England v Japan

[Banquo]

stop kicking good ball ffs smith

[Banquo]

recycle quickly, get it away, hurrah

[Mellsblue]

Great kick from Farrell. Natural scrumhalf.

[Margin_Walker]

GUY PORTER SCORE!!!

And again. To the manor born!

Hat trick incoming

[Mellsblue]

Scrumhalf pecking order:
JVP
Curry
Youngs

Update:
JVP
Curry
Farrell
Youngs

[Banquo]

right time to kick and porter the try machine.

excellent counter ruck.

[Banquo]

anyone else got the feeling we could wake up on Sunday with England's women world champs and the men having lost to Japan?

or....

oops

[Banquo]

daft at scrum

[badback]

Can someone teach Mako to scrum.

[Mellsblue]

Unlucky Steward. Great pick up and then cms from a great kick.

[Mellsblue]

Can someone teach Mako to scrum.

I know it’s rhetorical.. not this late in his career. I think he’s cooked as a test player, esp in this team/tactics.

[Banquo]

yay. youngs

[Mellsblue]

Good to see England’s fourth choice 9 get a run out. Not sure he’ll get many caps but it’s chance to work on his passing.

[Mellsblue]

Excellent from Fifita beating Steward 1 v 1.

[badback]

Another special from a vunipola

[Banquo]

who is playing where now?

slade15, steward 14?

[Mellsblue]

Great hit from Farrell, plus expletive. Natural blindside.

[Mellsblue]

Matsushima is having an 80 min nightmare.

[Mellsblue]

Story of Slade’s England career. So close but no cigar.

[Scrumhead]

Agreed. So frustrating for a player to have so much ability who just can’t quite bring it all together. Harsh, but true.

[p/d]

Why do we have to continually suffer this ineptness when interviewing players. She really needs to be replaced.

[Shiny]

So my take from today is nothing we didn’t already know. JVP is rapidly overtaking Youngs as the starting scrum half, we missed Jonny May when he was away especially when compared with Nowell. I’m no fan of Fazlet but he looked better than Smith today. Even in their short cameo’s Tuilangi and Slade are much better than Porter.

Forwards all went as expected. Ribbans is already ahead of Ewells, as is Coles. Itoje is a second row. Willis must have reversed his car over Eddies dog not to be starting at 6 with Curry at 7.

[Danno]

Why do we have to continually suffer this ineptness when interviewing players. She really needs to be replaced.

As does Farrell. The world cup predicting octopus had more charisma when interviewed.

[fivepointer]

What to make of that?
Well, firstly racking up 50 pts is not to be sniffed at and we were several notches up on last week. It wasnt an all singing, all dancing performance but at times we were efficient and clinical. Some players enhanced their standing. Steward and the 2 wings were very good, JVP is surely now the starting SH, Simmonds the pick of the forwards and there was a bright cameo from Coles off the bench.
I think you'd have to give England a pass and say that was a solid improvement.
Japan were desperately disappointing. They didnt cause us anything like the problems i thought they would and never really got into the game.

[badback]

Banquo, am i seeing things right? All the good bits of play are effectively with Farrell at FH and Smith at IC.

Its how Smith was used when he first came in- loops early, gets missed and then distributes. Not sure better defences would be fooled tho- first try was very soft, even if it was a great line from Steward.

Ribbans has looked the part- old school hard second row.

I thought Ribbans was good too