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#Post#: 150642--------------------------------------------------
Re: England team confirmed
DIR By: FrostAndFire
Date: March 9, 2026, 1:13 pm
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Other teams have figured it out, poorfour. They get their
players in position for the slapbacks and compete more
effectively in the air. It also seems that we don't have
anything else when these contestable kicks fail.
Murley was pretty good at winning back the kicks at the weekend,
but England then didn't know how to do anything with them.
Perhaps because the other teams know what's happening and how to
counter it.
#Post#: 150645--------------------------------------------------
Re: England team confirmed
DIR By: JammyGit
Date: March 9, 2026, 2:18 pm
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--- Quote from: Banstead Quin link ---
>
> What Jammy said. And I think he was on Lions captain because,
I want to say, Beirne was injured else would have been him.
English sport is obsessed with making it's best player the
captain and it nearly always ends in tears.
>
--- End Quote ---
Doris, I think.
It's funny because obviously Earl is coming across as a bit
delusional with his comments but he spoke well before and after
the game, and came across far more as a captain type. Similar to
how George presented himself.
#Post#: 150646--------------------------------------------------
Re: England team confirmed
DIR By: JammyGit
Date: March 9, 2026, 2:23 pm
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--- Quote from: poorfour link ---
>
> England in the Autumn had a precision kick chase game combined
with a running game that (when they chose to deploy it) was
based on having a repeating combination of playmakers and hard
runners that gave them multiple options to use the ball. In
defence they had a rock solid midfield defence that gave up
yards on the outside but was coupled with a strong scramble
defence and a level of commitment in the red zone that made them
able to absorb long periods of pressure without conceding.
>
> It was a very effective strategy.
>
> I am baffled as to how it has gone so wrong in so many ways
this 6N. It was inevitable that teams would get better at
responding to the kicking strategy - and England have been slow
to adapt to that. But that doesn’t explain why the
playmaker/penetrator running game has been replaced by
one-dimensional forwards running into contact, why successive
teams have found multiple line break opportunities between 12
and 13 and why the commitment that was so evident last year
seems to have been severely lacking in every aspect of England’s
game.
>
> It’s like they’ve forgotten everything they’ve learned since
the 2023 RWC except that kicking sometimes produces
opportunities. Marcus is one of the few players who has been
bringing any real attacking intent to the game - but he’s ended
up the subject of memes because most of what he’s done has
foundered through a lack of any support from the rest of the
team.
>
--- End Quote ---
We had yet more coaching musical chairs, for a start. But as has
been said quite often over the years, Borthwick sides will
double down with kicking the ball away when things are going
against them. England lost some important players to injury,
Wigglesworth gets the defence job, Ford suffers a drop in form
and hey presto we're booting the leather off it.
Sadly we're back to the bad old days of players becoming worse
for being part of the international setup.
#Post#: 150649--------------------------------------------------
Re: England team confirmed
DIR By: Quinky
Date: March 10, 2026, 12:09 am
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--- Quote from: JammyGit link ---
>
> So if the opposition know about it and can focus on him, and
he still manages to be successful, bust tackles, and provide
go-forward, is that not a huge success? It means they're
spending resources failing to prevent something from happening.
If England skip him, there are fewer defenders elsewhere, and if
they don't then he's going through those guys anyway.
>
> If it was that simple to defend against why weren't they able
to defend against it? I feel like you're making a good point
that happens to be a hypothetical rather than what's actually
happening on the pitch.
>
> This is all very reminiscent of the half time talk that Graham
Henry gave the Lions in Australia, having a go at them for
over-reliance on a rampaging Scott Quinnell...
>
--- End Quote ---
Wins tend to happen when a team is successful in what it's
trying to do, not just one player. Earl being good at one aspect
of the game, and making yards, is irrelevant if that's all
that's positive.
Imagine these two scenarios: Earl makes 6m on a carry, then gets
stopped; the ball gets recycled and passed back 3m. Or... The
ball goes wide and another player makes 10m. Both are a success.
The second won't happen if Earl gets the ball.
I said he's very good at what he does. But he's not infallible
and he gets turned over from time to time.
Your post suggests it's fine for England to rely on him to make
a few metres on each carry. My opinion is that it won't win many
games. And it isn't.
#Post#: 150652--------------------------------------------------
Re: England team confirmed
DIR By: MaidstoneQuin
Date: March 10, 2026, 2:38 am
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of the 3 most regular back rowers, Earl has been the most
consistent. For me, Tom Curry and Underhill haven't delivered
often enough. They are talked about sometimes like almost
without question picks but I just don't see it. Of the two, Tom
is the most questionable.
Time we ended this overseas rule, as if I was selecting a
backrow for the RWC..
6. CCS*
7. Willis
8. Earl
However, I think CCS will need to show better form then he has
done to really get that start. Ben Curry/Pepper probably still
in the mix without any others suddenly becoming available. I
wouldn't rule out Chessum too if they wanted more heft
#Post#: 150653--------------------------------------------------
Re: England team confirmed
DIR By: dr_miles
Date: March 10, 2026, 3:07 am
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Apparently the problem is that we weren’t kicking enough.
HTML https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/mar/09/believe-in-the-plan-england-ben-spencer-six-nations-rugby?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
#Post#: 150655--------------------------------------------------
Re: England team confirmed
DIR By: JammyGit
Date: March 10, 2026, 4:26 am
---------------------------------------------------------
--- Quote from: Quinky link ---
>
> Wins tend to happen when a team is successful in what it's
trying to do, not just one player. Earl being good at one aspect
of the game, and making yards, is irrelevant if that's all
that's positive.
>
> Imagine these two scenarios: Earl makes 6m on a carry, then
gets stopped; the ball gets recycled and passed back 3m. Or...
The ball goes wide and another player makes 10m. Both are a
success. The second won't happen if Earl gets the ball.
>
> I said he's very good at what he does. But he's not infallible
and he gets turned over from time to time.
>
> Your post suggests it's fine for England to rely on him to
make a few metres on each carry. My opinion is that it won't win
many games. And it isn't.
>
--- End Quote ---
I'm suggesting it's fine for him to be "predictable" if it's
still hugely effective. We won a title partly on the
"predictability" of Marcus's hitch kick and Andre's hard
carrying, after all. It's not just a few metres on each carry,
it's high impact stuff and it was one of the few bright points
of England's performance. Again, this hypothetical world where
his good work is actually not as good and is preventing some
other hypothetically better work from happening is just that -
it's not something I can say absolutely would or wouldn't have
happened because it's just a hypothetical, but it does ignore
his obvious positive impact on the match.
Besides, England made 118 carries against Italy. Earl made 20 of
them (and got turned over once). The other players had plenty of
opportunity to show that they too could be effective with ball
in hand. Roebuck and Freeman were the only ones who vaguely
managed it, and they had pretty mixed games to say the least.
Earl was an unqualified success by any reasonable metric. There
was a few times when I would have loved to see an offload, but
crucially he looked for support and (rightly) decided it was a
very low percentage option, which is on his teammates and not on
him.
MQ: I agree Curry and Underhill have not been consistent, but I
think Underhill is the biggest problem. For all his big hitting,
he actually misses quite a few tackles on the regular, is the
slowest of the back row options, and has been a bit of a
liability in recent seasons both in terms of on-field discipline
and his injury record. Curry is the better player even given his
current woes and I think England really missed him.
Definitely don't understand why you would pick Tom Willis, the
only man at Saracens who is slower than Elliot Daly, at 7 though
:D He's an 8 through and through, and is sort of the 8 that
Quinky thinks Earl is! I think it's time to give Pollock a run
at the 7 shirt to see what happens; none of the other options
are consistent enough or consistently available enough.
#Post#: 150657--------------------------------------------------
Re: England team confirmed
DIR By: MaidstoneQuin
Date: March 10, 2026, 4:35 am
---------------------------------------------------------
--- Quote from: JammyGit link ---
>
>
>
> MQ: I agree Curry and Underhill have not been consistent, but
I think Underhill is the biggest problem. For all his big
hitting, he actually misses quite a few tackles on the regular,
is the slowest of the back row options, and has been a bit of a
liability in recent seasons both in terms of on-field discipline
and his injury record. Curry is the better player even given his
current woes and I think England really missed him.
>
> Definitely don't understand why you would pick Tom Willis, the
only man at Wasps who is slower than Elliot Daly, at 7 though :D
He's an 8 through and through, and is sort of the 8 that Quinky
thinks Earl is! I think it's time to give Pollock a run at the 7
shirt to see what happens; none of the other options are
consistent enough or consistently available enough.
>
--- End Quote ---
I meant J Willis, sorry. My comment about overseas type things i
was hoping would make it clear. In theory both Willis' could do
a job.
Looking forward to seeing how Sotutu gets on. If he bursts on
the scene I reckon he's the sort of player the RFU would propel
in. Im gutted for Fisialu tbh as I think he could have done a
good job
#Post#: 150658--------------------------------------------------
Re: England team confirmed
DIR By: JammyGit
Date: March 10, 2026, 4:38 am
---------------------------------------------------------
--- Quote from: dr_miles link ---
>
> Apparently the problem is that we weren’t kicking enough.
>
>
HTML https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/mar/09/believe-in-the-plan-england-ben-spencer-six-nations-rugby?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
>
--- End Quote ---
:(
Spencer is a magnificent kicker but it's typical of Borthwick to
view him as just that. He's an excellent organiser and clearly
capable of helping run a good attacking side, so why pigeonhole
him?
There was a moment when the commentators were talking about
England's good ruck speed, when we had a slow ruck, Spencer
didn't have much support so passed to a forward to set up
another ruck, then took ages to set up and eventually passed
back to Fin Smith who took ages to make a clearing kick and got
charged down. It was all so lethargic. All of them are better
than this but they're all playing with the same lethargy and
lack of urgency that comes from being drilled into anti-rugby.
#Post#: 150659--------------------------------------------------
Re: England team confirmed
DIR By: JammyGit
Date: March 10, 2026, 4:40 am
---------------------------------------------------------
--- Quote from: MaidstoneQuin link ---
>
> I meant J Willis, sorry. My comment about overseas type things
i was hoping would make it clear. In theory both Willis' could
do a job.
>
> Looking forward to seeing how Sotutu gets on. If he bursts on
the scene I reckon he's the sort of player the RFU would propel
in. Im gutted for Fisialu tbh as I think he could have done a
good job
>
--- End Quote ---
Oh crikey, that was a dumb mistake by me. Sorry! Big fan of
Jack, though he didn't quite hit the heights with England that I
hoped he would (bit slow, missed tackles). He's a phenomenon at
the breakdown and a very punchy carrier though, no doubt. Teams
would brick themselves facing him.
What happened to Fisilau? Injured?
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