6 Nations 2019 Build Up thread

penybont exile

Neil3030 wrote: »

On another day Ringrose makes a better decision, sure. And on another day they give Vunipola his try before half time, and on another day Stockers collects the ball, and so on, and so on. Margins are this fine at the top level, and when you cancel out all that went for one team and against the other, England were the better side, and deserved to win. I'm not sure why admitting this needs to be a "love in".

I don't think I said that England were not the better team ..... they were.

However they didn't have to do much to win that game other than:

- Front up in the collisions (helps if your opponent plays so predictably)
- Throw a couple of decent passes to exploit Ireland's wide out defence which has been poor for the last five years
- Confuse a disjointed Irish back three with a few kicks in behind
- Field some poorly directed box kicks


My point is they were good but contrary to the media hype we were not witness to the resurrection of the 2003 WC team ........... (not yet anyway).

irishbucsfan

penybont exile wrote: »

I don't think I said that England were not the better team ..... they were.

However they didn't have to do much to win that game other than:

- Front up in the collisions (helps if your opponent plays so predictably)
- Throw a couple of decent passes to exploit Ireland's wide out defence which has been poor for the last five years
- Confuse a disjointed Irish back three with a few kicks in behind
- Field some poorly directed box kicks


My point is they were good but contrary to the media hype we were not witness to the ressrection of the 2003 WC team ........... (not yet anyway).

Mad how such a predictable, disjointed, poorly directed, poor defending team can keep winning the competition!

troyzer

England are unbelievably reliant on a handful of players. While they're healthy and playing well, they can beat any team in the world.

But when they're injured or off form, they turn into complete ****.

penybont exile

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Mad how such a predictable, disjointed, poorly directed, poor defending team can keep winning the competition!

Times change ....

Neil3030

penybont exile wrote: »

I don't think I said that England were not the better team ..... they were.

However they didn't have to do much to win that game other than:

- Front up in the collisions (helps if your opponent plays so predictably)
- Throw a couple of decent passes to exploit Ireland's wide out defence which has been poor for the last five years
- Confuse a disjointed Irish back three with a few kicks in behind
- Field some poorly directed box kicks


My point is they were good but contrary to the media hype we were not witness to the resurrection of the 2003 WC team ........... (not yet anyway).

That's a fairly comprehensive list of criteria! After you win the collisions, distribute accurately, mix things up with effective kicks behind and neutralise contestables, what's left to do to win a game? And if you do that in every game, what team will beat you?

swiwi_

troyzer wrote: »

England are unbelievably reliant on a handful of players. While they're healthy and playing well, they can beat any team in the world.

But when they're injured or off form, they turn into complete ****.

Sounds like pretty much any international team out there tbh.

troyzer

swiwi_ wrote: »

troyzer wrote: »

England are unbelievably reliant on a handful of players. While they're healthy and playing well, they can beat any team in the world.

But when they're injured or off form, they turn into complete ****.

Sounds like pretty much any international team out there tbh.

I think it's more so the case for England than any other team. If you take out Farrell, Tuilagi and Billy Vunipola they are a very average team.

If you take out Ireland's best half back (Murray), inside centre (Henshaw) and back rower (SOB) then you can still beat the All Blacks.

If that isn't the most Gerrymandered post on boards I don't know what is. I'm really proud of myself.

jr86

troyzer wrote: »

I think it's more so the case for England than any other team. If you take out Farrell, Tuilagi and Billy Vunipola they are a very average team.

If you take out Ireland's best half back (Murray), inside centre (Henshaw) and back rower (SOB) then you can still beat the All Blacks.

If that isn't the most Gerrymandered post on boards I don't know what is. I'm really proud of myself.

They won the 6 nations 2 years ago without Tuilagi and Vunipola (BV was rushed back for last game when they had championship won anyway), and Farrell was playing a different position to now.

If the Al Blacks are the yardstick, well England were millimetres from beating them without Vunipola and Tuilagi...

irishbucsfan

Interesting how much is being made of Tuilagi this week. Awful lot of people weren’t rating him at all recently enough! Funny how quick these things can change.

stephen_n

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Interesting how much is being made of Tuilagi this week. Awful lot of people weren’t rating him at all recently enough! Funny how quick these things can change.

Personally I’m surprised how much is being made of his performance last week. He was ok in a dominant team, but nothing special.

PhlegmyMoses

stephen_n wrote: »

Personally I’m surprised how much is being made of his performance last week. He was ok in a dominant team, but nothing special.

100%. Himself and Big Billy made some crunching carries and nice tackles but nobody was standout in an excellent defensive performance

stephen_n

PhlegmyMoses wrote: »

100%. Himself and Big Billy made some crunching carries and nice tackles but nobody was standout in an excellent defensive performance

I thought Billy V did have an impact, the strength to offload in the lead up to the first try and then carrying Stander and POM about 8-10 yards in the first half were stand out. He had a much bigger impact on the game I thought.

thomond2006

Wales: L Williams; Holmes, J Davies (capt), Watkin, Adams; Biggar, A Davies; N Smith, Dee, Lee, Ball, Beard Wainwright, Young, Navidi.

Replacements: Elias, W Jones, D Lewis, Alun Wyn Jones, Moriarty, G Davies, Anscombe, Amos.

Wales opt for 10 changes, none are injury enforced.

penybont exile

Like the look of that team.
Hopefully it is a dry day in the eternal city on Saturday.

Ffs Gatland. You completely fudged my fantasy team

Eod100

Forgot about England and France in same pool at RWC too. So that's 2 matches this weekend which will be repeated at RWC.

sydthebeat

if ireland were to win on saturday, and wales on sunday....

and form was to follow in week 3 with scotland winning in france, england in wales and ireland in italy....

they we could feasibly be looking at 9 games into the championship with 7 away wins !!

probably wont happen .. but thats were current form is leading to

Eod100

sydthebeat wrote: »

if ireland were to win on saturday, and wales on sunday....

and form was to follow in week 3 with scotland winning in france, england in wales and ireland in italy....

they we could feasibly be looking at 9 games into the championship with 7 away wins !!

probably wont happen .. but thats were current form is leading to

Think there's a good chance it will. Maybe France bearing Scotland but aside from that very possible

Scythica

England team to play France:

Daly; Ashton, Slade, Tuilagi, May; Farrell, Youngs; M Vunipola, George, Sinckler, Lawes, Kruis, Wilson, Curry, B Vunipola

Replacements: Cowan-Dickie, Cole, Moon, Launchbury, Hughes, Robson, Ford, Nowell



France: 15 Yoann Huget, 14 Damian Penaud, 13 Mathieu Bastareaud, 12 Geoffrey Doumayrou, 11 Gael Fickou, 10 Camille Lopez, 9 Morgan Parra; 1 Jefferson Poirot, 2 Guilhem Guirado (c), 3 Demba Bamba; 4 Sebastien Vahaamahina, 5 Felix Lambey; 6 Yacouba Camara, 7 Arthur Iturria, 8 Louis Picamoles.

Replacements: 16 Pierre Bourgarit, 17 Dany Priso, 18 Dorian Aldegheri, 19 Paul Willemse, 20 Gregory Alldritt, 21 Antoine Dupont, 22 Romain Ntamack, 23 Thomas Ramos.



I love how French that French team is.

Predict Ashton to have a stormer

stephen_n

Tuilagi against Bastareaud will be interesting.

Eod100

Talk about a back-handed compliment! https://twitter.com/brettgosper/status/1093839617776930816?s=19

joseywhales

I smell a weekend of upsets, particularly from France and maybe Italy

squawker

Under 20s on anywhere?

due to the greatness of the Internet it doesn't matter

any channel worldwide?

The Lost Sheep

squawker wrote: »

Under 20s on anywhere?

due to the greatness of the Internet it doesn't matter

any channel worldwide?

it's not. We might get highlights from irfu next week

squawker

The Lost Sheep wrote: »

it's not. We might get highlights from irfu next week

ffs

Thrashssacre

Do we need a bonus point win in murrayfield to keep our chances alive or could we survive without one?

Losty Dublin

Match Thread is up

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057954435

Dog Botherer

Thrashssacre wrote: »

Do we need a bonus point win in murrayfield to keep our chances alive or could we survive without one?

Anything is possible, but yes, a bonus point is needed to realistically keep us in the hunt. Though a win of any kind is probably more important just for morale.

Thrashssacre

So Italy vs Wales, anyone arsed sitting through it?

troyzer

Thrashssacre wrote: »

So Italy vs Wales, anyone arsed sitting through it?

Mostly because I'm too lazy to get up. I just posted a match thread there.