The UAFC

England have reverted to the old fashioned Irish game position is just as important as possession kick the ball into space and not in the air and chase it fast put it behind the defence not in front of them. If you've got the bish-bosh do it inside the opposition 22 not inside your own half.

nothing disheartens forwards more than going back 30 metres into own 22 knowing you must win your line out -- pressure time on throwers and jumpers.

Pretty bad weekend of rugby that saw victories for the less worse teams.
Think Scotland v France will have more errors than an Irish Times edition.

Just saw the clip of Stockdale laughing at Laidlaw as that miserable little fecker was pushing him. Telling wee Greig to give him more. It's all he deserved.

Frank wrote:Pretty bad weekend of rugby that saw victories for the less worse teams.
Think Scotland v France will have more errors than an Irish Times edition.

Yes it was poor enough fare alright in the three games. I thought England were going to do a major demolition job but they ended up being pretty sloppy in the second half. The less said about France the better.

Was at the back of the stand. England’s kicking was bloody good tbf.

Shan wrote:Just saw the clip of Stockdale laughing at Laidlaw as that miserable little fecker was pushing him. Telling wee Greig to give him more. It's all he deserved.

Link?

justinr73 wrote:Was at the back of the stand. England’s kicking was bloody good tbf.

Was in a a pub in Edinburgh last night watching Brian Moores hardest moments in rugby or something.
Never bore of watching that Ackford getting knocked sparko by a 19 y o Mendez.
The ultimate shame was that he was sent off whereas nowadays he'd probably be arrested.
In fact the same applies with most of the stuff on that DVD.
I also remember with fondness that France actually had a rugby team.

France still have some reasonable players but the combination is at fault too much reliance on bulk and too little guile .

At the moment England have found a game plan that works and players who can deliver using the plan .

Basically get the ball in the opposition half preferable inside their 22 . Possession is not that essential as you defend with numbers on the first receiver . Attack using kick and chase , and have 3 players who can feed/kick the ball through the gap and May has the pace to follow up , The 3 players being Daly ,Slade , and Farrell.

The players who have made the biggest change to England team this year are the back row and Slade.

The Back Row have improved the speed of defence and Slade adds guile to the back line because when passing the ball across the backs he sucks the backline defence up field and then kicks into the space behind the defence.

The second half in the England v France game was a damp squib because England went in at half time with Bonus point win achieved and sat out the game making France defend possession in their own half.

Dave wrote:

Shan wrote:Just saw the clip of Stockdale laughing at Laidlaw as that miserable little fecker was pushing him. Telling wee Greig to give him more. It's all he deserved.

Link?

Sorry Dave....on phone and can't seem to paste it. Search google.....Jacob Stockdale extra.ie.

Dave wrote:

Shan wrote:Just saw the clip of Stockdale laughing at Laidlaw as that miserable little fecker was pushing him. Telling wee Greig to give him more. It's all he deserved.

Link?

HERE

Not much going on TBH, but good to see he's happy standing there stirring it a bit.

Cap'n Grumpy wrote:

Dave wrote:

Shan wrote:Just saw the clip of Stockdale laughing at Laidlaw as that miserable little fecker was pushing him. Telling wee Greig to give him more. It's all he deserved.

Link?

HERE

Not much going on TBH, but good to see he's happy standing there stirring it a bit.

Boring Uncle Rob wouldn't let him play anymore

Cap'n Grumpy wrote:

Dave wrote:

Shan wrote:Just saw the clip of Stockdale laughing at Laidlaw as that miserable little fecker was pushing him. Telling wee Greig to give him more. It's all he deserved.

Link?

HERE

Not much going on TBH, but good to see he's happy standing there stirring it a bit.

Love it

Cap'n Grumpy wrote:

Dave wrote:

Shan wrote:Just saw the clip of Stockdale laughing at Laidlaw as that miserable little fecker was pushing him. Telling wee Greig to give him more. It's all he deserved.

Link?

HERE

Not much going on TBH, but good to see he's happy standing there stirring it a bit.

What a guy

Mako Vunipola is out injured for the rest of the 6 nations.

a good scoreline, but still a lot missing from the performance. I don't agree that we were lucky - we gifted them 7 points after all, and after the big defensive set on half-time, they didn't manage to get into our 22 at all (no 22 entries in the second half..)

I think the problem is that the gameplan under Schmidt relies on: 1) long periods of domination of possession over 20+ phases, incrementally making forward progress; 2) accurate contestable box kicks; 3) intricate and accurate starter or strike plays, which catch defences by surprise.

When this worked, it worked by asking a huge workload of opposition defences, and forcing errors / penalties with the occasional eye-catching try thrown in. But it was never very efficient - I saw stats after the Nov tests, as I recall we were at or near the top of the possession stats (towards 60%) - whereas NZ for example win matches with sub-50% possession. It also wasn't very varied.

The problem this year is that all three elements are misfiring. On 1) against England we came up against a very switched-on and physical defence that knew what was coming, and unfortunately you can't build much pressure going backwards. 2) has been poor, Murray's kicking has been rubbish so far - and there is next to no variation to our kicking game, it seems to be box kick or nothing. And 3), barring the Stockdale try on Saturday, everything else we have either ballsed up or it has been easily read.

It's hard to know why we're not doing 1) as well - it's basically the same pack as last year, plenty of big carriers.

Very interesting article by Henry - he was saying that when things are going well and you've got momentum, winning games is a great boost and keeps it going, but when you're under pressure, winning comes more as a temporary relief, rather than a big boost. I think we're definitely looking collectively tight and uncertain - the Italy game should be a comfortable win, but won't be a morale booster, I think to get back on track the way we would need to do in light of the world cup, we need dominant wins against France and Wales, right now I'm not sure we'll see them!

In terms of individual performances, I thought the second rows did well, Conan was good as were Stockdale and Kearney (ironically given Lukie's views, Kearney's main failing was not making a pass after a couple of decent breaks). Carberry did ok in the second half after a shocker in the first - but I have absolutely no confidence in him to guide an Irish side to wins against a big side..