I've made it pretty clear, Ovals. I think Eddie instructed them for this match to kick for the corners whenever possible to keep pressure on, as a variant on the many, many times we've rocked up away from home against a difficult opponent and kicked the leather off the ball regardless of the match situation.Ovals wrote: ↑Tue Feb 08, 2022 4:23 pmI find it hard to work out just what you think Eddie is instructing them to do and when to do it. We, quite obviously, don't always kick good attacking ball away - so the players must be making some judgement about when to do it. They still have the choice and can choose to kick, or not to kick - and they often exercise either option. Hence, you have to conclude that they, too often, make the wrong choice - regardless Eddie's penchant for kicking.
Eddie freezes people out for not following the master plan or going off-piste, and absolutely does not brook any disagreement with his game plans, so it's not exactly a surprise to me that if they've been drilled to kick as a first resort that they then do so even when keeping ball in hand would've been a likelier route to scoring. I do not believe it is coincidence that time and again we created space in the wider channels and the option taken by players who do not normally do this was to attempt to kick to the corner.
I think we agree that players made the wrong choice. But Eddie doesn't do flexibility, and he rewards loyalty, and he fucking loves idiotic kicking tactics, so I suspect he would disagree that it was the wrong choice. I would be amazed if these scenarios hadn't come up in training and been coached into them. Make space wide to force the back three up, kick through for pressure, challenge Scotland at the set piece and breakdown, ???, win the game. As I said, it's a variation on a very familiar theme. It's not like he hasn't repeatedly picked Farrell and praised Farrell for matches where he's kicked instead of used huge overlaps.
