NPR

sockwithaticket wrote: ↑Sun Nov 07, 2021 5:34 pm Whoever blatantly left their hand on the ball in a lost ruck to give Quins this oppportunity is a moron.

JM2K6 wrote: ↑Sun Nov 07, 2021 5:32 pm An hour to play forty minutes of rugby. Sheesh.

The commentators were wanking on about how it's not as one sided as the score suggests. I don't know what game they're watching.

Is that including the injury break?

JM2K6 wrote: ↑Sun Nov 07, 2021 5:36 pm Ends with a fucking appalling lineout. Just give wasps the bonus point now.

Any analysis of this at half time better not hide from the fact that Quins have picked a 10 who can't kick, can't pass, and can only run fast, while making a big lummox of a 12 our primary playmaker, while the hooker has a meltdown at the lineout.

We're a shambles, no shape at all and no real idea how we want to win this game.

Edit: apparently Edwards has missed six tackles too. Just amazing stuff. Without sudden improvement I can see the academy kid Benson getting a fair bit of premiership cup time...

sockwithaticket wrote: ↑Sun Nov 07, 2021 5:52 pm And that's why I won't feel comfortable until there's an 8 point lead with 79 minutes on the clock.

sockwithaticket wrote: ↑Sun Nov 07, 2021 6:05 pm A couple more and Nearchou will be off, just overwhelmed in the scrum.

Raggs wrote: ↑Sun Nov 07, 2021 6:06 pm

sockwithaticket wrote: ↑Sun Nov 07, 2021 6:05 pm A couple more and Nearchou will be off, just overwhelmed in the scrum.

Probably more than 2, but yeah, I hope Barnes has a bit of sympathy.

EDIT- That'll make it uncontested actually? But Wasps to 13?

Kawazaki wrote: ↑Sun Nov 07, 2021 6:13 pm Surprised Green can't play flyhalf tbh.

Eddie Jones has warned Marcus Smith about the “flood of distractions” that could come his way as the next potential superstar of English rugby, pointing to the commercial activity undertaken by Emma Raducanu as an example to be avoided.

Smith, 22, scored one try and brilliantly laid on another for Jamie Blamire in an eye-catching second-half cameo during England’s 69-3 victory over Tonga on Saturday. The performance cemented his status as a favourite of the Twickenham crowd in only his third international appearance.

Jones believes that, as the face of a rejuvenated England team, doors will open for Smith in the way that Raducanu suddenly received invitations to events such as a James Bond premiere and the Met Gala, the biggest night of the fashion year, as well as signing lucrative commercial deals with Tiffany & Co and Christian Dior, since winning the US Open in September.

“The big thing for young players is distractions,” Jones said. “Distractions can be the exposure they get in the media, the praise and criticism they get, groups of agents who see this guy as the next big thing.

“There’s a reason why the girl who won the US Open hasn’t done so well afterwards. What have you seen her on? The front page of Vogue, the front page of Harper’s Bazaar, whatever it is, wearing Christian Dior clothes. All those distractions are out there. It mightn’t be to that degree with Marcus, but it could be.”

Since winning the US Open, Raducanu was beaten in the first round of the Indian Wells Open tournament, then reached the quarter-finals of the Transylvania Open. She competes in the Upper Austria Linz event this week.

Jones must decide whether to promote Smith to the starting line-up against Australia on Saturday, although Owen Farrell, who had initially been named at fly half against Tonga, will be available again after the Covid test that ruled him out was discovered to be a false positive.

As a wider audience gains an appreciation of Smith’s playmaking gifts, Jones is keen that the fly half remains focused. “The guidance we can give him when he’s with us, the guidance he gets at Quins [his club Harlequins] and the guidance he can get from his parents, who fortunately are very good people, will be important to how he keeps his feet on the ground and keeps progressing as a rugby player,” Jones said.

“He is grounded, but they all start off grounded. No one starts with their feet off the ground or they don’t get in the team, or they don’t win a US Open. But there’s this flood of distractions that comes in that makes you ungrounded.”

Asked in Linz yesterday about how she has balanced her increased off-court commitments with her tennis in recent weeks, Raducanu, who turns 19 this week, said: “I’ve been quite busy since the US Open, but I felt like that was going to come with it.

“I made it very, very clear to every single person in my team that I was not going to cancel one training session or practice session for any off-court commitments. That was a non-negotiable for me. I wanted to make sure that was my priority, and it is. Everyone’s clear about that. It’s just managing my time with the commitments around that.”

As an Edinburgh player, I would pull into Murrayfield each morning, park up, and dread the day that lay ahead. I wasn’t alone. Cockerill, 50, has no gears — his default, and only, approach is to rant and rave every day. He is obsessive. He hopes the players have the mental capacity and resilience to return stronger.

That style had a place, but to me it is a relic. Players are more reflective now; there are enough metrics to quantify their own performance and plenty of coaching opportunities to realise the necessary change.

How you are treated off the pitch will inevitably be reflected in how you play on it. If the environment is so suffocating and autocratic that players don’t feel empowered to make decisions, you end up thinking: “What will he want me to do?” rather than, “What should we do?” Sometimes it’s the same thing, but often it’s not. If you have purposefully eroded people’s ability to make decisions, you can’t expect them to think on their feet in the heat of battle.

To me this is best demonstrated by England last year. There is no doubt that Jones, 61, is a great coach — he has made huge improvements with England — but there’s a reason why most teams are now going with a more collaborative approach: you need only look as far as Harlequins’ revival for proof.

I would dread coming to training under Johnson. It was the worst possible environment in terms of getting the best out of people; very similar to what Dylan Hartley describes in his book when discussing life under Jones.

Henry Slade’s man-of-the-match performance saw him in his best form for some time, but with this came a problem for Eddie Jones and also for fans of Marcus Smith.

We know that Manu Tuilagi is always going to play in a Jones team if fit, and so is Owen Farrell, because he is his captain. There are only three slots at 10, 12 and 13 and if Slade continues in this sort of form, it makes it more difficult for Jones to start Smith at outside-half. I fear that Smith from the bench is likely to be the norm after this game...

Torquemada 1420 wrote: ↑Tue Nov 09, 2021 11:23 am Though this was interesting by BCM in the Torygraph
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union ... h-england/

Henry Slade’s man-of-the-match performance saw him in his best form for some time, but with this came a problem for Eddie Jones and also for fans of Marcus Smith.

We know that Manu Tuilagi is always going to play in a Jones team if fit, and so is Owen Farrell, because he is his captain. There are only three slots at 10, 12 and 13 and if Slade continues in this sort of form, it makes it more difficult for Jones to start Smith at outside-half. I fear that Smith from the bench is likely to be the norm after this game...

Question is whether BCM is right and Farrell is still Jones' automatic choice. For those of us who want to watch rugby, we hope not. For those of us who want to see Eng lose, we hope BCM is correct. I feel curiously torn.