Australia vs England - First Test

[Mellsblue]

I agree with the negative comments about Hill but a little part of me finds just a smidgeon of sympathy for somebody who wanted to scrap for a result within the context of that game. I don't condone his behaviour but at least he was hating being stuffed midway through that second half when others disappeared because 14-man Australia were ruling us physically.

We've had very similar from Itoje in the past, conceding penalties wholesale but fighting his crown jewels off.

When the rest of the forwards (apart from Ludlum) let their competitiveness drop off 10% or more, Hill fought. There's some merit in his will to do so.

Less of a scrap more a primary school playground squabble. The difference between Itoje’s, erm, silliness and Hill’s stupidity is ten mins in the sin bin and a gulf in talent.
Hill’s antics may have been the lowest of many low points on Sat. Have England sunk so low that we possess the thick, mullet-sporting cheap shot merchant whilst the Aussies field the handsome, floppy haired choir boy?

[Epaminondas Pules]

And weren't Hills' antics in the first half?

[Oakboy]

And weren't Hills' antics in the first half?

Yes, but I was just offering some small defence of his performance overall. It would not bother me if he was dumped for a better lock (if we've got one). When fit he has a feisty 80 minutes in him, that's all I'm saying. That second half, there were other forwards doing less physically, I thought.

[p/d]

on another day, with different officials, England would have been down to 14 men.

Does that mean we would have won?

[Banquo]

Hill is a decent player when not being an utter twat. But I'd drop him for that behaviour even if not cited.

With Curry out, I'd hope Willis gets the nod and take the risk of moving Lawes forward, though he is light now and hasn't played lock full time in ages, with Ludlam at 6. That's a lot of change tho.

I would drop one of Faz and Smith, quelle surprise, and think about the back three config. All in all, probably too much change- but mindsets and reactions under pressure remain the big shift needed.

[Mikey Brown]

Has there been any official word on Curry?

Hard to see Dingwall coming straight in after no involvement in the last 2 weeks, but I do like the way he plays.

[Banquo]

Has there been any official word on Curry?

Hard to see Dingwall coming straight in after no involvement in the last 2 weeks, but I do like the way he plays.

Yep, he's going home.

Dingwall was allegedly close to making the bench, but yes.

[Raggs]

Shows the attacking patterns quite nicely. Working the wingers hard to make sure they're constantly options, expecting them to clear out when it's their pod being used etc. All doing all jobs. The kick at the end I thought was a bad choice, since both wingers were involved in a ruck just one phase earlier, but I'd completely forgotten about Steward.

[Mellsblue]

on another day, with different officials, England would have been down to 14 men.

Does that mean we would have won?

Depends solely on the ref’s ‘social reciprocity’, I’m told.

[Which Tyler]

I never understood why Hill has been persevered with

Because the alternative was Ewels.

Hill seemed to get first crack of the whip between them, and played himself below Ewels; who then played himself back below Hill.
Time to move on from both of them IMO; but is there time with the RWC and experience being seen as all-important?

[Scrumhead]

Shows the attacking patterns quite nicely. Working the wingers hard to make sure they're constantly options, expecting them to clear out when it's their pod being used etc. All doing all jobs. The kick at the end I thought was a bad choice, since both wingers were involved in a ruck just one phase earlier, but I'd completely forgotten about Steward.

Come on Raggs … don’t introduce analysis or anything factual here. It’s been decided already - we’re terrible, we have no structure, no ideas and nothing good to work on.

[Mellsblue]

We made a grand total of 10 yards with ball in hand over goodness knows how many phases with not a single line break.

[p/d]

We made a grand total of 10 yards with ball in hand over goodness knows how many phases with not a single line break.

But we sure did look pretty

[Raggs]

We made a grand total of 10 yards with ball in hand over goodness knows how many phases with not a single line break.

First 4 carries were over the gainline. 5th was on the gainline basically and slowed down by Hooper i think crawling right through the middle causing issues, could have easily been penalised for it. 6th was a cheeky Care snipe for a few yards. Then another 2 positive carries, followed by a recovered kick just outside their 22. The phase after we lose a yard, but still force the defence to retreat as we go past the defensive line by quite a way. Next phase was really close to a fantastic one, but unfortunately Nowell gave a bad offload to Marchant which caused us to lose ground, if it had gone to hand properly we'd have likely been in for a try. Even if he'd just held on it would have been a brilliant positive carry. In the end Marchant fights enough for no ground to have been lost. We then have another neutral carry, and then get isolated and turned over.

We didn't finish it off, but that was a really positive set of phases.

[Oakboy]

I seem to remember one little grubber from Farrell that Nowell followed up really well. Unfortunately, he had to stop and look for support. Farrell had not pursued until it was too late. Difficult to blame Nowell, I thought at the time. If my memory of it was correct it sums up the basic disconnect of our play.

[Banquo]

Shows the attacking patterns quite nicely. Working the wingers hard to make sure they're constantly options, expecting them to clear out when it's their pod being used etc. All doing all jobs. The kick at the end I thought was a bad choice, since both wingers were involved in a ruck just one phase earlier, but I'd completely forgotten about Steward.

Come on Raggs … don’t introduce analysis or anything factual here. It’s been decided already - we’re terrible, we have no structure, no ideas and nothing good to work on.

Not sure this sarcasm/hyperbole helps overly. Most acknowledge that we did good stuff that didn’t deliver much for 25 mins. And that clip shows why - as per the question at the end. It’s very pretty, and a product of very detailed planning- and that’s part of the problem; it’s pre drilled to x phases, but no one is looking what else is on, and even if they were, players who you might want to finish are tied up doing tasks like clearing. What is very good is getting forwards over the tackle line, even the gainline. What then happens looks nice, has been thought out, but is happening quite a long way from the defence, so they get to read it, and remember it. It depends on accuracy and decision making, and you see both not done well there. So there are positives but also work ons- imo you need more directness from the backs as a minimum and figure out how to get the right players in the right place when opportunity is created.
But then when you look at the game after the first 30, you see a team repeating the same errors- Genge spoke about it well- despite knowing they had to do eliminate them.I think you have to understand the frustrations of the fans on here, who at least have their heart in the right place and have a feel for the game. I kinda put up with the Faz/Smith thing that I don’t believe in, but won’t tolerated the continued falling apart under pressure, and I’m not apologising for being critical. Frustrated of Cambridge.

[Mellsblue]

We made a grand total of 10 yards with ball in hand over goodness knows how many phases with not a single line break.

First 4 carries were over the gainline. 5th was on the gainline basically and slowed down by Hooper i think crawling right through the middle causing issues, could have easily been penalised for it. 6th was a cheeky Care snipe for a few yards. Then another 2 positive carries, followed by a recovered kick just outside their 22. The phase after we lose a yard, but still force the defence to retreat as we go past the defensive line by quite a way. Next phase was really close to a fantastic one, but unfortunately Nowell gave a bad offload to Marchant which caused us to lose ground, if it had gone to hand properly we'd have likely been in for a try. Even if he'd just held on it would have been a brilliant positive carry. In the end Marchant fights enough for no ground to have been lost. We then have another neutral carry, and then get isolated and turned over.

We didn't finish it off, but that was a really positive set of phases.

Yeah, I know all that as I’ve watched the clip.

That was pretty much the best we put up during a 20 min purple patch. It was promising and, as I said at half time, we actually made some space out wide a handful of times that we weren’t set up to exploit. Ultimately, it’s test match rugby 14 months out from the tournament we’ve supposedly sacrificed the last couple of years for so I’m only really interested in the end result. If it were a set of phases we built upon during the match rather than the pinnacle of what we achieved, I’d agree that it was positive. Tbh, we seem to be getting overly excited by having a functioning attacking shape with no end product.

[Peej]

We made a grand total of 10 yards with ball in hand over goodness knows how many phases with not a single line break.

First 4 carries were over the gainline. 5th was on the gainline basically and slowed down by Hooper i think crawling right through the middle causing issues, could have easily been penalised for it. 6th was a cheeky Care snipe for a few yards. Then another 2 positive carries, followed by a recovered kick just outside their 22. The phase after we lose a yard, but still force the defence to retreat as we go past the defensive line by quite a way. Next phase was really close to a fantastic one, but unfortunately Nowell gave a bad offload to Marchant which caused us to lose ground, if it had gone to hand properly we'd have likely been in for a try. Even if he'd just held on it would have been a brilliant positive carry. In the end Marchant fights enough for no ground to have been lost. We then have another neutral carry, and then get isolated and turned over.

We didn't finish it off, but that was a really positive set of phases.

I saw a lot of missed opportunities to put players in space or taking contact. Multiple phases to make little ground. And when we did create space we seemed to have players bunched narrow and flat in the middle third of the pitch.

[Scrumhead]

I’m as frustrated as anyone, but I find that there’s such a heavy skew towards relentless negativity that makes me want to go in the other direction.

For every positive post, there are five or more negative ones.

I don’t feel that is an accurate reflection of where we’re at.

[Oakboy]

I’m as frustrated as anyone, but I find that there’s such a heavy skew towards relentless negativity that makes me want to go in the other direction.

For every positive post, there are five or more negative ones.

I don’t feel that is an accurate reflection of where we’re at.

I hope you are right but 14 months off the RWC, I'd hope to be debating wins with tweaks to improve performances. The fact is we are debating defeat after defeat with the last two against 14 men. I posted at the time of the red card on Saturday that it would be a disgrace if we lost from that point. Swallowing ten spinach cans of positivity would not alter that much. Maybe, within the chaos of the last two years' results there is cause for optimism. It seems a forlorn hope somehow but good on you for your positivity.

[Mikey Brown]

1 out of 5 or 6 is about correct in terms of win streak?

[Scrumhead]

I’m as frustrated as anyone, but I find that there’s such a heavy skew towards relentless negativity that makes me want to go in the other direction.

For every positive post, there are five or more negative ones.

I don’t feel that is an accurate reflection of where we’re at.

I hope you are right but 14 months off the RWC, I'd hope to be debating wins with tweaks to improve performances. The fact is we are debating defeat after defeat with the last two against 14 men. I posted at the time of the red card on Saturday that it would be a disgrace if we lost from that point. Swallowing ten spinach cans of positivity would not alter that much. Maybe, within the chaos of the last two years' results there is cause for optimism. It seems a forlorn hope somehow but good on you for your positivity.

I wouldn’t say it is positivity exactly. I’m just trying to offer some perspective.

Simply put, I’d say there were some positives we need to be building on but a whole heap of less positive things we need to sort out.

My point is that this place feels like it’s all negatives and 0 positives which just isn’t true.

[Mellsblue]

1 out of 5 or 6 is about correct in terms of win streak?

Ha! Very good.

[Mellsblue]

This is reminding me a lot of 2014 when some on here were stating their worries over the Lancaster regime and were roundly criticised, and that England team were, IMO, in a far better place than this one. That said, you’d think Jones has a far better grasp of how to build a team to a World Cup than Lancaster did, albeit I think Jones is incredibly muddled, at present.
Don’t get me wrong, all I want in rugby at present (other than Poitrenaud to suddenly be 30 and replace RICH LANE!!! at Bedford) is for England to come good but all I’ve seen since the autumn of 2020 is muddled, at best, and wrong, at worst, thinking from Jones.

[fivepointer]

Bring back Andy Robinson. That was a guy who made you feel really negative about the England team.

We're not quite at that level, but boy do we need to see some signs of real development.