Six Nations 2022 - England v Ireland, 12/03/22, KO 4.45pm - RTÉ2, RTÉ Player, ITV1, ITV Hub

If the next scrum we face does it is hope the officials call it. We haven’t been minced like that in a long, long time. And a good chunk of the reason why was poor officiating. I don’t think we should let a one off like that bother us too much tbh.

This is good

A collective effort.

Ah flankers add next to no impact at the scrum. It’s all the tight five really. And Lawes coming from the back row to the second meant the impact of the red at scrum was minimal.

I think Ireland had one scrum in the match ( with 61% of the possession), while we gave up 10, nearly all of them from knocking on. That’s somewhere to adjust, at least 3 of those were 50/50 (at best) off loads, another couple were just poor focus and handling. When you’re getting minced in the scrum, avoid scrums! Onfield (and pack) leadership was wanting.

This is it, we are playing a much higher risk game now. We are still transitioning to it though, so the decision making won’t be right all the time. The more time goes on, the more we will learn from those errors, the better the decision making will come. On Saturday though, sticking to the plan was the right idea.

We are becoming like NZ though, In that you need to score tries to beat us. As we are certainly going to score them. While our defence has remained strong, making that a very difficult prospect for teams.

It was far more the silly penalties that annoyed me on Saturday, than the handling errors.

Some nice work done by Beirne. Anyone know where ruck stats can be got?

The rugby threads always descend into farce when Ireland lose or are perceived to have played poorly. There's a contingent of posters who are desperate to pounce on any sort of bad news and engage in bad faith arguments.

You seem upset. Do you need a hug? Try not to get so upset when other anonymous posters on an internet forum disagree with your opinion. Argue your point and try not to be too sensitive.

Henderson's stats: 2nd most carries in the pack (only VDF with more),

3rd most metres (Doris and VDF more),

a lineout steal in there as well.

2 penalties conceded, which is the worst on the team if you exclude Furlong for his scrum penalties (he had 4), equal with Sexton and Lowe who also conceded 2 each.

2 handling errors. Worst on the team, but again level with VDF.

Compared with Cian Healy, who carried for a grand total of 2 metres today. Who also missed 3 tackles, the worst on the team. There are no other stats worth talking about on Healy as he did nothing else.

Unfortunately he has form! Gets into repeated pointless spats with posters here on a multitude of topics

Yep, Henderson conceded a penalty on an English line out for an utterly dopey offside, one at a ruck for playing the ball on the ground which was equally dopey and one on our line out for coming around to block access to the ball carrier (something we’ve been pinged for a few times in the last few months).

Lowes penalties were one for holding on (which is as much to do with the support as anything) and one for playing the scrum half in a ruck in a slightly sloppy attempt at a counter ruck.

I only remember 1 penalty against Sexton, which was the one where he was ahead of Ringrose when the latter kicked and Sexton never retreated. A dumb penalty in itself given how hot refs are on that these days. I don’t recall any other penalties against I’m though.

2 of Hendersons penalties led to shots at goal, one thankfully Smith missed. The other (off our line out) came during Englands only spell of real pressure. We turned them over and kicked to the line just outside their 22. It was a chance to regain momentum and Henderson’s penalty just handed it straight back to them.

He was pretty good in open play, but his penalties were all really poor penalties to give away and were all really impactful penalties too. He should be called out for those as much as some of the positive play as well. With his experience he really shouldn’t be conceding those.

Jaysus…..Imagine typing up those angry rants and thinking anyone cares.