vs Georgia

[Digby]

If you only watched one game today I hope you picked the women's game, way more fun featuring two decent sides.

[fivepointer]

Lets be charitable and blame the conditions.
That said, our scrum was very good. Stuart really impressed and i thought Willis had an encouraging debut. Both locks went well.
Farrell was pretty useless. If there's an obvious overlap available, its odds on he'll miss it. Daly looked rusty. May tried hard but couldnt make a break. Lawrence under used.
Georgia have a long way to go. They looked limited with the ball but they didnt collapse and kept going until the end.

[Scrumhead]

Agreed.

Definitely some positives to take away. I thought Will Stuart looked very good and is worth a start against one of the tier 1 sides. Willis didn’t get much of an opportunity to shine but looked completely at home. Launchbury had a good game too IMO.

[Oakboy]

A functional win. Previously, winning has been all. Presumably too, scoring as many points as possible counted. Why then, go for so many scrums from penalties? Was winning the arm-wrestle that crucial? I know the conditions were bad but a few tap-and-goes, a few 1st phase back moves, some innovation?

[Banquo]

Lets be charitable and blame the conditions.
That said, our scrum was very good. Stuart really impressed and i thought Willis had an encouraging debut. Both locks went well.
Farrell was pretty useless. If there's an obvious overlap available, its odds on he'll miss it. Daly looked rusty. May tried hard but couldnt make a break. Lawrence under used.
Georgia have a long way to go. They looked limited with the ball but they didnt collapse and kept going until the end.

The conditions were terrible. Frankly I’ve given up criticising the misfunctioning northern robot.

[Raggs]

Test our strengths against their strengths, so why not have a tough run out.

[p/d]

If you only watched one game today I hope you picked the women's game, way more fun featuring two decent sides.

Usually steer well clear of it, but caught the second half. I’d take our halfbacks over Youngs and Robot

[Spiffy]

Turgid stuff but foul weather.
Billy V looks increasingly one dimensional and fat.
Farrell continues to bring little to the party.

[Mellsblue]

If you only watched one game today I hope you picked the women's game, way more fun featuring two decent sides.

This.

[Epaminondas Pules]

If you only watched one game today I hope you picked the women's game, way more fun featuring two decent sides.

Dunno, the All Blacks vs Argentina was great fun. Watching Frizzell, Coles et al being petulant whilst Los Pumas dicked them all over the park was awesome!

The ABs seem to be favouring players with an IQ in single figures of late.

[Oakboy]

Lets be charitable and blame the conditions.
That said, our scrum was very good. Stuart really impressed and i thought Willis had an encouraging debut. Both locks went well.
Farrell was pretty useless. If there's an obvious overlap available, its odds on he'll miss it. Daly looked rusty. May tried hard but couldnt make a break. Lawrence under used.
Georgia have a long way to go. They looked limited with the ball but they didnt collapse and kept going until the end.

The conditions were terrible. Frankly I’ve given up criticising the misfunctioning northern robot.

You must have groaned at that grubber in the first 15 minutes when there was a 2:1 outside him?

[Oakboy]

I can see why Jones did not want Slade at 12. His little pop pass early in the move for Daly's try showed the quality of hands that we should have at 10. It rather emphasised our FH's limitations. I'm no Ford fan but I really want him back as long as Slade stays at 12. Dreaming again . . .

[Digby]

If you only watched one game today I hope you picked the women's game, way more fun featuring two decent sides.

Dunno, the All Blacks vs Argentina was great fun. Watching Frizzell, Coles et al being petulant whilst Los Pumas dicked them all over the park was awesome!

The ABs seem to be favouring players with an IQ in single figures of late.

I did wonder about that, but excluded it from contention as it didn't feature two decent sides

[16th man]

If you only watched one game today I hope you picked the women's game, way more fun featuring two decent sides.

Dunno, the All Blacks vs Argentina was great fun. Watching Frizzell, Coles et al being petulant whilst Los Pumas dicked them all over the park was awesome!

The ABs seem to be favouring players with an IQ in single figures of late.

I did wonder about that, but excluded it from contention as it didn't feature two decent sides

Hilarious to see Barrett tackling the wrong man off the ball, then wiping out Mongua for the Puma's try.

Should have been more, especially if the ref had given the cards that some of the ABs cynical penalties deserved

[Scrumhead]

I can see why Jones did not want Slade at 12. His little pop pass early in the move for Daly's try showed the quality of hands that we should have at 10. It rather emphasised our FH's limitations. I'm no Ford fan but I really want him back as long as Slade stays at 12. Dreaming again . . .

But that was the one good thing Slade did ... just about excuses three forward passes.

[Peej]

Flatman's good normally, just getting tired of the moaning. I realise there's not masses to analyse.. .

I saw billyv didn't take a knee. Did I see there was someone else?

Billy doesn't for reasons that are Q-anon levels of sense. Slade didn't. One other didn't but wasn't sure who

[Peej]

Ok so a collection of random thoughts;
A. Why take Willis off?
B. Is there a rule that Sarries players can't be subbed? Why bring Malins on and make it as hard as possible for him to get the ball?
C. Billy is over rated
D. Georgia certainly enjoy tackling, and show glimpses of decent attack. But with replacing Italy in the 6 Nations?
E. Grayson claiming that Robson's try was created by some kind of Zen dummy line from Farrell was nause
F. Farrell and Youngs were pretty shite
G. Stuart was impressive

Dissent/challenges/insults welcome...

[Mellsblue]

A. No idea
B. I’d stopped paying attention by the time Malins was on and was paying more attention to this:
https://shop.northbrewing.com/collectio ... -co-pinata
C. looked good against Italy but was poor tonight. He’s so up and down. I think it’s a mental thing. Given the stuff he’s talked about over the last few years, I’m not sure he likes playing the game.
D. They’re no worse than Italy, without the years of investment. Doubt years of investment would make much difference if their players don’t play elite club rugby.
E. Farrell did draw the guard but that’s because it was shunt play from the guard not a piece of genius from Farrell.
F. Thoughts Youngs was ok. Farrell is bang out of form and he player with his, erm, skill set needs to be on form at international level.
G. Yep

[Raggs]

Georgia are worse than Italy! Italy looked a hell of a lot better than Georgia for me. Especially today.

[Scrumhead]

A. No idea
B. I’d stopped paying attention by the time Malins was on and was paying more attention to this:
https://shop.northbrewing.com/collectio ... -co-pinata
C. looked good against Italy but was poor tonight. He’s so up and down. I think it’s a mental thing. Given the stuff he’s talked about over the last few years, I’m not sure he likes playing the game.
D. They’re no worse than Italy, without the years of investment. Doubt years of investment would make much difference if their players don’t play elite club rugby.
E. Farrell did draw the guard but that’s because it was shunt play from the guard not a piece of genius from Farrell.
F. Thoughts Youngs was ok. Farrell is bang out of form and he player with his, erm, skill set needs to be on form at international level.
G. Yep

Agree with most of this.

On A, I can only assume it was to see whether Earl’s pace/running game might add a different dimension. No issue with that in theory, but why not replace Billy instead?

On D, Georgia have a LOT of investment behind them. Their facilities are better than most Tier 1 teams. Italy nearly turned over Scotland today and while they may be the 6N’s whipping boys most of the time, there is normally at least one game in the 6N where they push someone fairly close. I don’t think Georgia are capable of that.

They have quite a lot of players in the French leagues, but few of them are regulars for the stronger teams. Italy have the benefit of two teams in the Pro14 and those sides have been getting better.

[Mellsblue]

Georgia’s investment is comparatively recent and, in essence, is a billionaire chucking loads of money at bricks and mortar whilst their governing body is a complete shambles, to put it nicely.
I’m not really bothered about Italy’s performances against Scot. I’ll compare both against Eng and I don’t think there was much difference. When you take in to account all of Italy’s players have had weeks of pro club rugby whilst two of Georgia’s players are unattached....

[twitchy]

On a slightly different note how was the amazon feed for everyone? I found that the actual live images were mainly in sd and then it really jarring when it cut to the adverts in hd.

Of course this could have just been my internet but I don't think it is. Watching bt I get a flawless hd picture.

[Beasties]

On a slightly different note how was the amazon feed for everyone? I found that the actual live images were mainly in sd and then it really jarring when it cut to the adverts in hd.

Of course this could have just been my internet but I don't think it is. Watching bt I get a flawless hd picture.

I have an issue with the user interface on the Amazon Fire box. I started watching from the beginning on a delay while the match was live. I paused it and went back later to resume and it had completely disappeared from the platform as an option for viewing. It was an option on my phone still though so wtf Amazon? However when I used search instead of looking for it in the usual manner it appeared and worked. Not a good user experience.

Stuart was very impressive yesterday, that was no easy test for him but he shone. I've been banging on about him since he first started for Wasps so am delighted for him. We really have some great front row options now. I can see a lot of games where he starts and Sinck subs. He's a unit. Was Ewels playing yest?

[twitchy]

Yeah he was. A solid performance.

I'm far less annoyed at the game than others here. I thought eddie set out to do a specific thing and we did it. It was glorified scum/malling practice.

Next week will be the actual test.

[Oakboy]

I know next to nothing about scrummaging but was impressed by the front row. Stuart was good but, to my untutored eye, Genge was very impressive. How he had the strength to keep his elbow off the ground with his opponent obviously and deliberately pulling him down was remarkable. It's easy to moan about penalties conceded but perhaps praise for avoiding them needs stating too.