Rugby: France and Beyond

[ljkeane]

So a bit of a downer for rugby with London Irish's suspension from the Premiership this week but we're getting into the final run in before the World Cup in France now so hopefully we'll have a few more positives over the next few months.

I find Squidge Rugby a bit of a mixed bag, he's does some good analysis into pattern of play stuff but he also has a bit of a tendency to go down a bit of a rabbit hole of his pet issues and/or see everything he spots as a cunning plan. He's done a pretty decent preview of Ireland's World Cup chances though for the Ireland fans on the board.

[ljkeane]

So England have announced the latest updates to their pre World Cup preparations. The big news is Cowan-Dickie is out of the World Cup with injury which is a fairly big problem given he was the likely starter if fit and England basically have two proven hookers in him and George. Other that that I'm not a huge fan of Youngs and Care being two of the three scrum halves. Also, a little surprisingly, Mercer misses out to Tom Willis.

Also the first Under 20 World Championship is about halfway through and it seems to be a pretty good one so far. England and Ireland had a 34 all draw last week, the French pack absolutely steam rolled New Zealand in the rain on Thursday and, already front runner for shock result of the year, Italy beat South Africa in South Africa. It's available for most people to watch for free on the World Rugby youtube page.

[Which Tyler]

Given LCD's injury issues (can't play for a French club) he's been touch and go for a while. Dombrandt over Mercer is the big surprise for me. It's a generally pretty "meh" wider squad, and I can't help feeling that we've gone backwards since getting rid of Eddie - which was always either a year too early or 2 years too late.

As for the kids - I assume you mean the first post-Coivd U20 World Championship - where I'd personally rank Wales getting within a point of NZ, or Georgia not just beating, but milling Argentina as bigger shocks than Italy beating SA.

 

Edited July 1, 2023 by Which Tyler

[ljkeane]

4 minutes ago, Which Tyler said:

As for the kids - I assume you mean the first post-Coivd U20 World Championship - where I'd personally rank Wales getting within a point of NZ, or Georgia not just beating, but milling Argentina as bigger shocks than Italy beating SA.

 

Sorry, yeah, first post covid Under 20 World Championship. Posting whilst also watching tv catches me out.

I don't know, Wales have beaten New Zealand before at this level even if it's not common and Argentina are a bit inconsistent at age group level. Italy's Under 20 side have a been pretty good in recent years thanks to a real focus on it but, still, South Africa always have a lot of young talent and they're playing at home.

[ljkeane]

The start of the World Cup build up for the Sanzar teams this weekend with the first round of The Rugby Championship.

The start of Eddie Jones era 2 for the Wallabies was a bit of a disaster. Getting a win away to South Africa at altitude is no easy task but it looked like a lot of second choice players in there for the Springboks to me and Australia really weren't competitive at all.

Also not the best of starts for Argentina. They're normally competitive at least early in games but the All Blacks blew them away in the first 10 minutes or so. Good win for New Zealand but they'll probably want to see how they hold up in some tighter games.

In the Under 20s England actually did better than I expected against France but the French talent eventually carried them through. I do think this is one of the more talented generations England have had for a while but their teams look a lot less polished since the RFU cut the funding for age group coaching. England made a lot of basic errors.

Still, despite being a little disappointed with England it's the two best teams in the final. France are the most talented and Ireland look the best coached side.

[Macklunkey]

Sad news today about the retirement of Stuart Hogg but obviously he has to do what is best for his health.

What a great player he's been for Scotland and was often our only highlight in some dismal times.

[ljkeane]

Very good performance from the All Blacks against the Springboks this morning, in the first half especially. The up tempo attack moving the big South African pack around and kicking in behind the rush defence really caused South Africa a lot of problems. The set piece also held up really well too. It's hard to put too much fatigue into the legs of the South Africa's forwards though because they've got so much quality coming off the bench you've basically got to start again in the second half. In the face of that the second half was a lot more even but still a very good win for New Zealand.

A lot better for Argentina this week so it's looking like the big loss last week was more down to New Zealand being really good rather than Los Pumas being particularly bad. The final scoreline doesn't really reflect the balance of the game given the late intercept try 5m out from the Australian tryline.

It's really not looking good for Australia though. Generally the feature of Eddie Jones' sides when they're going well is really sharp multiphase attacks pulling apart the opposition's defence and we're really not seeing that from the Wallabies in their first two games. Jones is picking a big Australian pack which is presumably supposed to be proving the possession and front foot ball to facilitate that but there's been a worrying lack of bite there.

[Which Tyler]

Yay, time to resurrect this thread.

 

Speaking of resurrection: https://12ft.io/proxy?ref=&q=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union/2023/08/04/nick-isiekwe-reveals-he-had-open-heart-surgery-last-season/

Nick Isiekwe.

September 2022 - open heart surgery
December 2022 - starting for Saracens
February 2023 - benching for England

 

Otherwise, it's warm- up time, 10ish weeks after their last match.
The big one is, slightly bizarrely, going to be Ireland vs Italy, as it's the only one with anything riding on it - and that "thing" being a fan-made shield.

Raeburn Shield is the international equivalent of NZ's Ranfurly Shield - basically a winner-takes-it-home trophy, traced back to the first ever test when Scotland beat England at Raeburn Place. Whatever the result, history will be made.

Ireland are the current holders, and if they win (or draw), they'll break the NH record streak for most matches defended (overtaking England from 2003-4)
Italy have never held the shield.

 

 

Elsewhere, England travel to Wales, Scotland host France, and Tonga travel to Samoa.
Not all that much to say about them though, they're essentially pre-season matches, but for international teams rather than club.

[ljkeane]

Better effort from Australia this morning (although they still lost).

They’ve actually been ok ball in hand in most of their games so I think the gameplan was to try and hold onto the ball as much as possible. It worked pretty well in the first half, helped by the All Blacks having a fairly poor game with the boot until Mo’unga came on, but I’m not sure they’ve fixed all their problems. To be fair they’ve ultimately lost the game down to a scrum penalty against their 4th choice tight head. 

ETA: Huh, I watched the first half of Scotland France and my take away was ‘France’s reserves are pretty good’ and didn’t bother watching the second. It seems like I missed a belter of a comeback.

Edited August 5, 2023 by ljkeane

[Which Tyler]

I can't really see how that counts as mitigation, given that Basham's head barely lowers at all, whilst Farrell has clear view throughout, rises into contact, explicitly hardens his shoulder, and never puts a hand out, let alone a full arm - so it could never have been a legal tackle.

Given that his last ban for this was 6 months ago, which IIRC was 4 weeks reduced to 3 for attending a tackle course - which he obviously hasn't taken on board - I'd say that he ought to get a ban extended for recent poor record, and non-improvement as a result of the most recent reduction.

Of course, WR will be looking for any excuse to avoid banning a star from an important RWC (see Sexton being allowed to include a training session arranged after his incident; see Fagerson's low ban for repeated infringements); so I fully expect them to bottle it. I just can't see a real reason that this ban should be anything less than 6 weeks. There's a whole bunch of aggravating factors, and the only mitigation is that he said sorry.

Edited August 13, 2023 by Which Tyler

[ljkeane]

They pretty much always seem to come up with some mitigation with these bans but, whatever, England would be better with Ford at flyhalf anyway. 

Very discouraging week or so for England. Borthwick seems to want to go with a very conservative gameplan but there’s no real sign of England being anywhere near good enough at the set piece, in defence or at taking their chances to make it work. Obviously the Six Nations was pretty grim but I was hoping there would be some signs of improvement after more time for the coaches to bed in.

Pretty decent effort from Scotland over the same period though. They aren’t going to win the World Cup but at least it looks like they’re going to give it a go and be good to watch while doing it.

Edited August 13, 2023 by ljkeane

[Iskaral Pust]

I know it has been discussed before but the WC groups look very unbalanced because of how early they are set.  I guess it’s a positive for the sport that teams can become more competitive quickly but Scotland’s recent renaissance makes their group now look a much tougher competition than the others.

[Which Tyler]

Ntamack out of the RWC with an ACL injury.

[Which Tyler]

Farrell's card rescinded - which... has got to be a new low for rugby disciplinary hearings.

Shoulder charge straight to the head, from a player with a history of such tackles, and... nada, nothing at all
FFS

[Which Tyler]

 

Edited August 15, 2023 by Which Tyler

[ljkeane]

Joy Neville really is not a very good tmo. Fair enough it’s a yellow for Dyer slapping the ball out but how can it be a penalty try when the South African winger has already missed the ball? Not that it matters too much with the Springboks scoring off the next play. 

With all the furore around Farrell’s tackle and subsequent rather bizarre avoidance (or maybe not) of a ban there’s not been a lot of attention paid to Van Poortvliet’s injury. So that leaves England with 47 year old Ben Youngs starting this week and presumably for the World Cup. Great.

[ljkeane]

England, once again, look terrible. They just look really badly coached. The first Ireland try was just awful defence. It's just a tip on from in a forwards pod in midfield against a set defence. In attack there's just no clarity at all with what England are trying to do. England do still have some good players so occasionally things go well but there's no coherent plan to build on that. When England turned the ball over deep in Ireland territory in the first half and then Genge beat about 3 tackles and got them about 10 yards over the gainline in the 22 that should just be a nailed on try. England are just so slow getting into shape they somehow managed to mess it up though. Contrast that with Ireland, who weren't even playing particularly well, every time they got quick ball in the 22 they scored.

Oh, yeah, added bonus with the stupid red for Vunipola (ruining one of the only good phases of play England had) Borthwick only picked one 8 in the squad.

From and Irish perspective they did look fairly rusty but that's not the end of the world in a warm up game. The one concern I'd have is the lineout didn't look great.

[Padraig]

Yes.  Sluggish display by Ireland but the our tough games in the WC group are back ended, so they have plenty time still.  And always nice to score 5 tries.  Certainly Andy Farrell has kept up momentum unlike previous WC games when we were already frizzling out.  England have a lot of work do but at least are in the nice half of the draw.

[ljkeane]

So I must admit I've been a bit down on rugby in the lead in to this World Cup as an England fan with England looking set to produce their worst ever effort but, on the plus side, less than a week out it does look to be shaping up to be a really good tournament as a whole.

There's a few good sides but there's no team that stand out as big favourites the way there have been at some tournaments in the past. France, Ireland and South Africa all look well set and New Zealand, despite a somewhat chastening defeat to the Springboks at Twickenham, have improved from the doldrums they were in last year. The Pacific Island teams always tend to be a bit better at World Cups with more time to prepare but Fiji and Samoa in particular look dangerous sides, as do Scotland. With England, Australia and Wales not really on top of their games that could make for some really tight groups. Pool B obviously looks brutal with Scotland as the 'third' team but the likes of Fiji, Georgia and Samoa will be fancying their chances in Pools C and D too. It should be fun.

I'm in Canada for the start of the tournament so I might have to do a bit of googling to find pubs showing the games.

[Iskaral Pust]

In the US, Peacock (NBC) will be streaming all of the WC matches.  Which is very nice considering they lost rights to the European Cup rugby last year.  It doesn’t help the game when streaming rights get Balkanized into expensive niche streaming services.