Ireland vs England - 6N 2025 match thread

Look, you are a frequent purveyor of hot takes. I'm asking you to give some examples. The full match is up online, pull out some moments you feel show Crowley's superior performance. Lets have a discussion based on something solid, rather than impressions.

So, to expand on my thoughts that Crowley was more consistent and made fewer errors.

Overall, I think Crowley place-kicked better, kicked from hand better, had some equally good moments in attack (which is where things were closer), defended better, even with his scrag on Dan, and even hit rucks better.

The place kicking, the stats bear that out. Tho Prendergast showed character to respond and convert the most difficult of his 3.

The kicking from hand is much more qualitative, naturally. But, especially early on, even Prendergast's long exit kicking looked aimless, and allowed England territory and field position. He rarely hit grass, iirc (tho I’d have to watch it back). Crowley’s had one or 2 too long also, but contestables seemed much more… contestable. Bear in mind this is one area that it was seen as Prendergast outright having the upper hand on Crowley.

Prendergast’s intercept, even granted it was on one advantage, was indicative of him forcing it early on. He improved from there.

Defensively, yes, Crowley had the scrag on Dan. But that should have been enough for us the scramble from there, imo. It’s as poor a tackle as I’ve ever seen Henshaw make tbh. Conversely, Prendergast was regularly taken out of the defensive line; something I don’t think we’ve done with a 10 in a long time.

Again, one that I don’t think will go down on the stats, but himself and Baird left a massive dog leg for (I think) Earl to get thru for a huge linebreak, gainline and 22 entry, as an example from when he was in the line. Neither laid a hand on him, in the middle of the park.

Attacking-wise, as I've said, things were much closer. Prendergast had excellent moments like his pass for Aki, and the overlap that VdF ran back to traffic. But equally, Crowley had some excellent moments; his quick offload to Hansen and had another excellent pop pass from the deck when the ball squirted loose that resulted in huge territory gains.

As another poster has said, yes Prendergast had more in total between defenders beat and clean-breaks; but you'd expect him to, having 3x as many minutes to do it in.

Crowley did take one into contact in their 22 that got turned over that was the wrong decision, but we've seem him score with some dancing feet like that in the past. Equally Prendergast picked and went from a ruck that got himself isolated, the ball popped out of the ruck and we were lucky to get the lineout. In both cases, you want your 10 to take things like that on.

Ruck-wise, you obviously don't want your 10 at the bottom of a ruck, but there were a few when Prendergast was ineffective, looked like he was just leaning on it. I wouldn't be too harsh on him there tho, it's so far down the pecking order of what you want from your 10 but it's an area Crowley was superior in too.

That's an absolute tome, and I don't expect anyone else to read it other than yourself. I'd like to watch it back again, tbh, but I don't see my view changing too much from the above.

I watched back and on second viewing, England was on top for the first 15 min. Then Ireland took over and were attacking in far more dangerous areas than England. They hired penalties in tge 22 including the yellow xard jor smith. They didn't score in that period though, which is credit to England's defence.

And the rest was mostly periods of Ireland on top or pretty even. I don't think England got back on top for any sustained period after the first 15 mins.

Also noticed that Cadan Murley touched the ball trying to catch in the 22. That's why he didn't let it go over the dead ball line. That led to ireland pushing them back over the try line for the 5m scrum and eventually led to the Aki try.

Thanks for the effort. From watching it back, it seemed we attacked differently after Crowley came on. I'd imagine us getting more change out of carries played a factor. We looked more direct than in the first half, where we aimed to get around the outside of the English defense. I wonder how much the team game plans around the different qualities of Prendergast and Crowley? From memory, Crowley took more ball as 1st receiver, whereas Prendergast took a lot as 2nd or 3rd receiver, looping around. I'd like to see Crowley do some of that, he has more pace and the mentality to exploit any gaps. I wish the broadcast had shown a wide view when he took it in and got turned over, felt that was a big missed opportunity. There was a lot of that going around. VdF ought be running laps til next Sat for blowing that chance in the 1st half.

I didn't feel either team was particularly assured under the high ball. There weren't many clean takes by either team with contested ball. I was shocked at the number of times England let a kick go unclaimed, I'd imagine Borthwick was furious over that.

Edit to add: agree on the intercept. Really poor choice on Prendergast's part.

I'd agree with that with regards highball tbh, but Lowe took one great one over his head, iirc, which is an area I'd generally think of as one of the weaker parts of his game. (I seem to recall both Ringrose and VdF regathering well after a bounce as well, tho couldn't say for sure if off our ball or theirs).

I think JGP's box kicking could be better too tbh (I really rate Mitchell in that regard). Tho none were nearly as bad as Randall's one where he got no distance and ended up attempting to reclaim it himself.

No, I'm finished with this. You won't accept anything I say so it's a waste of time.

Fair enough, was hoping you would articulate your thoughts, as others have done.

Surely, that kick (before the first try) should be listed as one of his key low lights.

I think the pass Prendergast makes here was absolutely top drawer, reminiscent of Russell. 15ms or so, hits Keenan in stride at chest height, takes out 3 English defenders to create a 2 on 1. We really should've scored from this, an incredible effort by Mitchell to scramble back and tackle Keenan.

Hi Cluedo, please read my post again. I don't agree with using Borthwicks' opinion as any kind of authority. That is what my post is about.

I'm sorry but this is a complete cop out, if it's a clearance kick then your kicker finds touch or grass, he did neither. His kick put our defensive line under pressure. The fact they missed tackles compounds the mistake but it doesn't absolve him of blame.

I also thought Ireland played more directly after Crowley came on, somewhat better kicking and more hard direct lines. You would praise the coaching staff for getting the play makers to change it up.

The ball when Crowley went alone and was turned over I thought an English shooter had closed the passing lane and that's why he turned back in?

The lineout was better, probably more cautious, but in the overall our maul has gone to S****e!! It's an area we need to improve on, we pick to the corner a lot, we need to be better from those opportunities. Will we kick to the corner so much against France? I know the equation isn't simply high probability three point opportunity turned down for lower probability seven points, there's building pressure, more likely more infringements by your opponents etc. to consider.

I honestly don't think Crowley was any better in general in the game. He actually didn't do very much - which is not really a criticism it is just how the game unfolded for the 20 minutes that he was on. He slotted his two kicks and didn't have any glaring mistakes - for some that means he was better and fair enough I can understand that.

I just don't think this is at all true, Podge, so I just watched his 20 mins back.

His first touch is an outstanding clearance kick.

Soon after, he reacts brilliantly to a loose ball for a pop pass to Ringrose, that results in a huge territory and possession gain.

He had that lovely quick-hands offload to Hansen that, with Keenan and Lowe's chase, resulted in us getting to their 5m line.

He had another lovely behind-the-back pass after reacting to another loose ball that Henderson should have taken.

Having watched it back, it's also very evident that we didn't have as much phase play as we were targetting Marcus Smith particularly, but the England back-3 more generally in the back-field, which worked very, very well. We changed to a much kick-heavier game that I don't think we had with Steward there, and Crowley had some excellent kicks that put Smith under huge pressure.