France v England

First topic message reminder :

France up for this

At least we've secured 3rd spot now

How still advantage

Made up pen coming up

France won by refereeing.....

Brave effort. Plenty to be encouraged about in the last two games.

NZ will be a bit tough!

What a game.
The ref was fine. Cracking game

Well happy with the England performance but once again the SH refs show how abject they are ... how can the ref call the player who's clearly offside from a kick back but then do nothing when they keep running and tackle the catcher?

Disappointed to lose but that was a superb match and England can be proud of that.
Some great performances, Earl yet again, Itoje, Ford, Lawrence.

Really good game I thought. Definitely plenty to tidy up and work on ahead of the summer, but this definitely now looks like a team making progress. NZ will be tough, but the difference between now and a couple of weeks back is that they'll be thinking the same about us.

mountain man wrote:Disappointed to lose but that was a superb match and England can be proud of that.
Some great performances, Earl yet again, Itoje, Ford, Lawrence.

Freeman, Slade, Smith

Nothing really hanging on the game. A lot of fun to watch regardless of the loss. Just annoying that we couldn't get possession often enough, because for once our attack was very strong

Have to say some of the french forwards are monsters. It's not often you see itoje get knocked backwards. Martin put in a hell of a shift and Lawrence just looks better with each game.

You know what,....

England are back....and all the countries hate it.....I love it!!

Gardiner continued his run rate with England games. England got hammered in the penalty count, which was the difference away from home. Again.

Geordie wrote:You know what,....

England are back....and all the countries hate it.....I love it!!

Good campaign from England, not surprised really as Borthwick is quite underrated.

Seems to be a lot of complaining about refs for nearly every England game. Ref was fine.

Collapse2005 wrote:

Geordie wrote:You know what,....

England are back....and all the countries hate it.....I love it!!

Good campaign from England, not surprised really as Borthwick is quite underrated.

Rebuilding from England....brand new this 6n.....and caused trouble.
The few of us that have said give SB and his team time have a sly grin...

Geordie wrote:

Collapse2005 wrote:

Geordie wrote:You know what,....

England are back....and all the countries hate it.....I love it!!

Good campaign from England, not surprised really as Borthwick is quite underrated.

Rebuilding from England....brand new this 6n.....and caused trouble.  
The few of us that have said give SB and his team time have a sly grin...

Come on we all know it's all been down to Felix Jones

carpet baboon wrote:

Geordie wrote:

Collapse2005 wrote:

Geordie wrote:You know what,....

England are back....and all the countries hate it.....I love it!!

Good campaign from England, not surprised really as Borthwick is quite underrated.

Rebuilding from England....brand new this 6n.....and caused trouble.  
The few of us that have said give SB and his team time have a sly grin...

Come on we all know it's all been down to Felix Jones

The Irish man...

Borthwick out surely

Geordie wrote:

carpet baboon wrote:

Geordie wrote:

Collapse2005 wrote:

Geordie wrote:You know what,....

England are back....and all the countries hate it.....I love it!!

Good campaign from England, not surprised really as Borthwick is quite underrated.

Rebuilding from England....brand new this 6n.....and caused trouble.  
The few of us that have said give SB and his team time have a sly grin...

Come on we all know it's all been down to Felix Jones

The Irish man...

Give him his proper title Double World Cup Winner Irish Man Felix Jones

Collapse2005 wrote:Seems to be a lot of complaining about refs for nearly every England game. Ref was fine.

Yep that would be me I'm afraid - but assuming you're allowed to come in the side (or straight to the back) at rucks now and don't have to be onside at box kicks, he was fine ...

Best comment from SB

Didn't win but...we're back challenging the top 4.....
Love it

Heaf wrote:

Collapse2005 wrote:Seems to be a lot of complaining about refs for nearly every England game. Ref was fine.

Yep that would be me I'm afraid - but assuming you're allowed to come in the side (or straight to the back) at rucks now and don't have to be onside at box kicks, he was fine ...

Change the record heaf. It was a great game.
The ref missed stuff for both sides as they always do.

carpet baboon wrote:

Heaf wrote:

Collapse2005 wrote:Seems to be a lot of complaining about refs for nearly every England game. Ref was fine.

Yep that would be me I'm afraid - but assuming you're allowed to come in the side (or straight to the back) at rucks now and don't have to be onside at box kicks, he was fine ...

Change the record heaf. It was a great game.
The ref missed stuff for both sides as they always do.

Look you know I can't help myself so you just have to humour me or ignore me

Great game. England came alive in the last 2 rounds.
France's bench power was immense but England almost held out for the win.
Ramos is the flakiest 10 in the championship ( as he's a fullback after all). However he is probably the most accurate long range goal kicker in world rugby.
Oh, and he's not a bad volleyer of a rugby ball either.

Geordie wrote:Best comment from SB

Didn't win but...we're back challenging the top 4.....
Love it

I'm Irish and I'm glad your back, but I want Wales and Australia to be back as well. I want the top 10-12 teams in the world to be able to beat each other.
Just makes it all more fun

England this 6N I'd say 6.5/10.
Beat Ireland, four tries against France and ended up 3rd
So much better last two matches so obviously plan is working.
Still plenty things to work on but this team showing real progress
NZ away be a massive ask this summer but prospects looking ahead are good.

Do we know if your getting Mike Catt when he leaves Ireland?

carpet baboon wrote:

Geordie wrote:

carpet baboon wrote:

Geordie wrote:

Collapse2005 wrote:

Geordie wrote:You know what,....

England are back....and all the countries hate it.....I love it!!

Good campaign from England, not surprised really as Borthwick is quite underrated.

Rebuilding from England....brand new this 6n.....and caused trouble.  
The few of us that have said give SB and his team time have a sly grin...

Come on we all know it's all been down to Felix Jones

The Irish man...

Give him his proper title Double World Cup Winner Irish Man Felix Jones

The only Irishman who can say that

carpet baboon wrote:

Geordie wrote:

carpet baboon wrote:

Geordie wrote:

Collapse2005 wrote:

Geordie wrote:You know what,....

England are back....and all the countries hate it.....I love it!!

Good campaign from England, not surprised really as Borthwick is quite underrated.

Rebuilding from England....brand new this 6n.....and caused trouble.  
The few of us that have said give SB and his team time have a sly grin...

Come on we all know it's all been down to Felix Jones

The Irish man...

Give him his proper title Double World Cup Winner Irish Man Felix Jones

Trying to beat English grand slam winner Andy Farrel....

Steve Borthwick in the Telegraph wrote:“Sometimes you just have to stay in the fight - they boys did well. Ultimately we ran out of time. When you play like that you don’t actually lose, you just run out of time.”

Erm, well, yes you do lose. This sounds far too English to me: Good effort, ran out of time, blah, blah, blah.

Think we’ve gone up a level since beating Ireland despite the loss today. That game last week might do for us what Ireland beating us in 2021 did for them. Thought we were destroyed physically tonight (aside from George Martin who won a fair few contacts!) but still managed to hang in the game and could have won.

4 tries to 3 away against France is not just hanging in though surely?

Heaf wrote:4 tries to 3 away against France is not just hanging in though surely?

Despite getting hammered up front we managed to score 3 great tries in 6mins.

I was actually pleasantly surprised at how well the scrum held up.

lostinwales wrote:

carpet baboon wrote:

Geordie wrote:

carpet baboon wrote:

Geordie wrote:

Collapse2005 wrote:

Geordie wrote:You know what,....

England are back....and all the countries hate it.....I love it!!

Good campaign from England, not surprised really as Borthwick is quite underrated.

Rebuilding from England....brand new this 6n.....and caused trouble.  
The few of us that have said give SB and his team time have a sly grin...

Come on we all know it's all been down to Felix Jones

The Irish man...

Give him his proper title Double World Cup Winner Irish Man Felix Jones

The only Irishman who can say that

Correct.
As far as I'm aware not a single Englishman can claim to be a double world cup winner

doctor_grey wrote:

Steve Borthwick in the Telegraph wrote:“Sometimes you just have to stay in the fight - they boys did well. Ultimately we ran out of time. When you play like that you don’t actually lose, you just run out of time.”

Erm, well, yes you do lose.  This sounds far too English to me:  Good effort, ran out of time, blah, blah, blah.  

Unfortunately it's the old colonial mindset "we didn't invade anywhere we liberated them from themselves"

I know it's all over and all that but just watching Rugby Special and they showed Slade being clearly held back for France's 3rd(?) try. Guess Mr Whitehouse was in the toilet again ...

Ben Youngs is again excellent breaking down the match highlights on his podcast. This time, Dan Cole is with him, to add his reactions from the day. The whole show is 40 minutes but the main breakdown runs for just over 10 minutes from about 5 minutes in, so it's a quick listen.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/5Wr3MXIoIkV35pWD14IYpX?si=5fd58f95e6f749dd

doctor_grey wrote:

Steve Borthwick in the Telegraph wrote:“Sometimes you just have to stay in the fight - they boys did well. Ultimately we ran out of time. When you play like that you don’t actually lose, you just run out of time.”

Erm, well, yes you do lose.  This sounds far too English to me:  Good effort, ran out of time, blah, blah, blah.  

The feeling post game was positive in the media and after weeks of the players and coaches getting slammed by every former player and journo I suspect SB wanted to keep the positive feeling and make it easier on the players publicly. Behind closed doors he might have a much more brutally honest review.

In terms of championships, only the result matters, but in terms of the development of a team the manner of the loss is important. I haven’t been able to watch the game yet (I had a commitment on Saturday evening and spent all day Sunday taking Ms Poorfour Maj to her last U16 county game), but the scoreline alone speaks to a huge turnaround from the drubbing last year.

Since the start of the RWC, England have had a couple of very good wins, a number of games they scraped through that perhaps they should have won at a canter (though we might want to revise our opinion of the Italy game given their other performances), the Scotland game (which was frustratingly winnable had the ball stayed in their hands) and two one point losses against two of the top teams in the world. At this point in what is a major rebuilding exercise, that’s a fair return, especially given where the opposition are in their own development cycles.

It’s pretty reasonable for Borthwick to want to emphasise the progression, even if he will undoubtedly have a lot of work-ons for the squad.

My only real issue (and maybe it is more about France and the quality of their defence) is that we don't really have a route to working the ball up the pitch other than contestable kicks. The kicking can be really strong and did cause a lot of problems but there were times late on in the game when you felt that England did not havr the tools to get to the right parts of the pitch.