[Flumpty]

At one stage, we had over 1/3rd of the England team today

[poyntonshark]

That Wales prop that we signed is going to fit right in. Yellow card!

He has a reputation to maintain, he is the most penalised prop in the prem.

[poyntonshark]

Difficult to draw any conclusions at all as Wales were so abjectly poor. But, I've decided that it must be a good thing that we won 48 - 0 despite that we basically couldn't be arsed for much of the second half.

[LJK]

well an interesting first weekend of the 6N. Wales are in a state and Ireland very poor compared to only a couple of years back. Great to see Italy progressing so quickly.
BUT....what happened to the World Rugby plans to speed up the game by the ref insisting on quicker formation of line outs and scrums.? That didn't last long and this weekend saw some taking far too long to get play to re-start., with players ambling up to the point of play. The sport will struggle to get the attention of the younger folk it so craves unless there is less 'downtime'.
That said it gives the chance for these adverts to appear which if they do help to keep the sport free to view, then so be it. However, you can see the likely speedy progression of this to more than one ad per half, and then head towards the dreadful USA style of breaks in games to allow for ads.

[Flumpty]

That #10 for England is quite handy

[dinogyro]

well an interesting first weekend of the 6N. Wales are in a state and Ireland very poor compared to only a couple of years back. Great to see Italy progressing so quickly.
BUT....what happened to the World Rugby plans to speed up the game by the ref insisting on quicker formation of line outs and scrums.? That didn't last long and this weekend saw some taking far too long to get play to re-start., with players ambling up to the point of play. The sport will struggle to get the attention of the younger folk it so craves unless there is less 'downtime'.
That said it gives the chance for these adverts to appear which if they do help to keep the sport free to view, then so be it. However, you can see the likely speedy progression of this to more than one ad per half, and then head towards the dreadful USA style of breaks in games to allow for ads.

I hate to complicate the game even more, but wouldn't it be relatively easy to have a time limit between the taking of conversion / penalty and the kick off? Sanction free kick to the other team?

Also reduce the time to take a conversion / penalty to 50 seconds.

[Olyy]

Same 23 for England this week, but with LCD and Itoje starting

Congrats to the lads

[RinTin]

1 change - Finn Smith for Marcus.

As I read it, there is no back cover from 11-15. Anyone of them goes down it's Earl to 12 and then everyone shifting around.

Not a fan of it personally, but well done to our lads. Happy to TR to get more minutes.

[Olyy]

1 change - Finn Smith for Marcus.

D'oh!
Our fault for turning into Wales and having players with the same surnames


I trust Arundell/Freeman more at 15 than Marcus tbf, and Fin Smith has played a bit of 12 off the bench before/shifting when another 10 has come off the bench

Not ideal, and I'd go with a 5:3 personally, but I don't think F.Smith at 23 is more of a risk than Marcus

[Clutch]

Think 5-3 has been shown to be antiquated at this level.

We should be 7-1 with Raffi on the bench!!

[poyntonshark]

And what, exactly, is wrong with antiquated?

[Olyy]

Bit like watching Sale play,
Absolutely garbage for 80mins, and countless countless kicks to nothing

[Lord Elpus]

Bit like watching Sale play,
Absolutely garbage for 80mins, and countless countless kicks to nothing

Too effin' true. Every box kick was knocked on or claimed by the skirts. Only Currie of the Sale lot looked anything like. What was Ford thinking about on the dg - we needed tries ffs?
Our centres neither tackle nor punch holes - Lawrence is needed. Itoje should have benched for Coles to start.

[Olyy]

Yeah, I'm a fan of Dingwall but he doesn't offer much threat ball in hand at this level - it's a shame Ollie Lawrence's form has been quite poor this season. I'd start Atkinson at 12 next week, he had a great summer and had the size/power to keep defences interested

I'd also start Pollock in the back row - we have next to no carrying threat in the pack and the starting backrow hasn't been great (and were completely dominated today)
Earl tries his best but can't do it alone - maybe a Curry/Earl/Pollock backrow? Not against Pepper retaining his shirt though - not been on top form but quietly gone about his business

[poyntonshark]

I said twice during the game that I thought I was watching Sale. First half, despite it being obvious that it wasn't working we persisted with the box kicks, and, for a change, Mitchells kicks weren't the best. Second half I think we only box kicked once, so someone somewhere realised something else was needed, but we had no penetration in midfield and developed Sale's white line fever and made handling error after handling error in "the red zone".

I like Dingwall, and Saints manage an all action back line with him in it. England either learn to use him like Saints do, or look elsewhere. wrong to single him out this week though, I think I could only muster praise for Chessum, the rest were way below their best, some good moments but overall poor. No doubts the knives will be out and aimed between Borthwick's shoulder blades, but nothing to suggest anything other than an off day yet.

[Olyy]

Don't mean to single out Dingwall - just trying to think where we can add in more power

Like you said: it's an issue with how we're playing
Don't know what SB is doing, really - we bring in Lee Blackett, one of the most exciting attack coaches in the league and....does this look anything like any side he's ever coached? Or does it look like we looked before he arrived?
Steward is used completely differently by Tigers than England, and has looked really good for them this season

We look like a team trying to hammer square pegs into round holes - here is our plan AND YOU WILL FOLLOW IT
Not "here are the best players in the country, what are their USPs and how can we use them?"

Sometimes it works well, especially when we have every fit and firing, but the inability to switch things up...very Sale

Very frustrating watch considering what we saw from the side in the summer - we know we can play better rugby, but it's back to spreadsheets and Borthwick-ball when the pressure mounts

[dinogyro]

We can have SB when Alex goes?

[RinTin]

We lost but not by much. We knocked on over the line twice, got a red, got held up over the line and had that brain fart from Ford with the drop. Combine that with Scotland putting in their best performance in 12 months and I don't see need to throw the baby out with the bath water.

Move Freeman to wing and bring Lawrence in at 13. Either got 5-3 bench split or go 6-2 but you need someone with more utility in the 23 shirt.

We were exposed - good. Just need to make sure it doesn't happen again.

[SSR]

Arundell does not do it for me. Reminds me of Frank Bruno ( for those of a certain age ), he looks
the part, has some good technique, but does not have the mongrel spirit to compete and
is found out at the top level. Manny F-W is first choice wing, Freeman on the other wing. Tom
seems a bit off the pace at the moment. We need another wing with speed and dog and a
proper full back to compliment. Then we turn to the centres ......
Scotlands backs beat us. France has better.
Hang on a minute, I am sure I said much the same for Sale.

[Olyy]

I've always thought Arundell is a great athlete but not a great rugby player

He's rounded out his skills a lot more at Bath now, and is looking a lot better than before, but his speed and agility is what carries him - not necessarily a terrible thing, especially at club level, he's still very young and IS improving, but (as above) I question how much dog is in him.
Sure he's ran in some pretty simple tries this 6N, but how's he gonna look vs an SA or a France when he doesn't have a clear 10m in front of him? (or a Scotland...)

It's a shame Hendy is very lightweight as I think he's a marginally slower, but much better generally, version of Arundell - i've seen him get absolutely ragdolled in the contact area though (both attack and defence), needs a few more hot meals (or whatever they're feeding Sleightholme)

It's also a shame Radwan is recovering from surgery atm, he would be a perfect replacement

[Lord Elpus]

It seems to me that we don't win turnovers despite having several jackals (allegedly) . Oppo forwards just play in our 22 until either they score or make an error.
In the first half we played with only seven forwards as Underhill was awol.
Russell's kicking always troubled Steward with his lack of pace - maybe try Arundell at fb.
I don't get Radwan's exclusion from the squad.
I imagine F Smith, George & Curry will start v Ireland, possibly Coles as well - Itoje was poor v "Scotland".

[Olyy]

I don't get Radwan's exclusion from the squad.

He had surgery on his ankle(? foot?) a couple of weeks ago

[Surbiton_Shark]

It's not surprising a few of us noticed the similarities between Sale and England's appearance

Stop the forwards and the backs really couldn't deliver anything to trouble Scotland. Our answer...continue kick/chase from 9 despite it clearly not working......Ford preferring to kick rather that kick ball in hand. He really puts a ceiling on the backs when he plays - they rarely get ball in hand.

Huge congrats to Scotland - utterly outplayed us. I never saw that result coming. Our whole team almost went missing, even though I'm a huge Curry fan - he really didn't make much different when he came on - barely anyone put in a good performance.

I thought it extremely harsh on Marcus Smith missing out for Scotland. He's one of our few backs that can make something from nothing. Steward seems like Dombrandt - just not suited for an England shirt.

Hopefully a really good wake up call for England, why it was needed is a fair question to be asked to the squad. Makes France away extremely interesting to see how we cope with that. Before that we have Ireland...after last week I won't make any predictions! - I'll be at the game so hope to see some fellow Shark fans

[Olyy]

Roebuck dropped from the 23 - feel for him, realistically he probably shouldn't have been in the 6N squad considering he's not played since November. Has looked rusty/not quite on the pace.

Genge, LCD, Heyes
Itoje, Chessum
Curry, Earl, Pollock
Mitchell, Ford
Arundell, Dingwall, Lawrence, Freeman
Steward

George, Rodd, Davison, Coles, Pepper, Underhill, JvP, M.Smith

Arundell lucky to keep his shirt, I half expected Daly to take it
I don't get having Underhill (or T.Curry, before) on the bench - they should be starting or not in the 23, would much prefer Cunningham-South there

[Lord Elpus]

Imho Itoje, LCD, Arundell , Steward lucky to be starting.

[DavenportSharky]

https://youtube.com/shorts/wVZ1noeTIu0? ... HfB3gs6Nv9

[Surbiton_Shark]

https://youtube.com/shorts/wVZ1noeTIu0? ... HfB3gs6Nv9

Most amusing!