England vs Italy.

I still appear to be English Lurker and not Lurkio. How disappointing.


Very embarrassing how slowly England reacted to the Italian defensive tactics. Very very embarrassing. People will laugh at Hartley and Haskell pestering Poite (rightly so) but not too mad about it myself, I'd rather they looked stupid (not hard) and got as much info to dig themselves out of the hole as possible instead of just standing around like lumps. That's what the 'rucks' are for.


If this is to be standard rugby from now on, I would like the laws changed. Its funny the first time but imagine watching that ten games in a row, no thanks. I know if it was standard people would start adapting but endless pick and gos and mauls aren't great. Really doubt it'll become standard rugby though.

That said, I'd totally be coaching my team to try it once or twice early a game, not having a guy stood by the scrum-half but just lurking ready for an intercept.

I'm also really jealous as I've been wanting to do this as amateur level for ages but knew my team mates and refs just wouldn't cop on.


Tactics aside, not sure what I make of Italy. Scrum was great but there were still a few ugly mistakes that forfeited the good position. Their attacking took a while to get going as well, although Campagnaro's try was wonderful. They've still got the problem of conceding a lot of tries late on. Hopefully they take some confidence away from the game,


Not sure whether the wind was doing the goal kickers in (didn't look like there was much though) or whether both were really crap.


I've been nice about Poite but I'm still a bit surprised he didn't think Farrell walked into Gori's path when blocking off the kick, because he blatantly did. Missing that on TMO is grim.


England... forget the "OMG Whut do we dooooooo", forget getting in Poite's ear, England should have still been out of sight long before but the amount of individual and unit errors were off the scale. I guess you place some of that on getting frustrated by the way Italy were playing, but that's not all of it, and that's not to blame for the lack of intensity either.

Only Launchbury, Lawes, Itoje, Te'o and Daly can feel good about that out of the starters. Eddie Jones is great at digging England out of holes but there's a bit of an issue with how many holes England are getting in.

Front row got beat up. Nathan Hughes was stupid. Danny Care struggling with not being able to play normally is one thing, but his average kicking and giving Padovano a free mark after breaking is another quite bad one. Ford made a few bad errors and Farrell made a few hundred bad errors. Poor old Johnny May might as well have not turned up and on his one opportunity, he got tackled by Te'o anyway! Still needed to catch the ball then.

Optimist's view is this is the kick up the tail we need. Pessimist's view is something's wrong and we can't fix it.

Realist's view is I can't afford how much gin I'll need if England keep playing like this.

Bridge93 wrote: »

Jones also refused to talk to the Italian reporters

That's churlish. Very poor form.

The post match dinner should be a fun affair!

Bridge93 wrote: »

Jones also refused to talk to the Italian reporters

Very churlish. I'm happy for coaches gripe and moan to relieve press pressure on a team but that's too far.

Bridge93 wrote: »

Jones also refused to talk to the Italian reporters

Ah the old "only talk to the media who like me" approach. Wonder where he got that idea.

English Lurker wrote: »

If this is to be standard rugby from now on, I would like the laws changed. Its funny the first time but imagine watching that ten games in a row, no thanks. I know if it was standard people would start adapting but endless pick and gos and mauls aren't great. Really doubt it'll become standard rugby though.

It's beatable though. Oz did it once to us in the AIs and Conor Murray, thinking he was being smart, passed the ball to Pocock who was 'offside'. Cue much chagrin and scrambling when it wasn't blown up.

As I said earlier, you just pass behind to the ten and beat them out wide. They've men committed to protecting the fringes and two 'offside' and out of the game. A couple of swift cut out passes and a speedy winger or two and you've a try scored.

Or you just play it like a ruck on your own line and boot it down the pitch. A lob pass could also do the job, but I prefer the back door option and getting it wide quickly.

But these guys play rugby. Professionally. How the absolute fup they don't know the laws of the game or even take an interest in what's happening in the game in other parts of the world is beyond me.

Well even before todays interviews no one could ever accuse eddie jones of being a class act!!

But he looks like a proper pr1ck after today..

Couple of comments from O'Shea in La Gazetta dello Sport:

"If Toulouse or other teams do it, it’s is a great tactic, if we do it, it's horrible”

“I think our game deserves respect, it’s not enough for me to have put England in trouble for a while, at one point we thought of winning.”

"We can lose because the opponent is stronger, but not because we raise the white flag: today this has happened"

"I'm disappointed for the defeat, but proud at the same time. We put in spirit, energy and defense, and stuck to the game plan for 80 minutes.”

“Ours remains a long journey, but with this mentality, making the necessary changes, we can become a good team.”

HugoRune wrote: »

Eddie Jones should go the whole hog and request that trying to win when playing England be made illegal.

... coz that's not rugby ... :eek:

Rightwing wrote: »

I doubt it will be that long, he'll get the sack, and rightly so.

He won't. Italy have invested in him to overhaul the game there and his remit goes far beyond the national senior side. That's why they gave him a 4 year deal and he'll see it out.

Rightwing wrote: »

I doubt it will be that long, he'll get the sack, and rightly so.

Riiigggght

CMOTDibbler wrote: »

It's beatable though. Oz did it once to us in the AIs and Conor Murray, thinking he was being smart, passed the ball to Pocock who was 'offside'. Cue much chagrin and scrambling when it wasn't blown up.

As I said earlier, you just pass behind to the ten and beat them out wide. They've men committed to protecting the fringes and two 'offside' and out of the game. A couple of swift cut out passes and a speedy winger or two and you've a try scored.

Or you just play it like a ruck on your own line and boot it down the pitch. A lob pass could also do the job, but I prefer the back door option and getting it wide quickly.

But these guys play rugby. Professionally. How the absolute fup they don't know the laws of the game or even take an interest in what's happening in the game in other parts of the world is beyond me.

Of course you can beat it. I mean, we did.

Its just not entertaining.

You could beat jackals that never had to release either, but they changed the rules because it made for boring rugby. I feel like this is the same thing.

In every 6 Nations there will a game of tiger v mouse, which is usually a dull and boring game.

England v Italy today was very very far from dull or boring.

Very entertained today - thanks Italy:)

Bazzo wrote: »

Matt Dawson acting nearly as classy as Jones...

https://twitter.com/matt9dawson/status/835887286948626438