Digby wrote:
About right, I'd probably go for a 7 for Curry, an 8 for Youngs and 4s for May and Slade.
And I'd mark Itoje down to 6/7 for the pens he gave up
You telling me you weren’t impressed with the reinvention of Slade as a crash ball 12?
I don't know what to say, I can't even be bothered to try and make a pun about it being more car crash than crash ball. You'd accuse them of not trying as a team, but then they did give away a lot of penalties to keep Italy in the game, and maybe that takes more than we realise
(I quite liked our props off the bench I suppose, and Robson looked worth at least another 20)
I get the feeling Robson was only there as Heinz was baked.
Would love to see Robson and Randall as starting and bench 9 options.
Stom wrote:Honestly, this is appalling. The kicking is second rate and while our midfield defence is very good, our scramble is meh. And the lack of inspiration in attack is appalling. We have Slade, Joseph, Watson, May, Lawrence, Thorley...
And none of them see the ball unless it's kicked down their throat.
Glad we had the huddle at the start of the second half though. Farrell is such a natural and great leader of men.
Without that, I think Italy would've won.
Wonder how many hacks mention that in their match report?
Raggs wrote:Can't really rate any backs outside of Farrell too much. Thought Furbank looked a bit iffy. Can we promise never to play Farrell at 10 again please.
But, but, but...he's a world class #10. One of, it not the best in the world right now
That was like watching Leicester play. No ambition, no desire to keep the ball, no thoughts of doing anything but kick it up in the air. Awful. Just awful.
Puja wrote:That was like watching Leicester play. No ambition, no desire to keep the ball, no thoughts of doing anything but kick it up in the air. Awful. Just awful.
Puja
I wonder if that's what Ford has to deal with in virtually every England game? Literally all on him to think of something better than just hoofing it.
Mikey Brown wrote:
You telling me you weren’t impressed with the reinvention of Slade as a crash ball 12?
I don't know what to say, I can't even be bothered to try and make a pun about it being more car crash than crash ball. You'd accuse them of not trying as a team, but then they did give away a lot of penalties to keep Italy in the game, and maybe that takes more than we realise
(I quite liked our props off the bench I suppose, and Robson looked worth at least another 20)
I get the feeling Robson was only there as Heinz was baked.
Would love to see Robson and Randall as starting and bench 9 options.
Would also love to see what Umaga can do.
It's almost as if he only had Robson on the bench cos he had no option. And that he daren't give him many minutes in case he looked good and then presented him with a problem.
God only knows what Dunn's done though.
Mikey Brown wrote:
You telling me you weren’t impressed with the reinvention of Slade as a crash ball 12?
I don't know what to say, I can't even be bothered to try and make a pun about it being more car crash than crash ball. You'd accuse them of not trying as a team, but then they did give away a lot of penalties to keep Italy in the game, and maybe that takes more than we realise
(I quite liked our props off the bench I suppose, and Robson looked worth at least another 20)
I get the feeling Robson was only there as Heinz was baked.
Would love to see Robson and Randall as starting and bench 9 options.
Would also love to see what Umaga can do.
Robson came off the bench kicked too long, ran into contact and got turned over and his passing was slightly off. Eddie likes scrum halfs to do the basics first so his cameo won't have helped his chances of getting more game time.
Umaga might get a go in one of the smaller matches. Given his form for scoring and conceding tries in equal measure (I am thankful he gifted Tigers the win at Welford Road just before lockdown) he wasn't likely to get a chance in a meaningful game like this. Simmonds on the other hand must be sat at home fuming, he could have offered that controlling game plan with ease but offered substantially more ball in hand.
Itoje was outstanding; interesting that he played left lock and jumped in the middle a lot. He seemed to have an even freer role than normal, with Hill doing a lot of tight work.
Farrell was obviously executing a pretty ugly tactical plan, but he didn’t even do that well, and how you could waste that back line having picked it beggars belief.
Underhill did the square root of nothing- no carries!
Oakboy wrote:What pisses me off most is that Exeter are condemned as boring. Compared with that crap today, they are enlightening. It will be truly embarrassing to end up winning this 6N. Progress? Bollix.
I think that's a bit harsh. Every team looks rusty at the start of the 6N, and that starts in the middle of the season. This match involved players that are a mix of knackered (Exeter), limited time in camp (Exeter, Wasps), little game time lately (almost everyone else), or a mix of all of the above
They're athletic ability was not tested! Only their neck muscles got a bloody work out from looking up at the bloody ball so much.
And if it were tiredness, you'd expect the pack to have been below par and they were OK. It's just that our "messiah" of a 10 kicked the bloody thing 80% of the time.
Puja wrote:That was like watching Leicester play. No ambition, no desire to keep the ball, no thoughts of doing anything but kick it up in the air. Awful. Just awful.
Puja
It really was. Laughably so. DT giving OF an 8 rating. I tell ya
I only saw the first half of the game but that was enough ...
Apart from one move where we put the ball through the hands on the left hand side, Watson cut back across and Farrell kicked through for May (which was very close to working out), I don’t recall us making any attempt to involve anyone outside of Farrell. It felt like he kicked almost every piece of possession away to Italy and I don’t recall us retaining it once.
francoisfou wrote:Man of the match for me was Tom Dunn! Delighted for him. His first cap was well-earned and may he have at least half a match against Georgia!
francoisfou wrote:Man of the match for me was Tom Dunn! Delighted for him. His first cap was well-earned and may he have at least half a match against Georgia!
Digby wrote:Curry was off his feet and out of the game
The first offence would be Negri grabbing his foot as he left the ruck though, so I think it's fine.
Puja
I'd actually like this area clarified, because players going to ground to get low and then effecting tackles from a guard position is fairly common. Though yes there would have been a first offence of Curry being taken out of the game by someone off their feet.
Perhaps the game intends to allow such moments and the refs have interpreted well beyond what the laws say, maybe even correctly so.
twitchy wrote:What an odd day. We won the game and the 6 nations but we all seem irritated with the performance.
We allowed ourselves to get dragged into this niggly arm wrestle of a game in the first half. Fair enough we were going in with no warm up.
The irritation is because we didn't do anything. We ran one move and scored off it and proceeded to kick every other bit of possession we had. I think we'd all be a lot happier if we'd been stop-start because we were trying things and they didn't come off, rather than being stop-start because we were resolutely avoiding trying anything.
