England vs Scotland - minute-by-minute - COMPLETED

[Stom]

Thank you, Puja. I feel vindicated in my thoughts watching.

It feels harsh to nitpick or criticise individuals after what was a team "performance". I will say, though, that I thought England looked best attacking when MSmith was standing at 10. I know that FSmith is better than he showed, but it just feels like, if we want to play like this, we play MSmith, or we pick Ford and be done with it. We either have full control from 10, or someone who can do the unexpected.

I'm glad Slade is gone. I hope he doesn't come back. I don't see how we can possibly judge the other outside backs considering the tactics, which were appalling. The execution was worse, but it was so consistently bad, you have to feel like that was per instructions. I would be screaming at Mitchell after that, but he may have done everything the coaches wanted...

And that's the crux of it. I'm at a stage watching England where poor performances just do not get me agitated at all. I see Mitchell kicking poorly, or ball watching, and I shrug and blame it on Salty Bollocks. I used to blame it on Ben Youngs. That was easy.

[Puja]

Final thoughts:
I'm even more convinced after watching that game that half of the England performance was psychological. That team was worried about losing and they tensed up, resulting in:
Times we aimlessly kicked the ball back to Scotland: Slade x2, Sleightholme x1, Mitchell x4, FSmith x4. We looked good in the first 10 minutes and attacked well, but we went into our shell as Scotland went on the attack, ironically giving them more ball by us being scared of them. We were noticeably more ambitious after a talking to at halftime, although that's damning with faint praise, but still looked trepidatious and overrespectful of a Scots side that we mostly had entirely outmatched.

I think we'll be much better for having won and hopefully two wins on the bounce will bring some belief back to them.

Slade was poor and is deservedly dropped - he did do a lot of good as well, especially in defence, but it's time to move on now. Chessum was our PotM, with an unending workrate and absolute control of the lineout. FSmith was actually disappointing on m-b-m-watch with some poor options in attack, although that's probably saying things about how high my standards are for him. Sleightholme was a bit unfairly criticised - wasn't his best, but definitely not to be dropped. MSmith had some iffy moments at 15 and some good ones, but there's not enough evidence to rule it one way or the other, especially when we're not passing the ball to the backs enough.

All things told, lucky to escape unscathed, but we are due a touch of luck and hopefully will feel better for it.

Puja

Cheers Puja. I agree with that, matching my in game impression. England were panicking and not executing well, which'd be a problem for any set of tactics. I'm surprised you don't mention Mitchell here. He has become so key for England and it's clear when he's having an off day everything is buggered. There's a real need for some of the other nines to kick on quickly.

Also, Fin Smith Aldo showed he's a rookie here. Obviously worth persevering with but I feel a bit for he faded star of MSmith.

You're absolutely right; I missed the very obvious thing of Mitchell's rubbish game! I blame it on trying to get it all finished at 1am.

He was the major decision-maker of ignoring quick ball to make a caterpillar - while there was clearly a pre-planned strategy, he is the player on the pitch and it was his trepidation/tunnel vision that led to some good ball being wasn't. Plus, shoddy and unambitious though the decisions to kick were, they could still have worked out had the execution been better - as it was, they were were made worse by some extremely variable execution that resulted in them going on the counter as "ball handed back to Scotland".

Puja

[Puja]

Thank you, Puja. I feel vindicated in my thoughts watching.

It feels harsh to nitpick or criticise individuals after what was a team "performance". I will say, though, that I thought England looked best attacking when MSmith was standing at 10. I know that FSmith is better than he showed, but it just feels like, if we want to play like this, we play MSmith, or we pick Ford and be done with it. We either have full control from 10, or someone who can do the unexpected.

I think it's hard to blame FSmith, given he's only 22 and on only his second international start. Like I said, he made a couple of poor choices at the line, but I'm disappointed because of the high expectations, not because he's not the answer right now.

I'll leave your opinion of Sneaky Barsteward, as I think you're wrong and we are all slightly poisoned by having had two weeks to stew on a very disappointing performance - those weren't the tactics that we used against Ireland or France for example - and I'm hoping that this was a one-off reversion on the pitch, based on a highly pressurised situation that will've been alleviated by getting the monkey off our back. But it is hard to argue very convincingly when I've just spent a lot of hours watching us kick away ball in slow motion.

Puja

[Oakboy]

But it is hard to argue very convincingly when I've just spent a lot of hours watching us kick away ball in slow motion.

Puja

I don't think the Twickers crowd boo lightly! A close, lucky (arguably) win is a win but most rugby fans want to see our team have a go. It's that simple.

What most see is a team suppressed by tactics. The players could be good enough to compete with anybody but none of us know how good they are because they are not allowed to play (apparently).

Great effort with the mbm, thanks.

[Banquo]

Thank you, Puja. I feel vindicated in my thoughts watching.

It feels harsh to nitpick or criticise individuals after what was a team "performance". I will say, though, that I thought England looked best attacking when MSmith was standing at 10. I know that FSmith is better than he showed, but it just feels like, if we want to play like this, we play MSmith, or we pick Ford and be done with it. We either have full control from 10, or someone who can do the unexpected.

I think it's hard to blame FSmith, given he's only 22 and on only his second international start.
Puja

....and we've just won two narrow games on the spin, including beating a bloody good french side. Vs losing a load of close games on the bounce v top teams. We were moaning about losing those, so he has to take some credit, not least for a 50m pen.

[Banquo]

But it is hard to argue very convincingly when I've just spent a lot of hours watching us kick away ball in slow motion.

Puja

but most rugby fans want to see our team win...

ftfy

[Stom]

Thank you, Puja. I feel vindicated in my thoughts watching.

It feels harsh to nitpick or criticise individuals after what was a team "performance". I will say, though, that I thought England looked best attacking when MSmith was standing at 10. I know that FSmith is better than he showed, but it just feels like, if we want to play like this, we play MSmith, or we pick Ford and be done with it. We either have full control from 10, or someone who can do the unexpected.

I think it's hard to blame FSmith, given he's only 22 and on only his second international start. Like I said, he made a couple of poor choices at the line, but I'm disappointed because of the high expectations, not because he's not the answer right now.

I'll leave your opinion of Sneaky Barsteward, as I think you're wrong and we are all slightly poisoned by having had two weeks to stew on a very disappointing performance - those weren't the tactics that we used against Ireland or France for example - and I'm hoping that this was a one-off reversion on the pitch, based on a highly pressurised situation that will've been alleviated by getting the monkey off our back. But it is hard to argue very convincingly when I've just spent a lot of hours watching us kick away ball in slow motion.

Puja

Sure, and I don't want to blame him at all.

It's just that, as we kicked nearly everything, we needed what tiny quantity of attacking ball we did receive to actually lead to something.

And Fin made several poor decisions to close off attacking opportunities.

It's not that he's poor, I think he looks like a very good rugby player. I just feel like the team selection is a complete mess, bought about by the foundational thinking being wrong.

It's like Manchester United trying to play Amorim's style. Sure, it's something that has worked. But the players show no aptitude for it, the system does not fit their skills, and results are not going your way. So change it. You need to change it.

And it's not like it's tweaks: I look at England performances, and I feel like they are fundamentally wrong. It's not like when the tactics have gone wrong and you can forgive it. It's the entire strategy.

[Scrumhead]

Yep. I think O’Driscoll had it right when he said England have no identity and have shown no signs of developing a definitive style under Borthwick.

It’s fair to say we haven’t played as negatively as we did against Scotland for a good while so perhaps it’s a one-off, but it’s alarming that we picked a back three that was almost a complete mismatch to the gameplan. The same tactics with Steward and Roebuck in for Marcus and Sleightholme could have been a lot more successful. I still wouldn’t have liked or agreed with them, but it would have made sense.

[FKAS]

Thanks Puja, excellent works as always.

A frustrating game but at least we dragged ourselves over the line and won ugly. Hoping we see some more ambition in the middle third this week.

"He gets up to the 22 and, frankly, embarrasses MSmith by going past him with ease - that's not full-back skills, cause I have seen MSmith do better in that situation before. That's just panic and overcommitting to leave himself vulnerable to the slightest of steps."

I seem to remember Steward getting slaughtered for JGP stepping him after he overcommitted...

[Puja]

One other player who I missed in my 1am haze - Ben Curry was excellent. He has massively stepped up and, to my mind, erased doubts about whether he's good enough for the top level. Should be a permanent fixture in the EPS going forwards.

I seem to remember Steward getting slaughtered for JGP stepping him after he overcommitted...

That thought occurred to me as I was writing that. Smith's miss was far worse IMO, but seemed ignored because the try wasn't immediate, even though a successful tackle would likely have stopped it.

I don't think the Twickers crowd boo lightly!

I understand what you're driving at and don't necessarily disagree with your general proposition, but being pedantic leads me to note that the Twickenham crowd absolutely boo lightly! I was in the crowd, feeling embarrassed, when they booed Mike Catt for being Mike Catt back in 2000, and I remember them booing Hodgson for not being Wilkinson, Ford and Farrell for kicking at goal - they're a fickle and drunken bunch, oftimes full of casuals, who are not unknown for turning on their own players.


Quick public service announcement - unless something worth commenting on happens, there is unlikely to be a m-b-m for the Italy game. Quite apart from anything else, it's a no-win game for us - we either batter them and "It's only Italy" or Italy turn up and we win a good game against a good team, in which case it's the end of the world because we didn't batter "only Italy" - so there's unlikely to be too much meat to pick off the bones. However, the main reason is that I'm away this weekend and won't get to watch the game until late on Sunday, so it'll be a bit of a time constraint to get it done.

Plus it improves your chances of getting a speedy Wales m-b-m if I take a week off, and that's much more likely to be an interesting game.

Puja

[Mikey Brown]

Getting these done in a few days before a match the following weekend seems like too big an ask anyway. At least the fallow weeks are useful for that.