England Saxons vs Irish Wolfhounds

First topic message reminder :

The England Saxons face Ireland Wolfhounds at Irish Independent Park on Friday, January 30 in Cork. Given that the six nations are too bloomin far away and this is a big RWC year with many players battling over a place in international squads i'm looking forward to this one. Who do we think should be in both teams. This is my england team

Corbisiero
George
Brookes
Kitchener
Kruis
Croft
Kvesic
Waldrom

Wigglesworth
Cipriani
Yarde
Slade
Joseph
Rokodunguni
Foden

Thomas
Cowan-Dickie
Vunipola
Parling
Clark
Dickson
Burgess
Myler

If either side get a try in the last couple of minutes, it will flatter them.

Henderson/Marmion/Earls the best for us... Gilroy was mixed. Conan anonymous. Madigan has me worried...

barnes stfu. seriously

Pot Hale wrote:If either side get a try in the last couple of minutes, it will flatter them.

no. ireland were flattered by a 2 point loss. at least now it represents the domination at breakdown, defensive line, and danger in attack.

quinsforever wrote:

Pot Hale wrote:

quinsforever wrote:LOL. the woeful play has generally been from ireland. have no idea how to break the saxons defensive line, so lets put everything up in the air and hope something happens.

I wouldn't go that far.   England have generally been abysmal too - the scoreline is a fair indicator of a match that has not been affected by adverse weather or windy conditions.  

wrong. england's lineout in the first team is best in 6 nations. saxons have lost 6 of their own lineouts. if they hadnt there would be 15points difference in the scores.

That is the same as saying if the irish back-line was functioning, there would be a 15 points difference..

It's a deserved try and win for England, but this game... got to be the worst game I've seen this season. In several seasons. Terrible, terrible game of rugby.

quinsforever wrote:

Pot Hale wrote:

quinsforever wrote:LOL. the woeful play has generally been from ireland. have no idea how to break the saxons defensive line, so lets put everything up in the air and hope something happens.

I wouldn't go that far.   England have generally been abysmal too - the scoreline is a fair indicator of a match that has not been affected by adverse weather or windy conditions.  

wrong. england's lineout in the first team is best in 6 nations. saxons have lost 6 of their own lineouts. if they hadnt there would be 15points difference in the scores.

So I'm right then. England have been abysmal too. Witness their performance in the lineouts as you say, and indeed in the scrums.

Wade gets to put a gloss on the scoreline.

Pretty poor overall.

No better wee man to put the bullet into that dead horse they've been flogging for 80 mins. Saxons worth the win, Wolfies.......didn't really get going but Earls looked well hungry.

no they wouldnt. because the english defensive line was big, aggressive and effective. the worry was always going to be your lightweight backs. and so it was. no-one bought any dummies so you were never threatening.

englands lineout was poor, in other respects, ireland were poor.

quinsforever wrote:

Pot Hale wrote:If either side get a try in the last couple of minutes, it will flatter them.

no. ireland were flattered by a 2 point loss. at least now it represents the domination at breakdown, defensive line, and danger in attack.

Danger in attack?

You've got to be kidding. At times I was wondering had either side got a backline....

Rory_Gallagher wrote:

quinsforever wrote:

Pot Hale wrote:

quinsforever wrote:LOL. the woeful play has generally been from ireland. have no idea how to break the saxons defensive line, so lets put everything up in the air and hope something happens.

I wouldn't go that far.   England have generally been abysmal too - the scoreline is a fair indicator of a match that has not been affected by adverse weather or windy conditions.  

wrong. england's lineout in the first team is best in 6 nations. saxons have lost 6 of their own lineouts. if they hadnt there would be 15points difference in the scores.

That is the same as saying if the irish back-line was functioning, there would be a 15 points difference..

Hah yeah, seems to suggest that an awful set piece isn't a way to gauge a team's performance. Course it is.

yeah okay. i'm sure you're right. it must have been a crap game because england won.

if that had been a munster of ulster victory i would be deafened by the "i love those hard gritty contest" type of comments

Well it seems from this snippet (a loose reading) that Ireland will rely yet again this year on some solid defending and defending...and defending - and attempted kick-chasing whenever enough room to kick opens up.  

I know Schmidt will have more than this planned but this is what I keep saying about Ireland every year.  You have to come to play seriously EVERY game.  The power, pace and aggression levels for International level were well off standard.

You can excuse Earls and O'Brien and excuse the idea that the game had to be considered more a run out for a few rusty players than a 'need to win' game.  But BOY, you need much more cohesion and method to it all.  You can't just flail around a field for 80 and think you've had a good workout.  There needs to be something there. There was zilch. So a body heat riser and nothing else.

you have 7 leinsterman in the pack. of course saxons are going to be under pressure at lineout and scrum.

is that your judgement of a close game?

do you think that the england team who have been playing together much longer, and training together much longer, will struggle at set piece against Ireland? really?

quinsforever wrote:no they wouldnt. because the english defensive line was big, aggressive and effective. the worry was always going to be your lightweight backs. and so it was. no-one bought any dummies so you were never threatening.

englands lineout was poor, in other respects, ireland were poor.

The irish back-line beat more defenders than England, despite playing awful stuff and showing no invention or creativity in their back play.

Ireland were properly shocking, but England were not much better.

quinsforever wrote:you have 7 leinsterman in the pack. of course saxons are going to be under pressure at lineout and scrum.

is that your judgement of a close game?

do you think that the england team who have been playing together much longer, and training together much longer, will struggle at set piece against Ireland? really?

We hope so, yes What's the use of playing unless you hope to put the opposition under pressure somewwhere?

quinsforever wrote:yeah okay. i'm sure you're right. it must have been a crap game because england won.

if that had been a munster of ulster victory i would be deafened by the "i love those hard gritty contest" type of comments

Ulster have won a few games after some dire performances this season and the comments were even more negative than the ones after this game. You are talking a bit of nonsense methinks.

Backs definitely too small. Not sure I'd lump all the blame on Madigan as I think  D'arcy's general timing was all over the shop and gave him little options. Jones and Gilroy did themselves no favours, and Conway was downright bad.

Otherwise, Strauss had an ok game, as did SOB and Ryan. Was immediately noticeable once Strauss went off how our lineout suffered. Thought Conan looked a little off the pace.

quinsforever wrote:you have 7 leinsterman in the pack. of course saxons are going to be under pressure at lineout and scrum.

is that your judgement of a close game?

do you think that the england team who have been playing together much longer, and training together much longer, will struggle at set piece against Ireland? really?

Well thats besides the point as no England Saxons squad will ever, ever be playing together in those circumstances. And this game has as much to do with the game between the senior sides as the U20s or Womens Six Nations games do.

Your reaction is strange. I would have expected you to be extremely disappointed in that performance by England. They were shoite. Ireland were more shoite and both Lancaster and Schmidt will be thinking the same thing; almost nobody looked like stepping up to full international standard.

quinsforever wrote:yeah okay. i'm sure you're right. it must have been a crap game because england won.

if that had been a munster of ulster victory i would be deafened by the "i love those hard gritty contest" type of comments

No - you just have to keep arguing your point of view as opposed to retreating into that kind of defeatist sarcastic comment.

England won a deserved victory. Did Ireland play poorly? Yes, without doubt. And they lost.

Did I think England were an awful lot better? No I didn't, but clearly were better than Ireland.

If you thought it was a great game - good on you. As an England fan, you're obviously going to enjoy a victory - and rightly so.

The only Ireland players who looked good I suspect were the only ones who believed they should be starting next week. ie Henderson and Earls.

The others played like they didn't believe there was any convincing of the coaches to be done.

But Henderson - dare I say - the next POC?? I think he's mre needed in backrow for Ulster, but either way - his aggression and passion is exactly what Ireland will need post POC.

The Saxons were better than I expected.  But then again they weren't.  I expected them to have fire in their belly, pride in their shirt and I expected them to stay in the game to the end - doggedly and stubbornly.  So they did that but they also did more in pushing Ireland back and back and back.  

They deserve praise for the intent, the pride, the mental involvement and the easy win - and it was.  No bnig score but they were never under pressure from Ireland because they were controlling the game even when Ireland had the ball.

The only BUT is that they had a game there that they should and could have scored more heavily in and had a chance to really punish Ireland's overall weaknesses...but they couldn't.   Ireland playing this eternal defend/defend game is tiring the hell out of me and I don't care how much of a ploy it is to befuddle the opposition about gameplans and such.  I need more attacking creativity and aggression at pace.  
Where it'll come from after that effort I don't rightly know - I leave that headache to Schmidt.

quinsforever wrote:you have 7 leinsterman in the pack. of course saxons are going to be under pressure at lineout and scrum.

is that your judgement of a close game?

do you think that the england team who have been playing together much longer, and training together much longer, will struggle at set piece against Ireland? really?

We are talking about the game that just happened, so the 1st XV for Ireland and England is rather irrelevant as the teams will be completely different. England were poor, Ireland were poor. I do not expect the game we just witnessed to show us anything about the real thing. I mean, do you really think that Ireland's back-line are going to be as bad as the one tonight? It will be a very different game from both sides (I sincerely hope).

clivemcl wrote:The only Ireland players who looked good I suspect were the only ones who believed they should be starting next week. ie Henderson and Earls.

The others played like they didn't believe there was any convincing of the coaches to be done.
But Henderson - dare I say - the next POC?? I think he's mre needed in backrow for Ulster, but either way - his aggression and passion is exactly what Ireland will need post POC.

Schmidt will destroy them for that attitude if he saw it like that.  And I hope he does - destroy them.  That consistency of Quality of effort MUST still be drilled into these guys.

englands performance was fine. they mostly defended. which they did very well. and they scored 2 tries. and they only won 1 or maybe 2 of their own lineouts from memory.

contact area england clearly won. fitness was excellent. handling pretty good, and we ran the ball from our own 22 a few times on counter attack.

wolfhounds won the scrum (2 crooked feeds by england didnt help) and utterly won the lineout. in spite of that england won relatively comfortably. why would i think that was a bad england saxons performance?

kunu wrote:Backs definitely too small. Not sure I'd lump all the blame on Madigan as I think  D'arcy's general timing was all over the shop and gave him little options. Jones and Gilroy did themselves no favours, and Conway was downright bad.

Otherwise, Strauss had an ok game, as did SOB and Ryan. Was immediately noticeable once Strauss went off how our lineout suffered. Thought Conan looked a little off the pace.

Given the very limited amount of time on the ball, Gilroy will have certainly impressed Schmidt with his defensive performance. There was very little he could have done for the Wade try at the end, but apart from that he put in the most tackles in the back-line and frequently led the chase.

quinsforever wrote:you have 7 leinsterman in the pack. of course saxons are going to be under pressure at lineout and scrum.

is that your judgement of a close game?

do you think that the england team who have been playing together much longer, and training together much longer, will struggle at set piece against Ireland? really?

In the 2014 tournament Ireland had the most successful scrum (89%) and lineout (93%) in the competition. Yet to hit those heights this year, but wouldn't expect a pushover.

quinsforever wrote:carl fearns on. yes. forwards going to maul one in from lineout now

they'd have to catch a ball from one first

quinsforever wrote: why would i think that was a bad england saxons performance?

Forwards lack basics and can't win their own set piece, no intensity, no tempo, didn't really put any phases together, gave away penalty after penalty, kicked aimlessly... It was dour, uninspiring stuff and not one player put their hand up for higher honours which is the entire point of the fixture.

I'm rather bemused that anyone can identify positives to take from that. I suppose England defended decently, but then again it's impossible to say their defence was ever tested or put under any pressure.

It was a big let down for me, both sides looked strong on paper and then offered next to nothing. I thought England would show some aggression with the ball with the ball carriers they had and try and go through the phases with some intensity, but no... They were the better team but yeah, that was like two bald men fighting over a comb. A game that deserves to be forgotten.

RTE had clearly decided from the get go that they would focus on O'Brien. Just spent five minutes looking at fairly 'meh' replays when everyone would have rather seen the replays of Henderson's game...

Poor game - in part due to unforced errors but largely down to the referee.

The Saxons weren't great but good for the win - always looked the side with a bit more fire power and 2 tries to nil is a fair reflection as despite a decent set piece the wolfhounds really didn't create anything. The Saxons dominated the breakdown and contact too.

Not many positives for the wolfhounds -great to see O'Brien back and Earls showed a few nice touches, Dom Ryan and Henderson did alright, the scrum was solid but generally it was pretty medicore.

Madigan in particular was pretty poor which is the biggest worry - he needed a big game but didn't deliver so fancy Keatley to start againts Italy.

Rory_Gallagher wrote:

kunu wrote:Backs definitely too small. Not sure I'd lump all the blame on Madigan as I think  D'arcy's general timing was all over the shop and gave him little options. Jones and Gilroy did themselves no favours, and Conway was downright bad.

Otherwise, Strauss had an ok game, as did SOB and Ryan. Was immediately noticeable once Strauss went off how our lineout suffered. Thought Conan looked a little off the pace.

Given the very limited amount of time on the ball, Gilroy will have certainly impressed Schmidt with his defensive performance. There was very little he could have done for the Wade try at the end, but apart from that he put in the most tackles in the back-line and frequently led the chase.

Maybe so, given Schmidt's affinity for the tackle count. I thought our kick-chase in general was quite poor though. We didn't have the usual defensive line organisation in the chase that we're used to seeing with Schmidt's teams. Most likely down to a communication issue, bound to happen with the pressure England had us under I suppose.

its a team who play together with 1 week's notice. churlish to expect an expansive All Black quality game.

names that stood out for me for saxons

garvey (while playing at 4!), kvesic, simpson, thomas

Kvesic looked very good I thought, especially in the first half.

Notch wrote:

quinsforever wrote: why would i think that was a bad england saxons performance?

Forwards lack basics and can't win their own set piece, no intensity, no tempo, didn't really put any phases together, gave away penalty after penalty, kicked aimlessly... It was dour, uninspiring stuff and not one player put their hand up for higher honours which is the entire point of the fixture.

I thought Garvey, Kvesic and Ewers all put in pretty good performances. The lineout went badly but that's not the fault of the whole pack. There was a lot of good carrying and breakdown work.

did anyone catch ben morgan saying he thought england would win in cardiff. big call but i guess he cant exactly say anything else!

Rory_Gallagher wrote:

quinsforever wrote:no they wouldnt. because the english defensive line was big, aggressive and effective. the worry was always going to be your lightweight backs. and so it was. no-one bought any dummies so you were never threatening.

englands lineout was poor, in other respects, ireland were poor.

The irish back-line beat more defenders than England, despite playing awful stuff and showing no invention or creativity in their back play.

Ireland were properly shocking, but England were not much better.

Maybe England was not much better than Ireland, but, England did win. And with less experience than the Irish Wolfhounds.

Sounds like it was much how we expected from the quality side, sadly. The teams looked good on paper

kunu wrote: D'arcy's general timing was all over the shop and gave him little options.

I keep hearing certain players like BOD, Horgan, Fitzgerald, ROG - wax lyrical about how great D'arcy is...there's no doubt he has been a great player a times in his career, but I'm just not seeing it anymore...offers little in attack, concedes ground in the tackle.. yes he works hard and is a nusence at the breakdown but thats about all he offers.

Generally the backs were disappointing, lots of stepping and passing but generally offering very little cutting edge.

Italy starts well and works downward usually.  
So we're back to the equation of what all opposition siders will bring to Italy.  We know what England and Wales will bring - attack attack, try, try, try - to stock up the points they might need if another close competition selects the eventual winner.  France might if they're in the mood.  Scotland might too.

But Ireland can't afford to second guess all that stuff as that's further down the line when Italy traditionally are going downhill in resistence anyway.  So we have to beat an Italy that will be fresh and willing - but again, I know I keep saying it every year, we have to marmalise them if we can too.  We have to chase them down and score as heavily as we can (because the rest will). First game up and we have to be as hot as we're likely to get.

On that effort tonight it all seems far too big an ask.  And I suppose that's where the smokescreen talk might come into it. You then wonder what you might have been looking at all season from Irish Provincial sides.  Ireland certainly don't look a side that is still on the boil personality-wise but maybe that's the hook that Schmidt has thrown into the water.  We'll see.

Reckon we can put Burgess playing in Cardiff to bed. Rob Webber was poor too, I know he had a scratch lineout team but the number of squint throws was infuriating! Thought Kvesic played well an
Ewers carried well. Aside from Slade and perhaps Pennell the backs were a little underwhelming.

The Saxons wers very disjointed, but they have won away scoring two tries to none against a side who had a number of first teamers in it. They did this whilst completely shutting the Wolfhounds out, didn't really even threaten the try line as far as I could see. Not the worst exercise in the world for the English lads IMO.

rodders wrote:

kunu wrote: D'arcy's general timing was all over the shop and gave him little options.

I keep hearing certain players like BOD, Horgan, Fitzgerald, ROG - wax lyrical about how great D'arcy is...there's no doubt he has been a great player a times in his career, but I'm just not seeing it anymore...offers little in attack, concedes ground in the tackle.. yes he works hard and is a nusence at the breakdown but thats about all he offers.

Generally the backs were disappointing, lots of stepping and passing but generally offering very little cutting edge.

Lots of premature feints and shimmies before actually trying to make yards!  Too much of that junk going on.... the little dances before movement.  Use every damn milisecond you have to beat an opponent and that means straight into full pace, not this constant and infuriating dancing/checking prequel stuff.  RUN f**k it!

I don't think this game will have much implications for the 6N to be honest. Seemed more like a warm up game and an opportunity to get players a bit fo game time, certainly from Ireland perspective.

As fan you'd want to see a bit better performance but other than another shoddy display from Madigan I don't think Schmidt will be too worried.

Likewise I think Lancaster will be disappointed with Burgess but won't be too bothered about anything else.

The only excuse I would give them is its very windy in Cork tonight. Overall a poor display.

Henderson was the big positive for Ireland. He has hit the ground running since his comeback and looks in great condition.
SOB looked like a man who hasn't played in 14 months. He started off well but after 20min he was feeling the pace. Definitely won't start against Italy or France.
Marmion, Earls and Strauss all played alright.

Cumbrian wrote:Reckon we can put Burgess playing in Cardiff to bed. Rob Webber was poor too, I know he had a scratch lineout team but the number of squint throws was infuriating! Thought Kvesic played well an
Ewers carried well. Aside from Slade and perhaps Pennell the backs were a little underwhelming.  

The Saxons wers very disjointed, but they have won away scoring two tries to none against a side who had a number of first teamers in it. They did this whilst completely shutting the Wolfhounds out, didn't really even threaten the try line as far as I could see. Not the worst exercise in the world for the English lads IMO.

I agree with that. I thought Ashton was OK too.

yeah. obviously no insights from this game to the 6Ns match. bigger gulf in quality between ireland and wolfhounds than england and saxons, and on the flipside, englands set pieces will be better. should be a good 'un.

All I saw was O'Brien looking like he was well off the pace for 80 but on the ball for a nicely timed return (WC). He'll need time but the intention is there; and still he'll be a handful again when fully fit and IF he can stay injury free.
But he needs to watch that rush of blood "I'm back!" enthusiasm or he might miss a game or five to a red card. Calm down Sean, we know you're eager to get your teeth into it all again but just be careful.
And Earls - who looks like he wants to be one of the creative angles Schmidt might use - but again, and probably understandably so - a tad over-eager on the night.

Those are the only two that I felt had a useful if limited night of hope

quinsforever wrote:yeah. obviously no insights from this game to the 6Ns match. bigger gulf in quality between ireland and wolfhounds than england and saxons, and on the flipside, englands set pieces will be better. should be a good 'un.

Give's us a break, Quins! We only have three teams to construct a Senior International squad from - it get's a little slim-pickings in trying to have another large dog feeding off the same slight bone

i know. thats what i'm saying. good job rugby is a team game innit!

quinsforever wrote:yeah. obviously no insights from this game to the 6Ns match. bigger gulf in quality between ireland and wolfhounds than england and saxons, and on the flipside, englands set pieces will be better. should be a good 'un.

Wolfhounds with 325 caps. Sigh...