England & Eddie
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@rotated said in England & Eddie:
@Frank said in England & Eddie:
@rotated said in England & Eddie:
England... I mean they've made more RWC finals in the pro era than we have? Can't really stick the boot in.I'd say winning the finals is much more important.
Unless you want to give out participation awards.No doubt - but it's all a bit binary to say win the RWC or everything is a failure.
England have put together more good RWC campaigns than NZ in the pro era, and some absolute shockers as well.
But this is exactly what Eddie has banked on - his whole reputation has been built upon a few epic World Cup performances from "underrated" teams. In truth, he's shown little regard for rugby outside of the RWC by taking an all-conquering team in 2016 and accepting muddling performances for the next 3 years in the hope / expectation that it would be rewarded with a RWC victory.
Sure, the Boks have been largely shit since 2015 and, so, it would be inaccurate to say that they haven't sacrificed all the rugby in between in order to win this tournament. But, their shitness has largely been due to political machinations. As soon as they got a decent coach who has able to rise above it (or wasn't constrained by it), they started and were able to play to win, understanding that you actually need to build off a winning base to win the RWC.
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@Crucial said in England & Eddie:
I do agree with your post but would also point out that those very cliched tropes do have a basis to feed off and that actions like those the other night will keep stoking the fires.
I find the whole attitude to Rugby in England quite weird.
On one hand you have the genuine fans who are the same as everywhere else, are great to have beer with and think the likes of Stephen Jones an even bigger dickhead than we do. Then you have the band-wagon/occasional watchers...
It's the later which outnumber the genuine supporters which seem to be the problem, believing every poaching/cheating/ban-the-haka/arrogant opposition coach clickbait story they can find. The media feeds the frenzy which drives the media and around we go.
But I also think Jones needs to look at player attitude a bit. He could learn a lot from the way Southgate has made England one of the more likable and success soccer teams
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@canefan said in England & Eddie:
@junior said in England & Eddie:
@mofitzy_ said in England & Eddie:
@junior said in England & Eddie:
@MiketheSnow said in England & Eddie:
@hydro11 said in England & Eddie:
@MiketheSnow said in England & Eddie:
@hydro11 said in England & Eddie:
Is this a troll post? No English here to troll....
Last night showed how tough it is to win a World Cup. If you look at the three tournaments South Africa have won, they haven't been very good in any of them.
- 1995 they beat Samoa, France and New Zealand.
- 2007 it was Fiji, Argentina and France.
- 2019 it was Japan, Wales and England.
Relatively speaking those are very easy runs. In the two most recent cups we won we had off performances in the knock outs. 2011, it was the final. 2015, it was the semi. We could have lost either game.
Before this game people clearly discounted the effect that England's tougher run had had. It's exceptionally tough to win a World Cup having had three tough knock out games. In 2015, we beat Australia in the final who had a much easier draw. However, Australia were much worse than us. England and South Africa are generally closely matched so the tough run was always going to be a factor.
People also discounted how South Africa were a much different team to us. We didn't try to take England on up front; South Africa were always going to. If Sinckler doesn't get injured, England could have won. Maybe if the first couple of minutes of how semi had happened differently, we could have won as well.
Eddie Jones is a great coach who has achieved great things with England over the last four years. I would still have him as coach of the year.
Not sure about this and commented on it earlier.
England's schedule was tough on paper - and I wrote before the tournament started that England wouldn't win the WC because they had Argentina, France, Wales/Australia, SA/NZ, SA/NZ on the trot - but the reality was very different.
They comfortably beat a 14-man Argentina; the France match was cancelled; and they comfortably beat an average Australia side who'd already lost to Wales.
They produced one of the performances of the decade by dismantling NZ in the SF but really that was their only serious challenge prior to the Final.
Conversely SA had to play NZ first up; then a very good Japanese side who were unbeaten with wins over Ireland and Scotland, in the QF; then Wales who were also unbeaten, in the SF.
For me, SA had the harder path - admittedly losing to NZ didn't derail their progress.
Eddie has done wonders with England but he made some fatal flaws this tournament and in the years leading up to it.
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Sinckler.
Great tournament. But if his best back up is Dan Coles then you're always going to struggle if Sinckler gets a YC or an early injury. -
Youngs
Great going forward. Shithouse going backwards. I would have yanked him at half-time. Spencer couldn't have been any worse. -
Daly
Great athlete, average full-back. Exposed badly today. Willie looked like Cullen in comparison. -
May
He was carrying an injury. Barrett caught him ffs. No way Barrett was catching Watson. -
Slade
Not match fit and made significant mistakes in the games he played in -
Ford
This was not the match to start Ford -
No nasty fluffybunny in the forwards
England have great, technical athletes in all positions but no real hard bastard in the Martin Johnson mould who can bollock them.
Lawes was stuffed twice by Kolbe ffs
How's that for starters?
Strongly disagree with this. Pool play is a bit of an irrelevancy unless you have a tough pool. The New Zealand vs South Africa game happened a long time ago and both teams were going to beat Wales. Japan had had two very good victories but were unlikely to have the physicality to beat South Africa in that game. Japan had already played their final. Wales may have been unbeaten but they were exceptionally poor in the semi final and couldn't threaten the South African line.
Not for the first time today I've questioned whether posters watched the SA v Wales SF.
We scored a try. A good one. England couldn't today, despite 20 odd stabs at it in one passage of play.
It was 16-16 going in to the last 10 minutes.
We had two opportunities to take the lead and blew both.
SA had one chance in the last 5 minutes and took it.
So if we were exceptionally poor, then SA were just poor.
SA didn't do much different tonight, so England lost to a poor team.
Not buying it.
Well, Mike, I get your point, but where does that leave England's performance against us, given that we beat RSA and then spanked Wales? Perhaps England weren't that great after all and, in fact, we were just really shit...?
They were very good on the day, but we were also really shit. Some pundits seem to think that if a team plays shit, then it's 100% because they were forced to play shit but obviously that isn't true. Likewise its possible to play well when the opponent also plays well.
Yeah, look, I never really bought the "no one would have beaten England that day" view of things. True, that they got it spot on tactically and mentally. But, there's no doubt that we were tactically stupid and got some selections way wrong.
Even so, we still had some opportunities to swing the match back into our favour, which we again cocked up through poor options (A Smith's attacking box kick, Jordie's running it and getting smashed by Underhill), poor handling (Brodie's awful pass on the break) and ill-discipline (Whitelock's palm to Farrell's face).
They dominated the collisions, however I always thought we could turn it around with a change of mindset and tactics. I was sure that Hansen would apply the hairdryer and we would come out and rumble it up the guts. But nothing changed, and that was probably the most disappointing thing of all for me
No shit, but a contributing factor in that were our tactics and selections. As I've said elsewhere (and so has @Bones), we ran forward pods close into the ruck once all game, which resulted in Reece getting enough space to perhaps have a chance to touch down in the corner. We then scored from the ensuing lineout.
We did that all match against the Irish and nearly brought up a half ton. We did that once all all match against the English and it proved to be fruitful (sure not as easy or as fruitful as against Ireland, but still fruitful). So, I don't really buy "England didn't allow us to play" tripe that's been trotted out a lot since.
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@junior said in England & Eddie:
@canefan said in England & Eddie:
@junior said in England & Eddie:
@mofitzy_ said in England & Eddie:
@junior said in England & Eddie:
@MiketheSnow said in England & Eddie:
@hydro11 said in England & Eddie:
@MiketheSnow said in England & Eddie:
@hydro11 said in England & Eddie:
Is this a troll post? No English here to troll....
Last night showed how tough it is to win a World Cup. If you look at the three tournaments South Africa have won, they haven't been very good in any of them.
- 1995 they beat Samoa, France and New Zealand.
- 2007 it was Fiji, Argentina and France.
- 2019 it was Japan, Wales and England.
Relatively speaking those are very easy runs. In the two most recent cups we won we had off performances in the knock outs. 2011, it was the final. 2015, it was the semi. We could have lost either game.
Before this game people clearly discounted the effect that England's tougher run had had. It's exceptionally tough to win a World Cup having had three tough knock out games. In 2015, we beat Australia in the final who had a much easier draw. However, Australia were much worse than us. England and South Africa are generally closely matched so the tough run was always going to be a factor.
People also discounted how South Africa were a much different team to us. We didn't try to take England on up front; South Africa were always going to. If Sinckler doesn't get injured, England could have won. Maybe if the first couple of minutes of how semi had happened differently, we could have won as well.
Eddie Jones is a great coach who has achieved great things with England over the last four years. I would still have him as coach of the year.
Not sure about this and commented on it earlier.
England's schedule was tough on paper - and I wrote before the tournament started that England wouldn't win the WC because they had Argentina, France, Wales/Australia, SA/NZ, SA/NZ on the trot - but the reality was very different.
They comfortably beat a 14-man Argentina; the France match was cancelled; and they comfortably beat an average Australia side who'd already lost to Wales.
They produced one of the performances of the decade by dismantling NZ in the SF but really that was their only serious challenge prior to the Final.
Conversely SA had to play NZ first up; then a very good Japanese side who were unbeaten with wins over Ireland and Scotland, in the QF; then Wales who were also unbeaten, in the SF.
For me, SA had the harder path - admittedly losing to NZ didn't derail their progress.
Eddie has done wonders with England but he made some fatal flaws this tournament and in the years leading up to it.
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Sinckler.
Great tournament. But if his best back up is Dan Coles then you're always going to struggle if Sinckler gets a YC or an early injury. -
Youngs
Great going forward. Shithouse going backwards. I would have yanked him at half-time. Spencer couldn't have been any worse. -
Daly
Great athlete, average full-back. Exposed badly today. Willie looked like Cullen in comparison. -
May
He was carrying an injury. Barrett caught him ffs. No way Barrett was catching Watson. -
Slade
Not match fit and made significant mistakes in the games he played in -
Ford
This was not the match to start Ford -
No nasty fluffybunny in the forwards
England have great, technical athletes in all positions but no real hard bastard in the Martin Johnson mould who can bollock them.
Lawes was stuffed twice by Kolbe ffs
How's that for starters?
Strongly disagree with this. Pool play is a bit of an irrelevancy unless you have a tough pool. The New Zealand vs South Africa game happened a long time ago and both teams were going to beat Wales. Japan had had two very good victories but were unlikely to have the physicality to beat South Africa in that game. Japan had already played their final. Wales may have been unbeaten but they were exceptionally poor in the semi final and couldn't threaten the South African line.
Not for the first time today I've questioned whether posters watched the SA v Wales SF.
We scored a try. A good one. England couldn't today, despite 20 odd stabs at it in one passage of play.
It was 16-16 going in to the last 10 minutes.
We had two opportunities to take the lead and blew both.
SA had one chance in the last 5 minutes and took it.
So if we were exceptionally poor, then SA were just poor.
SA didn't do much different tonight, so England lost to a poor team.
Not buying it.
Well, Mike, I get your point, but where does that leave England's performance against us, given that we beat RSA and then spanked Wales? Perhaps England weren't that great after all and, in fact, we were just really shit...?
They were very good on the day, but we were also really shit. Some pundits seem to think that if a team plays shit, then it's 100% because they were forced to play shit but obviously that isn't true. Likewise its possible to play well when the opponent also plays well.
Yeah, look, I never really bought the "no one would have beaten England that day" view of things. True, that they got it spot on tactically and mentally. But, there's no doubt that we were tactically stupid and got some selections way wrong.
Even so, we still had some opportunities to swing the match back into our favour, which we again cocked up through poor options (A Smith's attacking box kick, Jordie's running it and getting smashed by Underhill), poor handling (Brodie's awful pass on the break) and ill-discipline (Whitelock's palm to Farrell's face).
They dominated the collisions, however I always thought we could turn it around with a change of mindset and tactics. I was sure that Hansen would apply the hairdryer and we would come out and rumble it up the guts. But nothing changed, and that was probably the most disappointing thing of all for me
No shit, but a contributing factor in that were our tactics and selections. As I've said elsewhere (and so has @Bones), we ran forward pods close into the ruck once all game, which resulted in Reece getting enough space to perhaps have a chance to touch down in the corner. We then scored from the ensuing lineout.
We did that all match against the Irish and nearly brought up a half ton. We did that once all all match against the English and it proved to be fruitful (sure not as easy or as fruitful as against Ireland, but still fruitful). So, I don't really buy "England didn't allow us to play" tripe that's been trotted out a lot since.
We agree mate. I have been consistent in saying that we failed to go up the guts. We went too wide too fast, which made it easy for their rush D to isolate us and turn the ball over, or push us out of bounds
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@junior said in England & Eddie:
Sure, the Boks have been largely shit since 2015 and, so, it would be inaccurate to say that they haven't sacrificed all the rugby in between in order to win this tournament. But, their shitness has largely been due to political machinations. As soon as they got a decent coach who has able to rise above it (or wasn't constrained by it), they started and were able to play to win, understanding that you actually need to build off a winning base to win the RWC.
They also got to bring back NH players who were playing (as it turned out) in some very good competitions. Australia too - both teams lifted this year with the introduction of hgih quality players. It's a new thing; in the past, players coming back couldn't handle the pace and intensity of the game. That's changed and it made a difference.
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Junior, we also agree that the game plan for the Ireland test was the one we should have gone for vs England. It is easy to forget that before all the fancy stuff in the QF we spent the first part of the game bludgeoning our way through the heart of the Irish defence. We even gave them an attacking Gary Owen FFS. Why Hansen and Co thought that England, who play a similar type of game to Ireland, would be beaten by loosie goosie all out attacking rugby, beggars belief. The more I think about it the more it upsets me!!!! We could have easily changed plans at half time. It is a total head scratcher and a systemic failure from all concerned that we didn't
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@canefan said in England & Eddie:
Junior, we also agree that the game plan for the Ireland test was the one we should have gone for vs England. It is easy to forget that before all the fancy stuff in the QF we spent the first part of the game bludgeoning our way through the heart of the Irish defence. We even gave them an attacking Gary Owen FFS. Why Hansen and Co thought that England, who play a similar type of game to Ireland, would be beaten by loosie goosie all out attacking rugby, beggars belief. The more I think about it the more it upsets me!!!! We could have easily changed plans at half time. It is a total head scratcher and a systemic failure from all concerned that we didn't
Fully on board with this. I don't think that England and Ireland are that different in terms of their style - England just do it much better.
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@nzzp said in England & Eddie:
They also got to bring back NH players who were playing (as it turned out) in some very good competitions. Australia too - both teams lifted this year with the introduction of hgih quality players. It's a new thing; in the past, players coming back couldn't handle the pace and intensity of the game. That's changed and it made a difference.
I was having similar thoughts when thinking about the SH v NH thing - for South Africa, it really is about having a foot in two camps, and understanding - in the last 4 months - how to weld it together.
Here's how:
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@junior said in England & Eddie:
@canefan said in England & Eddie:
Junior, we also agree that the game plan for the Ireland test was the one we should have gone for vs England. It is easy to forget that before all the fancy stuff in the QF we spent the first part of the game bludgeoning our way through the heart of the Irish defence. We even gave them an attacking Gary Owen FFS. Why Hansen and Co thought that England, who play a similar type of game to Ireland, would be beaten by loosie goosie all out attacking rugby, beggars belief. The more I think about it the more it upsets me!!!! We could have easily changed plans at half time. It is a total head scratcher and a systemic failure from all concerned that we didn't
Fully on board with this. I don't think that England and Ireland are that different in terms of their style - England just do it much better.
As I mentioned in the hardest RWC losses thread just now, if it wasn't for the anaesthetic of winning in 11 and 15, this cup loss would rank much higher. Let's not get carried away, we had the cattle. On the field and the bench we had the cattle to give ourselves a better shot of winning than we gave. Our tactics were piss poor
