England vs Springboks

Catogrande

I don't get all the hate on here for Itoje. he is a very good player and has been consistently for a number of years. Yeah he had a shit game today but that alone does not make him a shit player.

Anyway, back to the game.. There just seems to be a lack of structure to England's game. Have these guys actually met each other before? It doesn't seem that way.

Someone else on here said that the scoreline flattered England and I would agree. If you take Smith out of the equation we would have been embarrassed on the scoreboard. All the good stuff we did in attack, pretty much, was down to his more off the cuff play. Everything else we were doing was just the same thing with no real variation. The mouthy little twat Healey called it - just one off runners hitting it up with no pop passes or distribution options, meaning that the Bok defence could just gang tackle and the jackal.

As for the substitutions and yeah, we don't have access to all the player data but, we again substitute Martin when he was by far our best 2nd row on the day. Has it been pre-decided that Itoje is an 80 minute man and Martin is only a 65 minute man? It seems so. Underhill was our best forward and got hooked off first and he didn't look off the pace at all at that time..

This is really taking me back to the bad old days of Andy Robinson's reign except that Borthwick has some decent cattle.

Well done to all the Saffer posters. The better team won. Enjoy the victory.

Catogrande

@Smuts

Thanks Slim Jannie and well done to your guys. You have some generational players currently. Too many for my liking!

W32

@Catogrande said in England vs Springboks:

I don't get all the hate on here for Itoje. he is a very good player and has been consistently for a number of years. Yeah he had a shit game today but that alone does not make him a shit player.

Anyway, back to the game.. There just seems to be a lack of structure to England's game. Have these guys actually met each other before? It doesn't seem that way.

Someone else on here said that the scoreline flattered England and I would agree. If you take Smith out of the equation we would have been embarrassed on the scoreboard. All the good stuff we did in attack, pretty much, was down to his more off the cuff play. Everything else we were doing was just the same thing with no real variation. The mouthy little twat Healey called it - just one off runners hitting it up with no pop passes or distribution options, meaning that the Bok defence could just gang tackle and the jackal.

As for the substitutions and yeah, we don't have access to all the player data but, we again substitute Martin when he was by far our best 2nd row on the day. Has it been pre-decided that Itoje is an 80 minute man and Martin is only a 65 minute man? It seems so. Underhill was our best forward and got hooked off first and he didn't look off the pace at all at that time..

This is really taking me back to the bad old days of Andy Robinson's reign except that Borthwick has some decent cattle.

Well done to all the Saffer posters. The better team won. Enjoy the victory.

Thanks. Glimpses of England glory days there.. the next World Cup is shaping up to be even better than the last.

Machpants

@Catogrande said in England vs Springboks:

I don't get all the hate on here for Itoje. he is a very good player and has been consistently for a number of years. Yeah he had a shit game today but that alone does not make him a shit player.

The hate is because he is the ultimate screaming at line outs, cheering knock ons obnoxious knob jockey

W32

@Bones said in England vs Springboks:

@W32 said in England vs Springboks:

@Bones said in England vs Springboks:

@W32 said in England vs Springboks:

@Bones said in England vs Springboks:

@W32 said in England vs Springboks:

“We’re a very clever rugby team” George.

I think they are. This is a team of individuals trying their best to work together and doing a bloody good job - all in spite of the coaching. They were in the running to beat everyone this season despite being given no direction.

ok

You've outdone yourself. But hey if you're happy to label a team dumb when you scrape home against them..m

Relief at winning. Yeah, England look to on the edge of being a great team. Since last year.

Now imagine Schmidt in charge.

Nienaber

Duluth

Catogrande

@Machpants said in England vs Springboks:

@Catogrande said in England vs Springboks:

I don't get all the hate on here for Itoje. he is a very good player and has been consistently for a number of years. Yeah he had a shit game today but that alone does not make him a shit player.

The hate is because he is the ultimate screaming at line outs, cheering knock ons obnoxious knob jockey

He’s enthusiastic then. 😀

We all have our players that have less than attractive traits, sometimes I wonder if it is part of their designated job. For Itoje it certainly seemed that way under Eddie.

NTA

Brace is a poor ref.

Not as poor as England's edge defence.

Dodge

Borthwick has to go. Just has too. Get a confident, established coach and let him build a coaching set up I might actually have heard of. Our defence is as bad as I can ever remember it, and our structured attack non existent.

OomPB

@NTA Brace is a very strict ref, not bad. Much better then your Berry.

W32

@Dodge said in England vs Springboks:

Borthwick has to go. Just has too. Get a confident, established coach and let him build a coaching set up I might actually have heard of. Our defence is as bad as I can ever remember it, and our structured attack non existent.

Reading between the lines, Jones left because of borthwicks autocratic style. Do you think borthwick can learn from this, or is he too dictatorial ? England have a long history of sacking coaches at just the wrong time. The team are not far off being really good.

Catogrande

@W32

We’re a prop, an 8 and a centre partnership from being potentially good. We would need to ad a decent and stable coaching team to that.

Dodge

I’ve heard that Borthwick is paranoid, worried about losing his job and therefore a control freak. He’s the wrong man. The team look good in patches as they have some decent cattle (all be it were really short in the front row and in the centres), but the defence shows that the players don’t understand what the coaches want from them, my guess is that the coaches don’t understand either

Catogrande

@Dodge

Mail. Head.

Edit: fuck it NAIL.

Catogrande

Remembering those days when Borthwick was playing and all you heard was stuff like how technically good he was and what a good lineout caller he was. Very little was said about how ineffectual he was as a player given his physical gifts.