NPR

Gumboot wrote: ↑Mon Sep 04, 2023 4:04 am Cipriani was a pea-hearted flake of a player. A prodigious attacking talent, sure, but I lost all respect for him after his 2011-12 stint with the Rebels, when week after week he produced some of the most gutless defensive efforts I've ever seen from a professional player. He often didn't even pretend to be interested in tackling, but was sure bloody animated about expecting his teammates to plug the gaps. Then there was all his disrespectful off the field bollocks. No idea why anyone would be interested in anything he has to say in his autobiography. Or why a never-was like him thinks his playing career even warrants a feckin' autobiography. The most over-hyped player since Orange Gav.

Lots of 10s don't want to tackle. Yes Jonny especially raised the bar in terms of body on the line thinking, but it's not the worst thing to trade off some up and at them defensive resilience from your 10 if you get a return elsewhere, and really a team will know if that's a player they want to work for and protect.

For England, well we clearly don't over produce skilful players and he was superbly skilled, and that we failed to exploit his whilst playing some coma inducing rugby with a lousy win % isn't something to just skip past, unless you're of the 57 old farts ilk and are happy to go along with whatever's happening providing we're still serving decent claret at the post-match function, You're only going to get a reaction from the old farts when they can't continually hike ticket prices for France, Wales, NZ and so on, and still have guaranteed sellouts

Gumboot wrote: ↑Mon Sep 04, 2023 4:04 am Cipriani was a pea-hearted flake of a player. A prodigious attacking talent, sure, but I lost all respect for him after his 2011-12 stint with the Rebels, when week after week he produced some of the most gutless defensive efforts I've ever seen from a professional player. He often didn't even pretend to be interested in tackling, but was sure bloody animated about expecting his teammates to plug the gaps. Then there was all his disrespectful off the field bollocks. No idea why anyone would be interested in anything he has to say in his autobiography. Or why a never-was like him thinks his playing career even warrants a feckin' autobiography. The most over-hyped player since Orange Gav.

That was definitely him at his absolute worst. He didn't get his shit together until he came back to the UK and a bus hit him in Manchester. After that he had a few seasons of being one of the best fly halves in the Premiership. but by the end of his time with Glaws and that one season with Bath you could tell he didn't want to be doing it anymore and was probably only still playing because he didn't have a developed enough plan for retirement.

His cowardice in the tackle was weird, because it's not like he was afraid of contact. At his best he would leave his ribs on full display if it meant he could put away a teammate.

Rightly or wrongly, the rugby press in this country got a lot of column inches out of him, most of them without his involvement or on the basis of anything he actually did, so he's a name enough to casual rugby fans that it's worth a plublisher floating a book. Certainly there've been rugby players with more boring lives on and off the field who've issues their own upon retirement. He could probably use any cash it generates too.

Niegs wrote: ↑Mon Sep 04, 2023 6:19 am Some positive chatter from the community game! (he's got a few more posts on it in a thread)

It was always a load of noise from reactionary, small c conservative types who don't like change and bigger c conservative types who see safeguarding attempts as some form of wokeness.

A game that enables more fun ball in hand is a good thing.

sockwithaticket wrote: ↑Mon Sep 04, 2023 8:38 am

Niegs wrote: ↑Mon Sep 04, 2023 6:19 am Some positive chatter from the community game! (he's got a few more posts on it in a thread)

It was always a load of noise from reactionary, small c conservative types who don't like change and bigger c conservative types who see safeguarding attempts as some form of wokeness.

A game that enables more fun ball in hand is a good thing.

Must admit, I was unaware that it had been introduced across the whole of the "community game" in Scotland. I went to a Premiership game on Saturday and about 20 minutes in I started noticing that there were no higher hits and was a bit confused why everyone was tackling like we did for decades before. When I finally clicked what was happening it was interesting that there was only 1 high tackle called by the ref in the entire game.

It was a 31-31 draw with lots of very good offloading by one one team - I don't know if this was because of the new laws or not, but it was noticeable. 100% didn't spoil the game at all.

Quite a good article on the 2019 final:


https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/d4f9 ... 5cfca3aa66

tc27 wrote: ↑Tue Sep 05, 2023 10:08 am Quite a good article on the 2019 final:


https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/d4f9 ... 5cfca3aa66

Funny stats. Both sides won 100% of their scrums. Nothing to see here.

It is a good article though. It's a shame it takes the utter degradation of English rugby for the journos to start producing clear-headed analysis of events; there's been several really good articles in the past few weeks that are refreshingly honest and bullshit-free. It won't last.

Eddie believes the English are soft, that he needed to keep pushing the dial, that they need to keep getting whipped. That was his stupidity

Ah, yes, the English, who have always been famous for their powder puff packs failing to supply anything to their dazzling backs.

Jesus wept.

Yup, I bored everyone silly banging on about this point for years. Eddie never rated English rugby at all and largely defined us by the weird stereotypes he'd built up in his head. It showed in every utterance, every weird selection, every stupid fucking press conference, every dumb shit attempt to shoehorn players into roles they weren't suited to.

We had a coach who essentially hated us.

Not only did Eddie not in any way rate the team, but once he also decided Haskell and Farrell were not Smith and Markham he didn't bother trying to improve the team, and instead gave the team a very simple and very specific gameplan. That was sort of interesting when he had his first season with the 1 man pod system, but oddly other sides cottoned on to that and somehow found a way to negate a one man support system, and then we had the Amor uber fast system which was abandoned within weeks and mayn't have worked anyway (Bazball before Bazball in some respects), other than that it was mostly kick the ball away with the odd nice variation dreamt up by Wisemantel, and of course hope the other side kicks badly and gives away penalties (aka the Welsh attack)

JM2K6 wrote: ↑Tue Sep 05, 2023 12:16 pm Yup, I bored everyone silly banging on about this point for years. Eddie never rated English rugby at all and largely defined us by the weird stereotypes he'd built up in his head. It showed in every utterance, every weird selection, every stupid fucking press conference, every dumb shit attempt to shoehorn players into roles they weren't suited to.

We had a coach who essentially hated us.

I think you'll find I was crapping on about Jones being a useless fake who was taking the piss years before anyone else.

Learned today that the "bunker" isn't the tmo, it's yet another ref (who's even lower down the pecking order). I'd always thought it was just the Tmo.

Raggs wrote: ↑Fri Sep 08, 2023 9:59 pm Learned today that the "bunker" isn't the tmo, it's yet another ref (who's even lower down the pecking order). I'd always thought it was just the Tmo.

Yeah it’s done that way so the tmo can focus on live play.

Just the news I wanted to see as the worst England side of the professional era begin their World Cup campaign

"Steve Borthwick is expected to retain the support of the Rugby Football Union and keep his job as England’s head coach even if his side bomb out of the World Cup in the pool stages"

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2023/ ... ool-stages

It's very reassuring to know that England's conservative but ineffective game plan and porous defence are here for the long term.

Lobby wrote: ↑Sat Sep 09, 2023 9:54 am Just the news I wanted to see as the worst England side of the professional era begin their World Cup campaign

"Steve Borthwick is expected to retain the support of the Rugby Football Union and keep his job as England’s head coach even if his side bomb out of the World Cup in the pool stages"

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2023/ ... ool-stages

It's very reassuring to know that England's conservative but ineffective game plan and porous defence are here for the long term.

You missed out on the selection of has beens like Tuilagi and selecting players out of position.

Are the RFU doing anything to reverse the destruction of the English pathway/youth system by Dean Ryan?

Lawes, Itoje and Ford all good today.

Mention for Cole too.

Genge obviously doesnt like the heat

An encouraging sign is there was a fair bit of conjecture that we were doing poorly due to being knackered due to intense training, and fitness for be better come the actual tournament.

78 minutes with 14 men and high intensity (with smart play) for pretty much all of it. Hopefully we'll keep looking at least ok!

Good result lads. Dug it out well.

tc27 wrote: ↑Sat Sep 09, 2023 9:07 pm Lawes, Itoje and Ford all good today.

Mention for Cole too.

Genge obviously doesnt like the heat

Kudos to Mitchell too, who wasn't even on the plane a few weeks ago.

Enjoyed that.

Nice to see us do something well for a change. Argentina shat the bed, but to play for that long a man down and be in their face defensively the whole time was impressive. You've got to start somewhere.

Not really convinced by that backline, but that's probably a debate for another day. Japan's a nice game to have next up. Still a good test, but a chance to try and keep 15 on the pitch and actually create something.

Caveat, first: Argies put in an all timer of a rotten performance.

Really good win though considering we were a man down all game. Most encouraging thing was that defensively we seemed to have much more dog in us compared to what we've seen previously. Attack at times still looked comedically clueless and with zero structure to it (yeah I know we were down to 14, but still), but we can't expect miracles overnight and will just to have hope we can be defensively good, solid in the set piece, and kick well, and then we'll just have to see what happens.

Thought defensively everyone played their part, good to see the likes of Itoje put in a performance and Tuliagi tuned in and with the appetite for it.

Lawes first half, particularly early on when it looked like everything was going wrong, I thought was really good and stood up to be counted and helped get us through it.

Ford obviously was superb. Cool and composed and just steered the ship home. The drop goals were fantastic to put us ahead and force pressure on the Argies they couldn't deal with, then kicked everything to put us in command, and his tactical kicking and high bombs were mostly really good/contestable and kept the ball down their end of the field.

And that's one more win than I expected at least, so.....

Credit where it’s due, they handled that situation pretty much perfectly.

Thought Earl was excellent as well as the others mentioned above. Big Q is going to be what they do with Farrell if George keeps playing like this.

Joost wrote: ↑Sat Sep 09, 2023 9:39 pm Credit where it’s due, they handled that situation pretty much perfectly.

Thought Earl was excellent as well as the others mentioned above. Big Q is going to be what they do with Farrell if George keeps playing like this.

They'll stick him at 12 and ditch Marchant...

Margin__Walker wrote: ↑Sat Sep 09, 2023 9:40 pm

Joost wrote: ↑Sat Sep 09, 2023 9:39 pm Credit where it’s due, they handled that situation pretty much perfectly.

Thought Earl was excellent as well as the others mentioned above. Big Q is going to be what they do with Farrell if George keeps playing like this.

They'll stick him at 12 and ditch Marchant...

Is probably the correct answer!

Think the game answered a few questions for us.

Fitness and energy levels looked right up there - huge upgrade on the warm ups.

Physicality also looked excellent - we were winning most of the collisions and forcing errors.

Defensive organsation looked much better - line speed was excellent and we missed far fewer tackles. However, we never got really tested out wide where we've been fraglie recently.

Ford is clearly our best FH

Mitchell is clearly our best available SH


The jury is still out on whether we can create tries and convert line breaks against a good defence.We had one golden opportunity which Daly and May completely fluffed.


Should do wonders for their confidence

To be honest last night was what I envisaged most Borthwick performances would be like - proper set piece, high intensity, good defence, lots of kicking, limited attack.

Don’t think the attack can even be defined as a work in progress yet, but that was a hugely encouraging win. Intelligence and intensity were on another plane to what we’ve seen over the last couple of years.

Samoa and Japan are no pushovers, but the draw has now opened up for us a bit. Hopefully we use the next month to work out how to open up a backline.

All in all very pleased. Plenty to build on and maybe we finally have the ‘foundational’ victory I’ve been banging on about.

Paddington Bear wrote: ↑Sun Sep 10, 2023 2:28 pm To be honest last night was what I envisaged most Borthwick performances would be like - proper set piece, high intensity, good defence, lots of kicking, limited attack.

Don’t think the attack can even be defined as a work in progress yet, but that was a hugely encouraging win. Intelligence and intensity were on another plane to what we’ve seen over the last couple of years.

Samoa and Japan are no pushovers, but the draw has now opened up for us a bit. Hopefully we use the next month to work out how to open up a backline.

All in all very pleased. Plenty to build on and maybe we finally have the ‘foundational’ victory I’ve been banging on about.

Just watched Japan v Chile - Japan looked pretty ordinary. Samoa could be a very stern test - they play Argentina before we take them on - so we'll get to see what they've got and we'll have had a less intensive game v Chile beforehand.

Ovals wrote: ↑Sun Sep 10, 2023 2:49 pm

Paddington Bear wrote: ↑Sun Sep 10, 2023 2:28 pm To be honest last night was what I envisaged most Borthwick performances would be like - proper set piece, high intensity, good defence, lots of kicking, limited attack.

Don’t think the attack can even be defined as a work in progress yet, but that was a hugely encouraging win. Intelligence and intensity were on another plane to what we’ve seen over the last couple of years.

Samoa and Japan are no pushovers, but the draw has now opened up for us a bit. Hopefully we use the next month to work out how to open up a backline.

All in all very pleased. Plenty to build on and maybe we finally have the ‘foundational’ victory I’ve been banging on about.

Just watched Japan v Chile - Japan looked pretty ordinary. Samoa could be a very stern test - they play Argentina before we take them on - so we'll get to see what they've got and we'll have had a less intensive game v Chile beforehand.

Agreed Japan were unimpressive. Fortunately our fitness looks a lot better, I have been having visions of Rory Best looking like a lobster 15 minutes into that game four years ago and very much worried that could be us.
You’d also imagine Japan are targeting Samoa and Argentina

Paddington Bear wrote: ↑Sun Sep 10, 2023 3:07 pm

Ovals wrote: ↑Sun Sep 10, 2023 2:49 pm

Paddington Bear wrote: ↑Sun Sep 10, 2023 2:28 pm To be honest last night was what I envisaged most Borthwick performances would be like - proper set piece, high intensity, good defence, lots of kicking, limited attack.

Don’t think the attack can even be defined as a work in progress yet, but that was a hugely encouraging win. Intelligence and intensity were on another plane to what we’ve seen over the last couple of years.

Samoa and Japan are no pushovers, but the draw has now opened up for us a bit. Hopefully we use the next month to work out how to open up a backline.

All in all very pleased. Plenty to build on and maybe we finally have the ‘foundational’ victory I’ve been banging on about.

Just watched Japan v Chile - Japan looked pretty ordinary. Samoa could be a very stern test - they play Argentina before we take them on - so we'll get to see what they've got and we'll have had a less intensive game v Chile beforehand.

Agreed Japan were unimpressive. Fortunately our fitness looks a lot better, I have been having visions of Rory Best looking like a lobster 15 minutes into that game four years ago and very much worried that could be us.
You’d also imagine Japan are targeting Samoa and Argentina

Yep - life looks a bit tougher for Argentina now - Samoa, in particular, will be smelling blood in the water. But they've got nearly 2 weeks to lick their wounds before the Samoa game whilst samoa are on a 6 day turnaround.

Agree with Greenwood here:

I know we will have to play an awful lot better in attack to beat the best teams in the world. I know we did not score a try. I know Argentina completely lost the plot. But if you cannot enjoy a performance like that, and start to get a bit carried away, after England have been written off by everyone, after they have lost their openside within three minutes, then honestly, you have to stop being such a miserable sod.

Curry banned for two games, as expected.

Oxbow wrote: ↑Tue Sep 12, 2023 3:51 pm Curry banned for two games, as expected.

Was never indoubt after the Farrell debacle!
Just hope the referees and officials start showing some consistency in their interpretations.

Whilst I'd definitely like consistency, and generally erring on the red card/curry side of things, I have to say England have developed themselves a reputation now, which means we'll be flagged for this sort of crap more often than others anyway. We're going to have to be squeaky clean to drop that reputation I suspect. Like, getting analysis videos made on how amazing our chop/midrift tackles are, and it's changing the game etc clean.

It's a farce Curry has a red card and others nowt. But it's not like the process has suddenly broken, it's the continuation of a long history of bizarre rulings

No real complaint about Curry getting a ban, but his tackle was no different to half a dozen others over the weekend, all of which when made by another England player a few weeks ago prompted now muted claims that they were harbingers of the death of the sport.

I suppose in the tackle lottery we are probably due a howler in our favour come the quarter finals

Let's not start pretending the Billy V and Farrell tackles are seen in every game. They were really bad and deserved bans, and we thankfully don't see many of those cheap shots in the game.

JM2K6 wrote: ↑Tue Sep 12, 2023 9:05 pm Let's not start pretending the Billy V and Farrell tackles are seen in every game. They were really bad and deserved bans, and we thankfully don't see many of those cheap shots in the game.

I’m obviously being provocative, but what’s the difference?
- Owen Farrell attempts to put in a big hit on the chest/ball to ‘dominate’. Sloppy, Gets it wrong. Hit in the head, clear red and cue pearl clutching
- Tom Curry. Flies in from miles away. Tackle has already been made. Always out of control, gets it wrong and slams into the face. Dangerous, no arguments on a red and a ban.
- Jesse Kriel. Flies out the line to make a dominant hit and disrupt Scottish possession. Out of control, gets it wrong, hits in the face. Dangerous, no sanction.
- Dan Biggar. Flies out the line to make a dominant hit and disrupt Fiji’s attack. Succeeds. Out of control, head contact. Dangerous, no sanction
- Chilean lad, well you’re getting the idea

I’m not suggesting for a moment Faz didn’t deserve a ban (and said so at the time), I’m saying I’m curious where the moral outrage, ‘our game is dying’, ‘won’t someone PLEASE think of the children’ has gone given the amount of head contact we saw at the weekend.

A slight digression: but playing in temps so high that numerous players are seen binning the headgear that they usually wear, doesn’t reconcile well with the player safety mantra either.

Paddington Bear wrote: ↑Wed Sep 13, 2023 5:52 am

JM2K6 wrote: ↑Tue Sep 12, 2023 9:05 pm Let's not start pretending the Billy V and Farrell tackles are seen in every game. They were really bad and deserved bans, and we thankfully don't see many of those cheap shots in the game.

I’m obviously being provocative, but what’s the difference?
- Owen Farrell attempts to put in a big hit on the chest/ball to ‘dominate’. Sloppy, Gets it wrong. Hit in the head, clear red and cue pearl clutching
- Tom Curry. Flies in from miles away. Tackle has already been made. Always out of control, gets it wrong and slams into the face. Dangerous, no arguments on a red and a ban.
- Jesse Kriel. Flies out the line to make a dominant hit and disrupt Scottish possession. Out of control, gets it wrong, hits in the face. Dangerous, no sanction.
- Dan Biggar. Flies out the line to make a dominant hit and disrupt Fiji’s attack. Succeeds. Out of control, head contact. Dangerous, no sanction
- Chilean lad, well you’re getting the idea

I’m not suggesting for a moment Faz didn’t deserve a ban (and said so at the time), I’m saying I’m curious where the moral outrage, ‘our game is dying’, ‘won’t someone PLEASE think of the children’ has gone given the amount of head contact we saw at the weekend.

Kriel arguably hit the ball first, so the head contact was secondary.

Biggar? Yeah...

Sinkers wrote: ↑Wed Sep 13, 2023 6:22 am A slight digression: but playing in temps so high that numerous players are seen binning the headgear that they usually wear, doesn’t reconcile well with the player safety mantra either.

Scrum caps only really help prevent cauliflower ear and cuts on parts of the head they cover.

Paddington Bear wrote: ↑Wed Sep 13, 2023 5:52 am

JM2K6 wrote: ↑Tue Sep 12, 2023 9:05 pm Let's not start pretending the Billy V and Farrell tackles are seen in every game. They were really bad and deserved bans, and we thankfully don't see many of those cheap shots in the game.

I’m obviously being provocative, but what’s the difference?
- Owen Farrell attempts to put in a big hit on the chest/ball to ‘dominate’. Sloppy, Gets it wrong. Hit in the head, clear red and cue pearl clutching
- Tom Curry. Flies in from miles away. Tackle has already been made. Always out of control, gets it wrong and slams into the face. Dangerous, no arguments on a red and a ban.
- Jesse Kriel. Flies out the line to make a dominant hit and disrupt Scottish possession. Out of control, gets it wrong, hits in the face. Dangerous, no sanction.
- Dan Biggar. Flies out the line to make a dominant hit and disrupt Fiji’s attack. Succeeds. Out of control, head contact. Dangerous, no sanction
- Chilean lad, well you’re getting the idea

I’m not suggesting for a moment Faz didn’t deserve a ban (and said so at the time), I’m saying I’m curious where the moral outrage, ‘our game is dying’, ‘won’t someone PLEASE think of the children’ has gone given the amount of head contact we saw at the weekend.

That's nonsense.

One of the reasons that there was so much reaction to Farrell's most recent transgression is because he is a serial offender - portraying the reaction to him getting that ban as histrionics and "pearl clutching" is more of the same shite you get from those saying we should watch another sport or "game's gone soft".

The reaction was also because he'd been to tackle school before the latest ban - this is a 31 year old professional with around 350 senior games to his name including over 100 England caps plus B&I Lions - you shouldn't be making excuses for him or turning your ire away from him and onto those who want to see these high hits taken out of the game. The blame lies fairly and squarely at Farrell's feet, or shoulder, not with anyone else.