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[RWC19 Warm-Up] - England vs Ireland

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Rich Taff said:
If it's any help, then judging from your historical comments, it's probably due to you not being very bright when it comes to rugby.

You're welcome
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ncurd said:
Man you've got a chip on your shoulder almost becoming VC level of disliking my posts . No need to get personal.
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Come on gentleman, save it for the potential Quarter Final or Final ;)
 
All this stuff is a phoney war. Encouraging signs yes but teams have prepared differently and Wal (1) and Ire were incredibly rusty. Wal (2) also showed us the massive difference home advantage makes and the RWC’s being played a long way from the comfort blanket of HQ (we’ll ignore 2015....).

Also, the last 3 weeks haven’t told us anything about the team’s mental resilience, which is one really big question mark hanging over them. We’ll only find out about that when things get tougher in the knock out stages.

But confidence is a good thing to have.
 
bushytop said:
I still wouldn’t it past Ireland doing well this World Cup... that was the first run out for your boys really (I wouldn’t count the Italy game).., you guys will be fine.
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I don't know if we have enough to get past our QF opponents, we'd need our 2018 form and I'm not certain that exists anymore. I don't think we'll noticeably underperform like '07 or our last two QFs though.
 
Not Eddie Jones said:
All of the above, plus I think taking the three warm-up games together, England look far better prepared going into this World Cup (barring catastrophe against Italy in a fortnight!) than they have in an age. We've played 3 games against the opponents' best available XVs (give-or-take), won two handsomely, narrowly lost one on an oddball try, tried out different ways of playing, different combos etc, given the 2nd-stringers plenty of action, kept the 1st-stringers fresh and healthy, have not had any major injuries, the players look fit and strong and fast and skillfil throughout the squad (except Youngs), we've given notice to the world that we can play like the best of them, and the squad is settled and relaxed and HAPPY. It's a long, long time since England have gone into a World Cup looking like this. It feels like we're gonna do really well. We might not, but I'm enjoying the feeling right now. :)
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I think this is a really good point - We've played 2 matches with a mix-n-match team against Wales' best-available. We won one fo them with a power game, and came very close in a scrappy affair in very hostile conditions. We then played a completely different game-plan against Ireland and blew them away. All 3 matches against teams ranked in the top 3 in the world.
We can beat the 2nd best team in the world with a power game (with our 1.5th choice XV); and that our firsts can beat the 3rd best team in the world with a running game, our 1.5th choice XV also came within a whisker of victory in a scrappy game in the most hostile atmosphere imaginable. That variation is something we've (very) rarely seen from England. Acutally, have we ever seen such variation in such quick succession? Even 2000-2002?
We may well take from that, that we can afford to manage the squad deeper into the pool stages than we have expected, keeping our powder a little drier for the knock-out stages, and aim to peak for a potential SF; rather than having to peak at the end of the group stages and hope momentum can carry us through.

Of course, the pressure is low in a warm-up match with a squad that's already confirmed; and Ben Youngs is still capable of losing us a match on his own, and we look vulnerable to injuries in key places; but... we can't do anything about pressure at this stage - we'll know more in the groups; Ben Youngs tried his best to lose us that match on his own, and every team is going to be a little vulnerable to key injuries in a 31 man squad.
 
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Not Eddie Jones said:
That doesn't really make sense in the context of last week's game. Eddie was clear that last week's game was all about practising England's power game to see where we needed to improve with it, so Cips playing creatively wouldn't have come into it. We could also say we may have scored a try using the power game if Eddie had played his first XV with his best power runners, but it's all ifs, buts and maybes.

What I do know is that Cipriani has 16 England caps and he hasn't exactly set the international rugby world alight. I can think of him creating maybe a couple of tries for England, but not much else. He's been pretty quiet when he's had his chances. Ford, on the other hand, has created dozens and dozens of tries in his 57 caps, as has Farrell in his 71 caps. Those two have both shown they can do the job on the international stage, Cips simply hasn't.

I'm not saying Cips isn't a good player, of course he is, I just don't see any evidence that he's a cut above what we already have when it comes to playing internationals (as opposed to club rugby).
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Cips may not have made a difference last week but you asked when england struggled for tries and I gave you an example, one recent example of Cips try was that awesome kick against SA finished by May, when your not given a descent string of games I’d imagine it is pretty hard to grow into a team as a 10. Cips is not simply a good club player he is a class act, maybe he is too disruptive to the team maybe personality clashes with others who knows, he simply has more ability than Ford and Faz is a different kind of 10 so it’s difficult to compare those two.

From a prem point of view Tigers have gone down hill since Ford joined, relegation battles etc compare that to Gloucester who couldn’t make the top four cut, Cips moves makes it there and his previous team Wasps suddenly Fail to make the top four they had featured in regularly for the previous 3 or 4 seasons, not to mention he was awarded the player of the season.

I don’t really see how you fail to see what he brings to the table when it is so obvious.
 
higgik said:
They do look in a good place mentally, which we all know at that level is 95% of the game plan.
Also agree with Youngs, he his out of his depth with this new faster team.
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Youngs would be out of his depth in a paddling pool. We can have absolutely perfect quick ball and he will still slow it down. The thing is even in the slow arm wrestle games, he doesn't execute well enough to just a loss of speed. He is just crap.
 
I'd be fine with the speed of his service, if it was accurate.

The inaccuracy just compounds the time it takes for him to make it.

I really wish there was a "passing quality" stat - a bit like Ruckmarks; number of passes where the player has to reach or check their run, fumble, etc.
 
Jimbo said:
Cips may not have made a difference last week but you asked when england struggled for tries and I gave you an example, one recent example of Cips try was that awesome kick against SA finished by May, when your not given a descent string of games I’d imagine it is pretty hard to grow into a team as a 10. Cips is not simply a good club player he is a class act, maybe he is too disruptive to the team maybe personality clashes with others who knows, he simply has more ability than Ford and Faz is a different kind of 10 so it’s difficult to compare those two.

From a prem point of view Tigers have gone down hill since Ford joined, relegation battles etc compare that to Gloucester who couldn’t make the top four cut, Cips moves makes it there and his previous team Wasps suddenly Fail to make the top four they had featured in regularly for the previous 3 or 4 seasons, not to mention he was awarded the player of the season.

I don’t really see how you fail to see what he brings to the table when it is so obvious.
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Just thinking, it is far too late, but would Ford have made a great scrum half???
 
Ford a great 10 why would he be any better at 9.
Finished top point scorer in the league despite being away with England and being with the 11th place team.

Trying to place any blame for Tigers downfall is pretty laughable.
Tigers downfall has been 10 years in the making with more and more bad decision from off field management snowballing into the team.
I would say that without Ford Tigers would've been relegated.

Gloucester was making progress the season before Cipriani arrived and

In the prem this season Ford's been the better player despite being in a worst team
Ford beat 57 defenders this season the highest among 10's by a mile (Weir was second with 29).
Ford scored more tries
Ford had more try assists
Ford had more clean breaks
Despite Ford playing less Prem games.

+ Ford is an actual goal kicker.

But Cips has more ability BTW...
 

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