Which Tyler wrote:
Best chance was Curry's break, then passing wide to Marchant with 2 defenders, unaware of Smith inside unopposed
That might be about it and I’m not convinced Smith wasn’t well covered.
There was definitely some players back to challenge Smith. Whether he could have stepped a tackle or two at pace who knows, his footwork wasn't working for the rest of the game.
There was the 3 on 3 where Smith went himself and we ended up with a penalty from which we took 3. Had that pass gone there were two forwards outsides running at Aussie backs metres from the Aussie try line.
England were just not clinical enough, was it two or three occasions we were turned over a metre or two from the Aussie line?
Yep. For all the pessimism, I really don’t think we were that bad.
I’m seeing loads of ‘couldn’t beat 14’ which forgets we had 14 for 20mins ourselves.
Which Tyler wrote:
Best chance was Curry's break, then passing wide to Marchant with 2 defenders, unaware of Smith inside unopposed
That might be about it and I’m not convinced Smith wasn’t well covered.
There was definitely some players back to challenge Smith. Whether he could have stepped a tackle or two at pace who knows, his footwork wasn't working for the rest of the game.
There was the 3 on 3 where Smith went himself and we ended up with a penalty from which we took 3. Had that pass gone there were two forwards outsides running at Aussie backs metres from the Aussie try line.
England were just not clinical enough, was it two or three occasions we were turned over a metre or two from the Aussie line?
I'm hoping Smith is learning a fuck-tonne from all these difficult games he's having and will become a superstar out the end of it, cause right now it's hard to champion him as England's best 10 on performance alone.
Which Tyler wrote:
Best chance was Curry's break, then passing wide to Marchant with 2 defenders, unaware of Smith inside unopposed
That might be about it and I’m not convinced Smith wasn’t well covered.
There was definitely some players back to challenge Smith. Whether he could have stepped a tackle or two at pace who knows, his footwork wasn't working for the rest of the game.
There was the 3 on 3 where Smith went himself and we ended up with a penalty from which we took 3. Had that pass gone there were two forwards outsides running at Aussie backs metres from the Aussie try line.
England were just not clinical enough, was it two or three occasions we were turned over a metre or two from the Aussie line?
If the 3 v 3 chance I’m thinking of then Smith received the ball fairly statically with static forward options and tried to make a silk purse from a sows ear.
As for being turned over close to the line, that runs true for both sides.
Finally, being clinical is the difference at this level. It’s why points per 22/red zone visit is such a good predictor of and correlation (causation of) with victory. Saying that if we were more clinical 5 yards out means we would’ve won is the same as saying if we were better we would’ve won. Especially as it’s a chronic issue.
Mellsblue wrote:
That might be about it and I’m not convinced Smith wasn’t well covered.
There was definitely some players back to challenge Smith. Whether he could have stepped a tackle or two at pace who knows, his footwork wasn't working for the rest of the game.
There was the 3 on 3 where Smith went himself and we ended up with a penalty from which we took 3. Had that pass gone there were two forwards outsides running at Aussie backs metres from the Aussie try line.
England were just not clinical enough, was it two or three occasions we were turned over a metre or two from the Aussie line?
Yep. For all the pessimism, I really don’t think we were that bad.
I’m seeing loads of ‘couldn’t beat 14’ which forgets we had 14 for 20mins ourselves.
We just fell apart completely. Which is really bad. We should have won that game but lost control and Eddie didn’t make any changes to try and alter things. Probably because he didn’t trust his bench. Which begs the question…why select it, then?
Mellsblue wrote:
That might be about it and I’m not convinced Smith wasn’t well covered.
There was definitely some players back to challenge Smith. Whether he could have stepped a tackle or two at pace who knows, his footwork wasn't working for the rest of the game.
There was the 3 on 3 where Smith went himself and we ended up with a penalty from which we took 3. Had that pass gone there were two forwards outsides running at Aussie backs metres from the Aussie try line.
England were just not clinical enough, was it two or three occasions we were turned over a metre or two from the Aussie line?
I'm hoping Smith is learning a fuck-tonne from all these difficult games he's having and will become a superstar out the end of it, cause right now it's hard to champion him as England's best 10 on performance alone.
Puja
He’s not impressing but, broken record time, we’re asking him to play completely differently than he does at Quins and expecting him to run the show with single figure caps.
Mellsblue wrote:
That might be about it and I’m not convinced Smith wasn’t well covered.
There was definitely some players back to challenge Smith. Whether he could have stepped a tackle or two at pace who knows, his footwork wasn't working for the rest of the game.
There was the 3 on 3 where Smith went himself and we ended up with a penalty from which we took 3. Had that pass gone there were two forwards outsides running at Aussie backs metres from the Aussie try line.
England were just not clinical enough, was it two or three occasions we were turned over a metre or two from the Aussie line?
Yep. For all the pessimism, I really don’t think we were that bad.
I’m seeing loads of ‘couldn’t beat 14’ which forgets we had 14 for 20mins ourselves.
we were 'that bad' for 15 minutes- no resilience, come and attack me defence, and brainless errors. Under pressure, the leaders disappear. They scored three tries to none in that period, where we didn't fire a shot- I'll grant that we were down to 14 too, but we didn't capitalise on the prevous what 15 minutes at all.
Mellsblue wrote:
That might be about it and I’m not convinced Smith wasn’t well covered.
There was definitely some players back to challenge Smith. Whether he could have stepped a tackle or two at pace who knows, his footwork wasn't working for the rest of the game.
There was the 3 on 3 where Smith went himself and we ended up with a penalty from which we took 3. Had that pass gone there were two forwards outsides running at Aussie backs metres from the Aussie try line.
England were just not clinical enough, was it two or three occasions we were turned over a metre or two from the Aussie line?
I'm hoping Smith is learning a fuck-tonne from all these difficult games he's having and will become a superstar out the end of it, cause right now it's hard to champion him as England's best 10 on performance alone.
Puja
Frankly, he wasn't doing much as a 10, he spent more than half his time floating as a deep passing second receiver; it looked pretty for a while.
Mellsblue wrote:He’s not impressing but, broken record time, we’re asking him to play completely differently than he does at Quins and expecting him to run the show with single figure caps.
That's international rugby though. If he cannot play in anything except for a system that has been built solely around him, then he's no more use than Cipriani.
Mellsblue wrote:He’s not impressing but, broken record time, we’re asking him to play completely differently than he does at Quins and expecting him to run the show with single figure caps.
That's international rugby though. If he cannot play in anything except for a system that has been built solely around him, then he's no more use than Cipriani.
Puja
....he seems to be playing in a system designed to keep Farrell in the side, with not enough thought given to what to do to support that axis of passing, which looked ok for a while bar the end product (and even that should have produced a try). It did kinda work out as a slightly better version of what I'd envisaged tbh.
FKAS wrote:
There was definitely some players back to challenge Smith. Whether he could have stepped a tackle or two at pace who knows, his footwork wasn't working for the rest of the game.
There was the 3 on 3 where Smith went himself and we ended up with a penalty from which we took 3. Had that pass gone there were two forwards outsides running at Aussie backs metres from the Aussie try line.
England were just not clinical enough, was it two or three occasions we were turned over a metre or two from the Aussie line?
Yep. For all the pessimism, I really don’t think we were that bad.
I’m seeing loads of ‘couldn’t beat 14’ which forgets we had 14 for 20mins ourselves.
We just fell apart completely. Which is really bad. We should have won that game but lost control and Eddie didn’t make any changes to try and alter things. Probably because he didn’t trust his bench. Which begs the question…why select it, then?
Reminded me of the Barbarians game. (I was there ). We just collapsed in defence.
Mellsblue wrote:He’s not impressing but, broken record time, we’re asking him to play completely differently than he does at Quins and expecting him to run the show with single figure caps.
That's international rugby though. If he cannot play in anything except for a system that has been built solely around him, then he's no more use than Cipriani.
Puja
....he seems to be playing in a system designed to keep Farrell in the side, with not enough thought given to what to do to support that axis of passing, which looked ok for a while bar the end product (and even that should have produced a try). It did kinda work out as a slightly better version of what I'd envisaged tbh.
It's a stretch to blame his indecisiveness and poor execution of passes and kicks on Farrell.
Somewhat weird to me that this is somehow Smith’s fault? Apart from taking his kicks, Lolesio looked like a rabbit in the headlights. Smith didn’t shine, but I don’t think he did too much wrong.
I’d also defend Farrell’s selection simply on the basis that we just don’t have another credible 12 right now.
Scrumhead wrote:
Yep. For all the pessimism, I really don’t think we were that bad.
I’m seeing loads of ‘couldn’t beat 14’ which forgets we had 14 for 20mins ourselves.
We just fell apart completely. Which is really bad. We should have won that game but lost control and Eddie didn’t make any changes to try and alter things. Probably because he didn’t trust his bench. Which begs the question…why select it, then?
Reminded me of the Barbarians game. (I was there ). We just collapsed in defence.
It feels like a leadership and confidence issue. Just like with the Barbarians - we went behind on the scoreboard and then just folded like a badly put together deck chair.
Scrumhead wrote:Somewhat weird to me that this is somehow Smith’s fault? Apart from taking his kicks, Lolesio looked like a rabbit in the headlights. Smith didn’t shine, but I don’t think he did too much wrong.
I’d also defend Farrell’s selection simply on the basis that we just don’t have another credible 12 right now.
Christ, this is going to end up another of those conversations where I end up defending a point that I'm resolutely not making, isn't it?
It's not "Smith's fault" that we lost. He was, however, not very good.
Smith has to be better. But then so do quite a few others.
That was a game we should have won. We had every advantage served up with 3 Aussies going down in the 1st half and a man red carded. We got into a lead only for it to evaporate as we completely lost the initiative. We lacked enterprise and played tentatively when a bit more devil might have produced killer blows.
A few players did OK but overall that this was a dismal result.
Puja wrote:
That's international rugby though. If he cannot play in anything except for a system that has been built solely around him, then he's no more use than Cipriani.
Puja
....he seems to be playing in a system designed to keep Farrell in the side, with not enough thought given to what to do to support that axis of passing, which looked ok for a while bar the end product (and even that should have produced a try). It did kinda work out as a slightly better version of what I'd envisaged tbh.
It's a stretch to blame his indecisiveness and poor execution of passes and kicks on Farrell.
Puja
That's not the point of what I said- I'd blame it on Eddie if blame were being apportioned; though Farrell himself passed (two dogs) and kicked averagely and indecisively (one charge down from indecision, with a good recovery) as well as missing an easy penalty. The system that people seemed to want, will need a bit of time and better thinking about what other runners are doing, to have a chance. Not much of a fan as previously said, but to single out Smith is misguided.
What's quite funny is that Greenwood said he was excited about the midfield before the game, and then said immediately afterwards you can't have both Faz and Smith in the same backline.
Last edited by Banquo on Sat Jul 02, 2022 2:31 pm, edited 3 times in total.
Mellsblue wrote:He’s not impressing but, broken record time, we’re asking him to play completely differently than he does at Quins and expecting him to run the show with single figure caps.
That's international rugby though. If he cannot play in anything except for a system that has been built solely around him, then he's no more use than Cipriani.
Puja
Agreed but a nod to how Quins play would be nice or a settled 9 & 12 or more than 10 caps for him to settle in would be nice. I think Jones has dropped him in the deepest end he could manufacture.
Scrumhead wrote:Somewhat weird to me that this is somehow Smith’s fault? Apart from taking his kicks, Lolesio looked like a rabbit in the headlights. Smith didn’t shine, but I don’t think he did too much wrong.
I’d also defend Farrell’s selection simply on the basis that we just don’t have another credible 12 right now.
Dingwall is a credible 12 at prem level and you won't find a credible 12 if you don't try another one. But picking Faz and Smith, asking them to gel in yet another new attacking formation (well not seen since the Italy game) with an absolutely brand new back 3 and a pack that lost momentum....seems a stretch: and I say this as someone who wouldn't do it in the first place
Last edited by Banquo on Sat Jul 02, 2022 2:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
On the plus side, George, Stuart, Curry, Billy, Care and Marchant all went well. Steward’s timing and angles in to the line have improved (based on a sample size of one). Arundell is clearly the business which, back to being a fun sponge, means he will soon be perma-crocked. Finally, our backrow depth is actually pretty good.
Mellsblue wrote:On the plus side, George, Stuart, Curry, Billy, Care and Marchant all went well. Steward’s timing and angles in to the line have improved (based on a sample size of one). Arundell is clearly the business which, back to being a fun sponge, means he will soon be perma-crocked. Finally, our backrow depth is actually pretty good.
Once again though, whilst we should have scored more points through the backs, the story is of crucial moments where discipline and a lack of intelligence let us down and/or intensity dropped off.
). We just collapsed in defence.