England's on-field moves and training drills were discovered at Ireland's team hotel

From the BBC round up email

Tactical briefing notes about England's on-field moves and training drills were discovered at Ireland's team hotel in Wellington. Nine pages of A3 paper inside a cardboard folder were discovered in an empty conference room at the Inter-Continental Hotel, three days before England were knocked out in the quarter-finals by France. Among other things the papers detail 'Exit Fix-Ups' and Red Zone' tactics, with the advice 'Adapt if required'. At one stage it looked as if England could play Ireland in the semi-finals.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_union/15251332.stm

Hmmmm...now what does this mean?

It means someone in the England camp left it lying around somewhere.

Of course that could be carelessness or a clever plant of the wrong tactics to a potential opponent.

Either way its in the shredder now.

We had tactic's and moves????????

Knackeredknees wrote:We had tactic's and moves????????

Hmmmm...now what does this mean?

we should have got wales details

Well isnt that quite normal? I mean dont all teams study their oppositions tactics before playinbg them?

Now if they were on RFU headed note paper and marked top secret ..fair enough we would have a story here. But if the suggestion is that by watching replays of Englands games and taking notes that Ireland were somehow cheating ....I find that a bit of a leap to say the least.
Even if they were "secretly" watching their open training sessions it would hardly be a scandal.

call me paranoid if you like, but if England, not Ireland, were found with notes on their potential semi final opponents then the England squad would be accused of being arrogant and assuming that they'd win the quarter final!

Maybe if we'd have feckin bothered to study Wales tactics instead of Englands we might still be in the tournament.

rugbyfan, clearly the england team were being extremely arrogant and saying "hey, we'll beat france, no problem, and ireland, pfffft, you might aswell see our game-plans and moves, we'll still DOMINATE you".

rugbyfan wrote:call me paranoid if you like, but if England, not Ireland, were found with notes on their potential semi final opponents then the England squad would be accused of being arrogant and assuming that they'd win the quarter final!

+1

red_stag wrote:

rugbyfan wrote:call me paranoid if you like, but if England, not Ireland, were found with notes on their potential semi final opponents then the England squad would be accused of being arrogant and assuming that they'd win the quarter final!

+1

+2

It was obviously a double bluff, by deliberately letting the Irish have a copy of our “tactics” the Irish would make plans accordingly and then lose handsomely when they played us as they discovered that we didn’t have any.

Pity we didn’t try the same with the French

Well obviously England messed up... they assumed they would beat France and assumed Ireland would beat Wales. So in the upcoming Ireland V England semi final they would lull the Irish into a false sense of security.

I wonder what it said. Show up with a bit of passion, attack them out wide and you'll win the game.

Pretty sure that's what Lievremont's notes said, as well as some scribblings for a recipe for cassoulet, and some general questions about rugby: what is a fly half and what do they do again? What's wrong with selecting the French side based on a rudimentary game of lotto?

The French game tactics were discovered in the Cadbury factory in Hamilton. Apparently some Oompa-Loompas disguised themselves as dwarves and got some of the boys on the turps and got them to spoil the beans. They then sold them to Lievremont who is in tune with fantasy and the rest, c'est l´histoire mes amis.

Ah yes, the Cadbury factory. Is that where he obtained that skid mark on his upper lip? Munching a finger of fudge......

Oops that should have been spill the beans. Spoil the bookies as well.

Training drills would be -
1050-1100 match tactics (optional)
gym 11-11.15 (also optional),
1145- 1430 lunch 4 courses,
1445- 1730 visit to wine growers complete with mega free samples -sponsored by Neurofen and Tampax (mandatory),
1800- 2030 dinner 6 courses with wine and port after sleeping off afternoon wine,
2030- 0300 evening dwarf type entertainment arranged by The Brand, DH and CA after some light hearted banter with hotel staff (3 line whip here - even Wilko),
0300 - 0800 retire to fashionable nightclub where we resume Tindo's Big Bash- fnaar, fnaar (again mandatory - ST is the Judge)- sponsored by Spearmint Rhino
0900 lights out after a 'morning stiffener ' in Fodo's room
1000 seriously lights out

Repeat until we reach the final then we will review

It means Kidney underestimated France as well.

To be fair, you should be doing your analysis the week before. So:

Ireland should have had dossiers on Wales and South Africa before the Italy game. Having beaten Italy, they should have used the week before the Wales game to implement their game plan. Meanwhile they should have been looking at potential semi-final opponents and preparing for all eventualities. Then, had they won, on the Sunday (while the players rest) they could cross-reference what they had on their opponent with how their opponent played on Saturday, and then started implementing a game plan on Monday in training.

I think it's good planning to be honest. If they had beat Wales they'd want more than 24 hours to watch all the tapes on their opponents before training on Monday. They should be building up these files on potential opponents from the start of the tournament as they go.

Knackeredknees wrote:We had tactic's and moves????????

for the press yes, for the games, no, they were left in the hotel

Riskysports wrote:From the BBC round up email

Tactical briefing notes about England's on-field moves and training drills were discovered at Ireland's team hotel in Wellington. Nine pages of A3 paper inside a cardboard folder were discovered in an empty conference room at the Inter-Continental Hotel, three days before England were knocked out in the quarter-finals by France. Among other things the papers detail 'Exit Fix-Ups' and Red Zone' tactics, with the advice 'Adapt if required'. At one stage it looked as if England could play Ireland in the semi-finals.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_union/15251332.stm

Hmmmm...now what does this mean?

Frankly I'm stunned that the England tactics could fill up nine pages of A3? Were they illustrated with large crayon drawings?

Exactly how many pages do you need to express "Forwards bash it up. Centers Bash it up. Wings...erm, try to keep warm. Jonny kick a goal. JONNNNNYYY KICK A GOAL"

Yep scrumV took a picture of it and put it on twitter,was hilarious to see.
The scrumV boys almost gleeful about the whole thing.

The room almost looked like an abandoned boiler room who new the police were coming,paper every where, plugs still in the wall but no appliances on the end of them and chairs scattered about and the white board with the plans on!
Bizarre scenes

rugbyfan wrote:call me paranoid if you like, but if England, not Ireland, were found with notes on their potential semi final opponents then the England squad would be accused of being arrogant and assuming that they'd win the quarter final!

You are paranoid, who would do such a thing!

All Blacks legend Jonah Lomu has been discharged from hospital. A spokesman for Auckland City Hospital confirmed Lomu left the renal unit on Monday afternoon, after being admitted with kidney failure 16 days ago. Lomu had been undergoing intensive daily dialysis and other treatment to repair the kidney he received in a 2004 transplant.

good news! legend of the game

Apparently amongst the papers were, and I quote the article:

"The heading "The Big Picture" is scrawled across one A3 sheet in red paper, above four points that read "1. Completion", "2. Discipline", "3.Tempo" and "4. Relentless". "

Really? Are we sure that these were the English team's notes or one of the remaining four teams who don't want to own up.

Nine pages of on field plans......not possible. Nine words is believable, but nine pages?? Made up story.