6N 2018: Scotland v England, 24 February

First topic message reminder :

     
SCOTLAND v ENGLAND
24 February 2018
KO: 16:45 GMT
BT Murrayfield, Edinburgh

Live on [Old BBC Colonial]

Referee: Nigel Owens (Wales)
Assistant 1: Jérôme Garcès (France)
Assistant 2: Andrew Brace (Ireland)
TMO: Simon McDowell (Ireland)

A. Head to Head

135 Played 135
42 Won 75
18 Drawn 18
75 Lost 42
1,162 Points 1,623

B. Recent Form 

2 February 2013
Twickenham, London
38 – 18 to England

8 February 2014
Murrayfield, Edinburgh
0 – 20 to England

14 March 2015
Twickenham, London
25 – 13 to England

6 February 2016
Murrayfield, Edinburgh
9 – 15 to England

11 March 2017
Twickenham, London
61 – 21 to England

C. Teams

SCOTLAND 

Hogg, Seymour, Jones, Horne, Maitland, Russell, Laidlaw; Reid, McInally, Berghan, Gilchrist, J Gray, Barclay (capt), Watson, Wilson.

Replacements: Lawson, J Bhatti, WP Nel, Swinson, Denton, Price, Grigg, Kinghorn.

ENGLAND

Brown, Watson, Joseph, Farrell, May, Ford, Care; M Vunipola, Hartley (capt), Cole, Launchbury, Itoje, Lawes, Robshaw, Hughes.

Replacements: George, Marler, Williams, G Kruis (Saracens), Underhill, Wigglesworth, B Te'o, J Nowell.

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:

beshocked wrote:

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:I think most fans have given up thinking who the Toonie Tombola will pick at any given time, with Nel coming back, Scott, Strauss, Visser and some others we may see something quite different.

My team would look something like this:

1. Reid
2. McKinally
3. Berghen
4. Gilchrist
5. Gray
6. Barclay (C)
7. The Mishiah
8. Denton

9. Laidlaw (place kicker)
10. Russell
11. Seymour
12. Horne
13. Jones
14. Maitland
15. Hogg (touch kicker)

I have designated the kickers to emphasize that Russell shouldn't be doing anything apart from playing heads up rugby and Laidlaw is there to tell him to calm the hell down. Dunbar at 12 is also an option if again that keeps Russell's head on.

It feels really strange typing that sort of thing down. Russell is a bloody good player but the fact I'm assigning him minders doesn't ooze confidence.

16. Lawson
17. Bahtti
18. Welsh
19. Toolis
20. Swinson
21. Strauss
22. Price
23. Bennett

Nothing wrong with having a minder for Russell.

England use Farrell as a minder for Ford.

Farrell takes a lot of responsibility off Ford and if Laidlaw and Horne can do the same for Russell it can only be a good thing surely?

Getting the best out of players is key to winning.


Sadly for Scotland I don't feel Horne is the same quality rugby player as Farrell Jr.

I don't think anyone is the same quality player as Farrell, I've already said I think he is the most important player England has, he is instrumental in everything from place kicking to defensive shape. Without Farrell, I seriously think Scotland could win the game, he is THAT important. Sure a lot of pundits fawn over Itoje or Robshaw's workrate or Ant Watson's dynamism or Simmon's speed. But whilst all that has been going on Farrell as cemented himself as the best test 12 in the world, all that whilst playing 10 for Sarries.

Horne is actually a very canny operator, he's not the biggest of lads for a test 12 at 6ft and just under 15st, but aside from Laidlaw he's the most intelligent player we have. He makes up for his small frame by being in the right place at the right time, all the time. He reads the game so well and is a great distributer at 12 and will get the best out of Hogg coming into the line and Jones at 13.

He will be little more than annoyance to defenders though. Dunbar is rock solid in that channel and he was badly exposed by England last year, I fear for what England might conjure up for Horne to deal with on Saturday.

Farrell's place kicking hasn't actually been good in the tournament so far but the rest of his game has.

I disagree. I think most people bar whoever picked Brown as MOTM would have picked Farrell vs Wales.

It's Farrell's relationship with Ford which has helped each other. It's partnerships like that which can make a team stronger.

Well Itoje hasn't played well in the tournament yet.

England haven't quite sorted out the backrow yet - it's an area, Scotland will have to look to target because tougher to target the front five or Ford-Farrell in my opinion.

England have been ill disciplined so exploit it - attack the breakdown, force England to concede penalties.

I'd also try and attack May and Watson defensively because even though they are electric in attack, still suspect defensively.

Of course for England, I'd say try and up the physicality - attack Laidlaw and Russell, attack the midfield. Get the bigger England men running at the smaller Scots like Russell and Laidlaw.

Not sure it's that much discipline that needs sorting but I agree wholeheartedly about the back row. Too many times seems to be a panic to secure ball or being too slow to get there which is costing us. You could say discipline I'd say that we need to give away some of those to stop a worse situation. Speed and supporting half breaks needs sharpening hence my hope of not having lawes and Hughe in there which would only make things slower.

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:

Scottrf wrote:

Scottrf wrote:

tigertattie wrote:I'd say Nowell and Watson are Englands best Wingers. Can't say I rate may that much.

I know folk will point out he scored two tries last weekend but those were the exception rather than the rule!

Well,

Player 1: 1 try every 2.58 games internationally.
Player 2: 1 try every 3.29 games internationally.

For one of these a try is the exception rather than the rule, the other is the most exciting attacking player in the Northern Hemisphere. I'll let you figure out the players.

Because the quiz was ignored. 1. Is Jonny May. 2 is Stuart Hogg.

That's surprising and I apologize I didn't know you were wanting input, I thought it was a rhetorical comparison. I have always rated Johnny May, from an outside point of view. He is utterly rapid he runs good lines, gets his hands on the ball, is ok in defence and alright under the high ball. I get Jack Nowell is a good player too but having a selection dilema between those two is hardly a bad thing. Also Johnny May at flank is a great return on banter.

However Hogg gets so much attention because of how he attacks the line. May can work his magic in space, Hogg typically works his magic from anywhere. Already 2 rounds in despite having a tough game in Cardiff he is near the top of defenders beaten and meters made. I'd say Ant Watson is more comparable to Hogg.

There is a Scotland player who scores at the rate of 1 try every 1.625 games internationally.

Yeah George, but there's a recently retired back who scored 1 try every dozen or so games so it all evens out

No 7 & 1/2 sigh you generally seem to disagree with me. It's why I see you as a WUM, don't even know why I still reply.

England's discipline has been poor. England give away too many penalties. You can say it's not discipline but giving away too many penalties is just that.

I don't mind disagreeing when there is some ambiguity but statistically you can't question England's overly high penalty conceded count.


It's like when I talk about Scotland's defensive woes, it's not subjective or debatable. It's factual. It's something they must fix.

Some things are grey, some things are not.

beshocked wrote:No 7 & 1/2 sigh you generally seem to disagree with me. It's why I see you as a WUM, don't even know why I still reply.

England's discipline has been poor. England give away too many penalties.  You can say it's not discipline but giving away too many penalties is just that.

I don't mind disagreeing when there is some ambiguity but statistically you can't question England's overly high penalty conceded count.


It's like when I talk about Scotland's defensive woes, it's not subjective or debatable. It's factual. It's something they must fix.

Some things are grey, some things are not.

It depends on how you see it Shock, Scotland's defence is not an utter shambles. However it's nothing like England's defence which as shown in the Wales game is actually a potent weapon.

Now Scotland's defence simply may not be fixable. If we want to play a higher tempo attacking game we may simply lack the muscle to defend effectively. If that guile sees us out score the opponent in attack, then it's not a concern. However if the attack misfires like it did in the Wales game, problems arise.

It's also worth noting that Italy scored 2 tries against England, so England's defence may not be this impenetrable as some might think it is.

beshocked wrote:


It's like when I talk about Scotland's defensive woes, it's not subjective or debatable. It's factual. It's something they must fix.

Some things are grey, some things are not.

Beshocked, you have demonstrated a lack of understanding as to what factual means on a number of occasions. In fact Ruggerradge has just pointed this out again. If you continually present your opinion as fact, you're bound to get frustrated when someone holds an opposing viewpoint. That's hardly 7 1/2's fault.

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:

beshocked wrote:No 7 & 1/2 sigh you generally seem to disagree with me. It's why I see you as a WUM, don't even know why I still reply.

England's discipline has been poor. England give away too many penalties.  You can say it's not discipline but giving away too many penalties is just that.

I don't mind disagreeing when there is some ambiguity but statistically you can't question England's overly high penalty conceded count.


It's like when I talk about Scotland's defensive woes, it's not subjective or debatable. It's factual. It's something they must fix.

Some things are grey, some things are not.

It depends on how you see it Shock, Scotland's defence is not an utter shambles. However it's nothing like England's defence which as shown in the Wales game is actually a potent weapon.

Now Scotland's defence simply may not be fixable. If we want to play a higher tempo attacking game we may simply lack the muscle to defend effectively. If that guile sees us out score the opponent in attack, then it's not a concern. However if the attack misfires like it did in the Wales game, problems arise.

It's also worth noting that Italy scored 2 tries against England, so England's defence may not be this impenetrable as some might think it is.

We concede when we are messing about. When teams like Scotland, Italy or France allow us to score ~50.

So there's Scotland's gameplan.  Slyly concede 50 points in the first half, wait for England to start messing about in the second half, then in for the kill!  51 - 50 final score.

SecretFly wrote:So there's Scotland's gameplan.  Slyly concede 50 points in the first half, wait for England to start messing in the second half, then in for the kill!  51 - 50 final score.

Sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssshhh Fly.

It's a lot greyer than you seem to think beshocked.

10 penalties (and only 6 points) conceded is not indiscipline - it's a pretty good performance by international standards. It only looks bad in comparison to Wales's 2 - though that itself is misleading, given the number of blatant offsides the refereeing team missed or ignored.

You can only really look at penalties in the context of when and why they were conceded. A penalty given to stop a try is good discipline, not poor (which is why no-one thinks that the world's best collectors of yellow cards, the All Blacks, are indisciplined).

England do give away a few silly penalties a game by getting isolated or going for a steal that isn't on in game situations where the pressure isn't on. They do need to improve that - but to my mind they aren't materially worse in that regard than many other teams.

Unfortunately stats aren't easily available on the situation in which penalties were conceded, so we can only go on impressions. And impressions are often wrong.

I have come to the conclusion that penalties should be categorised similar to tennis errors into:

1) Forced (and Cynical)- typically a prop collapsing under pressure or a deliberate penalty committed to stop a try being scored.
2) Unforced - (aka Dumb) representing the penalties that make you want to pull your hair out. So far a number of these have happened for holding on when the player has been isolated, usually in the opponents 22. Just let them have the ball FFS then smash them and eventually get it back.

I was just asking for a clarification beshocked into what you felt needed to improve. I mentioned the back row balance as a point of agreement or entire pack tbf as there are situations where we are too slow or have a poor technique and are coming under pressure. There's a couple of cases where Itoje took the ball into traffic players didn't support and he was pinged for hanging on. To me that's a pen you have to take as it would cause no ends of problems defensively to have that turnover. My request to you was.how.you saw the discipline problems and the hope you'd expand on how to change. You just wanted t say we gave too many pens fair enough but to me it's a bit more nuanced.

Oh and disagreement on a discussion forum isn't wumming.

Okay so conceding 10 penalties to 2 isn't poor discipline....

It doesn't matter whether it's forced or not. It's still not good.

Wales did not capitalise on England's poor discipline. That is something Wales need to work on.


You can only twist statistics 10-2 so much.  You talk about grey areas but this isn't one.

Turning pressure into points is a key part of rugby.


ruggerradge the sheer amount of points conceded suggest yes, the Scotland defence so far has been poor.


You can play attacking rugby and have a good defence. They don't need to be mutually exclusive.


cascough it is factual - Scotland have shipped 60 points in 2 games. That's poor defence no matter how people want to twist it.

Conceding 60+ points by England last year was poor defence.

Not as if England score 60+ against every single team.

If you ignore things like 60 points conceding in 2 games then yes, Scotland have a world class defence.


Conceding 10 penalties to 2 is bad discipline. Yes Poorfour might try to twist it to say we only conceded 6 points.

That is good defence. Not good discipline. Stopping a team from scoring points is being solid defensively and doing basics like clearing lines etc.

Some teams are more clinical, taking opportunities.


no 7 & 1/2 it is wumming when you are just being provocative for the sake of it Why not open with that instead of : you are wrong are discipline is not bad.

Surely the answer is obvious? The support play has to be better to prevent these sort of penalties. If Itoje is being isolated, you give him help.

It's these kind of obvious things the coaches need to fix.

I am not an international coach yet I can see problems that experts aren't fixing.

A penalty isn't only bad discipline. It can be tactical.

If you want to still call it bad discipline, then sometimes bad discipline is good.

It's often symptomatic of something else rather than an issue in itself.

tigertattie wrote:I'd say Nowell and Watson are Englands best Wingers. Can't say I rate may that much.

I know folk will point out he scored two tries last weekend but those were the exception rather than the rule!

If you ignore his other 10 international tries sure. Nowells test record is only marginaly better there, and Watson a nudge again. Daleys record worse.
In reality youre looking at a relatively low number of games to state one is very much more a try scoring machine than another. May has easily the best try scoring record of the 4 in the premiership ( sheer volume and number per game played) which is from a much bigger sample.

But as we know from Tim Visser scoring tries isnt the only asset a winger needs, albeit a helpful one, anyway


England are blessed to have 4 options at wing who have good all round skills and arent just revolving doors who can run fast if handed the ball. Theyve also got a proper full back with proper fuull back skills who ws arguably their best back and kept them in the game last weekend. I do see Daley as a long term replacement at full back though, but for now theres far bigger issues for England to worry about than their 4 outside backs (and spare).

Exactly it's not bad discipline to me for Itoje to hold onto the ball which was.my point. But as it is beshocked you agree with me you just see lumped it under discipline whereas I think as scott says above its a bit of a choice to take the hit.

Scottrf wrote:A penalty isn't only bad discipline. It can be tactical.

If you want to still call it bad discipline, then sometimes bad discipline is good.

It's often symptomatic of something else rather than an issue in itself.

Case and point France last weekend. They gave away 6 penalties in the second half and a lot of pundits criticised Scotland for not scoring tries, like what we typically do. However France's repeated infringements denied us that oppertunity. We did exactly what a team should do, take the points. France were under all kinds of pressure in that second half and giving away penalties was their only alternative to leaking tries.

As for the Scottish defence, I'm bored of trying to explain the differances to you Shocked, perhaps attacking rugby and a solid defence is an option for teams with player pools as deep as England. For us our choices are more stark, and brutal. We could play some pluggers, been there, done that and watched the dirge often enough that buying the T-shirt wasn't palatable.

Our larger alternatives that would be more stout defensively probably don't have the soft skills required to play Toonie's gameplan. Like I said the structure will improve as familiarity grows, but I seriously doubt there will be a silver bullet that will make our defence solid overnight or in time for this weekend. I just hope we can stick some points on the board ourselves. We have to.

Yes a penalty can be tactical but when you are being pinged a lot more than the opposition you are doing something wrong.

10-2 isn't just a small amount. It's showing a deficiency somewhere.

You don't think the penalty count affected England's performance?

If you have the penalty count in your favour you can use it as a springboard.

Ireland conceded 3 penalties vs Italy, we conceded 9 vs Italy.


Sure are disciplinary is okay if we compare to Italy and France but they are hardly the benchmark!


no 7 & 1/2 it's a deficiency in the team. When you concede penalties it's for a reason.

Ah, the banter. Here are Scotland's results in 2017:

Scotland 27 22 Ireland
France 22 16 Scotland
Scotland 29 13 Wales
England 61 21 Scotland
Scotland 29 0 Italy 15
Italy 13 34 Scotland
Australia 19 24 Scotland
Fiji 27 22 Scotland 11
Scotland 44 38 Samoa
Scotland 17 22 New Zealand
Scotland 53 24 Australia

You are not necessarily wrong Beshocked, old fruit. Lots of tries conceded.

However, a lot of matches won, a huge number of tries scored and some good scalps taken.

How concerned you are about that depends upon your point of view. Bear in mind that for about a decade, Scotland's problem was that they could not score tries. Defence is the easiest thing in the modern game to be good at and many club and test sides made their reputation on just being hard to beat. So if I was to start from any position it would be that being able to score is not the problem and the players' fitness is not the problem. Instead, the defensive set needs improving. The change in Scotland management personnel lead to a change in our defence coach. This needs to be worked around and it definitely will be. That's the position I prefer to be in, rather than weeping into my urinewater throughout the 90s (done that, didn't like it).

However to focus on a side's defensive shortcomings often masks or does not give credit to how difficult it is to win games by scoring more than your opposition. And that happens with Scotland an awful lot.

Yes but there are lots of different penalties and lots of reasons to concede them. You agree that support at rucks needs to be improved a little. I'm personally not that worried about other pens as we seem to have the balance between this yellow cards and tries.conceded about right.

George Carlin wrote:However to focus on a side's defensive shortcomings often masks or does not give credit to how difficult it is to win games by scoring more than your opposition. And that happens with Scotland an awful lot.

Surely it is much harder to win by scoring less than your opponents?




PS I think I know what you mean, some teams set themselves up to score more than the opposition, some to concede less. Arguably the former is an attacking mindset, the latter a defensive one.

George Carlin wrote:

SecretFly wrote:So there's Scotland's gameplan.  Slyly concede 50 points in the first half, wait for England to start messing in the second half, then in for the kill!  51 - 50 final score.

Sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssshhh Fly.

God I hope not, but on the plus side we can celebrate a losing bonus point away from home just like Wales did.

England must reduce their penalty count. The rest will fall in to place. Two such needless penalties against Wales were Cole lying on the wrong side like a beached whale whilst waving his hands in the air. Where did he get that was a good idea? Secondly, Nowel comes on when England are attacking nicely and promptly goes off his feet to seal off the ball. Mindless and easy to fix. Fix it and Scotland will be in a world of pain figuratively speaking.

Nowell fell over and got back to his feet unlike Wales who just stayed there!

ruggerradge yes and you won because you kicked those penalties.

France gave away too many penalties.


George Carlin if it's easy to fix then you should fix the defence.

I think the problem is you've become so fixated with scoring tries and means you are vulnerable, especially on the counter.

Well I disagree actually. Being difficult to beat first and foremost can be good, then you can work on the frills - that's what my club side, Saracens did.

For at least 2 years, Saracens were boring to watch playing percentage rugby but you know what it was effective. They then won the AP 3 times and European cup twice. They evolved.

You don't become a complete side by forgetting defence.

It's why I can't see Scotland winning the 6 nations till they fix it or Glasgow winning the ERCC till they fix their defence.


Having to score so many points to beat the opposition is harder than simply stopping the opposition.


Wales' GS successes were based on their defence. Actually many victories are.

beshocked wrote:ruggerradge yes and you won because you kicked those penalties.

France gave away too many penalties.

So if France conceded a try instead of each penalty they would have won?

Scottrf wrote:

beshocked wrote:ruggerradge yes and you won because you kicked those penalties.

France gave away too many penalties.

So if France conceded a try instead of each penalty they would have won?

No because they were conceding points. Cutting out the penalties would reduce Scotland's opportunities.

Obviously when you concede 3 points, you get to kick off, how you handle the restart can be very important.

You have to of course look at why you are conceding penalties, if it's pressure then how can you fix it?

beshocked wrote:ruggerradge yes and you won because you kicked those penalties.

France gave away too many penalties.


George Carlin if it's easy to fix then you should fix the defence.

I think the problem is you've become so fixated with scoring tries and means you are vulnerable, especially on the counter.

Well I disagree actually. Being difficult to beat first and foremost can be good, then you can work on the frills - that's what my club side, Saracens did.

For at least 2 years, Saracens were boring to watch playing percentage rugby but you know what it was effective. They then won the AP 3 times and European cup twice. They evolved.

You don't become a complete side by forgetting defence.

It's why I can't see Scotland winning the 6 nations till they fix it or Glasgow winning the ERCC till they fix their defence.


Having to score so many points to beat the opposition is harder than simply stopping the opposition.


Wales' GS successes were based on their defence. Actually many victories are.

I think this is slightly disingenuous from you Shocked. Edinburgh under Cockers are becoming hard to beat, I still fancy Glasgow lifting silverware far sooner than Edinburgh!

Lets not beat about the bush, if Scotland roll England this weekend, we are firmly in contention to win the title. It's not that much of a stretch of the imagination either.

Scotland IMO have all of the skills and players to beat this England side. It all comes down to execution on the day and that is far harder to predict.

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:Lets not beat about the bush, if Scotland roll England this weekend, we are firmly in contention to win the title. It's not that much of a stretch of the imagination either

There's that Scottish confidence back!

France's problem was not ill discipline but poor fitness (and an improved Scotland of course). They were struggling to rebuff the Scots any other way. Of course we will never know what would have happened if they had not conceded the penalty, but you have to feel a number of tries were being scored. I would mark the majority of kicks Laidlaw converted as being of the "forced" type, with teh tired French defence being forced to concede a penalty rather than risking a try being conceded.


To highlight the point with a different match in 2003 Back and Dayglo were binned as England conceded numerous penalties against NZ to prevent tries being scored. Was that win despite ill discipline or because of clever cynicism?

beshocked wrote:

No because they were conceding points. Cutting out the penalties would reduce Scotland's opportunities.

Obviously when you concede 3 points, you get to kick off, how you handle the restart can be very important.

You have to of course look at why you are conceding penalties, if it's pressure then how can you fix it?

France couldn't fix it, that's why they were infringing. Scotland's attack against France was far more patient, considered and accurate when compared to our attack against Wales and when having to defend for such long periods against a team that is so patient, accurate and cutting unpredictable lines a try or giving away a penalty is inevitable.

England are a very well drilled side, however adapting on the fly is not something that the team is very good at.

"I'm a referee, not the coach." Springs to mind.

Granted Scotland aren't very good at adapting on the fly either. Wales' kicking game and more importantly the lack of chase absolutely scuppered Scotland's most potent threat in the form of Stuart Hogg.

The ball was kicked to Hogg a lot against Wales and it would normally be a suicidal tactic. However Wales just didn't chase the ball, they formed the defensive line up and advanced on Hogg in a line, with no broken field or gaps to fly through Hogg was nulified.

If Jones plays something similar we need to try and negate that affect either by tactical kicking in response or getting back in numbers to support Hogg and give him other options.

Scottrf wrote:

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:Lets not beat about the bush, if Scotland roll England this weekend, we are firmly in contention to win the title. It's not that much of a stretch of the imagination either

There's that Scottish confidence back!

Not really, to say we simply cannot win we'd be as well as not even playing the game and just handing you 5 points without even getting muddy!

Saying we can win, albeit with a lot of factors going our way, is different from saying we will win!

ruggerradge yes but to beat England your defence will have to hold up.


I think May's first try vs Wales was adapting on the fly - seeing the space and kicking through.

Scotland might have the skills but do they have the physicality and fitness? England will play for 80 +.


You won't be able to run England into the ground because if Hartley, Mako and May empty their tanks, we can bring on the likes of Marler, George and Nowell to keep up the pressure.

beshocked wrote:ruggerradge yes but to beat England your defence will have to hold up.


I think May's first try vs Wales was adapting on the fly - seeing the space and kicking through.

Scotland might have the skills but do they have the physicality and fitness? England will play for 80 +.


You won't be able to run England into the ground because if Hartley, Mako and May empty their tanks, we can bring on the likes of Marler, George and Nowell to keep up the pressure.

Physicality? unlikely.
Fitness? Absolutely.

With the players returning from injury like Nel, Scott and Bennett playing very well against Ulster our bench is getting stronger.

LondonTiger wrote:

George Carlin wrote:However to focus on a side's defensive shortcomings often masks or does not give credit to how difficult it is to win games by scoring more than your opposition. And that happens with Scotland an awful lot.

Surely it is much harder to win by scoring less than your opponents?

More *tries*.

englandglory4ever wrote:England must reduce their penalty count. The rest will fall in to place. Two such needless penalties against Wales were Cole lying on the wrong side like a beached whale whilst waving his hands in the air. Where did he get that was a good idea? Secondly, Nowel  comes on when England are attacking nicely and promptly goes off his feet to seal off the ball. Mindless and easy to fix. Fix it and Scotland will be in a world of pain figuratively speaking.

To be fair to Nowell Wales were doing that all afternoon

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:Edinburgh under Cockers are becoming hard to beat

Maybe Cockers could consider taking a job in the Premiership, at Leicester possibly............

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:

beshocked wrote:No 7 & 1/2 sigh you generally seem to disagree with me. It's why I see you as a WUM, don't even know why I still reply.

England's discipline has been poor. England give away too many penalties.  You can say it's not discipline but giving away too many penalties is just that.

I don't mind disagreeing when there is some ambiguity but statistically you can't question England's overly high penalty conceded count.


It's like when I talk about Scotland's defensive woes, it's not subjective or debatable. It's factual. It's something they must fix.

Some things are grey, some things are not.

It depends on how you see it Shock, Scotland's defence is not an utter shambles. However it's nothing like England's defence which as shown in the Wales game is actually a potent weapon.

Now Scotland's defence simply may not be fixable. If we want to play a higher tempo attacking game we may simply lack the muscle to defend effectively. If that guile sees us out score the opponent in attack, then it's not a concern. However if the attack misfires like it did in the Wales game, problems arise.

It's also worth noting that Italy scored 2 tries against England, so England's defence may not be this impenetrable as some might think it is.

They also scored three tries away to Ireland, so it may be that Italy's attack is better than we give it credit for.

WELL-PAST-IT wrote:

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:

beshocked wrote:No 7 & 1/2 sigh you generally seem to disagree with me. It's why I see you as a WUM, don't even know why I still reply.

England's discipline has been poor. England give away too many penalties.  You can say it's not discipline but giving away too many penalties is just that.

I don't mind disagreeing when there is some ambiguity but statistically you can't question England's overly high penalty conceded count.


It's like when I talk about Scotland's defensive woes, it's not subjective or debatable. It's factual. It's something they must fix.

Some things are grey, some things are not.

It depends on how you see it Shock, Scotland's defence is not an utter shambles. However it's nothing like England's defence which as shown in the Wales game is actually a potent weapon.

Now Scotland's defence simply may not be fixable. If we want to play a higher tempo attacking game we may simply lack the muscle to defend effectively. If that guile sees us out score the opponent in attack, then it's not a concern. However if the attack misfires like it did in the Wales game, problems arise.

It's also worth noting that Italy scored 2 tries against England, so England's defence may not be this impenetrable as some might think it is.

They also scored three tries away to Ireland, so it may be that Italy's attack is better than we give it credit for.

Our wide defense is better with JJ playing. And it's not like we were under any danger of Italy winning.

Wales was more interesting, and you can argue all you like about the might of's and should of's and if only the ref/TMO had seen 'sense' but they didn't score, and we didn't look weak 'out wide'.

beshocked wrote:Yes a penalty can be tactical but when you are being pinged a lot more than the opposition you are doing something wrong.

And in one sentence, you dismiss everything everyone has said to you, without explaining why.

And can we please stop saying 10-2 on the penalty count. As Garces even explained to AWJ when he was asking for a card, he played advantage twice in the buildup to England's try. It was 10-4. Take a couple of silly ones out for England which are easily fixable and it's 8-4. Talk about a couple of glaring inconsitencies from Garces (pinging england for scraping back onto the ball whilst allowing Navidi to do it. England on the wrong side whilst allowing Wales on I think 2 occasions to do it) and it becomes even more ambiguous. You could play that game all day. Whilst there is no getting away from what was a fantastically disciplined performance by Wales (Kudos to them for that, it kept them in the game) England have no real worries at all. England probably do concede too many penalties overall, but nothing to worry about in this game.

Here's quite a stat for you - Scotland have only scored 2 home tries against England in the 6N! Simon Danielli in 2004 was the last one!

Nah, I'm gonna stick with 10-2, cuz them's the facts. The rest is coulda shoulda woulda. It's true that the Wales' count was surprisingly low, but that's what Garces called. So unless he was cheating (he wasn't) that's 5x as many penalties for England. At the very least England were falling far short of Wales at interpreting the ref. It's only 1 game, which we won, so no crisis. But by any logical standard we were far more undisciplined than the opposition. Something we can't afford to do in too many more games. I'm giving this one to BS.

So Itoje for instance should have released the ball in his own half?

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:

beshocked wrote:

No because they were conceding points. Cutting out the penalties would reduce Scotland's opportunities.

Obviously when you concede 3 points, you get to kick off, how you handle the restart can be very important.

You have to of course look at why you are conceding penalties, if it's pressure then how can you fix it?

France couldn't fix it, that's why they were infringing. Scotland's attack against France was far more patient, considered and accurate when compared to our attack against Wales and when having to defend for such long periods against a team that is so patient, accurate and cutting unpredictable lines a try or giving away a penalty is inevitable.

England are a very well drilled side, however adapting on the fly is not something that the team is very good at.

"I'm a referee, not the coach." Springs to mind.

Granted Scotland aren't very good at adapting on the fly either. Wales' kicking game and more importantly the lack of chase absolutely scuppered Scotland's most potent threat in the form of Stuart Hogg.

The ball was kicked to Hogg a lot against Wales and it would normally be a suicidal tactic. However Wales just didn't chase the ball, they formed the defensive line up and advanced on Hogg in a line, with no broken field or gaps to fly through Hogg was nulified.

If Jones plays something similar we need to try and negate that affect either by tactical kicking in response or getting back in numbers to support Hogg and give him other options.

In an earlier thread someone gave some pretty good evidence that this is not in fact even remotely true

Barney McGrew did it wrote:Nah, I'm gonna stick with 10-2, cuz them's the facts. The rest is coulda shoulda woulda. It's true that the Wales' count was surprisingly low, but that's what Garces called. So unless he was cheating (he wasn't) that's 5x as many penalties for England. At the very least England were falling far short of Wales at interpreting the ref. It's only 1 game, which we won, so no crisis. But by any logical standard we were far more undisciplined than the opposition. Something we can't afford to do in too many more games. I'm giving this one to BS.

I am not arguing that England's discipline is OK. It is not as there are in my view still too many unforced penalties.

My argument is with the concept that conceding 10 penalties is solely down to ill discipline. It is not, and 10 penalties a game is pretty standard in international play.

The big story should actually be just how well Wales did to concede just two penalties and the effectiveness of the tackling by their pack who made around 150 tackles missing just 3. So well done Wales for their discipline and defence, helped perhaps by England's decision to play a very basic game once they took the lead maybe.

Barney McGrew did it wrote:Nah, I'm gonna stick with 10-2, cuz them's the facts. The rest is coulda shoulda woulda. It's true that the Wales' count was surprisingly low, but that's what Garces called. So unless he was cheating (he wasn't) that's 5x as many penalties for England. At the very least England were falling far short of Wales at interpreting the ref. It's only 1 game, which we won, so no crisis. But by any logical standard we were far more undisciplined than the opposition. Something we can't afford to do in too many more games. I'm giving this one to BS.

The fact is that Wales committed, and were penalised for 4 penalty level offences. So you may remove my other speculation if you like, but you can't change what the ref actually did. To use your own words, Garces called 4 penalties against Wales (not 2).

Thats 10-4 and it's 2.5 times more, which is a far cray from 5 times more. Great performance by Wales, hardly criminal by England.

But have you checked if England were penalised multiple times in any of their 10?

Scottrf wrote:But have you checked if England were penalised multiple times in any of their 10?

Fair point, I've watched the game 3 times, and whilst I don't remember any, I couldn't say for sure. All I can be sure of at this point is that Wales' concession of penalties was not 2.