Agreed, it wasn’t a good performance.
As England slumped to their first ever loss against Fiji, which must rank as their worst ever defeat, plenty of senior figures within the Rugby Football Union should have started preparing their resignation letters at Twickenham.
But we should at least entertain the idea that Fiji are simply better than they were.
The time for resignation letters was when they reappointed Eddie Jones.
The level of understatement in your opening sentence is truly impressive.
Were it not for the TMO decisions and non-interventions for once going England’s way it could easily have been a 20+ point margin.
Based on that I am not confident we’ll beat Japan or Samoa and Indeed my guess is the Chileans will be thinking they might have a shout. Certainly the RFU hierarchy should resign post haste.
And Borthwick appears to be following Eddie’s selection madness. Only one experienced No8 in the squad and he’s missing through a red card as well as being injury prone. England really needed a strong ball carrier in that position yesterday, instead we got a not very good flanker.
Yep, Fiji are vastly improved and are going to be a threat to anyone.
Fiji share pool C with Australia and Wales, so could well head the pool, and play the runner up of pool D, which could be England if (IF) they do manage to beat Japan or Samoa.
Japan lost yesterday but were a whole lot more creative than England.
John. agreed. Forward pass to May? Offside by Smith?
Philip
Yes both marginal calls plus several questionable impact tackles including what I thought was a dangerous neck grab in the second half although none of the reports mention it.
The line-out summed up England’s inflexible approach. Even in the final quarter they were still getting caught out by long slow throws over the top to an unchallenged flanker. FFS you are supposed to adjust your tactics and positioning when the other team is regularly doing something different.
I feel sorry for Jonny May. I had never marked him down as a particularly poor tackler but by God he was exposed yesterday. In and out of a last minute RWC call up in little over an hour.
Am I qualified by residence to play for England? If so I could be the Number Eight they need. As long as nobody objects to my zimmer frame.
Nah, only joking. I prefer Nordic Poles.
That damn fool rule about not picking players who play their club rugby abroad.
Lowers competition for places, complacency encouraged, excludes good players etc
I mean if we had a stupid rule about never buying films and porn from abroad, even if starring english performers, we’d all be at carry-on level for our filth. Which is where the Eng team is pretty much.
dearieme said:
“I prefer Nordic Poles”
A bit of a niche desire, but they are the largest immigrant group there, so you will have 100,000 or so to choose from.
John,
England haven’t been able to think on their feet for a very long time. The two most egregious examples were when the Irish came up with the choke tackle and Italy refused to form a ruck. Even after half time in both matches England couldn’t cope.
At one point Mullins said that Mitchell missed a glaring opportunity and should have used his instincts and gone to the left at a break down instead he stuck to the game plan. The problem is that players have allegedly been dropped for not sticking to plan or not even picked if they aren’t of that mindset.
I think the dangerous neck grab you refer to was Mitchell. Peyper was on the spot and said no high danger. What happened was that Mitchell’s arm first his the ball carrier’s upper arm and then went round the neck. With the authorities trying to get tackle heights down I don’t think the level of danger should be the issue it should be technique. In this case I think at most a warning he had tried to tackle whereas both Farrell and Vunipola were not set up for a legal challenge and there was a high degree of danger.
he (Jonny May) was exposed yesterday. In and out of a last minute RWC call up in little over an hour.
Borthwick disagrees. He’s in.