England vs Australia

First topic message reminder :

Billy out for 3-4 months.

Yeah seems harsh on Roko, whose good stuff outweighed his defensive issues for me. Also I was quite impressed by Teo, who seemed to have a positive impact whenever he came on. Would rate him a 7 (same as Sinkler and George, higher than Care, of the regular replacements).

cb wrote:Yes, How come Roku gets 5 when he played just one match and was considered MoM in some quarters?

Roku effectively downgraded due to his prospects - "He may never play for England again. Scored two tries against Fiji but was dropped immediately. With injured rivals regaining fitness he will slip down the pecking order" was written.


Overall the scores seem to be a reflection of both performance across the four games and future prospects.

cb wrote:Yes, How come Roku gets 5 when he played just one match and was considered MoM in some quarters?

There were too many defensive errors for him to be rated MoM by any sensible judge. He needs to learn to trust the defensive system and stick to it. He regularly fails to trust his inside man, steps in and leaves an overlap.

Interestingly, Stuart Barnes who had named him as MotM, then proceeded to say that he was not England's best player and that MotM was more due to the circumstances.

The circumstances being that Barnes is an idiot.

you've just insulted a lot of idiots.

Whereas Yards performed his defensive duties brilliantly...oh wait....

Espno cheekily chucked Strettle on their team lions team of the week. Apparently he's scoring tries and playing in France.

I guess if/when Watson May Daley and Nowell are all available the question marks over Roko and Yards sort of go away anyway. There's plenty of good wingers to be selected ahead of either, no matter who your particular favourites are you can't really say any of those are bad picks.

I was interested to see Lawes rated as one of the two players of the series...not by pundits but by Jones. Which rather suggests that Itojes future for England lies at 6 to allow both to be on the pitch.

Gooseberry wrote:Whereas Yards performed his defensive duties brilliantly...oh wait....

Espno cheekily chucked Strettle on their team lions team of the week. Apparently he's scoring tries and playing in France.  

I guess if/when Watson May Daley and Nowell are  all available the question marks over Roko and Yards sort of go away anyway. There's plenty of good wingers to be selected ahead of either, no matter who your particular favourites are you can't really say any of those are bad picks.

I was interested to see Lawes rated as one of the two players of the series...not by pundits but by Jones. Which rather suggests that Itojes future for England lies at 6 to allow both to be on the pitch.

Lawes I did think was very good but in this day and age there will be so many injuries and players will come in and out of form that I'd like to see depth not just players moved around. For example:

Pick the best 2nd rows available out of: Lawes, Launch, Itoje, Kruis, Attwood, etc

Pick the best 6 out of the contenders etc

Some will have to miss out but it creates real competition for places, to win a world cup you need 2/3 in every position.

Roll on the 6Ns. Ireland and Wales away make it the trickier of the fixtures if we can win those this team really could go places.

little_badger wrote:

Gooseberry wrote:Whereas Yards performed his defensive duties brilliantly...oh wait....

Espno cheekily chucked Strettle on their team lions team of the week. Apparently he's scoring tries and playing in France.  

I guess if/when Watson May Daley and Nowell are  all available the question marks over Roko and Yards sort of go away anyway. There's plenty of good wingers to be selected ahead of either, no matter who your particular favourites are you can't really say any of those are bad picks.

I was interested to see Lawes rated as one of the two players of the series...not by pundits but by Jones. Which rather suggests that Itojes future for England lies at 6 to allow both to be on the pitch.

Lawes I did think was very good but in this day and age there will be so many injuries and players will come in and out of form that I'd like to see depth not just players moved around. For example:

Pick the best 2nd rows available out of: Lawes, Launch, Itoje, Kruis, Attwood, etc

Pick the best 6 out of the contenders etc

Some will have to miss out but it creates real competition for places, to win a world cup you need 2/3 in every position.

This is where England really are starting to make up ground. Jones has the 1st XV ticking along nicely now, but he's been able to do that despite some important injuries, showing that depth is on the way. Not just "I can name 3 or 4 half decent players" sort of depth, but "I can name 2 or 3 players per position who can beat Australia and South Africa".

Here's where I see true depth emerging:

1.M Vunipola/Marler
2.Hartley/George
3.Cole/Sinkler
4.Itoje/Launchbury
5.Kruis/Lawes/Attwood
6.Robshaw/Wood
7.Haskell/(Wood)
8.B Vunipola/Hughes/Morgan
9.Youngs/Care
10.Ford/(Farrell)
11.May/Nowell
12.Farrell/Slade/Teo
13.Joseph/Tuilagi/Daly
14.Watson/Roko/Yarde
15.Brown/(Watson)

That's a decent group of players all having demonstrated that they can play at the highest level. I still think England could use an out and out 7 as an option and I don't think Harrison is it. I think both Pocock and Hooper would make the England XV, despite the result on Saturday. I also think England look immediately short at 15 should Brown get injured. Goode for me is a very fine club player, but if England are looking to beat the team featuring Ben Smith, Julian Savea and Israel Dagg, I think it's safe to assume that Goode isn't going to take them to that level.

I don't think both Pocock and Hooper would play. I would hope we'd go with one playing and one on the bench, but yes they are both good enough. Just don't get Oz though. They have a great blind side in Fardy - the sort of hard worker that lets everyone else shine and then they don't use him

I suppose the argument for Goode is he did play (and play very well) in the 2012 game vs the AB's - but no I can't see him there either.

As a natural pessimist when it comes to English rugby I spend time wondering how things will go wrong.

Woodward's team lost to Wales at Wembley through overconfidence (Dallaglio not taking the points to secure a win). Can't recall how we were undone by Scotland in 2000 but I know it wasn't just the foul conditions. 2001 was the foot & mouth year, where the Ireland loss came after the Lions tour, while 2002 saw Serge Betsen mowing down Wilkinson at will.

I don't have the same expectation that this current England side will win, because we haven't yet got clear edges over other teams. I keep reading celebrations of our strength in depth in the pack but I'm not sure there's any starting eight from players usually named which guarantees us a dominant scrum.

Consequently, I think we'd be just as vulnerable as the All Blacks were to the kind of performance Ireland put out in Chicago.

I think Hooper is a real class act.

But at the moment Jones is happy playing a slightly different way...like he did with Japan which moves slightly away from an out and out 7.

And to be honest the system seems robust enough that players can come in and know their role and perform well.

See: Haskell --> Harrison (at times) --> Wood in the 7 role. 3 different players have covered that 7 role recently and to varying degrees been effective.

Rugby Fan wrote:As a natural pessimist when it comes to English rugby I spend time wondering how things will go wrong.

Woodward's team lost to Wales at Wembley through overconfidence (Dallaglio not taking the points to secure a win). Can't recall how we were undone by Scotland in 2000 but I know it wasn't just the foul conditions. 2001 was the foot & mouth year, where the Ireland loss came after the Lions tour, while 2002 saw Serge Betsen mowing down Wilkinson at will.

I don't have the same expectation that this current England side will win, because we haven't yet got clear edges over other teams. I keep reading celebrations of our strength in depth in the pack but I'm not sure there's any starting eight from players usually named which guarantees us a dominant scrum.

Consequently, I think we'd be just as vulnerable as the All Blacks were to the kind of performance Ireland put out in Chicago.

Woodward's team struggled with tactical flexibility. A lot of times they needed half time to change the game plan and some times they needed a substitution (Catt for Tindall). It wasn't until very late on that they could adapt on the fly. Argentina showed that this team already has that.

English teams have struggled to deal with Irish intensity in Dublin over the years (you can add 2011 and 2015 to 2001 for example) and it remains a dangerous venue.

But the Irish victory in Chicago was more about exploiting the All Blacks disruption at lock than it was about NZ over confidence.

Rugby Fan wrote:As a natural pessimist when it comes to English rugby I spend time wondering how things will go wrong.

Woodward's team lost to Wales at Wembley through overconfidence (Dallaglio not taking the points to secure a win). Can't recall how we were undone by Scotland in 2000 but I know it wasn't just the foul conditions. 2001 was the foot & mouth year, where the Ireland loss came after the Lions tour, while 2002 saw Serge Betsen mowing down Wilkinson at will.

I don't have the same expectation that this current England side will win, because we haven't yet got clear edges over other teams. I keep reading celebrations of our strength in depth in the pack but I'm not sure there's any starting eight from players usually named which guarantees us a dominant scrum.

Consequently, I think we'd be just as vulnerable as the All Blacks were to the kind of performance Ireland put out in Chicago.

I am not sure a dominant scrum is as vital as it used to be. I suspect Jones is happy to have an adequate scrum and have a pack who are good in the loose and at lineout. He could replace Mako with Marler if scrum was the only consideration.

Exiledinborders wrote:...I am not sure a dominant scrum is as vital as it used to be. I suspect Jones is happy to have an adequate scrum...

Although Jones talked about reasserting England's traditional set piece strengths, all the teams he has coached have had no better than adequate scrums. That was partly a matter of not having the players but I think we'll find out that Jones agrees with you that a dominant scrum is an unnecessary luxury.

Rugby Fan wrote:

Exiledinborders wrote:...I am not sure a dominant scrum is as vital as it used to be. I suspect Jones is happy to have an adequate scrum...

Although Jones talked about reasserting England's traditional set piece strengths, all the teams he has coached have had no better than adequate scrums. That was partly a matter of not having the players but I think we'll find out that Jones agrees with you that a dominant scrum is an unnecessary luxury.

Agree, we will see what Eddie Jones wants. But there is a difference between being a less than dominant scrum a scrum which gets pushed back by Australia. Losing a scrum is still a turnover.

I think the most important thing that Jones,Borthwick and Gustard have done is build and rebuild confidence of players.

Nothing builds confidence like winning and coming into a winning team makes it easier for players to perform.

Robshaw was IMO a player low on confidence after the RWC but he's been a key player under Jones despite losing the captaincy, he seems to be enjoying his rugby again. Wood is a player who was initially jettisoned by Jones but didn't let England down in the AIs. Jones has managed to get better performances from Jonny May.

No game showed a greater contrast in confidence IMO - England-Argentina. Even with England down to 14 men, Argentina didn't seem to believe they could/would win.

England haven't really played champagne rugby in their 14 winning streak but they've been scoring some good tries and have in general managed to impose themselves on the opposition.

The most promising thing is that improvements can be made. England are not the finished article but moving in the right direction.

beshocked wrote:I think the most important thing that Jones,Borthwick and Gustard have done is build and rebuild confidence of players.

Nothing builds confidence like winning and coming into a winning team makes it easier for players to perform.

Robshaw was IMO a player low on confidence after the RWC but he's been a key player under Jones despite losing the captaincy, he seems to be enjoying his rugby again. Wood is a player who was initially jettisoned by Jones but didn't let England down in the AIs. Jones has managed to get better performances from Jonny May.

No game showed a greater contrast in confidence IMO - England-Argentina. Even with England down to 14 men, Argentina didn't seem to believe they could/would win.

England haven't really played champagne rugby in their 14 winning streak but they've been scoring some good tries and have in general managed to impose themselves on the opposition.

The most promising thing is that improvements can be made. England are not the finished article but moving in the right direction.

I see what you did there.....

beshocked wrote:I think the most important thing that Jones,Borthwick and Gustard have done is build and rebuild confidence of players.
...
Robshaw was IMO a player low on confidence after the RWC but he's been a key player under Jones despite losing the captaincy, he seems to be enjoying his rugby again. Wood is a player who was initially jettisoned by Jones but didn't let England down in the AIs. Jones has managed to get better performances from Jonny May.
...
No game showed a greater contrast in confidence IMO - England-Argentina. Even with England down to 14 men, Argentina didn't seem to believe they could/would win.
...
The most promising thing is that improvements can be made. England are not the finished article but moving in the right direction.

Agree with all of that (doesn't happen often).

Robshaw was clearly badly shaken by the RWC experience and it affected his club game for about 2 months afterwards - which had never happened before. I think the initial conversation with Eddie turned things around for him; I've seen Eddie talk about it and it was clearly a conversation he approached with some trepidation given what he'd said before, but he would have done the same as he did with everyone else: this is how I see you; this is what you need to do to be in my squad; this is the level of performance I expect. It's also clear from how Eddie talks about it that Robshaw's response to that has rubbed off on the rest of the squad.

The more I think about the Argentina game, the more I think it's the most impressive performance by England in a long time. I do not believe the Woodward side of 2000 (i.e. same distance out from the RWC) could have coped with that situation. They didn't cope with anything similar until the 2003 game in NZ, and even after that it took things like the Catt for Tindall sub in the Wales game to turn things around.

While there's lots more to do, that game was the sort of experience that teams are forged from. You could see that Eddie's reaction when Daly was sent off wasn't anger, concern or even resignation, it was "Now we'll really learn something."

I felt the same watching the game when Daly went off. Didn't think England would lose even with a man off for that long.

Made the game more interesting. It was a good time to play Argentina admittedly but it's good to try out scenarios like what happens if a player gets a red card.

Also I think it was a great test for May too whose workload was doubled. He did very well. That cover tackle was probably the most crucial thing he did.

Jones' England has managed to deal with adversity really well. Jones was fortunate to not get key injuries in the 6 nations but England have handled the injuries in the AIs well.

I doubted whether Hughes would be able to step up on his first start but going by match reports it seems he performed well in Billy's absence.

I don't think even a loss to Ireland in the 6 nations would burst the current optimism in English rugby as long as lessons are learned.

One of my biggest criticisms of Lancaster is I didn't feel like his England team improved. I think Jones' England team are improving. They are not yet no 1 standard but on the right path.

Plus obviously England are a mentally tougher side now.

doctor_grey wrote:

Rugby Fan wrote:

Exiledinborders wrote:...I am not sure a dominant scrum is as vital as it used to be. I suspect Jones is happy to have an adequate scrum...

Although Jones talked about reasserting England's traditional set piece strengths, all the teams he has coached have had no better than adequate scrums. That was partly a matter of not having the players but I think we'll find out that Jones agrees with you that a dominant scrum is an unnecessary luxury.

Agree, we will see what Eddie Jones wants.  But there is a difference between being a less than dominant scrum a scrum which gets pushed back by Australia.  Losing a scrum is still a turnover.    

To be fair we lost that first scrum because Hartley managed to kick it to them, and initially we went forward until the forwards were trying to work out where the ball had gone. Striking became pointless when 9s realised Peyper was allowing a feed straight to second rows.

LondonTiger wrote:
To be fair we lost that first scrum because Hartley managed to kick it to them, and initially we went forward until the forwards were trying to work out where the ball had gone. Striking became pointless when 9s realised Peyper was allowing a feed straight to second rows.

Yup. The ball bounced up and off Hartley's knee in to the Aussie pack. Once we worked out that Peyper was relaxed on collapses and feeds, the England scrum did enough and got back into the game. There was no point playing for a shove or penalties, because the Aussies were going down but Peyper's arm wasn't going up. Got to play to the opposition in front of you.

beshocked wrote:I think the most important thing that Jones,Borthwick and Gustard have done is build and rebuild confidence of players.

Nothing builds confidence like winning and coming into a winning team makes it easier for players to perform.

So to clarify ...what you are saying is that the genius of the coaching team has been to figure out that winning games is a good idea?

Gooseberry wrote:

beshocked wrote:I think the most important thing that Jones,Borthwick and Gustard have done is build and rebuild confidence of players.

Nothing builds confidence like winning and coming into a winning team makes it easier for players to perform.

So to clarify ...what you are saying is that the genius of the coaching team has been to figure out that winning games is a good idea?

It's something that Lancaster couldn't figure out....

Lancaster wasn't on the field when that rolling maul was pushed off the field....

How things might have been different now. Lancaster might be that very man sitting pretty with his ever-present clip-board, having just had the season of his life.

One damn embarrassing shunt off the field is wot did for him!

Not sure which incident you are referring to.

We went for a lineout instead of the posts in a big game against Wales, the World Cup or something.

SecretFly wrote:Lancaster wasn't on the field when that rolling maul was pushed off the field....

How things might have been different now.  Lancaster might be that very man sitting pretty with his ever-present clip-board, having just had the season of his life.

One damn embarrassing shunt off the field is wot did for him!

I forget who it was - might have been Conor O'Shea - but someone pointed out that there were at least 3 clearly visible penalty offences in the Welsh defence of that maul. If any one of them had been picked up...

But ultimately Lancaster took risks in the wrong places (reshaping the pack's physiques in the pre RWC camp, counting on Morgan to be fit etc) and didn't take them in the right places (conservative bench, taking Burgess off when he was containing Roberts nicely etc) and it cost him.

SecretFly wrote:Lancaster wasn't on the field when that rolling maul was pushed off the field....

How things might have been different now.  Lancaster might be that very man sitting pretty with his ever-present clip-board, having just had the season of his life.

One damn embarrassing shunt off the field is wot did for him!

The Lancastrian regime was doomed. Regardless whether England slipped into the Quarterfinals at the RWC or not. I saw an interesting comment in The Guardian today saying the word 'culture' has been replaced with the word 'attitude'. Interesting comment. Now we all know buzz words don't win championships, but it does encapsulate an improved aspect of the Jones regime.

In addition, Lancaster was far too rigid with his plans, having an almost bulletproof resistance to adapting play. Almost rewarding players for not creating, adapting, and/or reacting on the pitch.

But to me, his biggest sin was to try to make his players into choir boys when they are simply dudes like the rest of us. Jones told everyone to relax and it is OK to go out as a team or in groups and drink a few........beers. Be together. But act professional (no jumping off ferries, for instance). Beer and Rugby has a historical connection well documented. They go together like sausage and eggs, fish and chips, steak and more steak. Let men act like men.

doctor_grey wrote:

But to me, his biggest sin was to try to make his players into choir boys when they are simply dudes like the rest of us.  Jones told everyone to relax and it is OK to go out as a team or in groups and drink a few........beers.  Be together.  But act professional (no jumping off ferries, for instance).  Beer and Rugby has a historical connection well documented.  They go together like sausage and eggs, fish and chips, steak and more steak.  Let men act like men.  

I supported Trump too, doc

ps - can you imagine Lancaster now trying to tell a herd of Dubs to stay away from the age old tradition of Beer and Rugby, steak and steak.    I think Lancaster will be going back to England a much more mellow character.... maybe as an alcoholic too

SecretFly wrote:ps - can you imagine Lancaster now trying to tell a herd of Dubs to stay away from the age old tradition of Beer and Rugby, steak and steak.    I think Lancaster will be going back to England a much more mellow character.... maybe as an alcoholic too

Ah, a better person then...............

doctor_grey wrote:

SecretFly wrote:ps - can you imagine Lancaster now trying to tell a herd of Dubs to stay away from the age old tradition of Beer and Rugby, steak and steak.    I think Lancaster will be going back to England a much more mellow character.... maybe as an alcoholic too

Ah, a better person then...............

That's definitely not what my wife tells me the morning after I have had a heavy night on the booze.

I think the difference is that Lancaster wanted a rigid in a system that he didn't fully understand; Jones likes fluidity but within set parameters for each player that gels as an overall game plan. For example, Bomber would have torn a strip off Woods for that pick up and go, without pre-organised support, EJ says play what is in front of you, trusting that your team mates will be there to support as that is one of his imperatives. If you are not aware of the potential and available to support the breakaway, you will not be around the squad much longer.

Lancaster didn't understand pro sport. He was all about values and standards when all that matters is winning. Even at his pre execution speech he said that people should 'get behind the lads, they're a good bunch of lads' like some aging history teacher who coached the First XV.