6N 2018: Scotland v England, 24 February

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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.

It is also an issue of taking stats in isolation to prove a point.

On Saturday Hartley made just a handful of tackles, which obviously is evidence he is not working hard enough defensively. Except it is not as you would need to look at the game and see how often he was in the correct defensive position. Alternatively you can look at Eddie Jones tenure so far and see that Hartley has recorded the 5th most tackles. Yet this is misleading as he has started all but one game (though has played 5th most minutes).

Equally you can look at the tackle stats and see that Owen Farrell missed 7 tackles - surely evidence he was poor defensively. Except again in isolation that is misleading as you need to look at the effect of both tackles made and missed. The ones missed were still usually a physical challenge that stopped the man dead and were finished off by a second England tackler who got to boost their stats doing minimal work.

Stats are great but they have limits. It also ignores what the coaches are telling players to do in regards to how far to try and push it and any cynical instructions they get to kill momentum. There's obviously also a tonne of stats the public rarely gt to see.

No 7&1/2 wrote:Stats are great but they have limits. It also ignores what the coaches are telling players to do in regards to how far to try and push it and any cynical instructions they get to kill momentum. There's obviously also a tonne of stats the public rarely gt to see.

Indeed there are. Being a bit of a data nerd I would love to have access to one of the Laptops used by the analysts to see what they measure and how players perform against the measures set for them.

Having access to the "secret England rugby training app" could also be informative (http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/42967781)

Very much so! Speed to rucks. How many they clear in how fast a time. Time back to feet and in the defensive line. Just a couple which I think would.add to how hard a player works. Then there's latching.onto players to help the drive supporting tacklers who don't get the credit in stats (I believe). There's a million things I'd love to see and a million more I bet I've never even thought about.

LondonTiger wrote:It is also an issue of taking stats in isolation to prove a point.

On Saturday Hartley made just a handful of tackles, which obviously is evidence he is not working hard enough defensively. Except it is not as you would need to look at the game and see how often he was in the correct defensive position. Alternatively you can look at Eddie Jones tenure so far and see that Hartley has recorded the 5th most tackles. Yet this is misleading as he has started all but one game (though has played 5th most minutes).

Equally you can look at the tackle stats and see that Owen Farrell missed 7 tackles - surely evidence he was poor defensively. Except again in isolation that is misleading as you need to look at the effect of both tackles made and missed. The ones missed were still usually a physical challenge that stopped the man dead and were finished off by a second England tackler who got to boost their stats doing minimal work.

So holding up a man for a second tackler counts as a missed tackle?

If you attempt to tackle a man, and he bounces off to be flattened by a second man yes. If you are still holding him when tackle is completed then no.

Interesting one is those where you flatten the man, but he gets up again as he is no longer being held.

It should also be noted that Paul Gustard does not put much store by tackle stats as published in papers, online. He cares much more about effectiveness.

LondonTiger wrote:If you attempt to tackle a man, and he bounces off to be flattened by a second man yes. If you are still holding him when tackle is completed then no.

Interesting one is those where you flatten the man, but he gets up again as he is no longer being held.

Tackle not complete I guess. Same with holding a man up to a maul?

There is also the Tim Visser Rule: If you never actually attempt to tackle anyone, you never miss any tackles.

Ergo, if you're a giant Dutch jessie, you are the best defender in the league.

I often wonder when a tackle is actually completed sometimes. ie, when a player is brought to ground and the tackler is still momentarily in contact with the tackled player and lets go. Often the ref will rule 'not held' and allow the tackled player to get up and play on. Well how long are you supposed to hold on on the floor because hold on too long then you get pinged for not releasing? This is a grey area.

1.82653904 seconds precisely.

http://laws.worldrugby.org/?law=14&language=EN

I always find scrum stats one of the most misleading.

We (Falcons) generally have the best "statistical scum" in the AP. We often complete 95%+ of our own scrums which sounds great. When you look it at though, you see that we basically throw the ball in and get it out within about 1 sec, not giving sides a chance to attack us.

When the opposition have the put in, we usually concede a penalty or get driven backwards at a rate of knots....but there's no stats for this.

Weir thinks that the way to England is to out think then then.

Six Nations 2018: Scotland 'might edge England this year' - Doddie Weir - http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/43115755

As per the point above it seems that a few think england can't adapt or think on their feet. Personally think that's tosh as you don't win as many as they have without being able to change. If anything it's scotland who appear to be only able to play one way. A good way that I enjoy watching! If things go badly for England in the first 10 I think we'll be in the game come.70 min. If it's the opposite way round I haven't seen too much albeit from a very short townsend reign which suggests they ll be able to affect change on the match. Bar a red.

No 7&1/2 wrote:Weir thinks that the way to England is to out think then then.

Six Nations 2018: Scotland 'might edge England this year' - Doddie Weir - http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/43115755

As per the point above it seems that a few think england can't adapt or think on their feet. Personally think that's tosh as you don't win  as many as they have without being able to change. If anything it's scotland who appear to be only able to play one way. A good way that I enjoy watching! If things go badly for England in the first 10 I think we'll be in the game come.70 min. If it's the opposite way round I haven't seen too much albeit from a very short townsend reign which suggests they ll be able to affect change on the match. Bar a red.

To be fair in the second half against France we kept it tight and ground out penalties which is very different from our usual style, so good to see we learnt our lesson from the Wales game and adapted our gameplan to suit.

BTW I think it is ridiculous to say that England can't adapt their gameplan - you don't win that many games without doing so.

Probably true that rdw. Laidlaw made a difference there? Was crying out for someone like him to settle the team in the first 20 vs wales and just play safe rugby for a spell.

Laidlaw made a huge difference, so much so that Townsend made a brave decision to move him to 10 just to keep him on the pitch.

When are the teams getting announced?

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:When are the teams getting announced?

England will announce Thursday morning I expect.

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:When are the teams getting announced?

I heard it was Wednesday for Scotland.

It would be good for the clubs to know sooner rather than later which players they might be getting back, both have got important games. If Glasgow beat Munster, that pretty much wraps up the league for them.

cascough look you can be pedantic and say it was 10-4 not 10-2 but it's still too much of a difference.

If you look at Ireland, they conceded a lot less and so did Wales.


10 penalties given away is not something to be proud of.

Room for improvement.

Londontiger

I've talked about tackles per minute which is a better way to work out a player's contribution. As you said Hartley will make more tackles if he's on the pitch longer and Jones has only left Hartley out once.


Your hyping up of Hartley's contribution doesn't change what I said -

5 tackles in 50 minutes is not very impressive no matter how you want to sugar coat the stats.

How many rucks did he hit. How fast did he get there. How many tackles did he support in hence didn't get credit for a tackle. Etc etc. You see the majority of people are simply saying there's more to cherry picking stats surely?

No 7&1/2 wrote:How many rucks did he hit. How fast did he get there. How many tackles did he support in hence didn't get credit for a tackle. Etc etc. You see the majority of people are simply saying there's more to cherry picking stats surely?

There is also cherry picking of what they read. But never mind.

I saw some lovely quotes from Berghan about England the other day. He seemed to use the word 'w*nker' a lot

No 7&1/2 wrote:How many rucks did he hit. How fast did he get there. How many tackles did he support in hence didn't get credit for a tackle. Etc etc. You see the majority of people are simply saying there's more to cherry picking stats surely?

There are 2 schools of thought here. Shocked seems to think the measure of a hooker is his defence, but Shocked IMO can't see anything past a defensive brick wall. There is much more to rugby than holding teams at bay.

Now I for one think Hartley isn't a very good player. I also firmly believe that if he wasn't so controversial that Eddie "the Troll" Jones would have dumped him a long time ago. However the persistant selection and defence of Brown and Hartley is obvious. EJ wants an English team with a bit of niggle and a bad boy image, otherwise Robshaw or Launchberry who have natural leadership abilities would be the captains of the national side.

I'm not saying that the selection of Hartley or Brown weaken England, their impressive record under EJ speaks for itself, and there is something to be said that the Mr Nice England that Lancaster led in the RWC didn't have the ruthless edge that Eddie seems to have set up. By the selection of Hartley as captain set Eddie's stall out.

It's clear you guys aren't going to agree, but FFS can we stop talking about who plays hooker for England, it is Hartley and nothing anyone says he is going to change that for Saturday!

lostinwales wrote:

No 7&1/2 wrote:How many rucks did he hit. How fast did he get there. How many tackles did he support in hence didn't get credit for a tackle. Etc etc. You see the majority of people are simply saying there's more to cherry picking stats surely?

There is also cherry picking of what they read. But never mind.

I saw some lovely quotes from Berghan about England the other day. He seemed to use the word 'w*nker' a lot

He's clearly been south of the border enough times to draw a sensible conclusion about it's populace.

Speaking of which I've not heard a peep from Telfer...

It's more about stats in total rather than hookers rugger. It's nice to throw a couple in to back a specific point but we all know the game is a complex beast. There is a good point of agressive and leadership in the team. Think it's why we have so many joint captains. There looks to be a good few of the next generation who you see as more natural captains etc.

Except I am not the only one using stats to try and prove a point.

I can only look at the stats I have access to and talk about them.

My problem is you are dismissing the stats as irrelevant because you disagree with what they suggest.

ruggerradge there is more to being a hooker than a brickwall agreed.

I think defence is important though. I also think Scotland will need to up their defence to beat England.

I dismiss them in the way you've presented them that's true as you point to them and use them to say he's lazy. As you've acknowledged yourself there though there's more facets to the game.

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:

No 7&1/2 wrote:How many rucks did he hit. How fast did he get there. How many tackles did he support in hence didn't get credit for a tackle. Etc etc. You see the majority of people are simply saying there's more to cherry picking stats surely?

There are 2 schools of thought here. Shocked seems to think the measure of a hooker is his defence, but Shocked IMO can't see anything past a defensive brick wall. There is much more to rugby than holding teams at bay.

Now I for one think Hartley isn't a very good player. I also firmly believe that if he wasn't so controversial that Eddie "the Troll" Jones would have dumped him a long time ago. However the persistant selection and defence of Brown and Hartley is obvious. EJ wants an English team with a bit of niggle and a bad boy image, otherwise Robshaw or Launchberry who have natural leadership abilities would be the captains of the national side.

I'm not saying that the selection of Hartley or Brown weaken England, their impressive record under EJ speaks for itself, and there is something to be said that the Mr Nice England that Lancaster led in the RWC didn't have the ruthless edge that Eddie seems to have set up. By the selection of Hartley as captain set Eddie's stall out.

It's clear you guys aren't going to agree, but FFS can we stop talking about who plays hooker for England, it is Hartley and nothing anyone says he is going to change that for Saturday!

All I am saying is that at least you lot only have to put up with intense discussions of English hookers once a year, (allegedly...)

For some reason Hartley vs George does seem to appear a lot on English threads

Lawes at flank is fast approaching it.

saw some lovely quotes from Berghan about England the other day. He seemed to use the word 'w*nker' a lot

If he's playing on Saturday he's got an excellent opportunity to back up his utterances (which I can't read as they are behind the pay thingy).

Speaking of which I've not heard a peep from Telfer..

Fear not, they'll be bringing him up to room temperature from his cryogenic sleep (they had to put him away after that last Calcutta cup game) feeding him red meat and flashing photograps of bum-chin face and pretty boy in front of him, that'll get him frothing.

TrailApe wrote:
Fear not, they'll be bringing him up to room temperature from his cryogenic sleep (they had to put him away after that last Calcutta cup game) feeding him red meat and flashing photograps  of bum-chin face and pretty boy in front of him, that'll get him frothing.

We can only hope, he has been dormant for months now and I hear that every time you go into stasis you lose a bit of yourself. No doubt England fans will be rocking up with their bags of this, that and money this Saturday.

I know who bum-chin face is, but pretty boy?

Pretty Boy?

Mr Jeremy Gussets.

Brian moore surely?

Lawes at flank is fast reasonably quickly for a big bloke approaching it with extreme menace .

The thing is, because Lawsey doesn't play for a certain club there won't be anyone (and I'm thinking of nobody in particular here) nailing their colours to the mast in his defence and then being circled by err... - nobody else in particular nibbling away at the statements with glee.

Ironically there is someone defending him and it is me again arguing!

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:

TrailApe wrote:
Fear not, they'll be bringing him up to room temperature from his cryogenic sleep (they had to put him away after that last Calcutta cup game) feeding him red meat and flashing photograps  of bum-chin face and pretty boy in front of him, that'll get him frothing.

We can only hope, he has been dormant for months now and I hear that every time you go into stasis you lose a bit of yourself. No doubt England fans will be rocking up with their bags of this, that and money this Saturday.

He won’t live. But then again, who does? [cues Vangelis end title theme]

Lawes hasn't been outstanding and neither has he been poor.

Itoje has probably been the worst performing out of Launchbury,Lawes and Itoje with Launchbury the best.

So probably on balance - Itoje should be benched as he's had a relatively poor start to the 6 nations.

With Lawes moving to partner Launchbury.

I just think Itoje is going through a rough patch. Get him hungry to perform from the bench.


I championed Itoje when he was underrated and underappreciated but now there's a danger of him being overhyped.

I don't bash Lawes because I don't think Jones has give him preferential treatment. He's not a player I see as one of Jones' deities.

I don't believe Itoje should be treated as a deity - none of the players should.


I unlike others don't believe any player is faultless.

Sigh. Should mercer be playing now beshocked? He stands a good chance of going onto be a very very good player. Or is his future worth not represented by his current status?

You want to throw Mercer in the deep end vs Scotland?

No Mercer shouldn't be starting vs Scotland.

beshocked wrote:You want to throw Mercer in the deep end vs Scotland?

No Mercer shouldn't be starting vs Scotland.

I agree Mercer should not be starting v Scotland. Eddie will bring Mercer in when Eddie thinks Mercer is ready to be brought in and not before.

beshocked wrote:Lawes hasn't been outstanding and neither has he been poor.

Itoje has probably been the worst performing out of Launchbury,Lawes and Itoje with Launchbury the best.

So probably on balance - Itoje should be benched as he's had a relatively poor start to the 6 nations.

With Lawes moving to partner Launchbury.

I just think Itoje is going through a rough patch. Get him hungry to perform from the bench.


I championed Itoje when he was underrated and underappreciated but now there's a danger of him being overhyped.

I don't bash Lawes because I don't think Jones has give him preferential treatment. He's not a player I see as one of Jones' deities.

I don't believe Itoje should be treated as a deity - none of the players should.


I unlike others don't believe any player is faultless.

Not sure he ever was - he was so over hyped before he even started playing international and still is

A cracking player, but at the moment everything he does is considered gold and all mistakes are ignored

The 6 nations is not the place to be developing youngsters in the hope they can hold their own.

Mercers time will come and he'll be a star for England, but why rush him when we still have other options.

Haven't seen the usual team leaks this week, are we expecting Hughes to start or come off the bench?

Edit - just realised its only Tuesday, I was convinced it was Wednesday afternoon

So you're saying mercer will be a better player in the future? Wow who'd have thunk it. This is maybe a bit too subtle but there is a point here.

Hughes had come out indicating he'll be fit enough bam. Wouldn't be surprised to see him start.

riskysports of course Itoje was underrated and underappreciated. Only after man of the match performance vs Wales in 2016 was Itoje given credit. Before then we was seen as too young and not good enough by many England fans.

If we are talking about overhyped, well the award has to go to Hogg. As good as he is - he's not deserved to be named 6 nations player of the year twice in a row.

Too many armchair fans saw Hogg do some flashy things and just went with it.

Not at all - I have frequently mentioned that Itoje gives away too many penalties, his carrying needs work, plus he's been missing too many tackles.

I am one of Itoje's biggest fans but also one of his biggest critics - I know he can play better than this.


I am not the poster who believes some players are faultless.

No 7&1/2 wrote:Hughes had come out indicating he'll be fit enough bam. Wouldn't be surprised to see him start.

All the media coverage suggests he'll come straight in, and it sounds like he's been working very hard.

I can't help thinking of that well known Scot Graham Obree's comment about how it's not training that makes you fit, its the resting after the training that does it. Still I guess they know what they are doing.

Pretty sure Hughes will start