RugbyRebels

Ball presentation is so so poor. Compare that to Ireland earlier. It helps those hitting the rucks and the 9 and atnthe moment White needs all the help he can get.

Great ball and then composure by Jones.

We really rely on Duhan doing something special a lot.

Big D wrote: ↑Sat Feb 24, 2024 5:29 pm We really rely on Duhan doing something special a lot.

Our entire "game plan" is for an individual piece of magic from someone

I mean it's infuriating to see any team lose possession on the wrong end of a series of pick and go near the try line... but we do seem to be especially shite at it

How many kicks today have been straight into the nearest opposition player?

MAYBE IF OUR ONLY IDEA WASNT TO JUST KICK POSSESSION AWAY EVERY FWCIN TIME

Absolute shite

There has been some good play at times.

Fucking diotic penalties from Horne and Duhan in the last 5min of the game.

Ok not absolute shite, but still not great. Happy with the win but our rugby is a country mile away from any of the top teams and we aren't improving.

In reality, neither team was that good. A lot of mistakes on both sides, but Scotland definitely deserved the win. Awesome finishing from Duhan.

Watching that 1st try, I wonder if the knee on knee contact is what injured Tuipulotu.

Big D wrote: ↑Sat Feb 24, 2024 7:00 pm Watching that 1st try, I wonder if the knee on knee contact is what injured Tuipulotu.

If he’s out, Redpath showed that’s he may be a different type of player from Tuipilotu but he’s more than up to the job.

BaldiePete wrote: ↑Sat Feb 24, 2024 7:22 pm

Big D wrote: ↑Sat Feb 24, 2024 7:00 pm Watching that 1st try, I wonder if the knee on knee contact is what injured Tuipulotu.

If he’s out, Redpath showed that’s he may be a different type of player from Tuipilotu but he’s more than up to the job.

Wouldn't be surprised if McDowell comes straight in either.

Maybe to the bench.

Obviously very happy with the win, but if England managed to be a bit more accurate it could have been a very different result - we were really clinical from turning over their mistakes. Our attacking phase play inside their 22 we were shite. Why are we kicking so much? It almost feels like we have lost our invention.

Yeah that was a weird one. Good to keep England short of a bonus point, but should have had a bonus point ourselves and left far too many opportunities for a less error-ridden team to get back in to it.

Still though, there were some great moments.

I thought Cummings looked good. Christie and Redpath off the bench again were great. Elliot Millar-Mills was… entertaining in a rather odd way.

I hope Tuipulotu is okay, but would love to look at Redpath and McDowell against Italy. I suppose the issue is how much we want to rotate if that means 2 more weeks off for some before playing Ireland.

I suspect we took the view that most of England's threat came from their blitz, so once we got a decent lead we thought let's take that away from them and back ourselves to stop them (or just deal with their inevitable kick back).

I'd have preferred us to go for it in that last ten/fifteen minutes, and Townsend sounds like he thought similar. I'm focused on getting to the final game with a chance of a win, but can see the players might be more focused om securing the win.

Incidentally, to there were two examples today why 'taking the three' isn't always the safe, sensible decision. One towards the end of the forst half and one from in front in the second. Both times, England put in a good kickoff and scored three themselves immediately afterwards. Not necessarilly bad decisions (I thought they were reasonable at the time) but the outcome was worse than if we had put it into the corner and kept the pressure on.

Gilchrist looked very good on most of the restarts amd dealt with some tough ones, but did screw up a couple. Dunno how high our expectations should be on that - England screwed up at least one too.

I thought our receiving re-starts were pretty average - hope that doesn’t creep back into our game.

I see we took a note of the Franco Smith playbook and re-started ourselves very quickly. That got us points at least once.

Overall happy. A rare event indeed!

General Zod wrote: ↑Sun Feb 25, 2024 7:09 am I see we took a note of the Franco Smith playbook and re-started ourselves very quickly. That got us points at least once.

Yeah, I liked that. Won't always work quite as well as today but even if it doesn't it keeps the pace of the game up.

Your team (tbh, a long way from a perfect performance) has surely hammered another nail in Borthwick’s coffin. After such an inept display, with two more defeats yet to come, he’ll be out of a job at the end of the 6N.

It's nice to win comfortably without playing well. It's only Borthwicks England but for most of my life such a result would have been unthinkable.

Thought that we managed the second half really well after the third try. Nothing fancy, just recognized that we were able to generate turnovers and tried hard to play in the right areas of the pitch. It felt like they worked it out a bit at halftime which is hugely encouraging.

English defence was interesting and felt like they had a pretty good plan. They came after Russell hard while also dropping lots of men into coverage so there werent gaps for him to kick into so that when he had to kick there was always a man there. The 50:22 was never on all game. But it didn't really work when we had a decent lead as we were happy for them to have the ball in those bits of the field.

Maul defence was very good and think that Christie might have earned himself a start against Italy.

How are we all feeling about the Italy game now?

Donny osmond wrote: ↑Sun Feb 25, 2024 5:30 pm How are we all feeling about the Italy game now?

I don’t think it’ll be low scoring.

We need to have confidence. We’re a better team with better players than they have, we should win. Of course, by those criteria France should have beaten them today, but perhaps they’re lacking confidence just now.

I still don't think Italy are very good but I wouldn't be rotating really for them. Rest anyone who has a niggle (e.g. maybe bring in Redpath for Tuipolotu) and by all means make changes that might strengthen the team (e.g. maybe Christie and/or Fagerson) but let's not muck about.

On Italy:

- Their defence near their line is good - need to finish breaks and not get bogged down in phases inside the 22.

- Their attack is still a bit scattergun. Once Fance lost a man they made lots of ground but they rely on lots of offloads. Workrate will be key, it you have enough players in and around the ball, Italy will put themselves under pressure.

- Their scrum can be targeted. Let's go full strength there.

I suspect we will feel like we should be putting them away but find it a bit frustrating. Crucial we get the bonus point though. I can't see us winning the championship but let's make Ireland work for it.

Donny osmond wrote: ↑Sun Feb 25, 2024 5:30 pm How are we all feeling about the Italy game now?

I'd be feeling very different about it if not for a certain Irish TMO.

General Zod wrote: ↑Sun Feb 25, 2024 7:09 am I thought our receiving re-starts were pretty average - hope that doesn’t creep back into our game.

I see we took a note of the Franco Smith playbook and re-started ourselves very quickly. That got us points at least once.

Overall happy. A rare event indeed!

At the start of GTs tenure we would regularly restart quickly. I am not sure why they went away from it against some teams.

I thought GG was pretty good in the air on restarts, there were a couple the lifter at the front was slow to get there but it is a hard skill.