Scotland 6N post mortem

TJ wrote:

RubyGuby wrote:Defences double up TJ for all the clean breaks they never looked like getting over the gain line. A lack of composure and some basic mistakes but there was little subtlety involved and Scotland have 2 great centres IMO. Slow ball and a lack of depth in the back line who were too flat and relatively easy pickings for that defence

They got over the gain line a fair amount - but yes the secondary defence / sweeper / whatever you call it was always there.  Lack of depth is very true tho - after a couple of phases we did end up in a static line so further progress was not going to happen.

Englands backs missed far more tackles than the Scotland backs and we should have scored as a result but too many ( sometimes forced)mistakes cost us.  Farrell proved to be the weak point as predicted - missing 3 tackles and giving away petulant penalties and quite honestly should have been yellow carded.  13 had to come in to help him defend and thus leaving space ( that we couldn't exploit) on the outside

I think you misunderstand the Gustard defensive system. The wolf pack system is not based on never missing tackles. It is based on hunting in numbers. Sarries miss more tackles than many teams but have the best defence in the Aviva Premiership and probably Europe. Farrell has never been seen as a weak link in the Sarries defence.

As for a yellow card that is ludicrous. If players get sent of for a push then there would be nobody left on the pitch. The only time you might get a card for a push is if it was to the face or if it prevented someone getting in a position to score or a similar professional foul.

I know some people don't like Farrell and I can see why. However you are kidding yourself if you think he is a weak link in England's team. He is certainly better at ten than twelve but he is just a stopgap covering injuries to Tuilagi and Slade following which he will be England's first choice ten.

Having been at Murrayfield yesterday my assessment is that Farrell would walk into Scotland's team at ten or twelve and be hailed as the new hope.

Hidalgo-Clyne is your best SH by a long way. Trying to fit Laidlaw in there for his kicking will handicap your team and in particular your accomplished centres

True Raven wrote:

Shifty wrote:

maestegmafia wrote:

Shifty wrote:

maestegmafia wrote:I think you guys are being harsh on the team. I would say the halfbacks were an issue, not a great day, I would probably pick a scrum half like SHC who will worry opposition back rows much more. But there is nothing wrong with the rest of the team.

Maesteg their terrible year on year.  
Only Richie Gray and Denton would have any hope of playing International rugby if they were Irish, Welsh or English.  Though they don't seem to be on great form either.

Absolute rubbish Alan.

Bennett, Smith, Dunbar, Hogg, Nel, Barclay all very good players. Better than there opposition numbers yesterday.

Bad ref, wrong tactics in attack and poor accuracy

They haven't beaten England in 9 games.
They have beaten France just once in the last 18 games.
They have beaten Wales once in 13 games.
They lose 1 in every 3 games to the Italians.  

Their record is shocking.  

There was a point not too long ago when we couldn't beat England, France or Ireland.   Really don't understand why a Welshman needs to come on a thread about Scotland and be a complete arse

This is a much better Scotland team than they have fielded in a decade. They have a world class coaching team and they will get it right and win games.

RubyGuby wrote:Hidalgo-Clyne is your best SH by a long way. Trying to fit Laidlaw in there for his kicking will handicap your team and in particular your accomplished centres

SHC had a poor WC warmup and fell down the pecking order behind Pyrgos. Not done much since either

RubyGuby wrote:Hidalgo-Clyne is your best SH by a long way. Trying to fit Laidlaw in there for his kicking will handicap your team and in particular your accomplished centres

S H-C is a very promising young player and looked to have the world at his feet last year. He has however not really kicked on this season so far and has not been putting in international class performances for Edinburgh. He is not in all honesty challenging Laidlaw for the shirt at the moment as he was last year. Hopefully this is just a bit of second season syndrome and he will kick on again. VC did not even bring him off the bench yesterday and hardly used him in the WC, so he clearly seems to be of the same opinion.

You can't really argue with the half back selection yesterday and they will play again next week, despite neither really playing that well. Another game like that though and VCs hand may be forced.

RubyGuby wrote:Hidalgo-Clyne is your best SH by a long way. Trying to fit Laidlaw in there for his kicking will handicap your team and in particular your accomplished centres

At Murrayfield yesterday Laidlaw was ponderous. Too often the ball was available at the back of the ruck and he took so long that England's defence had plenty of time to reorganise. For that reason as a Gloucester fan I don't even think he is Gloucester's best nine albeit he is useful for taking short place kicks.

If he is play Cotter has to tell him to speed it up.

The pace and intensity that Ireland and Wales are playing at is many levels above anything we saw yesterday - I fear for Scotland against both these teams!

The other obvious point is that Ireland and Wales' kicking game is much,much better than ours.

They both have a wonderful variety of kicking to their game.

True Raven wrote:There was a point not too long ago when we couldn't beat England, France or Ireland.   Really don't understand why a Welshman needs to come on a thread about Scotland and be a complete arse

Wales have never been this bad, even during the late 80's and early 90's we finished third in the world cup, won the triple crown in 88, and the championship in 94.

I don't mean to upset people but am I really the only one who gets sick and tired of the Scottish pundits year on year talking about growing, potential, maturing, learning, etc, etc? Then see these garbage players fail miserably each and every time.

Then the forum posters, pundits, start blaming the coach, then we begin the process all over again. It's sad but it's honest to say these Scottish lads are a total embarrassment to their countrymen.

I say the same thing each year but the whole of Scottish rugby is rotten to the core, starting with the SRU downwards. Their U20's beat England last week yet almost none of those boys will get any kind of a chance to be a professional and grow because of the poor way Glasgow and Edinburgh are run. Yet Wales can lose 92-0 to New Zealand at U20 level and yet nearly all of those lads still get a chance to develop and learn as professionals.

Scotland will NEVER improve or get better results until it looks at itself and changes it's entire system. They badly need a Pro12 team that is SRU run and is there for development where their U20 level players can get a chance to play, learn and DEVELOP. As a result they will never develop any depth, and frankly their poor to average players can keep picking up undeserved caps for poor performances. They complain they don't have the finances yet at the same time hire a team to actively go out and look for Southern Hemisphere based players who can move to Scotland and qualify on residency. I don't mean players with Scottish blood either, I mean any old player who isn't good enough for their own country.

Shifty - would you please like to bugger off from the scotland / England thread. Its nothing to do with wales. Its been a decent thread and you come on with your stupid and ignorant opinions and spouting how great wales are.

You are an ignorant and nasty troll and have done your best to ruin two threads.
JUST. GO. AWAY

TJ wrote:Shifty - would you please like to bugger off from the scotland / England thread.  Its nothing to do with wales.  Its been a decent thread and you come on with your stupid and ignorant opinions and spouting how great wales are.

You are an ignorant and nasty troll and have done your best to ruin two threads.  
JUST.  GO.  AWAY

Exactly HOW did I ruin the Scotland and England thread?
All I've done on this thread is tell the truth by explaining how dire Scotland are, and point out what they really need to do to put things right, saying that it's been obvious to everyone for many years except the SRU...
do you REALLY think it's a bad idea to actually try and develop some of your talented U20 players instead of wasting their talent.
Hell if memory serves me right Scotlands latest brain wave was to try and recruit a rugby league player from New Zealand to convert to a full back, because he had some Scottish relative going back his grandparents.

Shify. We all know that we have problems

The sru are addressing some of it (grass roots London Scottish more money etc) but it is a slow process

What we don't need is bad winners coming to gloat at every opportunity.

None of us say we are world beaters and most hoped for 2 wins. A reasonable target.

We have some good players and are developing but maybe not fast enough

Coming into to kick a person when they are down is just bad sport

Also simply ignorant.

the scottish pro 12 teams are run by the sru and used to develop under 20 players. The main improvement in our under 20s this year is because key players are playing for the pro 12 clubs.

Shifty - you have now made half a dozen posts on the two scotland threads all saying how great welsh players and the welsh team are - deliberately inciting argument, nothing to doi with the topic and wi9th this last one you show not just your disdain but your ignorance

This is the definition of trolling. Its not big, its not clever,

It is tedious and dull.

Shifty wrote:Exactly HOW did I ruin the Scotland and England thread?

I think you have an ability to do it all the time - just by showing up.

Riskysports wrote:Shify.  We all know that we have problems

The sru are addressing some of it (grass roots London Scottish more money etc) but it is a slow process

What we don't need is bad winners coming to gloat at every opportunity.

None of us say we are world beaters and most hoped for 2 wins. A reasonable target.

We have some good players and are developing but maybe not fast enough

Coming into to kick a person when they are down is just bad sport

I appreciate how you feel Risky, but what's changed year on year?  What's being done?  
Type in Scotland into the search threads section and you get something like this:

Scotland post 6 nations thread:
Scotland crushed:
sack the coach:
who should be scotlands new coach:

scotland you do not deserve my time: <---  https://www.606v2.com/t57924-scotland-you-do-not-deserve-my-time

Thats your topic from a year ago by the way^^^

I'm pretty sure we had a similar discussion in 2013 and 2014 as well, I just haven't the time to dig them up now.  

I don't see it as kicking someone when their down, but Scottish topics are like the film Ground Hog day, it's the same bloody thing over and over and over and over and everyone blames the coach, but no one mentions the infrastructure, or how Scotland can possibly develop their talented young players with a view to replacing the current crop of players who are failing badly.  
Even if Scotland picked their U20 team for the main tournament for the rest of the season it isn't possible to do any worse in terms of wins and losses, so why not do what Wales did when Steve Hansen came in to coach Wales?  He took our U20 team, kicked the older failing players out and taught them from scratch.  That legacy is why Wales are where they are today.

I think mentally speaking these Scottish players are carrying too much baggage now, and EXPECT to fail and always make sure they do.

Riskysports wrote:Shify.  We all know that we have problems

The sru are addressing some of it (grass roots London Scottish more money etc) but it is a slow process

What we don't need is bad winners coming to gloat at every opportunity.

None of us say we are world beaters and most hoped for 2 wins. A reasonable target.

We have some good players and are developing but maybe not fast enough

Coming into to kick a person when they are down is just bad sport

This.

You'd think Scottish rugby fans don't know what the problems in Scottish rugby are! I'm glad we've been told.

Shifty wrote:

TJ wrote:Shifty - would you please like to bugger off from the scotland / England thread.  Its nothing to do with wales.  Its been a decent thread and you come on with your stupid and ignorant opinions and spouting how great wales are.

You are an ignorant and nasty troll and have done your best to ruin two threads.  
JUST.  GO.  AWAY

Exactly HOW did I ruin the Scotland and England thread?
All I've done on this thread is tell the truth by explaining how dire Scotland are, and point out what they really need to do to put things right, saying that it's been obvious to everyone for many years except the SRU...
do you REALLY think it's a bad idea to actually try and develop some of your talented U20 players instead of wasting their talent.  
Hell if memory serves me right Scotlands latest brain wave was to try and recruit a rugby league player from New Zealand to convert to a full back, because he had some Scottish relative going back his grandparents.

As only Tonga had more non indigenous players than Wales at the RWC I cannot see why it is a problem if Scotland copy Wales.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/rugbyunion/rugby-world-cup/11892543/England-v-Wales-I-say-boyo-are-you-sure-that-youre-Welsh.html

Shifty the main reasons things aren't changing fast are:

- resources

- money

Scotland have significantly less players to choose from across all levels compared to the other 6N teams. There's not a quick fix for that and the SRU are actually pretty good at spreading the game at youth level - we're always fighting a losing battle against football though, and the resources available at state school level. My rugby club funds a development officer to coach the local high school at all levels and our club team. Without him my old school (which has a strong rugby heritage) wouldn't play rugby. This is the same story across Scottish state schools.

The other main thing is money. Yes we all know we need a 3rd pro team but there is a real good reason that we don't have it - money. Yes we could seek private investment but who would pay fur a Scottish pro team from scratch? Especially what happened when a private consortium bought over Edinburgh several years ago.

Things are getting better though - the 20M from BT has been mainly invested in academies, and our under 20s team beat England at the weekend - they usually get humped at that level.

So yes there are lots of things that can be done, but that are no easy ways to do it.

And feck me we Scottish rugby fans know it!

Shifty wrote:

True Raven wrote:There was a point not too long ago when we couldn't beat England, France or Ireland.   Really don't understand why a Welshman needs to come on a thread about Scotland and be a complete arse

Wales have never been this bad, even during the late 80's and early 90's we finished third in the world cup, won the triple crown in 88, and the championship in 94.  

I don't mean to upset people but am I really the only one who gets sick and tired of the Scottish pundits year on year talking about growing, potential, maturing, learning, etc, etc?  Then see these garbage players fail miserably each and every time.  

Then the forum posters, pundits, start blaming the coach, then we begin the process all over again.  It's sad but it's honest to say these Scottish lads are a total embarrassment to their countrymen.    

I say the same thing each year but the whole of Scottish rugby is rotten to the core, starting with the SRU downwards.  Their U20's beat England last week yet almost none of those boys will get any kind of a chance to be a professional and grow because of the poor way Glasgow and Edinburgh are run.  Yet Wales can lose 92-0 to New Zealand at U20 level and yet nearly all of those lads still get a chance to develop and learn as professionals.  

Scotland will NEVER improve or get better results until it looks at itself and changes it's entire system.  They badly need a Pro12 team that is SRU run and is there for development where their U20 level players can get a chance to play, learn and DEVELOP.  As a result they will never develop any depth, and frankly their poor to average players can keep picking up undeserved caps for poor performances.  They complain they don't have the finances yet at the same time hire a team to actively go out and look for Southern Hemisphere based players who can move to Scotland and qualify on residency.  I don't mean players with Scottish blood either, I mean any old player who isn't good enough for their own country.

I think there was a point when Wales were worse and yes, it's from that era.

I do get fed up of hearing and reading it yes, but not as wound up as you. It's rather disingenuous to refer to their players as garbage when they have a lot of good players.

I do also find that quite a few of their fans that post online tend to blame the ref every time they lose to Wales, but not any other teams (or maybe they do and I don't see it). They certainly aren't the only ones to do so though. They're not all an embarrassment either, that's a very ignorant comment to make.

I'm not sure how their union is rotten, or why you would think it. How do you know that all of these players from the current team won't make it as pro players? A poster on here mentioned that some of them have had game time with Glasgow and Edinburgh already. And if it's almost the same team as last year then I think a few of them will go on to be professional players, and they're clearly a much improved team this year.

Their system could probably do with an improvement but I don't see that as a reason to attack them. The system in Wales is also far from flawless. And we all partake in a bit of poaching from other countries from time to time . Lay off Scotland shifty, you seem to have it in for them.

Exiledinborders wrote:

Shifty wrote:

TJ wrote:Shifty - would you please like to bugger off from the scotland / England thread.  Its nothing to do with wales.  Its been a decent thread and you come on with your stupid and ignorant opinions and spouting how great wales are.

You are an ignorant and nasty troll and have done your best to ruin two threads.  
JUST.  GO.  AWAY

Exactly HOW did I ruin the Scotland and England thread?
All I've done on this thread is tell the truth by explaining how dire Scotland are, and point out what they really need to do to put things right, saying that it's been obvious to everyone for many years except the SRU...
do you REALLY think it's a bad idea to actually try and develop some of your talented U20 players instead of wasting their talent.  
Hell if memory serves me right Scotlands latest brain wave was to try and recruit a rugby league player from New Zealand to convert to a full back, because he had some Scottish relative going back his grandparents.

As only Tonga had more non indigenous players than Wales at the RWC I cannot see why it is a problem if Scotland copy Wales.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/rugbyunion/rugby-world-cup/11892543/England-v-Wales-I-say-boyo-are-you-sure-that-youre-Welsh.html

Yes, yes funny, were all aware that many Welsh lads are dual qualified, or have Welsh parents who worked in England and had children born there.  George Norths parents are Welsh and his dad was stationed in England as a result of being in the Armed Forces, things like that happen.  He played all his early rugby in Llangefni in North Wales.  It may look odd but young Welsh people leaving Wales to find jobs in England is hardly surprising especially since nearly all Welsh jobs were in mining and steel industries and their all shut down.  Over the years I've read threads on accusations that Wales poached players, then you point out Tom Shanklins Dad played for Wales, and his Dad went to London Welsh to WORK, hence his son was born there.  Or That Ross Moriarty father was a Welsh international who went to play rugby league in England in the late 80's hence why his son was born there.  

I could just as easily say that Scotland made an approach for Steve Shingler when Andy Robinson was coach, and he was already "captured" for Wales.

Screw it, here's one of last years threads, same bloody discussion, just read that, remember it and we'll do the same thing in 2017!

https://www.606v2.com/t58139-change-of-coaches-for-scotland

As much as we like Scottish threads being turned into another debate about Welsh rugby, please refrain!

Maybe their starting early for next weekend RDW

It depends on who's creating the topics these days, RDW or George Carin?

That's what the Scotland v Wales match thread will be for (once GC pulls the finger out and makes it)

RDW_Scotland wrote:That's what the Scotland v Wales match thread will be for (once GC pulls the finger out and makes it)

If Scotland have long odds of the win, I might put a bet on them. If Wales lose I win money so might not be as angry, and the pay back from the Scottish posters won't matter so much. If Wales win, I lose money but won't really care.

Go away, shifty. I just had to sift through a bunch of Love sacks posts lecturing us about things we already know while ghosting and it was rather dull.

RDW_Scotland wrote:As much as we like Scottish threads being turned into another debate about Welsh rugby, please refrain!

Alun-Wyn Jones .

mikey_dragon wrote:

RDW_Scotland wrote:As much as we like Scottish threads being turned into another debate about Welsh rugby, please refrain!

Alun-Wyn Jones .

Is overated

Just joking

Shifty wrote:

Exiledinborders wrote:

Shifty wrote:

TJ wrote:Shifty - would you please like to bugger off from the scotland / England thread.  Its nothing to do with wales.  Its been a decent thread and you come on with your stupid and ignorant opinions and spouting how great wales are.

You are an ignorant and nasty troll and have done your best to ruin two threads.  
JUST.  GO.  AWAY

Exactly HOW did I ruin the Scotland and England thread?
All I've done on this thread is tell the truth by explaining how dire Scotland are, and point out what they really need to do to put things right, saying that it's been obvious to everyone for many years except the SRU...
do you REALLY think it's a bad idea to actually try and develop some of your talented U20 players instead of wasting their talent.  
Hell if memory serves me right Scotlands latest brain wave was to try and recruit a rugby league player from New Zealand to convert to a full back, because he had some Scottish relative going back his grandparents.

As only Tonga had more non indigenous players than Wales at the RWC I cannot see why it is a problem if Scotland copy Wales.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/rugbyunion/rugby-world-cup/11892543/England-v-Wales-I-say-boyo-are-you-sure-that-youre-Welsh.html

Yes, yes funny, were all aware that many Welsh lads are dual qualified, or have Welsh parents who worked in England and had children born there.  George Norths parents are Welsh and his dad was stationed in England as a result of being in the Armed Forces, things like that happen.  He played all his early rugby in Llangefni in North Wales.  It may look odd but young Welsh people leaving Wales to find jobs in England is hardly surprising especially since nearly all Welsh jobs were in mining and steel industries and their all shut down.  Over the years I've read threads on accusations that Wales poached players, then you point out Tom Shanklins Dad played for Wales, and his Dad went to London Welsh to WORK, hence his son was born there.  Or That Ross Moriarty father was a Welsh international who went to play rugby league in England in the late 80's hence why his son was born there.  

I could just as easily say that Scotland made an approach for Steve Shingler when Andy Robinson was coach, and he was already "captured" for Wales.

Screw it, here's one of last years threads, same bloody discussion, just read that, remember it and we'll do the same thing in 2017!  

https://www.606v2.com/t58139-change-of-coaches-for-scotland

So we have identified areas that we feel might need changed

And guess what - they did need changed - and VC has made changes - new coaches coming in - Scott Johnson (Who was only ever meant to be an interim as he was not of the right material - which he stated) has gone, and a new VC set up being developed

We are aware of the faults of our team and realise that it is a slow fix

You keep bleating on how if things don't change we will always be garbage

Guess what things are changing - The SRU developed a partnership with London Scottish to give a chance to develop more players (one of your big bugbears) - not a 3rd team, but a a 2.5 team - a start

Grass roots is being invested in massively

Project players are being used for short term gain (We need bums on seats) even though most us are uneasy on it (Necessary evil?)

So your ill informed vitriol is just that - ill informed - you do not even know the facts your are ranting about


And you can keep this link and quote me on it

I will also rant at my team - especially if they do not put in the effort - which was the link you mentioned - they were lazy and uninterested - which I do not like -and I will always pick that upi

but I will NEVER come unbidden into your thread and spout hate about your team - as that is just crass

PS -if you don't like the Scottish 'hope' for improvement

WTF do you bother reading the Scotland thread?

Oh yes trolling

mikey_dragon wrote:

RDW_Scotland wrote:As much as we like Scottish threads being turned into another debate about Welsh rugby, please refrain!

Alun-Wyn Jones .

Can't even spell his own name

Well this thread has deteriorated fast!!

Feeling flat after the game on Saturday. Hacked off at losing of course, but just annoyed that the team didn't play to its potential. What's with all this losing the ball in contact business?? I don't think there was anything wrong with the team selection. Perhaps in hindsight it would have been better to have Toolis and Strauss on the bench, as we lacked power in the final 20 minutes, but honestly I just think we were undone by better players. For all the pre-match criticism of his selection, I thought Haskell was excellent.

Onwards as they say. A World Class Wales outfit awaits us and our garbage players don't stand a chance, or something along those lines.....

Here's some depressing stats to cheer up our Monday morning courtesy of Tom English. Since we last won a 6N game 8 games ago:

68% of our points were scored in the first 30 minutes

78% of our points were scored in the first half

In 4 out of 8 we scored no second half points

In the last 8 2nd halfs we have scored a grand total of 22 points.

So why can't we score in the 2nd half of games?? Is it fitness? Lack of impact off the bench? Just not being very good??

I suspect one of the reasons is that we're usually playing catch up in 2nd halfs and therefore going for tries and not kicks at goal - failing to do so obviously.

I think lack of impact off the bench is a big factor, but I also think we lack a really physical ball carrier to punch holes. Denton actually had a decent game I thought, but when you look at Billy and Mako Vunipola in the last 20 minutes you can see that the Scottish tacklers, full of beans in the first half and able to chop them down, were starting to lose the collisions. Not missing tackles per se, but failing to knock them back.

There's just a level of ball carrier at international rugby that we lack. Look at France with Picamoles, Italy with Parisse, England with Billy V, Ireland with Stander and Heaslip, Wales with Faletau and AWJ. We can handle these guys for 40/50 minutes but when they bring on more power for the last quarter it just shifts the momentum enough to take us out of the game.

I think we should take a look at Josh Strauss for the bench. He's the closest thing we have to a true impact sub and I think we should also consider dropping a specialist lock from the bench as well, having both Cowan and Strauss to come on in the last 20 minutes. Denton can cover lock in an emergency, and there's such a big drop between Grayx2 and the next best lock that I'd be happier with the Grays just handling the 80 minutes. I thought we were less effective with Jonny Gray off the pitch. Swinson doesn't come close.

Apparantly my Brother bumped into Greig Laidlaw, Finn Russell and "another Back" (Not a huge rugby fan is oor tam), at 2am on Saturday In Macdonalds they were fresh and refreshed from the post match function and in need of Big Macs. Apparently Wee Greig was chatting away to my Brother and anyone else quite convivially but kept having to Sheppard Dancer away from causing a incident/drawing attention to themselves.

Another reason to like wee Greig he is a leader of men and man of the people.

Any idea why both Dickinson and Nel were subbed off so early? Gave up one aspect of the match where we had certainly appeared to have a (slight) advantage.

So when is Pyrgos due back?

MacKnocked-on wrote:Any idea why both Dickinson and Nel were subbed off so early? Gave up one aspect of the match where we had certainly appeared to have a (slight) advantage.

I didn't understand that either. It also coincided with the scrum being a dead heat to England having dominance.

Poor Fagerson was absolutely destroyed in one of them.

The Welsh scrum looked very good at the weekend - our reserve front row is a worry.

Bringing on Swinson was the substitution that really mystified me

RDW_Scotland wrote:

MacKnocked-on wrote:Any idea why both Dickinson and Nel were subbed off so early? Gave up one aspect of the match where we had certainly appeared to have a (slight) advantage.

I didn't understand that either.  It also coincided with the scrum being a dead heat to England having dominance.

Poor Fagerson was absolutely destroyed in one of them.

The Welsh scrum looked very good at the weekend - our reserve front row is a worry.

I felt that we probably had a slight edge in the scrum actually, some of the overhead camera shots appeared to show the English props boring in quite a bit so perhaps another ref might have picked up on that and with Nel and Dickinson both on the pitch we might have managed another kickable penalty or two? All conjecture of course and another ref might have taken a dislike to some other aspect of our play. Still think subbing our props was strange, it's not as if either of them aren't used to playing 80mins..

Agree - taking off Jonny Gray for Tim Swinson is akin to feeling you get picking up the 2-door Kia Ceed 1.0 litre courtesy car you get from the car dealership when your 4x4 is in for a service.

I hate pre-planned substitutions.

I wonder if the early subs were almost VC hoisting the white flag (knowing that we weren't going to score a try any time soon!) and savings players for Wales.

RDW_Scotland wrote:I wonder if the early subs were almost VC hoisting the white flag (knowing that we weren't going to score a try any time soon!) and savings players for Wales.

I hope not. We were within a converted try and with our inate ability at picking off interceptions (and we could have had another on Saturday) we were never exactly out of the game.

With all the hand wringing going on it's worth noting that we lost by 6 points. Last time England came with Lancaster we were beaten 20-0!

I think it was more trying to do something to change the pattern of the game.

TJ wrote:I think it was more trying to do something to change the pattern of the game.

Well if that was the intention he succeeded

TJ wrote:

mikey_dragon wrote:

RDW_Scotland wrote:As much as we like Scottish threads being turned into another debate about Welsh rugby, please refrain!

Alun-Wyn Jones .

Can't even spell his own name

It's a common error people who played Pro Rugby Manager make. I've seen lots of people do that by putting the dash in the wrong place, myself included.

I just can't bring myself to blame VC in any way. Sure the subs might have been a bit baffling, and the bench was debatable.

What cost us was the inability of professional sportsmen to show some basic skills in a job they are paid handsomely to perform. Sure mistakes are made, but when the same ones are made again and again and again then you start to question their attitude and set up.

I think our players suffer really badly from the big fish in a little pond syndrome.

Well, that was depressing.

As a number on here had feared, we were simply strangled out of the game by a hungrier and more powerful team.  Added to the poor form/no recent form of some of our players, and the drop in quality in bench, we never looked like seriously troubling England.

The biggest area of concern for me is Laidlaw.  He is a good player; at his best he is capable of varying the pace of the game and controlling the structure of the team (see Australia during the WC and against Argentina in Vern’s first autumn international series).  However, he was absolutely terrible on Saturday and can be held at least partially responsible for Russell being so poor.  I lost count of how many times I heard Lacey shouting ‘Use it 9’, and then wee Grieg delaying the pass for another two seconds.  Seriously, why does he feel the need to do this?  He seems to take all the responsibility on his own shoulders, to both his and the teams detriment.

A good article from Mike Blair, as always

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/scotland/35521934