Rugby IV - Striking Hookers Are Back In Fashion

[Which Tyler]

So we now just need Ireland to beat Scotland, and then lose to England, and we can still take the Raeburn Shield on holiday to South Africa with us

[Iskaral Pust]

Ireland did well to see off the Welsh while coping with injury absences.  Wales closed the deficit to only 3 points late on and had possession but a nice break-away try made it safe. 

England’s surprise loss puts us in pole position, even though we’ve had only close wins over France and Wales (unlike the Welsh hammering the Scots).  And, to be fair, the English managed only a narrow win over Wales and then lost to Scotland, so their actual reaults are well below expectations for their squad.  Other than everyone thumping Italy for fun, Wales have the best victory (against Scotland), Scotland has the biggest surprise victory (England), and Ireland has the most consistency. 

We need to stay focused for the Scottish game and not let attention wander to Twickenham too early.  The Scots will feel like they can make a late challenge for the championship if they can beat us. That said, England’s game in Paris against a French team needing to salvage some pride looks potentially as difficult as our game in Dublin against the Scots. 

The grand slam is still available and, even if we can’t win in Twickenham, bonus point wins may be enough to secure the championship anyway. 

[williamjm]

Great win for Scotland, I was getting a bit nervous in the second half as England always seemed to be on the verge of getting back into the game but they kept conceding penalties which stopped their progress. The first half was excellent by Scotland, Stuart Hogg has had a quiet tournament in attack by his high standards but Huw Jones seems to be offering plenty of threat to make up for that.

Hopefully they can back it up with a good performance in Dublin. Their form has been great at home (I think it was mentioned that they've won 9 of their last 10 homes matches and the loss was a narrow defect by the All Blacks) but away form has been another matter. I suspect Ireland won't be as profligate with possession as England were today.

[Which Tyler]

This doesn't look particularly pretty:

 

[ljkeane]

On 3/1/2018 at 2:03 PM, Which Tyler said:

This doesn't look particularly pretty:

What a bunch of dickheads. One of the good things about rugby is most involved in the game tend to fairly accessible to the fans, things like this just ruin it for everyone.

Anyway, the penultimate round of the Six Nations.

Ireland v Scotland: It'll be interesting to see if Scotland can kick on from beating England and they did beat Ireland last year. Having said that they tend to be better in their home games and they're unlikely to cause Ireland the problems at the breakdown they did England. It's hard to see Ireland losing in Dublin however if Scotland can get round Ireland's rush defence the way they got outside England it should be fun though.

France v England: I can't believe England having changed their starting back row after the struggles at the breakdown last time out although they've at least got an 8 on the bench this time. I think they'll probably get away with it against France but I doubt they will if they do the same thing next week.

Wales v Italy:  Faletau's back which is good for Wales. I'm quite looking forward to seeing how James Davies does too.

[Which Tyler]

Don't forget that the Raeburn Sheld is also up for grabs in Dublin...

[Iskaral Pust]

The Irish game won’t be televised here for another four hours but I couldn’t resist keeping track of the score.  Strong performance so far in Dublin, and the fourth just now try gets the bonus point too.  

I thought the Scots would make it a closer game than this. 

[williamjm]

1 hour ago, Iskaral Pust said:

The Irish game won’t be televised here for another four hours but I couldn’t resist keeping track of the score.  Strong performance so far in Dublin, and the fourth just now try gets the bonus point too.  

I thought the Scots would make it a closer game than this. 

I think Scotland are going to be very frustrated because they seemed to butcher two clear try scoring opportunities with loose passes, the game would have been a lot closer if they hadn't messed those up - although I think Ireland would still have won anyway.

ETA - at halfway in the England/France match I can believe that England may well win this match but it's hard to see them scoring four tries to keep the championship alive, and also hard to see them beating Ireland unless they play a lot better than they have in the last couple of matches.

[ljkeane]

England have been atrocious at the breakdown again. It’s not even like they’re struggling out wide, if you’re giving the ball one out to a prop the bloody fly half shouldn’t be cleaning out ffs.

ETA: Awful performance from England and with it their worst Six Nations in years. There’s some real questions for Eddie Jones to address.

[williamjm]

I think Lionel Beauxis must be the most relieved man in France right now, after missing touch in the 81st minute and then seeing England win a penalty.

I think it's fair to say that wasn't the highest quality game of rugby you'll ever see, so many mistakes from both sides.

[Iskaral Pust]

On 2/24/2018 at 6:15 PM, Iskaral Pust said:

That said, England’s game in Paris against a French team needing to salvage some pride looks potentially as difficult as our game in Dublin against the Scots.  

I know this is my moment to claim great power of foresight but I didn’t really think the French would win today, just that an English victory wasn’t a foregone conclusion. 

So Ireland take the championship but have to win at Twickenham to claim the grand slam.  Not an easy game even if England has lost two matches already.  I expect they’ll bitterly resist losing at home.  The title will feel less special for Ireland if they cannot convert it into a grand slam too. 

[Calibandar]

As I was rooting for England, I had hoped the Scots would be able to give a good follow up performance but they can apparently only muster real zeal when they play England. Abominable game from them against the Irish.

Unclear why England's suddenly falling apart. Billy V's absence after all? I am just guessing, maybe it's just a short bad spell in a long series of good to great games.

 

 

[Which Tyler]

2 hours ago, Calibandar said:

As I was rooting for England, I had hoped the Scots would be able to give a good follow up performance but they can apparently only muster real zeal when they play England. Abominable game from them against the Irish.

Unclear why England's suddenly falling apart. Billy V's absence after all? I am just guessing, maybe it's just a short bad spell in a long series of good to great games.

I can think of a number of reasons; but most of them are post-facto rationalisations to make me feel better.

A] Endurance - Our best players (as in, those on the Lions tour) have played more rugby than those from any other Lions nation... excepting those players who've had enforced rests (injuries / suspension).

B] Fatigue - Eddie is giving these boys a real beasting in training camps; and in fallow 6N weekends. He seems to be treating this 6N as a mock-RWC, and piling on the pressure, mentally and physically, and pushing them to the point that performance drops. Hopefully, he'll now know where this is and adapt his pre-RWC training to that knowledge; more pessimistically, he's doing this so that his pre-RWC training will be less of a shock, and they'll be able to take it with a less drop-off in performance.

C] Breakdown - This is an issue across English rugby; at the beginning of the season we had new ELVs to impliment, and the English ref.s (led by Barnes - the breakdown pedant) seems to have applied these more pedantically that the Celts (led by Owens, the breakdown enabler) or the French (led by Garces, another breakdown enabler); and the English teams all seem to have adopted the practice of understaffing the breakdown, and fanning our in defence; whilst the Celts are still challenging for the ball by trying to steal it; and the French are still challenging for the ball by throwing bodies in there. This is still Eddie's fault, in November, we didn't know how it was going to go down when we all swapped who was reffing which teams; but after the AI series, and the European cup pool stages; we know that the English approach fails badly against non-English teams, or when overseen by non-English ref.s. The clubs have started adapting; the England team hasn't.

D] Selection - Eddie seems to be treating this 6N like a mock-RWC. This means that when injuries hit, he's trying as hard as he can, to chose replacements from inside his core squad - in the RWC this is a necessity as the alternative is that you send a player home if they pick up a 1 week knock. However, in the here and now, it is weakening our team. Let's face it, we've played a 5 at 6 (Lawes), a 6 at 7 (Robshaw), a 7 at 8 (Simmonds), a 10 at 12 (Farrell), a 12 at 13 (Te'o) and a 13 at 14 (Daly) at various stages in our starting XVs.

E] Selection 2 - Eddie, like all coaches, has his favourites; and it takes too much for him to be willing to replace them (even more if their obvious alternatives are unavailable). Hartley, Cole and Haskell, for example, probably aren't even in the top 3 for their position, who could play for England; however, they have a tonne of experience; whilst LCD/Taylor; Sinckler/Thomas/Hill; Curry/Curry/Underhill are all massively inexperienced, and either injured or barely back from injury.

F] Over-confidence - I think we simply underestimated Italy, Scotland and France; possibly even Wales - they just played better than we expected them to based on previous experience - this probably ties in to point B], where he felt that he could push the players to the point of breaking, and still win 4 from 5.

G] Form - Some players are just in a poor run of form, for club and for country - this may be due to fatigue, or it may just be form, but the likes of MVunipola, Itoje, Launchbury, Hughes, Care, Ford, Joseph & Brown just aren't doing themselves justice at the moment.

[Hereward]

Very well said.

[Iskaral Pust]

8 hours ago, Calibandar said:

As I was rooting for England, I had hoped the Scots would be able to give a good follow up performance but they can apparently only muster real zeal when they play England. Abominable game from them against the Irish.

Home/away seems to have a big effect for this Scottish team.  That might be a bigger factor than the Calcutta Cup.  And they weren't terrible against Ireland, just too sloppy to take advantage of some good attacking opportunities.  Ireland's place kicking was abysmal again -- two very bad games on the trot for Sexton -- which would have been more noticeable if Scotland had forced another couple of tries.

Surprisingly, our closest game so far was against France.  Only a late, long range drop kick from Sexton won that for us.  

Overall, we've won the title in a year that saw us play away to England and France -- that's pretty good for us.  We may even have a chance at retaining it if we play England at home next time.  

[ljkeane]

5 hours ago, Which Tyler said:

C] Breakdown - This is an issue across English rugby; at the beginning of the season we had new ELVs to impliment, and the English ref.s (led by Barnes - the breakdown pedant) seems to have applied these more pedantically that the Celts (led by Owens, the breakdown enabler) or the French (led by Garces, another breakdown enabler); and the English teams all seem to have adopted the practice of understaffing the breakdown, and fanning our in defence; whilst the Celts are still challenging for the ball by trying to steal it; and the French are still challenging for the ball by throwing bodies in there. This is still Eddie's fault, in November, we didn't know how it was going to go down when we all swapped who was reffing which teams; but after the AI series, and the European cup pool stages; we know that the English approach fails badly against non-English teams, or when overseen by non-English ref.s. The clubs have started adapting; the England team hasn't.

In fairness I don't think it's the new laws. England haven't been great at the breakdown for a while and the new laws probably help them in that it makes it slightly harder to steal the ball and, since they don't have any particularly sharp breakdown operators, that benefits England (I still think Owens wasn't really reffing it the way he was supposed too but anyway.)

I think the problems more to do with Eddie Jones letting England's weakness at the breakdown slide for a while, because they were still winning, and now it's come to a head.

He did see the problem when he came and recognising there wasn't a George Smith/Richie McCaw type player to select to solve the problem so instead he was just going to pick a pack to blast over the ball in attack. And that did work pretty well, obviously, but it's effectiveness has been declining for a while. Haskell's not a well rounded 7 but he's good at hitting rucks, ever since he injured his ankle in Australia though he looks like he's lost some pace. Robshaw's been good at 6 but he was never great at 7 and now he's a few years older and slower since Jones moved him. On top of that the lack of Vunipola tying in multiple forwards to tackle him and with Itoje looking jaded it's just not working anymore.

None of that is Jones' fault but it's been clear there's been a problem for a while, probably since Haskell got injured in Australia and definitely last year in Dublin, so there should really be a clearer plan to solve it by now.

[Which Tyler]

Yes and no.

England have been poor at the breakdown for a while, as we don't have any breakdown specialists who are also international class players (Tom Rees was probably our last before the next generation*). So we've basically spent the last 15 years playing a pair of blindsides, whether Moody and Worsley, Robshaw and Wood or Robshaw and Haskell.

However, this season's ELVs should have made ball retention a given. England responded by understaffing the breakdown and keeping more bodies in the defensive/offensive line; whilst everyone else responded by toning down the ELVs and allowing play as before.

The ELVs made us worse at the breakdown, as we used to staff it with good-but-not-great breakdown proponents; and now we put in one body to turn the tackle into a ruck, and assume the ref will protect him from 2-3 opponents.

 

 

* ETA, actually, Rees and Back are the only ones I can think of going way back, before back we had Geoff Cook and Jack Rowell picking a backrow full of 8s. Andy Robinson was the closest we managed before SCW took over, with his massive array of 8 caps in 8 years.

For the next generation, Underhill seems to be in poll position, and is a "natural" BSF, whilst Simmonds is a "natural" 7, he's being put out at 8, and the Currys are our best bets, and seem injured or out of favour.

[ljkeane]

1 hour ago, Which Tyler said:

England have been poor at the breakdown for a while, as we don't have any breakdown specialists who are also international class players (Tom Rees was probably our last before the next generation*). So we've basically spent the last 15 years playing a pair of blindsides, whether Moody and Worsley, Robshaw and Wood or Robshaw and Haskell.

You don't necessarily have to have a breakdown specialist at openside, all of those combinations of flankers worked fine at various points until one/both of them got injured or lost form, but you do have to have the balance in your pack to effectively win your own ball at the least.

There's no particular reason Robshaw and Underhill couldn't work, Underhill's not a classical all round 7 but he's played a fair bit of openside and while Robshaw's a bit slow to play 7 he's an above par breakdown operator as a 6. One of the Curry brothers probably would get more turnovers but there's probably physicality concerns, which is why Kvesic didn't make it, so it's trade off at the moment (they're only young though). I'm not sure Simmonds is a natural 7, he's a just a small 8 who like to play in the wide channels, he's clearly a talented player though so England could ask him to try converting to 7, or alternatively they could pick a bigger carrier at 6. 

[Which Tyler]

No, you don't have to - but you do need balance. The traditional England approach has been to balance the lack of breakdown skills, with beef and heart; which works to a point; but you get fewer turnovers, and slower / less-clean ball on your own. The players take longer to arrive, and take longer to acheive results once there (against France, for example; England had 116 attacking rucks; the French support arrived before us to 55 of those!)

 

You're right, in that Robshaw and Underhill could work well together, it would just be a waste of their talents IMO.

I agree that there are physicality concerns around the Curries (currently - they're 19 years old!), but not really about Simmonds at 7, or the likes of Ellis (Bath) of Evans (Tigers) if given a shot. But that's more to do with how England see flankers than anything else IMO.

As for Simmonds - he's an age-grade centre, who converted to 7 about 5-6 years ago; but broke into the Exeter team this season at 8 due to injury (I think it was injury). Though having said that, Exeter don't really distinguish between 6, 7 and 8 except their positions at the scrum; Armand, Ewers and Waldron would all be 8s at most clubs; but Waldrom was given that role (whilst Salvi can't get a look in as a more classical 7). Once Waldrom was out, Simmonds got the 8 shirt, rather than shifting Armand/Ewers there.

At 8, I would agree that Simmonds is too small to be an international success (unless he's a second coming of Pocock - who's a 7 converted to 8); whereas at 7 he could make the use of his pace, hands and lower centre of gravity; whilst his mass wouldn't be an issue. For my money; asking Simmonds to play 7, is reverting him to his more experienced position, that fits his natural attributes better; not requesting a conversion.

[ljkeane]

15 minutes ago, Which Tyler said:

At 8, I would agree that Simmonds is too small to be an international success (unless he's a second coming of Pocock - who's a 7 converted to 8); whereas at 7 he could make the use of his pace, hands and lower centre of gravity; whilst his mass wouldn't be an issue. For my money; asking Simmonds to play 7, is reverting him to his more experienced position, that fits his natural attributes better; not requesting a conversion.

I don't know, I think professional experience means more than youth rugby and while Simmonds is quick but he's not really a classical openside breakdown focused type of backrow, he's a ball carrier but just in the wider channels.

England could convert him to a Hooper type ball carrying 7 but there's no particular reason your 8 can't be a ball carrier further out, New Zealand do it with Read and even South Africa do it to an extent with Whiteley. It would require England picking a different type of back row balance and maybe changing their gameplan a bit though. A back row of, say, Armand 6, Underhill 7 and Simmonds 8 would probably work fine with Te'o playing in the centres. On the other hand Robshaw 6, Underhill 7 and Simmonds 8 with no big ball carrier in the backs would probably have some issues. It depends what they want to do.