Rugby Union

[Tree13]

Good to see Fiji get a runout at last after all their problems. They beat the Georgians in a relatively high scoring game. In the others Wales survived a scare to overcome Italy but only beating the minnows of Georgia and Italy while losing to all the rest won't cut it for Pivac.

The score belied a game of two halves in Dublin with Scotland the better side for most of the first half, in the end yet another bad error from the hapless Hogg combined with a yellow card was enough to see Ireland take control.

Although this won't be the French first team this afternoon, France like England have a large pool of players, their top 14 domestic league is extremely strong and the players selected are very good. They shouldn't be able to compete because cohesiveness and familiarity are vital ingredients, but it should still provide tough opposition with Shaun Edwards being particularly good at organisation. No team coached by Edwards will be easy to beat, this won't be a walk in the park at all. The French have some superbly naturally gifted footballers who can play off the cuff and take advantage of any ball aimlessly kicked downfield allowing them a free run back. They've nothing to lose and like England their second and third teams aren't that much weaker. Really this is one England can only lose in because win convincingly and noone will give them credit but anything less, and it will be less with Edwards coaching strong opposition, and they'll get hammered by the media yet again.

Mate, do you have any tips for horses, next week's lottery numbers or the secret to eternal youth?

 

[catcherintherye]

Disagree entirely with a lot of this, but it's old ground and to be frank I can't be bothered going over it yet again. I think the vast majority of it so wide off the mark it's untrue but everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

Imo it does look as though you have a real problem with England, maybe not even one you're too conscious of. I could understand it after this Autumn but you even deny facts about trophies won in favour of opinions, 'not in my book - doesn't count' and then take results from last Spring when it suits 'France beat England' while at the same time denying anything before the lockdown mattered ' the trophy doesn't count as a long break for lockdown'.

I'm not going to carry on answering such stuff as I just don't agree with you so I'll leave it there.

Fair enough.

I think a lot of people are frustrated by a combination of the conservative rugby they play, and what re seen as attempts to gloss over it with these "trophies".

If Englands aim is to intermittently win the 6 nations, occasionally do a grand slam etc then they will be able to do so with this approach. They or France will probably win the next couple. The issue you have is, Ireland and Wales are going through transition which France are to a degree as well. New Zealand will get better, and England were behind SA before all of this. I worry that we are not seeing much progress with half an eye on the World Cup in 3 years.

On Sunday we appeared to have good field position, we have good backs, but we don't seem to want to utilise them. What worries me is that it's strategic, and it becomes quite 1 dimensional.

I would say 90% of rugby fans were not happy with that result, trophy or performance yesterday. If people are happy to win a trophy, that didn't even exist until a few weeks ago, then good for them, but I think it's papering over cracks. You want to be seeing a blueprint of what we can do moving forward, and to me either the blueprint is too restrictive, or we need to get better at becoming more diverse in our play. Winning a trophy, having drawn a match, about 15 minutes into extra time just doesn't cover that for me.

As a final aside, I was not that critical in the autumn. I was happier last autumn than this autumn. It was a very good World Cup. My own view was SA are a fantastic rugby team, so there was no shame losing in the manner we did. To some degree people were down becaause we had a bit of an easy route, with not having to play France in the group stages. I was quite optimistic though. Wales were going to go through a rebuild, France looked a long way off as did Ireland. I'm not sure it's been a great 12 months since then.

In fairness, maybe my expectations are raised unfairly. Maybe my belief England could go and dominate the World Game are a bit unrealistic and we needto keep some perspective? I have to be honest though and say I've been a bit underwheled with some key performances.