[2015 RWC] Pool A: England vs. Wales (26/09/2015)

[smit1099]

Now then ya big SH ******, Robshaw takes FULL responsibility for the kick to touch rather than the posts, just as he did against the Saffers a few years ago...he's captain he takes the blame as he makes the choice. Fair play to him for that.

The result says Lancaster got his team wrong, I expected England to pile it on in the 2nd half, instead they capitulated badly, the odd sub change didn't cause that. Lancaster's reign will end with a record he doesn't want...the only host to go out in the group stages. It isn't surprising to me, England are as poor as I've seen them in decades, no leaders anywhere, constant personnel changes hoping the formula will work, penalties galore when up against it...just not good enough.

Most England fans knew this result was on the cards despite the home advantage, Lancaster just doesn't win big games.

 

[ncurd]

*kicks a puppy*

Okay so I spent this afternoon drinking and talking to my father and uncle. We're pretty certain conservative selection aside and kick to the corner the actual point we lost this game was simple.

Brining Ford on for Barritt to protect a 10 point lead. No game situation awareness just that's what the gameplan said to do so that's what we do. The biggest frustration is it's not the first time Lancaster has done premeditated subsitutions and it completely cost us a game.

*kicks the puppy on his way out*

 

[French Tiger]

I can't put into words how uncomfortable that shuffle makes me feel... it goes on for so long!

Me too, it's so frustrating.

They will bounce back and crushed the Australian scrum ... i hope. Although the English scrum disappointed me since the first test match against France, specially Joe Marler and Dan Cole. Our back row is not mobile enough. We need to play with a real openside. Chris Robshaw is more a blindside than a real openside.

Although I warmly congratulate the Welsh for victory with heroic courage, we lost ourselves that game with that ****ing discipline that does not date from yesterday.

Robshaw choices late in the game was good, and we have to commend the wonderful Welsh defense.

If I wanted your opinion on the level of Webber, Wiggy and especially Barritt.

And sorry for my poor english.

 

[Bada-Bing!]

Well Dan Roan of the BBC is reporting on Twitter that JJ is touch and go and a decision won't be made until Thursday. BV and Courtney are 50:50 to make it and BY has an ankle injury and is also a doubt to face Australia.

 

[kesh]

Well Dan Roan of the BBC is reporting on Twitter that JJ is touch and go and a decision won't be made until Thursday. BV and Courtney are 50:50 to make it and BY has an ankle injury and is also a doubt to face Australia.

Some good news. Guess Morgan is ok to go too. Shame about Youngs, he was great till he went off.

 

[TommiG88]

If youngs is out, I want to see care in the starting 15.

 

[Boomslangnz]

This gave me a laugh today. Apparently this was in an English paper..........

Didn't Wales win??

~

 

[The Jones Boy]

That article is exactly why neutrals grow to dislike England.
If you read and chat with the English fans on here you'll see that they are just like the rest of us.
But the English media is so frightfully biased it does' bear thinking about.
Dan Biggar was given a 6 out of 10.
That idiot sports journo should never have a job again.

England CAN get out of their group but they must not follow premeditated substitutions to the letter !!
Lancaster MUST read the game.
What is Andy Farrell for exactly??? Other than promoting his son?
That guy is a waste of space.
Kick him back to League because under Farrell Englands back line has not advanced as it should.

 

[Atco]

The experts never factored in Lancaster and Andy Farrell's clockwork premeditated substitution plans.
Gatland did though and there lays the rub.
If Lancaster and Farrell bothered to read the game they would have left Burgess on, he had swags of gas in the tank and he was tackling the big Welsh enters comfortably, Owen Farrell was having a blinder, the last thing England needed was another no.10 coming in from the cold and to shift him out to 2nd five, that was retarded. Leave the guy where he was on fire.
Woodward never changed a team unless it was necessary.

Correct.

 

[glawsfan]

England didn't lose that game Lancaster did. Why when 10 points up do you make that many changes? It was typical England after May's try any decent team would have kicked on and closed the game out. But being the pessimist that I am I said at the time we would still chuck the game away and unfortunately I was right. Lancaster's game plan is so dull it's no surprise we will be out be out come this time next week. We have arguably the most dangerous back 3 in world rugby yet we decide not to give them the ball. I'm amazed May and Watson do as well as they do given how little ball they see. Also please god get Care on the bench instead of Wigglesworth who must be the slowest scrum half for getting the ball out the ruck in this WC.

To sum up in a couple of weeks Lancaster will be out of a job and the next 4 year cycle of a new coach building up to the next WC will begin.

 

[j'nuh]

tbf, Ben Youngs, Parling and Billy Vunipola went off injured and Goode didn't make it onto the field, so only half the subs were tactical.

 

[RedCard]

Not sure how much of an impact on the result Ford coming on had. Farrell essentially replaced Burgess who was excellent defensively. Wales were getting deeper and getting the ball wider by doing this which is how the try came about. Other key moments in the loss I don't remember thinking it was either Ford or Farrell at fault. Wales seemed to want it more and just got stronger where England didn't lift their game as a team. England started better but Wales finished the stronger. Lucky Young was injured as there would have been no hiding place for SL if that was tactical though.

 

[Mcfadden]

Wasn't SL who went for the corner instead of the posts. Selections and sub choices were poor, don't disagree, but the players themselves don't have clean hands.

 

[Willodell100]

England lost that game before KO. Through the team changes SL made it a 'win by 3' match rather than, as we should have done, a spank them by 15+.

He didn't just change the personnel he changed the whole emphasis by bringing in Farrell @10, Burgess @12 & moving Barritt to 13.

Farrell had a good game but he still doesn't play flat on the gain line like Ford does. Becusse of this it allowed Wales to drift a lot easier (apart from when Youngs threatened their fringe defence. He was 100 times better then last week.

I truly believe SL did panic and reverted to a conservative game plan against a seriously under strength and depleted Welsh team.

If he has'd simply replaced JJ with Slade I think the result would have been very different. With Ford and Slade bringing the back three into the game a lot more we would have created far more.

Sounds are though he's not going to make many if any changes. This would be suicidal in my opinion!

On a side note this should be the last time we ever see Brad Barritt in an Englsbd shirt. The guy, as hard working as he is, simply isn't good enough at 12 let alone defending or attacking in the 13 channel.

 

[TRF_stormer2010]

SA has lost a couple with ill considered substitutions under both Meyer and PdV. I feel your pain.

That said what a fantastic win for Wales and added drama for the tournament. This pool is living up to its reputation and SA going down to Japan means 4 teams are in the hunt for a play-off place in pool B as well. What a RWC!

 

[msf]

Dumb, dumb article.

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/...-burgess-if-the-game-is-rubbish-a6669386.html

There were actually some interesting comments on this subject from Joel Tompkins (Sam Burgess mk1) - he said that the difficult thing in union is getting yourself involved in a game without compromising the team´s structure, and that in league, if you haven´t had a touch for a while, you can just demand the ball, regardless of what is going on at the time.

The one position (from my very limited viewing of league) that doesn´t seem to be like this is wing - perhaps this is why most of the successful leaguees are wings.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

If youngs is out, I want to see care in the starting 15.

Why?
Wigglesworth is way better.
Care, on form, has a great running game but i wouldn't put my money on him being at top form.
Wigglesworth is the best distributor, kicker and defender we have at 9, and his running game is underrated too.

 

[Willodell100]

Why?
Wigglesworth is way better.
Care, on form, has a great running game but i wouldn't put my money on him being at top form.
Wigglesworth is the best distributor, kicker and defender we have at 9, and his running game is underrated too.

Yeah I agree with that. I've never been a fan of Wigglesworth's but he did well coming off the bench against Fiji. Really speed up the game and got the big ball carriers going.

And he did pretty well coming on against Wales. It was only because Ben Youngs had such a big impact that anyone following that was going to struggle but I don't think he put a foot wrong.

Yes he doesn't have the pace to test the fringe defence as well as Youngs or Care but he is playing well and if Lancaster sticks with Farrell (I personally hope not) then I'd rather have Wigglesworth to supply him with fast ball.

 

[Kiwi_]

@Colombia

Since you thought Robshaw was wrong, interested to know if you think Japan were wrong to go for the corner.

 

[MojoPin]

@Colombia

Since you thought Robshaw was wrong, interested to know if you think Japan were wrong to go for the corner.

Yeah found this pretty hypocritical as well - if it has worked then they'd have been heroes. The problem I think is actually that they chose to throw to the front of the lineout rather than the back. So much easier for Wales to defend. I think Wales would have taken the draw if it was the other way around - so it was a brave, ballsy move from Robshaw and until they threw to the front I was actually pretty convinced they'd pull it off. Couldn't believe it when it went to the front though and then the rest is history.