England post 2022 6Ns, Aus tour and beyond

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Hate to say it and I don't wish him injured but I'm glad Ewels not available!
If you're disappointed with Malins and Daly being selected, imagine how most of us feel about Youngs being there.
In fairness, Malins and Daly been superb this season but please give Radwan and Arundell a run.

All that money Bezos has and he can't fund a working scoreboard.

mountain man wrote:JvP having a poor game. Almost be glad when Young's gets on.
Almost.

He's not having an easy time but if you look at the lineout it's a series of errors. The lineout is thrown long so the pod ends up over the 15. Means no offside line and the openside can fly up. The pass down to JVP is then on his wrong side and low so he has to readjust before he can pass and then he still throws the pass when it's no longer on. Typifies England's first half.

Really disappointing to see England wasting so many phases at the line. Smith and Farrell just stood there watching. Need some invention, where was the sweep round to the blindside, why did they let Manu go in with the forwards. Poor.

Great try from NZ to close out the win. England had their chance to get it back to four points, but fluffed it.

Duty281 wrote:All that money Bezos has and he can't fund a working scoreboard.

Amazon Prime’s playback feature is also terrible.

Yep - really hard work to rewind and look ... wasn't sure he was onside but didn't get a proper look. England wasting their chances, NZ taking theirs

Clear tackle off the ball right before the knock-on missed.

Horror game for JVP. Wonder if that was Tuilagi's last game as well.

Doesn't ball have to go forwards to be a knock-on?

Now the referee gets in the way just as England are about to steal it. Scrum to NZ.

Why can nobody on the coaching team see that Mako Vunipola is a dreadful scrummager?

Clear release?

Duty281 wrote:Clear tackle off the ball right before the knock-on missed.

Horror game for JVP. Wonder if that was Tuilagi's last game as well.

Miserable day for JVP but he's been left high and dry by his forwards. That knock on where the commentators were happy to give him stick is all caused because no one is remotely close to the breakdown so he has to pick and step before the pass whilst he waits for his teammates to actually wake up and get up with play.

Offside in front of kicker ...

Another knock-on?

England have dominated this half with absolutely no end product.

Standard of officiating is on the floor. World Rugby need to do something as elite players deserve better than amateur officiating.

Said it before. Nowell lost it. Not quick enough and doesn't offer enough. May lost his pace. Get someone fast in team

YC surely now ...

mountain man wrote:Said it before. Nowell lost it. Not quick enough and doesn't offer enough. May lost his pace. Get someone fast in team

I think May has shown he's plenty fast enough though Nowell's time in the team should be over. Would have made no difference to the result today mind. England forwards have been shockingly poor, so many errors and needless penalties.

Imagine how much better England would be with Rowlands and Ribbans starting, with AWJ on the bench.

England looking alright now. Hope Smith’s missed kick doesn’t cost them.

Youngs. Ffs.

My word. What a comeback. England suddenly found some end product once they trusted their back line.

I was going to comment on how poor England was in this match, but that is an epic fight back.

Blimey ... and let's not forget the 7 points gifted to NZ at the start courtesy of a fantasy knock-on ...

stop whining about the ref! all refs make errors for both sides in a game. Plenty of errors or 50 / 50 calls favouring England as well

Rugby is a very difficult game to ref

WTF? Why kick it out?

Shame about the missed conversion ...

TJ wrote:stop whining about the ref!  all refs make errors for both sides in a game.  Plenty of errors or 50 / 50 calls favouring England as well

Rugby is a very difficult game to ref

I can whine as much as I like thanks - don't need your permission

Why would you kick it out when you have a man advantage? Crazy stuff.

I'll take that draw!

Fair play for 70 mins NZ way better but I'll admit Young's and yes Mako very good

When I saw Mako and Ben coming on my heart sank. Er no I mean huzzah!

Very strange game. Reminded me of 2013 with England's slow start gifting NZ a sizable lead, before the home side fought back. They fell short in 2013, but found parity here.

Trying to batter it over for 70 minutes didn't work. Spreading the ball wide did, albeit with NZ down to 14. Shame they didn't go for it at the end, but understandable. Will Jones learn from that? Not sure. Not sure we'll see JVP or Tuilagi for a while.

Refereeing was an embarrassment. Not biased, just completely incompetent.

NZ won't know how they didn't win that.

Mr Bounce wrote:Youngs. Ffs.

That dink over the top was the only blemish in an otherwise outstanding cameo. That dink was also 100% on and was a try if May had been on his feet and wasn't in the ruck. I'm guessing Youngs saw the space and reacted before looking.

Forwards finally stopped stuffing up and gave the backs some ball and the attack started to work. Smith and Steward were the stand outs. Replacements all looked at least decent.

Yeah really wierd game. Well done to England fir the come back though.

That will surely go down as the biggest come back by England this year. NZ well in the lead for 70 minutes and to come back and get a draw was fantastic.

Very interesting how dangerous England look when they drop playing the tight game (which does not work for them - they get turned over far too often) and just play heads up stuff. It's almost as though they've been told not to try low percentage stuff unless there's no option.

Smith, Farrell, Slade, May and Steward all very good. Cannot for the life of me understand the hype around Tom Curry. Every game I see him in, he concedes two penalties at least and doesn't do much else.

Shame Farrell picked up a knock and stopped taking the kicks as I suspect he wouldn't have missed the conversion that would have given them the win - but to come back from where they were was something else ...

Not for nothing, David Ribbans was in the middle of that comeback. Hopefully he was not part of the decision to not go for the win.

That was good, coming back to salvage a draw against a French ref.

Steff Thomas (a journo I rate very highly) has just said Steward must be close to being the best FB in the world.

doctor_grey wrote:Not for nothing, David Ribbans was in the middle of that comeback.  Hopefully he was not part of the decision to not go for the win.  

He was passable last week. This week was in my view a real statement performance. Hill was poor and Ribbans injected both physicality and some nice attacking touches.

Risca, Steward has been exceptionally reliable. Acceleration is getting better but he's never going to be rapid, when he's up to speed he can shift so time his run onto the ball and then he's a bloody big lad to bring down. Under the high ball he's probably the best, skillset is nice. If you're picking best 15 in the world then he's in the conversation and isn't 22 for a couple more weeks.

RiscaGame wrote:Steff Thomas (a journo I rate very highly) has just said Steward must be close to being the best FB in the world.

Check out the Henry Arundell highlight tape - all though he's more likely to move to wing to allow Steward to stay at FB.

lostinwales wrote:

RiscaGame wrote:Steff Thomas (a journo I rate very highly) has just said Steward must be close to being the best FB in the world.

Check out the Henry Arundell highlight tape - all though he's more likely to move to wing to allow Steward to stay at FB.

I'm hoping England move to an Arundell, Freeman and Steward back three. Compliment the strength and consistency of Steward with big and pacey Freeman, ridiculous and pacey Arundell. Three fullbacks in the back three would make for a very tough team to kick against.

formerly known as Sam wrote:

lostinwales wrote:

RiscaGame wrote:Steff Thomas (a journo I rate very highly) has just said Steward must be close to being the best FB in the world.

Check out the Henry Arundell highlight tape - all though he's more likely to move to wing to allow Steward to stay at FB.

I'm hoping England move to an Arundell, Freeman and Steward back three. Compliment the strength and consistency of Steward with big and pacey Freeman, ridiculous and pacey Arundell. Three fullbacks in the back three would make for a very tough team to kick against.

And without sacrificing any attacking ability - just the opposite. too logical to happen.

IMO the main issue with England selections is the centres. Have the best back 3 in the world but with the current centres they will not get any decent passes in space

TJ wrote:IMO the main issue with England selections is the centres.  Have the best back 3 in the world but with the current centres they will not get any decent passes in space

Really. Right. OK. Dear me.

Just finished watching this after stupidly arranging a family meal out without thinking about rugby. At the time of the finish there seems almost a feeling of relief but I can't help but feeling this sucks so much. An awful first half almost admitting the awful choice of team. Eventually it almost felt the team went OK Smith please help us and let go a little and gave a glimpse of what could be. But then the disappointment of going and kicking it out when we could have gone for the win....

Meh. Fed up with Jones.

How many decent passes did the wings or FB get today?

My point simply is that it matters not a lot who the back 3 is if all they do is chase kicks all day and never get a pass.  I didn't mean yo have the best back 3 now.

formerly known as Sam wrote:

doctor_grey wrote:Not for nothing, David Ribbans was in the middle of that comeback.  Hopefully he was not part of the decision to not go for the win.  

He was passable last week. This week was in my view a real statement performance. Hill was poor and Ribbans injected both physicality and some nice attacking touches.

Risca, Steward has been exceptionally reliable. Acceleration is getting better but he's never going to be rapid, when he's up to speed he can shift so time his run onto the ball and then he's a bloody big lad to bring down. Under the high ball he's probably the best, skillset is nice. If you're picking best 15 in the world then he's in the conversation and isn't 22 for a couple more weeks.

Think Ribbans was more than passable last week. Carried hard. Tackles hard. As I said the only question mark was lineout whre 3 went awry with him as the aim...but LCD throwing. This week the lineoit throwing went OK, with 2 'flankers' on with either lock combo. Maul was again terrible, get rid of whoever that is along with Jones and employ Deacon now.

TJ wrote:How many decent passes did the wings or FB get today?

My point simply is that it matters not a lot who the back 3 is if all they do is chase kicks all day and never get a pass.  I didn't mean yo have the best back 3 now.

So is your point it's down to selection of centres who have been part of a great attack in the past or the piss poor tactics now. Cos it sounds like the second.

England in patches looked very powerful and consistently breaking the gainline but invariably couldn't hold onto the ball or gave away soft penalties.
The AB props who scrum long look suspect to me and could be got at with a ref who understands scrums and thought he made a couple of glaring errors but the AB openside flanker looks a fantastic player.
Noticeable that when Farrell went to first receiver and Smith attacked the line England suddenly had options. Not sure if that was a tactic or because Farrell was carrying a knock.
Ribbans looks a prospect in the Kruis role to Itoje's all round game. Thought Curry looked pretty subdued but hopefully with Lawes and Underhill to come back into the reckoning, the pack options are shaping up nicely.
I am not one of the Young bashers and yes he is slower but his decision making is still right up there.
The cameos from all the subs was positive. Big game next week.