England v Scotland 6N Round 5 Saturday 16th March

First topic message reminder :

England v Scotland
6N Round 5
Saturday 16th March
Twickenham Stadium
London

KO 17.00

Well here we are at the final round of matches and three teams can still come out on top following Ireland's demolition of France this afternoon.

England have the advantage of playing last and will know what they have to do, if Wales have not already wrapped it up with a Grand Slam earlier in the afternoon. That actually might be Scotland's best chance of getting anything out of this game if England get distracted about what is going on else where, particularly if they find playing for second spot a distraction, knowing Wales have already wrapped things up.

On paper, this is only going to be an English win, the only question being by how much.

Scotland have had an awful championship, where just about everything that could have gone wrong. They are only playing for pride, but history tells us that sides that are done at this stage in the competition, rarely have anything left in the tank for the final game.

It is not as if Scotland have any form at Twickenham either, we have not won there since 1983 (did I ever mention that I was there!). We had had a crap season and no-one gave us much of a chance that year either if I remember, then the following year we won the GS. Can I see that happening this time though?

Only in my dreams!

So what do both sides hope to get from the game?

England clearly want a BP victory, some revenge for last year and hopefully a championship. They would also like to show the continued emergence of such players as Cockanasiga, who could be pivotal to them doing well in the WC.

Scotland, despite whatever spin they put on the game, might just be happy with a decent performance and continued development of some of our young starlets. We took another pile of injuries this weekend and getting a half decent competitive side onto the pitch is going to be a challenge in itself. Still, this exposure might be the making of young Hastings, Bradbury, Graham, McDowell, Skinner, Ritchie and anyone else who gets to play, down the line.

Test rugby is a hard old place to earn your living and they will likely be finding that out next weekend.



England


Daly, Nowell, Slade, Tuilagi, May; Farrell, Youngs; Moon, George, Sinckler, Launchbury, Kruis, Wilson, Curry, B Vunipola.

Replacements: Cowan-Dickie, Genge, Cole, Shields, Hughes, Spencer, Ford, Te'o



Scotland:

Maitland; Graham, Grigg, Johnson, McGuigan; Russell, Price; Dell, McInally (capt), Nel; Toolis, Gilchrist; Skinner, Watson, Bradbury.

Replacements: Brown, Reid, Berghan, J Gray, Strauss, Laidlaw, Hastings, Harris

Get price off now - he's a shambles

Jack Nowell totally justifying EJ's decision not to go with the flavour of the day. Brilliant performance so far. Admittedly poor defence, but he's everywhere, running great lines

Utterly woeful from Scotland. Townsend needs to get a defence coach worth the name.
This is a shambles. The charge down try is not even a glimmer of light.

Get Ali Price off, he’s been beyond awful

Someone get on the blower to finlay christie. We need another decent option at SH other than G Horne

This is so awful. I can't believe I convinced my daughter to support Scotland.

I think Nowell would be a better 13.

Finn 

I can't believe my dad convinced me all those years ago.

FFS

England making alot of mistakes trying to force it at times .

They need to just calm it down and stick to what they were doing.

Geordie, you guys have nothing to complain about believe me!

Nice try for Scotland. at least they have some think in the first half.

Well, the second half can't be worse. Surely??

What makes this worse is the players look like they don't give a crap.

Is it in Russell's contract to miss at least one penalty touch find in every match!

As a genuine question, do we think Toonie has lost his players?

We just don't seem to have the slightest clue how to play test rugby. I can't believe he told them to go out and play like that, something does seem to be really wrong!

It is just like when we played Argentina last summer and their coach was not talking to the players. We just seem to have fallen to bits internationally this season and it is hard to explain it, it is not just about the injuries. All these players play well for their clubs

Watson at least can come out with credit. The rest... not so much. Finn despite the missed touches isn't having a howler. We'd have been as well to give richie vernon a retirement sendout in the centres. Utter rubbish.

Lets just call the game at half time so we can all watch strictly come ice dancing in the Jungle.

RDW wrote:What makes this worse is the players look like they don't give a crap.

Agree. Hard to think of a single player who has turned up today. Maybe Watson and McInally. Maybe.

Bradbury hasn’t been Gash.

It looks similar to us under SJ, except with less tries. Funnily enough the mistakes remind me of when someone was our attack coach under mr robinson...

Toonie ball has turned to loonie ball

Plenty of endeavour from Sam Johnson. Doing his best on scraps.

NeilyBroon wrote:It looks similar to us under SJ, except with less tries. Funnily enough the mistakes remind me of when someone was our attack coach under mr robinson...

At least under SJ we were hard to beat!

This is worse

If toonie isn't giving the players an absolute bollocking at halftime he might as well hand in his resignation

Can we swap Georgia for Scotland?

TightHEAD wrote:Can we swap Georgia for Scotland?

Belgium would pump us.

A few players are playing ok as individuals. Unfortunately you don't win games as an individual, it is our team systems that are just not working

Watching our defence for that first try, it was a joke and has set the whole tone of the game

Never been more disappointing as a Scotland fan - and that's saying something

The second half they need to try and play some test rugby and not worry about the game, it is long gone. If they come out and try and play chuck about, we will lose by a cricket score

Is toonie is going to end up our worse ever coach.

He is heading that way....

Oh I don’t know the last pumping down there is up with this. Also the pumping in Cardiff last year is also on a par.

Worryingly we don't look like we r got anymore urgency or pride so far this half

NeilyBroon wrote:Geordie, you guys have nothing to complain about believe me!

We seen to start on fire...play insane rugby then lose track of the actual game plan.

Did it v Wales , Italy and now Scotland.

Nice try, but to little to late and won't count for anything at the end of the game

Right on cue...Scotland score again.

Gone to sleep again.

That's more like it - just a shame we had to be 31 points down first!

Well worked try for Scotland, Game on.

Give Graham credit actually, he still had a lot to do to score that

BigGee wrote:The comeback starts now! (Not)

Never say never

tigertattie wrote:

BigGee wrote:The comeback starts now! (Not)

Never say never

Could it really?

England have just lost the plot. As they did v Wales

What's going on??

Whoever does the HT team talk needs to stop

Have England fell a sleep. Scot 2 tries in 2 minutes. come on England wake up.

What the hell is Owen Farrell doing. Work hard to get the ball back in the Scotland half and it's a lazy kick away. Scotland chip chase and score. Farrell is supposed to be setting the tone as Captain but his game management so far is sadly lacking.

Has Ali Price been replaced by his better unknown identical twin!
Great pace from Bradbury and a brilliant line for that third try. WTF is going on in this game???

England have really gone to sleep

I go back to my original point though, why start playing now!