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Child Item

England vs Italy.

Losty Dublin

Kick off at 3PM. Live on RTE 2 and ITV.

England: M Brown (Harlequins); J May (Gloucester), B Te'o (Worcester), O Farrell (Saracens), E Daly (Wasps); G Ford (Bath), D Care (Harlequins); J Marler (Harlequins), D Hartley (Northampton), D Cole (Leicester), J Launchbury (Wasps), C Lawes (Northampton), M Itoje (Saracens), J Haskell (Wasps), N Hughes (Wasps).

Replacements: J George (Saracens), M Vunipola (Saracens), K Sinckler (Harlequins), T Wood (Northampton), J Clifford (Harlequins), B Youngs (Leicester), H Slade (Exeter), J Nowell (Exeter).

Italy: Edoardo Padovani, Giulio Bisegni (both Zebre), Michele Campagnaro (Exeter), Luke McLean (Treviso), Giovanbattista Venditti (Zebre), Tommaso Allan, Edoardo Gori (both Treviso), Andrea Lovotti (Zebre),Ornel Gaga (Treviso), Lorenzo Cittadini (Bayonne), Marco Fuser (Treviso), Dries Van Schalkwyk (Zebre), Braam Steyn (Treviso), Simone Favaro (Glasgow), Sergio Parisse (Stade Francais, capt)

Replacements: Tommaso D'Apice (Zebre), Michele Rizzo (Leicester), Pietro Ceccarelli, George Biagi, Maxime Mbanda (all Zebre), Giorgio Bronzini (Treviso), Carlo Canna (Zebre), Tommaso Benvenuti (Treviso)

Ghiraldini is a late withdrawal for the visitors, as if they needed any more bad luck. Eddie Jones said last night that he wants to take Italy to the cleaners; the question is will it be with Persil, Flash or Parazone? We could see a record score today, as much as a 60 point gap is possible.

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Trojan

How it should have been responded to: one of English props going down with an injured shoelace, and the coaching team using magic sponge time to get the message on-field to pick and go through the middle. Should have happened around the 15-20th minute.

What a wonderful Trumpian display of pique from Eddie Jones. Pity we don't have them next.

CMOTDibbler

razorblunt wrote: »

It was Mike Catt but the lols were still real.
Haskell trying to play it off that he asked Poite "what he wanted to see from them" rather than "what do we do?" which everyone else heard.

Monye was saying that England had finally got their heads around this (they hadn't) just before Nathan Hughes got in the way of a Nowell pick and go. In fairness to Nowell he got it though.

You're right, it was. He was absolutely cracking up though.

For all those who were saying Italy shouldn't be in the 6N, you know who you are :pac:

They've provided the most entertainment this year so far. To completely steal the headlines from England and shove Jones's 'take them to the cleaners' comment where the sun don't shine is just glorious.

ScrubsfanChris

nice_guy80 wrote: »

the dropped bonus point v France will hurt us

We scored one try, where was the bonus gonna come from?

If anything the loss to Scotland after scoring 3 tries is much more worse result.

.ak

What really annoys me is these guys are professionals and couldn't figure it out. At junior level here we know when a ruck forms and when you can fill the space. It happens almost in every game, especially on an isolated break. The first man to the ruck just picks and goes if they try and occupy the space, because you have a free run.

Test rugby has become almost too regimented, nobody thinks out of the box because what's at cost. Hopefully this is a lesson for everyone in the 6n to adapt and use your brain.

BBDBB

exactly, Haskells intervention where he asked if he could grab an opponent and pull him in to form a ruck was so telling, these highly played professionals are coached so that they can only follow instruction and wont experiment to see how the ref is interpreting things

FFS it took them 35 minutes to devise a tactic to combat it, 35 minutes!!!!

lawred2

Trojan wrote: »

How it should have been responded to: one of English props going down with an injured shoelace, and the coaching team using magic sponge time to get the message on-field to pick and go through the middle. Should have happened around the 15-20th minute.

What a wonderful Trumpian display of pique from Eddie Jones. Pity we don't have them next.

Lads who have been playing rugby at all levels all their life should be able to figure out what to do without instruction from the sidelines.

Fact of the matter is and Hartley admitted it - they couldn't even see what the problem was never mind a solution.

Brain-dead automatons.

I'd hate to see rules changed to 'prevent' such a thing happening again. As if to advance a prescriptive vision for the game.

CMOTDibbler

BBDBB wrote: »

exactly, Haskells intervention where he asked if he could grab an opponent and pull him in to form a ruck was so telling, these highly played professionals are coached so that they can only follow instruction and wont experiment to see how the ref is interpreting things

FFS it took them 35 minutes to devise a tactic to combat it, 35 minutes!!!!

Ah, I don't think you can blame coaching for this. As .ak says, even jumior level players here know the laws around the ruck.

It was just pure stupidity. Even the question Haskell asked 'about these rucks' was telling. They weren't rucks. This is pretty basic stuff. What I would say, is that these guys don't appear to be fans of the game. You see a lot of players tweeting about games in the SH or even the T14, they're watching to learn stuff and improve their own skills.

BBDBB

CMOTDibbler wrote: »

Ah, I don't think you can blame coaching for this. As .ak says, even jumior level players here know the laws around the ruck.

It was just pure stupidity. Even the question Haskell asked 'about these rucks' was telling. They weren't rucks. This is pretty basic stuff. What I would say, is that these guys don't appear to be fans of the game. You see a lot of players tweeting about games in the SH or even the T14, they're watching to learn stuff and improve their own skills.

taking your point full circle though, these lads have played rugby for many years, starting at mini rugby some of them, stupidity is understandable in professional sportsmen, weve all seen the really talented lad at school, miss lessons for trials, matches and competitions, academia is unlikely to be their strong suit.

But this is their "rugby brain", the on the field stuff where they earn their living (and a damn fine one at that) they are supposed to be top of their profession. Coaching has a massive role to play in educating players about the laws and nuances of the game. If this was a new tactic then I could perhaps understand it, but we all saw Pocock do it to Murray who subsequently negated it and Haskell is quoted as saying Toulouse did it against Wasps. For the entire England team to have no idea what was happening and to have no answer for 35 minutes before Danny Care took a snipe up the middle was shameful.

Conor O'Shea has done them a massive favour

molloyjh

errlloyd wrote: »

There are a lot of people giving Jones stick for not knowing about it because the chiefs and others had done it. But Italy had two major differences.

1: They did it literally all the time. The chiefs did it three times per game, Italy did it about 20 - 25 times.
2: They didn't actually swing that many players around the ruck, in fact, it was mostly just Gori. His job wasn't to try and intercept the ball, it was to distract Care into making a mistake.

I reckon the reason Italy did it so often was because it worked so often. I'm sure they went into that game thinking "we'll get away with this twice, maybe 3 times if we're lucky, before they cop on". I'm sure they couldn't believe their luck at how incapable England were of reacting to it.

techdiver

It's an interesting one and something I've thought about a lot, not directly in relation to the ruck, but more to not contesting mauls especially attacking mauls from close to your line.

How many times do we see an attacking team with a dominant maul taking a line-out from 5 metres out and mauling it over the line, or it being collapsed by the defending team and then rinse and repeat until either a try is scored or a penalty try awarded.

Why don't more teams just not engage in the maul? One of two things will happen:

1. They can go around and tackle the ball carrier at the rear completely legally thus collapsing it (which is legal as it's not deemed a maul in the first place)
2. The attacking team will be penalised for accidental offside.

I will go as far to say that it actually bugs me that teams don't use this do defend their line more, especially when the like of Wales do one of their 15 men mauls.

errlloyd

techdiver wrote: »

2. The attacking team will be penalised for accidental offside.

This strategy became common enough not long ago, the one major problem I had with it, was even when it was plainly obvious the ball was at the back, refs never seemed to penalise the accidental offside if they thought the opposition was purposely not contesting.

Anyway, teams got wise to it and a few things started happened. Second rows began to cop they could turn around and score, a few did. People would be dragged into the maul, again a few did. Or one person with no discipline would accidentally engage. If your maul was complete pants it was a good strategy though.

dub_skav

molloyjh wrote: »

I reckon the reason Italy did it so often was because it worked so often. I'm sure they went into that game thinking "we'll get away with this twice, maybe 3 times if we're lucky, before they cop on". I'm sure they couldn't believe their luck at how incapable England were of reacting to it.

That's a good point. They probably had pre-defined instructions of when to stop, it just took a ridiculously long time to reach that point.

As others have said, players at all levels know this, particularly scrum halves who will look for any advantage / mismatch.
In fact, it is the exact same situation as not engaging the maul at a lineout, how could a hooker and captain of his country not understand the similarity and what to do.
In the non-engagement of a maul the player with the ball is instructed to break and run straight to engage players, or indeed as Haskell intimated, you grab an opposition player to create a maul.

This simply confirms the suspicion that for many years now England have favoured athletes over rugby players.
Fair play to O'Shea, hopefully a sign that Italy are planning to identify and attempt to exploit opposition specific gameplans.

[Deleted User]

techdiver wrote: »

It's an interesting one and something I've thought about a lot, not directly in relation to the ruck, but more to not contesting mauls especially attacking mauls from close to your line.

How many times do we see an attacking team with a dominant maul taking a line-out from 5 metres out and mauling it over the line, or it being collapsed by the defending team and then rinse and repeat until either a try is scored or a penalty try awarded.

Why don't more teams just not engage in the maul? One of two things will happen:

1. They can go around and tackle the ball carrier at the rear completely legally thus collapsing it (which is legal as it's not deemed a maul in the first place)
2. The attacking team will be penalised for accidental offside.

I will go as far to say that it actually bugs me that teams don't use this do defend their line more, especially when the like of Wales do one of their 15 men mauls.

Its higher risk than that. Some refs are not as clinical in their interpretations and it's possible to get pulled into these things and give away an easy score. I'd say the ref being Poite was part of Conor O Sheas rationale for utilising the ruck rules. Also probably watched enough of England to see how mechanical and predictable they are at resourcing rucks.

When it's done, it's rarely done in a position where the opposing team is near the try line.

The game is fluid and fast and one easy to make error and your in trouble.

When we did it to SA a few years ago it was outside our 22.

lawred2

techdiver wrote: »

It's an interesting one and something I've thought about a lot, not directly in relation to the ruck, but more to not contesting mauls especially attacking mauls from close to your line.

How many times do we see an attacking team with a dominant maul taking a line-out from 5 metres out and mauling it over the line, or it being collapsed by the defending team and then rinse and repeat until either a try is scored or a penalty try awarded.

Why don't more teams just not engage in the maul? One of two things will happen:

1. They can go around and tackle the ball carrier at the rear completely legally thus collapsing it (which is legal as it's not deemed a maul in the first place)
2. The attacking team will be penalised for accidental offside.

I will go as far to say that it actually bugs me that teams don't use this do defend their line more, especially when the like of Wales do one of their 15 men mauls.

on your goal line (esp let's say a 5m lineout) - would there not always be the chance that the jumper would realise what was happening in time and just fall pretty much unopposed over the line?

running around the back of the completed lineout to tackle the back of never formed maul would get you nowhere as would hoping that they would seek to transfer the ball away from the jumper..

Might make sense to do it every now and then say somewhere around the 22

Nift

CMOTDibbler wrote: »

Well Murray certainly did against Aus in November. First time they did it, he got caught out; passed to Pocock trying to buy a penalty and that backfired. Next time he just picked and went himself and the third time he gave it to a forward to rumble up.

Just beggars belief that the English couldn't wrap their heads around it. There was a shot (when Poite was explaining that he wasn't their coach) of Venter absolutely breaking his hole at it all.

Exactly...we did deal with. I know the lads have dealt with it in training before as Joe has forseen that scenario. We are just as robotic but in fairness we have a world class coach who is an video analyst freak who has probably thought of every aspect.

techdiver

errlloyd wrote: »

This strategy became common enough not long ago, the one major problem I had with it, was even when it was plainly obvious the ball was at the back, refs never seemed to penalise the accidental offside if they thought the opposition was purposely not contesting.

Anyway, teams got wise to it and a few things started happened. Second rows began to cop they could turn around and score, a few did. People would be dragged into the maul, again a few did. Or one person with no discipline would accidentally engage. If your maul was complete pants it was a good strategy though.

Deleted User wrote: »

Its higher risk than that. Some refs are not as clinical in their interpretations and it's possible to get pulled into these things and give away an easy score. I'd say the ref being Poite was part of Conor O Sheas rationale for utilising the ruck rules. Also probably watched enough of England to see how mechanical and predictable they are at resourcing rucks.

When it's done, it's rarely done in a position where the opposing team is near the try line.

The game is fluid and fast and one easy to make error and your in trouble.

When we did it to SA a few years ago it was outside our 22.

In fairness, a word in the refs ear in the lead up to the game can resolve that.

We even did it in a J4 game years ago and resolved it with the ref mid game.

I'm not saying it's something that should be used all the time, but when you are clearly going to concede as you are been driven back consistently, I don't see it as that big a risk compared to the alternative.

The point about teams getting wise to it is fair enough, but I suppose that only really happens if it's over used. I would be talking about having a defensive line-out call that would be "break glass in case of emergency", that you would use as a measure of last resort to stop a certain try.

CMOTDibbler

lawred2 wrote: »

on your goal line (esp let's say a 5m lineout) - would there not always be the chance that the jumper would realise what was happening in time and just fall pretty much unopposed over the line?

That's the danger alright. Second rows in those positions often don't transfer the ball until they hit the ground and there's an engagement. So no accidental offside and they can flop over the line.

We've used the tactic a few times, but afair, it was always outside our 22.

techdiver

lawred2 wrote: »

on your goal line (esp let's say a 5m lineout) - would there not always be the chance that the jumper would realise what was happening in time and just fall pretty much unopposed over the line?

running around the back of the completed lineout to tackle the back of never formed maul would get you nowhere as would hoping that they would seek to transfer the ball away from the jumper..

Might make sense to do it every now and then say somewhere around the 22

As a defending team you would need to prepare for this. One defender would need to watch the jumper, if he feeds the ball back as 90% of jumpers will do regardless, then everything is fine. If not, you can legally tackle him below the waist without a maul being formed.

CMOTDibbler

Nift wrote: »

Exactly...we did deal with. I know the lads have dealt with it in training before as Joe has forseen that scenario. We are just as robotic but in fairness we have a world class coach who is an video analyst freak who has probably thought of every aspect.

We may seem as robotic, but any interview I've ever heard from the players is that Joe expects them to use their heads when they're on the pitch. He's very big on ceding control once the team is announced.

Moflojo

I've never laughed so hard during a game of rugby. The English players' reactions were priceless. If it hasn't already been done, somebody needs to do a match report using this guy:

razorblunt

Trojan wrote: »

How it should have been responded to: one of English props going down with an injured shoelace, and the coaching team using magic sponge time to get the message on-field to pick and go through the middle. Should have happened around the 15-20th minute.

What a wonderful Trumpian display of pique from Eddie Jones. Pity we don't have them next.

I think that's exactly what happened though, ITV reported that one of the English coaches was sent down to the sidelines.
Nowell was definitely ready when he came on though, it's just Hughes led to an accidental offside, by standing at the side of the ruck, which in fairness he was doing every time he heard "tackle only".

Rightwing

Eng need to get a 5 pointer from the Scots, they've been playing poorly, doing just enough to get the win. This Italian match could be just what they needed.

TheCitizen

The whingeing out of the English over that was incredible. Ireland just need to concentrate and get the win in Wales and they can take England in Dublin. Clearly they are suspect temperament wise.

[Deleted User]

Rightwing wrote: »

Eng need to get a 5 pointer from the Scots, they've been playing poorly, doing just enough to get the win. This Italian match could be just what they needed.

Historically speaking I would expect that England will get 5 against the Scots.

In the context of this championship specifically there is nothing to suggest that they will.

awec

lawred2 wrote: »

on your goal line (esp let's say a 5m lineout) - would there not always be the chance that the jumper would realise what was happening in time and just fall pretty much unopposed over the line?

running around the back of the completed lineout to tackle the back of never formed maul would get you nowhere as would hoping that they would seek to transfer the ball away from the jumper..

Might make sense to do it every now and then say somewhere around the 22

Unlikely to get over the try line unopposed as the defenders are still there, they just don't maul.

Good jumpers though will realise the opposition aren't engaging and keep hold of the ball at the front, therefore no obstruction.

Bazzo

Nift wrote: »

Exactly...we did deal with. I know the lads have dealt with it in training before as Joe has forseen that scenario. We are just as robotic but in fairness we have a world class coach who is an video analyst freak who has probably thought of every aspect.

I think it's a lot more likely Murray just had a bit of cop on, he's a very intelligent rugby player.

Rightwing

Deleted User wrote: »

Historically speaking I would expect that England will get 5 against the Scots.

In the context of this championship specifically there is nothing to suggest that they will.

I agree, think the Scots are vulnerable enough tho.

errlloyd

Deleted User wrote: »

Historically speaking I would expect that England will get 5 against the Scots.

In the context of this championship specifically there is nothing to suggest that they will.

Actually I sort of think England have been a bit crap so far. Poor against a France team that offered little against us. Poor against Italy. And barely scraped a win over Wales who were smashed by Scotland.

Form is temporary and that team is pure class, but hopefully they don't recover any time soon.

CMOTDibbler

Rightwing wrote: »

Eng need to get a 5 pointer from the Scots, they've been playing poorly, doing just enough to get the win. This Italian match could be just what they needed.

The funny thing is that up until this weekend, there was an almost untouchable self-belief in this England team. Being able to get the points needed to win a match right at the death and the belief that they could do it was probably the most striking thing about them.

It wasn't pretty, but they were winning and winning ugly the way good championship teams do. But Italy have exposed a chink in their armour and sowed seeds of doubt in their minds. The ott reaction from Eddie Jones is telling. It's strange that a win could do this to them. There's a vulnerability there now and it might just have got in their heads.

Scotland will be a real test for them, both as a match and mentally.

Rightwing

CMOTDibbler wrote: »

The funny thing is that up until this weekend, there was an almost untouchable self-belief in this England team. Being able to get the points needed to win a match right at the death and the belief that they could do it was probably the most striking thing about them.

It wasn't pretty, but they were winning and winning ugly the way good championship teams do. But Italy have exposed a chink in their armour and sowed seeds of doubt in their minds. The ott reaction from Eddie Jones is telling. It's strange that a win could do this to them. There's a vulnerability there now and it might just have got in their heads.

Scotland will be a real test for them, both as a match and mentally.

I think they will do a job on the Scots, a 5 pointer. Backlash. It's like as if they lost, but they got the 5 pointer. I agree they've been poor so far.