England vs South Africa

[I R Geech]

Yep, Sinklers work rate around the park was outstanding and he chased absolutely everything.

Bit too much being made of the Saffers sloppiness in not scoring in the first half but some of the try line defence was very good. The big pluses for me were the sheer amount of dog that the team showed, the difference the bench made, and the look on the face of the Saffer in front of me at the end after he’d been gobbling off about what a walk over it would be for the first hour.

[p/d]

A win is a win, and a very welcome one at that. Generally hot and cold performance all round with a few players putting in tidy shifts. Hopefully Jones won't allow this to paper of the cracks as under similar circumstances NZ will tear us a new one.

No problems with the Farrell hit, but his technique will cost us dearly sooner or later.

Changes? FB needs addressing as does the 12 berth. And Shields, thank you but no thanks. Thought Slade was hung out to dry by T'eo, which shouldn't surprise considering the lack of rugby he has played. Headless chicken for the first 40.

Wilson my motm

[Puja]

I feel this game really needs forensic dissection by Digby to note which players actually did things, cause we're getting divergent opinions on players here and all of the scoring by newspapers and websites are even more silly than usual. I'm fairly certain Shields achieved little to nothing of anything, but I'm now wondering if I've missed some unseen work.

Puja

[Lizard]

I was annoyed to find my recording had failed (disc full). So I found some highlights. The first third was the enthems, a scrum and 2 kicks at goal.

Thank god rugby is finally back to being long-distance goal-kicking contest and scrumming for penalties. It makes me feel 15 years younger.

[Mr Mwenda]

suitable for the Sunday eye-brow work-out session..

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/ ... yers-rated

Saw that. Very peculiar.

[Oakboy]

Has there been any news on Curry's injury? It did not look promising for recovery by next week.

[Tom Moore]

Felt a lot like a Lancaster 2012 team- worked really hard, scramble defence excellent (although line got broken first up too often for my liking), but attack mainly huff and puff without much cutting edge.

That kind of performance at the very least keeps you in games against most teams, but we're going to need a fair bit of magic in the outside backs because we won't be creatively tearing teams apart very often.

Extra bonus for me was the lack of Farrell at 12 stopped every backs move beginning with "pull back to 12".

[fivepointer]

Looking at the stats for Shields - 4 passes, 9 carries for 22 meters. He made 11 tackles, conceded 1 penalty and 1 turnover. I seem to recall he won a line out late in the game.
On the face of it these arent terrible but its hard to think of him doing anything truly eye catching or decisive.
Does he look the part that Mark Wilson has? Wilson has looked every inch an international player when he's played. His 2 starts have seen him produce MotM level performances, while Shields has looked decidedly ordinary.

[Scrumhead]

I feel this game really needs forensic dissection by Digby to note which players actually did things, cause we're getting divergent opinions on players here and all of the scoring by newspapers and websites are even more silly than usual. I'm fairly certain Shields achieved little to nothing of anything, but I'm now wondering if I've missed some unseen work.

Puja

Agreed. Can someone point to one good thing Shields did? Of the 4 passes one was a no-look pass that ended up on the floor (we kept the ball, but it killed the move). I’ll come on to one of the others in a moment ...

I can think of several outright bad things and his stats must be horrific. His ‘tackling’ was terrible; he went in too upright every team, failing to stop anyone on the gain line and his ‘carrying’ went nowhere and he was clearly knocked backwards on a couple of occasions. More damning than those were his downright awful moments in attack - the first with a really bad pass that stole any momentum for May. This was a 3m pass off the right hand to a winger in space, yet he managed to screw it up. The second was that ridiculous ‘offload’ 5m from the line. He threw the ball vaguely backwards in panic like a kid in mini rugby. Shockingly bad.

As you said earlier, as much as I hate the idea of Rhodes, I hate the idea of Shields stinking the place out again even more.

Also agreed re. Sinckler, better as an impact sub, but worked his ass of yesterday.

[Scrumhead]

For the purposes of this board, I shall now refer to him as ‘Bad’ Shields.

[Scrumhead]

TRP (can’t copy & paste the comments):

1. Hepburn - 4
2. Hartley - 5
3. Sinckler - 4
4. Itoje - 6
5. Kruis - 5.5
6. Shields - 5
7. Curry - 4
8. Wilson - 8
9. Youngs - 4.5
10. Farrell - 6
11. May - 5
12. Te’o - 4
13. Slade - 4.5
14. Nowell - 5.5
15. Daly - 4

Harsh on a few players (Sinckler, Kruis and May), but on the whole a lot more realistic.

[Danno]

suitable for the Sunday eye-brow work-out session..

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/ ... yers-rated

Saw that. Very peculiar.

Meagher for the course

[fivepointer]

TRP (can’t copy & paste the comments):

1. Hepburn - 4
2. Hartley - 5
3. Sinckler - 4
4. Itoje - 6
5. Kruis - 5.5
6. Shields - 5
7. Curry - 4
8. Wilson - 8
9. Youngs - 4.5
10. Farrell - 6
11. May - 5
12. Te’o - 4
13. Slade - 4.5
14. Nowell - 5.5
15. Daly - 4

Harsh on a few players (Sinckler, Kruis and May), but on the whole a lot more realistic.

Broadly right i'd say. Sinckler is certainly worth more than a 4. He'll never be a dominant scrummager but his work in the loose is very impressive. Moon should have started ahead of Hepburn. I'd have Curry ahead of Shields too.

[Oakboy]

Assuming that Jones does not call up additions to the squad, that Curry is unavailable and that Shields is saved further embarrassment are we looking at Wilson, Underhill and Mercer with Rhodes on the bench for next week? Could be worse.

[Scrumhead]

Apparently Curry left the stadium on crutches, so I think we can probably assume the worst (at least for next weekend).

Eddie seems to be seeing something in Shields that we are not, so sadly I expect him to stay at 6.

Given that we played pretty much the entire second half with Wilson at 7 and Mercer at 8. Eddie might feel that it’s a viable starting combination. I could also see Eddie leaving Wilson at 8 and bringing Rhodes in at 7

I’d sooner see Wilson move to 6 with Underhill coming in at 7, but I don’t think that will happen as Eddie will want a third lineout element. That could be Mercer, but I don’t see Eddie starting him.

It’s also worth noting that Bath have played Mercer at 7 quite a bit. I see him as similar to Clifford in being best at 8 but able to cover at 6 or 7. Not ideal, but I’d prefer that to Wilson being moved to 7 or Rhodes coming in (unless it’s for Shields).

[fivepointer]

Think we'll get a straight swap with Underhill for Curry.
I dont expect Shields to be dropped and Wilson must surely keep his place.

[Oakboy]

Think we'll get a straight swap with Underhill for Curry.
I dont expect Shields to be dropped and Wilson must surely keep his place.

It would be crazy to leave Mercer on the bench after the way he played, IMO. How Jones could not write Mercer and Wilson down as the first two back rowers on the teamsheet would mystify me. Mind you, his continued refusal to select Armand does not indicate a joined-up thought on that part of the team.

Then, there's Shields . . . Tell me, won't the ABs just eat him? There can't be much love lost.

[Mellsblue]

suitable for the Sunday eye-brow work-out session..

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/ ... yers-rated

Saw that. Very peculiar.

Meagher for the course

Any causation between Jones’s name checks and 3 out 4 of his 8/10’s. No real logic to it otherwise.

[Renniks]

Personally, I'd be playing Wilson (6) and Mercer (8), and I'd call up Kvesic to replace Curry if he's out

I know it won't happen… so I hope Underhill gets the nod…

I feel that if EJ wants to persist with Shields, then put him on the bench and bring him on to (try and) make a difference

[Mikey Brown]

I don't even know where to start on this. What dreadful game. The first 70 certainly were dull anyway. Scrumhead's numbers above seem about the closest I've seen. The ones on that Guardian link are just insane.

Daly looked like a guy playing a different position every week. If only any of us had had the idea to move him (back) to 15 a year or two sooner.

May got so many shit passes that I wouldn't have blamed him for walking off.

I think I read that Youngs "really upped the pace in the second half" which is probably the stupidest part of that article even ahead of Shields being fantastic. There were times I genuinely thought he must be down injured and nobody had noticed. Sir Clive's plan of having your scrum-half absolutely knackered and unable to keep up with the pace certainly came through, but I'm not sure why you'd want it. Isn't he supposed to be good at kicking as well?

His combination with Farrell and Te'o was just as stodgy and unimaginative as we feared it could have been. I've no idea why I was so positive about it before the game. Farrell kicked 3/4 and made a massive hit to seal the game (which in honesty was a coin-toss as to whether he'd lost it for us) but he just never got the backs moving. That break was really nice. But as ever my issue is that while he can run and he can pass, he isn't often capable of engaging a defender before giving the ball. It was strange being so relieved to see Hartley when we had to have difficult conversations with the ref. EJ clearly wants Farrell to be the man but even he wouldn't trust him to consistently talk to the ref, would he?

I only remember Slade getting the ball 3 times, one of those he got fucking clattered. Is he failing to get involved enough or this just like when Joseph was stranded out there and accused of being in rotten form?

I wouldn't say no to 6. Wilson 7. Underhill 8. Mercer next week. Two real abrasive guys alongside Mercer seems a good fit. No bulldozer carrier there but certainly has more firepower than Shields, Curry, Wilson.

Sinkler got minced in the scrum a few times but we are so reliant on a Vunipola/Sinkler forward pivot with good handling. What do we do about that? Stick Sinkler at 12 and bring Williams in?

[Digby]

Even if I had the time there would be no desire to do a minute by minute, there was effort but precious little rugby from England, perhaps nicely summed up by our continuing desire to kick away turnover ball

[Scrumhead]

Haha - Sinckler would be better at 12 than Te’o was yesterday.

I’ve been critical of Slade’s England performances, but I don’t think he had much to work with yesterday.

In defence, Te’o’s positioning continually put him in a difficult spot. When you can’t trust your inside man, you’re in no man’s land trying to cover inside and outside which is almost always a lose-lose situation. He did make a couple of good defensive reads and it would have been interesting to see what might have happened if he’d held that interception.

In attack, I don’t recall him getting the ball with any time or space apart from in her first few minutes where he was a bounce of the ball away from putting May in for a try.

Overall, our attack under Eddie has a ‘kick-first’ mentality which is never going to bring the best out of our players. Whoever is in the 11, 13 and 14 shirts literally has to feed of scraps and our 15 only usually gets the ball because the opposition kicks it to them.

[Mellsblue]

As always the Hask puts it best:

[Digby]

In tribute to one of you reading this we really missed having a kicking option at 12

Actually given we're so bloody keen to kick we made so little out of having Farrell and Slade it's hard to understand the thinking, it would seem the intent is to have Youngs kick long and leave as much chasing as possible to Sinckler so he's blowing out of his arse in the event he's asked to carry or there's a scrum. And who wouldn't support that use of a finite resource I say

[Son of Mathonwy]

Wow, they really didn't want to give SA a chance of a penalty kick at the end. A couple of high tackles when the clock was in the red (eg May wraps his arm around Kriel's neck) and then Farrell's no hands tackle, all let go by the officials.