders and offloads to Ashton who makes break but rather than running decides to pass to am Arburton.

So again we have Tulagui being instrumental in giving the wingers a chance to screw it up.
I wont go through the whole game but I can only assume its a different one to the one you watched.

Not really about blame. Favourites were Wales and they won a good close match.

There are learning points for both sides and plenty of things to go forward with. If anything the match was a key turning point for both sides. Lancaster has done well with what seemed like a disjointed side last year. How to better use the ball they get is the only thing to sort out.

I recall Wales were in this position 2 years ago. Heaps of ball and promise and kept going side to side across the field with monotonous ease. Then they eventually learned how to turn it into go forward ball.

England look in that position now. Find ways to make better use of the ball and space available and they'll be fine.

Bluesman

Watch the extended highlights of the Wales v England game on the BBC website and at about around 36 minutes I will think you will find Tuilagi offloads effectively to Ashton in space.

wales are to blame! tis all

Peter Seabiscuit Wheeler wrote:

...Tuilagi then gets the ball again and spins a pass out wide trying to exploit the large amount of space there. The move breaks down as Roberts mows down his target from an offside position and somehow escapes a yellow ( gets a warning).

So far pretty much the exact opposite of what you claim happened was the case. Tuilagui was right to take on Warbuston, and did try to find the offload, unlike Strettle late in the drive.

So again we have Tulagui being instrumental in giving the wingers a chance to screw it up...

This is exactly why Tuilagi should be playing 12 and not 13. He has great distribution skills and yet is big enough and direct enough to offer a ball carrying option, perpetually occupy the open side and keep him honest and yet more than capable of offloading to a second play maker at 13. The assumption is made that because he's big and physical he must be a bludgeon. Not true. Look at the role Nonu plays for NZ, Tuilagi could play that role for us. Now Farrell at 13 would be afforded more space by the continual threat of Tuilagi. There's no reason for them to not switch roles even transiently which would make our attacking threat much more varied. Barrit and Tuilagi are too similar and neither have convincing kicking options. Flood has proven he can take the ball to the line and also get the back line running. Having MT on his shoulder will buy him time and options and a get out of jail card. It also means we can dynamically re-shape the back line to up the tempo by moving Farrell to FH, Flood to FB and possibly bring Brown or Ashton into the front line.

Manu's Boxing Coach wrote:Bluesman

Watch the extended highlights of the Wales v England game on the BBC website and at about around 36 minutes I will think you will find Tuilagi offloads effectively to Ashton in space.

He did another offload to Cole just before that. Both attacks were butchered by Ashton.
In the tackle by Warburton he also tries to offload but neither support player is alert and instead he presents the ball for immediate recycling ( which England fail to do anyway).

To try and claim he wasnt an effective player and cost England the game is frankly laughable. Yes the moves he was involved in didnt lead to tries, but noone else in the England side was involved in scoring a try either. He wasnt responsible for any of the good attacks breaking down ( except possibly for his high pass where the target player missed the catch because roberts was blitzing him from and offside position), in that case he at least had the right idea.

Ashton needs to be dropped until his form improves. He is currently being selected due to reputation and being dropped may be the wakeup call he needs.

miteyironpaw wrote:

Peter Seabiscuit Wheeler wrote:

...Tuilagi then gets the ball again and spins a pass out wide trying to exploit the large amount of space there. The move breaks down as Roberts mows down his target from an offside position and somehow escapes a yellow ( gets a warning).

So far pretty much the exact opposite of what you claim happened was the case. Tuilagui was right to take on Warbuston, and did try to find the offload, unlike Strettle late in the drive.

So again we have Tulagui being instrumental in giving the wingers a chance to screw it up...

This is exactly why Tuilagi should be playing 12 and not 13. He has great distribution skills and yet is big enough and direct enough to offer a ball carrying option, perpetually occupy the open side and keep him honest and yet more than capable of offloading to a second play maker at 13. The assumption is made that because he's big and physical he must be a bludgeon. Not true. Look at the role Nonu plays for NZ, Tuilagi could play that role for us. Now Farrell at 13 would be afforded more space by the continual threat of Tuilagi. There's no reason for them to not switch roles even transiently which would make our attacking threat much more varied. Barrit and Tuilagi are too similar and neither have convincing kicking options. Flood has proven he can take the ball to the line and also get the back line running. Having MT on his shoulder will buy him time and options and a get out of jail card. It also means we can dynamically re-shape the back line to up the tempo by moving Farrell to FH, Flood to FB and possibly bring Brown or Ashton into the front line.

Hes always been better at 13 where he has more chances to use his pace as well as power. Barritt has a better kicking game and compliments him well at 12 with his direct running. Youre right though that he isnt just a bosh merchant he often runs diagonal lines and tries to go around players or through space.
On and form flood would be excellent alongside those two, as it is Farrells the correct option for now. Flood is not a fullback by any strecth. I have no idea what you mean by moving Brown or Ashton to the front line

Who is to blame for England loss to Wales?

Well i may have got the wrong idea hear, but i thought that Rugby was a (TEAM SPORT) so their is no one person to blame, the Whole England team was to blame.

But you have to give credit to Wales for the way they managed to to steal the ball right at the death of the game.

It was mentiond on another thread that although the team have only bean together for 3/4 weeks. their are some players who have lost that sparkle that they once had. Ben Youngs, for one, he looks to have put on a few pounds since the Rugby World Cup.

But i dont thnik that SL should change the team, just for the sake of it. Give the team a chance to get some game time together, and then we will see what a difference it makes.

Who is to blame for England loss to Wales?

Well i may have got the wrong idea hear, but i thought that Rugby was a (TEAM SPORT) so their is no one person to blame, the Whole England team was to blame.

But you have to give credit to Wales for the way they managed to to steal the ball right at the death of the game.

It was mentiond on another thread that although the team have only bean together for 3/4 weeks. their are some players who have lost that sparkle that they once had. Ben Youngs, for one, he looks to have put on a few pounds since the Rugby World Cup.

But i dont thnik that SL should change the team, just for the sake of it. Give the team a chance to get some game time together, and then we will see what a difference it makes.