Wales v England

[Bunk]

I still haven't stopped laughing.

[Pondlife]

You're not going into the 'diff tonight are you?

It's going to be a bit lively.

Over the bay. Moskh was full so went to the pearl. Now in tapas place. Can hear the singing everywhere.

[garethevans1986]

An awesome game. England were battered.

[Malcolm Buggeridge]

I still haven't stopped laughing.

Outrageous!


I always had you down as an Englishman Bunky

[Bunk]

Outrageous!


I always had you down as an Englishman Bunky

Freeeeeeedooooom!!!!

[Mich the Tester]

Please don't overdo the well done Wales thing Mitchy.

Haven't you heard Jonathon Davies gloating ?

Jonathan Davies will always have something to gloat about; it's how he is.

But I'm not overdoing it with Wales and I have nothing whatsoever against the Welsh, despite some of the feelings some of them show toward the English; they were genuinely impressive yesterday and looked much more like the team that very nearly reached the World Cup final. Of course I want to see England win, but I'm a player who loves the game and enjoys watching a good team performance whoever gives it. Yesterday was actually brilliant; two of the world's best rugby teams went at it hard and left everything they have on the field, and that's always worth seeing. Italy were bloody impressive too.

The 6 nations is alive and kicking, and still the most exciting, engaging tournament in the game; all we need now is a few refs who know what a scrum is.

I think Robshaw and Lancaster made one big tactical mistake yesterday; given the lottery of decisions at the scrum (every single scrum I saw resulted in a randomly awarded penalty or a random free kick), they could have got a couple of front row players to feign injury and then move to depowered scrums, which would eliminate the Welsh front row advantage and at least provide parity in possession; yep, an underhand, hideous and calculating tactic that would ruin the game, but it's professional rugby and I don't see any better way of gaining an advantage at the scrum while there are such utterly incompetent refs as the men who reffed the Wales-England and Italy-Ireland games. I have to admit that I've done this myself in the past as a last ditch measure and it's worked. Not proud of it, but hey, winning is pretty much everything at a high level, and with this kind of ref I think you'll start seeing more of this tactic. Besides, I wouldn't have any confidence in those refs to protect the safety of the players at scrum time. Steve Walsh's lecture at the England hooker about his foot being centimeters to the side of the mark was ridiculous and frankly irresponsible; if he knows it all so bloody well then he should have the balls to put his own spine on the line inside an international scrum.

Signed,

AN ANGRY FORWARD

[oracleslave]

England got smashed up front in the scrums and started committing infringements to ease the pressure they were feeling. Walsh got most of the calls right imho.

[Mich the Tester]

England got smashed up front in the scrums and started committing infringements to ease the pressure they were feeling. Walsh got most of the calls right imho.

First sentence; agreed.
Second sentence; Walsh is clueless at the scrum, as are most of these aerobically brilliant modern refs that once played wing for their club under 12s, including Wayne Barnes too. If he got most calls right at the scrum, it was luck.

Look, there's more at stake here than who wins a Wales-England match; both teams will meet each other again next year and the result might be different. The safety of the players is a different matter; I genuinely believe that a ref who hasn't played in the pack will find it very difficult to understand what causes scrums to collapse or front rows' heads to pop up out of the top, and so he can't possibly look after the players properly. FFS, most forwards who've been there a thousand times can't judge who or what has caused a collapse in most cases, but at least they know when to talk to a player about his positioning and when to keep their gobs shut.

[malvolio]

Blah....
Signed,

AN ANGRY FORWARD

Which attitude is why England will never be a world class team. The top teams - the southern hemisphere, the Welsh and Ireland when they have a half-decent coach and aren't full of people who should have retired five years ago - play to win, they don't play to win at any costs. I didn't see the Welsh moaning at the referee at the scrum, they just got on with it. I didn't see any Welsh back waving at the referee that someone was off-side or knocked on either. The ref wasn't giving the hooker a lesson on setting a scrum, he was giving him a lesson in listening to the referee. Stop bickering and looking for excuses, just get on and play the bloody game as best you can.

England are a young team have a way to go, but I haven't seen any of them that can play free rugby; if the set piece doesn't work, they're never really that convincing. Some of their "stars", most notably Farell and that clown Ashton, are actually a liability. And for all their supposed dominance in this particular campaign, they haven't really faced a seriously good side. Until yesterday...

That said, the acid test is against the Wallabies and the All Blacks. Yesterday Wales played All Black rugby, but I still don't think they're quite there yet.

[Mich the Tester]

Which attitude is why England will never be a world class team. The top teams - the southern hemisphere, the Welsh and Ireland when they have a half-decent coach and aren't full of people who should have retired five years ago - play to win, they don't play to win at any costs. I didn't see the Welsh moaning at the referee at the scrum, they just got on with it. I didn't see any Welsh back waving at the referee that someone was off-side or knocked on either. The ref wasn't giving the hooker a lesson on setting a scrum, he was giving him a lesson in listening to the referee. Stop bickering and looking for excuses, just get on and play the bloody game as best you can.

.

Bollocks; if the ref has an issue with a player not listening to him, then there are plenty of ways to deal with that; lecturing him about his foot positioning at the scrum is frankly ridiculous if the message he wants to get across is 'I want you to shut up and listen to me'. Yes, get on with the game, but let's sort out this crap refereeing at the scrum before it does real damage to the game.