Wales vs England - RWC warmup, Raeburn Shield challenge, and chance to *become* the #1 ranked team

[Digby]

Minute 65

Moriarty loses his rag for a moment and gives away a far too cheap penalty when England still have a very tricky clearance to make, no need to charge into a ruck quite like that, though he could claim that's how everyone charges into a ruck.

Ben Youngs takes a tap and go, which is fine I suppose if he's seen a chance, but having set off he kicks deeps where Wales have players back already, so it's an awful piece of decision making and execution from Youngs, but the ref is again kind to England and says we need to take the penalty properly. I think the refs need to be much keener on allowing tap and goes, and keener to see sides suffer for their own stupidity.

England kick out to around the 10m line, almost

[Digby]

Minute 66

We talk, or claim, that we want to play at pace. It takes us almost 30 seconds to take the lineout, and actually more as the clock is stopped for a Wales sub.

We'd probably have been stopped from getting up and taking a quick lineout with Wales looking to make a change, but we don't ever seem to bother trying. However England set the maul and drive along before George breaks free, and links with Watson and Youngs to make ground down the right. A terrific double play in defence from Biggar on Youngs and then Itoje forces England back, though I give up trying to work out who's allowed to do what to whom and from what angle, Biggar doesn't look legal but technically he could very well be.

Whatever, the play from Biggar didn't mean England had to be slow to support, and it didn't force Ludlam to carry upright into contact get sat down in another bad position to present the ball (and his ball presentation has been bad far too often) and get pinged for holding on. Okay Biggar slowed us down, but recovery phases can be managed better than that.

[Digby]

Minute 67

Wales kick to touch, a rip roaring minute this one. Jam packed full of action

[Digby]

Minute 68

Wales win lineout ball at the front. It's a terrific lineout as an aside, ball nicely put into the middle as a contest, Itoje really works hard to get up and compete, but the Welsh lineout runs smoothly and under pressure they still take the ball cleanly.

Better for Wales as Lawes lacks discipline at the lineout and Wales earn another penalty. This trait England have of giving away penalties in a concentrated period is worrying.

A decent kick from Biggar down into the England 22, but I will again note the maul penalty is given metres one side of the halfway line, and Biggar takes the kick waltzing through into the England half. Maybe sometimes it's hard for the officials to get a visual take on where a kick should be taken from, but the giant white line painted across the middle of the pitch should act as a reasonable guide, SAD.

[Digby]

Minute 69

(settle down in the back p/d)

This time Itoje getting up on the throw does prevent a clean take from Wales, worth noting Wales again throw to the front, yawn.

Ball shoots back on the Welsh side, Sinckler shoves over a Welsh blocker, and Youngs high tackles Owens who's gone back to gather than ball.

Wales set about a series of one out plays, though one pass from the 9 does hit the second man. And basically they're going nowhere, Wales aren't really giving any chance to contest the ball, so it's just waiting for a Welsh handling error or English indiscipline absent of something very odd transpiring

[Puja]

Right, 20 minutes to go, there seems little value now the IRB have confirmed the Wales try was a brazen act of cheating and the result should be struck off, which is in their response if you read between the lines, but for the sake of completeness, or perhaps for the sake of getting to 78 minutes and then giving up off we go again.

You're a total masochist but I appreciate it

It's the near total lack of ambition which makes them so hard to watch

Seconding Danno - thank you for suffering so that we don't have to.

Puja

[Digby]

Minute 70

Something odd does happen as Wales float a few passes, there's a weird tip on pass from AWJ that does nothing beyond ticks a box he's made a tip on pass, but he's not close enough to any defenders to make it worthwhile. And then another iffy pass sees Itoje break on the pass and run upfield with the intercept, at which point he's clattered by a shoulder to the head from Biggar who perhaps feels the physios just will not take him off so to protect himself wants a red card.

England float a ball out wide and Sinckler has the ball with options outside against a tired and scrambling Welsh defence, one of those options is Daly and it's nowt but a tiny pass to send Daly into a hole and maybe create a chance for Daly or Watson. Sinckler faced with the easy decision instead grubbers the ball away in what a stunning display of WTF?

Wales get back to cover the kick, but in doing so North has been pinged for running a blocking line on Watson. A good decision from North when faced with a much faster winger tbh who might have been able to pick up for a try.

How there's no review of the nailed on red card for Biggar is a mystery, it was in open play in the middle of the field, so what could they not have noticed?

[Digby]

Minute 71

England kick to touch and manage to knock the ball back on their side at the lineout under plenty of pressure from Wales, England get lucky with the bounce and George gathers.

Youngs passes to Lawes, it's perhaps a tad low for the gangly Lawes, but really the spill is on Lawes not Youngs, The ref blows the whistle too early to see if an advantage to Wales might result, which is harsh, but the Welsh players carry no anyway seeing a chance for 2 or 3 of them to dump Sinckler, fair enough tbh, though don't complain if you get pinged for it, which you probably wouldn't be when they can't even see a flying shoulder to the head of a lock in open play in the middle of the pitch with the availability of a TMO.

We'll be coming back for the scrum once the handbags dies down.

[Digby]

Minute 72

Time for a scrum, which is code for nothing happens in this minute. Odd that, normally sides don't prat about at the scrum looking to have a rest.

[Renniks]

Minute 71

We'll be coming back for the scrum once the handbags dies down.

Am I right in thinking this is the one where Moriarty piles in (Again) and just dives on a player for no real reason?

Arriving that late and hitting it with speed should be penalised in my view!

[Renniks]

Minute 70

How there's no review of the nailed on red card for Biggar is a mystery, it was in open play in the middle of the field, so what could they not have noticed?

I still can't understand how this wasn't pinged…

[Digby]

Minute 73

Again the scrum doesn't act as an actual restart. I wonder what the percentage is of scrums at tier 1 level actually restarting the game? Anyway, this one results in a free kick, and in fairness to Biggar (who shouldn't be on the pitch and does have the ref watching him) he pretty much takes the free kick from the mark.

Daly gathers after it bounces int the 22 and kicks back. Wales have the ball with Halfpenny who runs sideways past Farrell but not Watson. It should be noted in dispatches that Farrell makes a lot of effort to chase Daly's kick only not to be able to close down Halfpenny, it's rarely a lack of effort which lets him down.

I can't quite tell if Halfpenny is held in the tackle, if he is it's not much of a hold, whatever Halfpenny looks to go again, and that slight movement just hinders the England forwards who might have had a chance to get over the ball. Sometimes as with Ludlam earlier the wriggle works against you, this time it really works for Halfpenny. Farrell flops on the Welsh side well behind the ball, I'm assuming he was trying to slow Welsh forwards arriving at the ruck to buy some time for his own forwards, but it's not going to get pinged as it really isn't doing anything.

Wales end the minute with a ruck of around 7 seconds before box kicking the ball away

[Digby]

Minute 71

We'll be coming back for the scrum once the handbags dies down.

Am I right in thinking this is the one where Moriarty piles in (Again) and just dives on a player for no real reason?

Arriving that late and hitting it with speed should be penalised in my view!

I think that was a couple of minutes earlier, this set of handbags came from Welsh players running back Sinckler and dumping him after the whistle had gone which England reacted to in the modern why by grabbing people and then not doing anything, actually I think Watson had a go at Moriarty in the sense having a go isn't really having a go, it's possible Moriarty did something himself I didn't notice in this period

[Digby]

Minute 74

Watson wins the ball, and England with the open side going right to left pass to Daly to clear off his left. Daly's kick doesn't ask a lot of Wales, Halfpenny takes it and makes an up and under which he runs forward to regather, as Halfpenny was in his half I think he's regather wasn't too bad from England, you can't have catchers everywhere, though JJ could have worked a bit harder coming back.

At the resultant ruck England go offside in the defensive line, not sure why, it might be Kruis, more than anything it looks like they're wandering up to have a look at what's happening at the breakdown, no need for it whatsoever. Penalty to Wales.

[Digby]

Minute 75

Nothing happens, well I suppose Halfpenny puts the ball on the tee

[Digby]

Minute 76

Halfpenny kicks the 3 points, a mere 96 seconds after Wales were awarded the penalty.

Wales don't take the restart cleanly, England disrupt but knock on.


Minute 77

The ball squirts out of the scrum, which Wales regather but are then turned over. England have piled plenty in forcing the turnover so Youngs gives the ball to George who's well behind the gainline and has no support. I doubt George was screaming for the ball so Youngs might have taken more responsibility as he must know there are numbers on the floor in front of him.

[Digby]

Minute 78

In fairness to George he carries well, and England are slightly on the front foot, then Billy carries and AWJ gets pinged after initially doing well trying to rip the ball but failing to let go once on the floor. I don't know who the official MoM was, but even with this error it was AWJ

England tap and go, and Farrell tries a halfbeak, it makes some ground, but it doesn't stress the Wales defence which is set both sides.

England made a number of carries which are marginally winning contact or gaining parity, but they're not quite able to keep the ball moving fast enough to make the Welsh line have to scramble

[Digby]

Minute 79

England get a penalty with Wales going offside, again the ref doesn't want Youngs to play quickly, I wouldn't have thought he could have been that far from the mark. Again also Wales get a physio onto the pitch. I don't know if Wales are being uber cautious with the physios, are simply getting a lot of knock, or are using the physios to slow the opponents attack, if anyone wants to check back the % of physios coming on for Wales ball vs England ball they're welcome to do so, I'd like to know but cannot remotely be bothered to go back and look again.

England punt into touch.

England win the lineout and drive the maul, Wales spin the maul and drag down a load of players at the front who don't have the ball (George has the ball at the back), and the ref duly awards a scrum turnover for Wales. Which in fairness is still better than the decision around Biggar tackling Itoje.

Minute 80

Oddly it being a scrum nothing happens, we have to wait until the clock is into the red for the scrum to set up. The scrum is a right old mess, but Wales do enough to get the ball back on their side, the 9 rather than just kicking out passes back to the 10 who boots the ball off the pitch behind him to end the match and take the win. It's possible actually he walks the ball off the pitch and then kicks it, close, but not especially interesting after that match.

[Raggs]

So I've completed ruck marks on the 2nd wales game.



A number of players look a bit "flat" compared to what I'd normally expect of them in terms of the overall group, however I believe I made changes to some things (counting lineouts etc) to deliberately try and even things up as much as possible, so I guess that must be helping.

There's also a slim chance that the espn stats I'm using are completely off, due to the terrible layout, however when they're listing 4 fullbacks, including George Kruis, there's only so much I can do. That said, I don't mind the idea of seeing Sinckler at 10.

For me, Genge and Cowan-Dickie both come out of it looking really handy. Ludlam felt like he had a slow start, but did fine. Still don't like Lawes in the backrow, is overall workrate should have been a bit higher, but it's mostly his body positions, and I guess in general, his body shape. He's too easily folded/flopped/rolled etc, stick him at lock and keep him there, definitely deserves his spot in the world cup group, but I'd rather see us try some others as emergency flankers. Out of interest, although only on briefly (too briefly to judge workrate) Singleton looked handy.

Francis needs to be given the 12 shirt, unless I'm really missing something. Solid enough in defence, good attacking running lines (he was getting round J Davies, which is no mean feat), good distribution.

Watson's acceleration looked awesome at one point, hopefully he'll build form.

A few interesting calls in the game. Missing the Ken Owens hit on Heinz, ignoring Biggars flying leap into Maro's head (if penalty only, fine, we got another much further down, but could be yellow), still feel they collapsed a maul or two. Rucks were messy for both sides, no idea what really counted as a turnover in the refs mind, little consistency and plenty of diving off feet from both sides. Another ref would have seen a lot more red marks on our attacking ruck scores.

[Mikey Brown]

Minute 70

How there's no review of the nailed on red card for Biggar is a mystery, it was in open play in the middle of the field, so what could they not have noticed?

I still can't understand how this wasn't pinged…

I’d totally missed there was even an incident. What was it for? Is there video of it that’s easy to find?

[Which Tyler]

Minute 70

How there's no review of the nailed on red card for Biggar is a mystery, it was in open play in the middle of the field, so what could they not have noticed?

I still can't understand how this wasn't pinged…

I’d totally missed there was even an incident. What was it for? Is there video of it that’s easy to find?

He jumped up to take the high ball, on the principal that Maro was carrying it, so it must be high.
How did you miss it?

ETA: totally legal, no contact above the shoulder...

[Mikey Brown]

Ha. Itoje’s got a head guard so it’s fine.

The game was on in the pub and it didn’t exactly have me gripped.

[Renniks]

I don't think the screenshot quite shows how the tackle went. This looks like they might have been running head on, or it being a static sort of moment.

Oh no! Itoje was running as well as he can and Biggar decided he wanted to be piggy backing to the line!

[Mikey Brown]

Seen it now.

https://www.rugbydump.com/news/that-dan ... nd+more%29

It’s quite something.

[Digby]

For me, Genge and Cowan-Dickie both come out of it looking really handy. Ludlam felt like he had a slow start, but did fine. .

LCD didn't have a great day at the lineout, too much slow ball at the front, that's not his call, but it's also possible the caller didn't trust him to throw anywhere else (also possible there was so much front ball to hide lineup preparations)

Ludlam did okay in defensive contact, but struggled carrying into contact, and his presentation was being fair just bad. Still, a very positive start to a test career mind, and hopefully a lot more to come