Didn’t Scotland do well? And Italy…..and I would imagine some of the old English war horses are seeing that pasture, being put out to, coming closer.
I don’t watch the matches these days. Not excited enough to then work out how to use the modern TV and get access.
But, an impression of a change from 20, 30 years back. The biggest change – to me – is that the second and third rank teams now have people who can kick. As that’s worth a considerable number of points – penalties, conversions – this matters hugely. Think back to when we wondered at Bergamasco trying – and the surprise when he managed it. Now that second line of teams all have perfectly competent kickers.
My assumption is that it’s the professional game, possibly most important being the French leagues. 30 years back the fly half (or fullback, whatever) of Italy, or Romania, Georgia, would be playing their club rugby at about our standard of second or even third division. Now they’re in that French first and hugely, wholly, competitive league. Along with kicking coaches and all the rest.
Not a theory I’m wholly wedded to but one I’m willing to put forward. The modern game has allowed many more international teams access to a decent kicker.
Being of a vintage prior to the 18 stone 6 foot six fly halfs and scrum halfs I find men’s rugby a bit boring nowadays. Bulldozing through the opposition relying on weight and sheer force is a bit of a turnoff to someone weaned on the David Duckhams of times past. I watched a women’s match out of curiosity because I find women’s football a bit hilarious and wondered what they’d be like at rugby. The match I watched showed Emily Scarratt in full flight and I was hooked. Mind you,that was before I saw Hannah Botterman…
Italy played much more mature rugby than England did. Didn’t panic when they went behind, chipped away at the lead, then took the opportunity for a try when it came. A few years ago they would have started hard then crumbled later on.
Meanwhile England looked like they hoped the score at halftime would be enough. Utterly gutless.
Congratulations to both Scotland and Italy, both deserved their wins.
Its about time England rugby accepted there’s something wrong with the game here and it isn’t a case of get another coach. The brand of rugby played in England is from the stone age and they appear incapable of playing what’s in front of them.
On current showing I’ve still no desire to sign to subscription TV to watch the English Premiership if that was the best of the best.
Ireland v Wales was another tedious game where both sides played by numbers.
Iirc, England long time voluntarily doesn’t pick good players who work for foreign clubs.
And Wasps, Worcester and London Irish no longer exist at the top level so there’s two reasons for even less competition for places in the national team – keeps the incumbents safe.
RugbyLaw wrote in early 2024:
“The likes of Owen Farrell, Manu Tuilagi, Henry Arundell, Joe Marchant, Kyle Sinckler, Lewis Ludlam, Jack Willis, and Dave Ribbans, all of whom starred for England at the 2023 Rugby World Cup, will be playing their club rugby across the Channel next season, as Premiership clubs struggle to compete with the wages on offer in France.
There are reports, too, that Billy Vunipola has been offered a contract by Suntory Sungoliath, in Japan, while Ben Loader now plays for the Stormers ..”
Has this rather national socialist style policy of banning ex-pats from coming back ever produced good outcomes anywhere at any time in any sport?
But England so massively outnumbers every other country in numbers of rugby players that losing a dozen good players should hardly matter.
Anyway, losing Owen Farrell is surely a blessing: Red-Card-in-Waiting, impeder of handling attacks, … Ford is a more gifted footballer. Or was – has age caught up with him?
I went to see England v Italy at Twicks 2 years ago, good fun as i also had to do a running commentary for the person who came with me so they knew what the ref was whistling for. Italy were pretty good, i was impressed, good tries and was not an England walkover that i kind of expected.
I was pretty annoyed to see they are nobbling the promotion/relegation to the Prem. It won’t improve the national team or the end product.
Hard to see a financially stable league with relegation/promotion given the big gulf in funding between the two top divisions. Clubs going bust trying to get promoted or avoid relegation isn’t great for the game either. It’s also not an optimal model in terms of spreading access to top level club rugby geographically – there’s a reason US sports use the franchise model even if it’s all rather unbritish.
France has enough money in club rugby to pay for a couple of divisions of professional teams at a decent level – that also contributes to why the developing international teams are benefiting, they may not have many of their squad in the big leagues but they often have a lot in the lower French leagues which are of a much higher standard than elsewhere in the world. England can’t sustain a pyramid that deep – ultimately the fan interest in club rugby isn’t there, whereas in swathes of France it’s ahead of club football. And even in France a lot of teams run losses and are sustained by the generosity or vanity of owners.
My schooling was a very mixed bag: 11 schools in all, 5 at senior level. I played Rugby at a Grammar School in S Wales and another in England later, and in nearly six years, I held the ball once, and that was on the way to the pitch! A more pointless exercise I can’t imagine, unless I include the football at yet another school, where despite having the kit I never even managed to get on the pitch because of bad weather. and it was never worn – I was there for only 1 term. I did handle the football a lot – puting dubbin on it. The experiences put me off team sports for life. No-one explained the rules to either game, and in the S Wales case the kit rules were enforced rigorously – by the sports master who ran the only place for many miles where it could be bought!
Outside of sport, in any competition the game is best served if all participants have a broadly equal chance, and there is no underdog who always loses. Hence, the better the Italians get the better the competition will be for all, players and spectators alike.That has to be on account of them getting better, not the former leaders getting worse.
Ah, yes. In both primary school football and grammar school rugby I was expected already to know the rules of the game. Coming from a non-sporting family and living in an area with few kids of my age to knock a ball around with, I was entirely clueless, and humiliated by the sports teachers for it. This very effectively triggered my “fuck you” reflex.
Team sport for me became rock bands, in my view a perfectly adequate substitute. And while it hadn’t been part of my original plan, I ended up with a lot more pussy than the rugger buggers.
England had a great pack and they kept on squandering the ball by giving it to the backs. Scotland well I’ll be fooked. A beautiful running game under the control of an incredible ref.
There are calls for Borthwick to be sacked. But it’s the players on the pitch who win or lose the game.
Sack the captain instead.
Similar is happen in men’s cricket (the shorter formats anyway) thanks to the explosion of T20 leagues, The recent edition of the T20 World Cup saw the minnows push the bigger teams hard, albeit without any upsets, because they can call on players who have played in the likes of the IPL alongside some of the biggest names.
With regard to kicking, the quality of the newer nations has improved, no doubt. One of England’s main problems under Borthwick has been the quantity.
Within the first 4-5 minutes yesterday England turned 4 possessions into 3 box kicks and one 25 yard hoof upfield into a contested catch.
Box kicks are an equaliser when playing an inferior side. When you’re ostensibly the better team they make next to no sense with minimal upside.
That’s 100% down to Borthwick.
Exactly.
Italy has had a real surge in the past three years. A crop of good players and much better coaching. Scotland have been on the verge of very good for a while: great half-backs and centres, with some big Saffas helping out back and front. That match against France, however, is the best I have seen them play in 40 years of watching rugby.
England, let’s not forget, beat Argentina, Australia and New Zealand convincingly last year. The problem seems to be a lack of guts and leadership as much as coaching. There is plenty of talent in the squad and in the Prem. Borthwick needs to pick a pack with more grunt and we need a different captain. Itoje simply lacks the personality to pull a team out of trouble. He is also in poor form and needs to be rested.
The England defence seems to be full of holes, not surprising with a low-grade defence coach and also not surprising when you look at scorelines in the Prem. In attack, we are not converting chances to tries and kicking away too much good possession – all down to tactics.
Coaching and leadership can make an instant difference. Look at what Wales have done since the first round, with the same players. Aside from tactics, personnel, form etc, there is something wrong in the England camp, they all look knackered and unhappy. As Charlie Suet says, if they get marginally ahead at half time, they play like they are desperate to protect that lead and you can’t do that in rugby.
Itoje is one of the bug-eyed screaming loons whenever a decision goes England’s way; Earls being the biggest fuckwit in this regard. That alone should be sufficient to discount him from consideration as captain.
Rugby Union in England has a development problem, on the surface it’s all very rosy, there’s still money in the sport and it’s still a prestige sport amongst the remaining grammars and the fee paying schools. Those kids get well funded facilities and coaching thrown at them, but less than 10% of kids go to those kinds of schools. So it’s not a surprise that the overwhelming majority of the England team went to fee paying schools, but the problem is c.90% of your elite players coming from the less than 10% of the available talent pool means you’ve got a huge amount of untapped talent left on the table.
Now, it is true that some of those fee paying schools, where being successful at RU holds a particular prestige, will cherry pick some players on scholarships (bit like American football scholarships), but I’m not sure if that’s a help or a hindrance.
Leaving aside the narrow development funnel, Eddie Jones has suggested that England’s reliance on relatively privileged young men, who’ve had a lot of advantages offered up to them, isn’t great for producing the kind of players who can dig deep and overcome adversity, the mean, hungry, driven kind.
All of that is true, but otoh it’s true of Scotland as well: for most of the country soccer is the national religion, and rugby is important only in the Borders and the private schools. And remember that Scotland as a whole has only half the population of London alone. So it’s not just a numbers game.