Ireland v England - 19 August 2023

[Leonormous Boozer]

Reckon we'll go full strength here and then back to muddled up for Samoa. No major injuries and the rest should deal with itself, hopefully Steward doesn't play which should help with this, the clumsy ****.

 

[Welsh Exile]

This should be a good 20-30 point win for Ireland and it probably will but something tells me this might be a lot closer than people think.

 

[Leonormous Boozer]

This should be a good 20-30 point win for Ireland and it probably will but something tells me this might be a lot closer than people think.

We don't match up too well against England, for whatever reason their kick chase always manages to isolate Keenan like no other teams can manage. I expect to win by more than a score but we won't hammer them.

 

[Welsh Exile]

We don't match up too well against England, for whatever reason their kick chase always manages to isolate Keenan like no other teams can manage. I expect to win by more than a score but we won't hammer them.

Yeah something like 32-18 but with it being reasonably close at HT. though I'm saying that as someone who's never got a prediction right in his life.

Goes without saying I would love to see you destroy them but as you say you don't generally match up well to them.

 

[HamJan]

This should be a good 20-30 point win for Ireland and it probably will but something tells me this might be a lot closer than people think.

I hope you're right, it was a lot closer in March than I expected it to be, but we seem to have gone backward in many areas.

 

[Grizwald]

Irish pundits are predicting a gun Irish side. As an English supporter I can only hope given the last two games it's a case of playing to the level of the opposition!

 

[Ragey Erasmus]

TBH short of something drastically changing for England, I think Ireland could be looking to eye up their largest ever win against England in this game (30 points currently their best). The number of record worst defeats / most points conceded that England have had in the last 5 years is pretty shocking.

 

[ShropshireAllBlack]

The Irish coaches are on the record that every player of the remaining 42 would get game time during the warm up games (Sexton aside). While it will be a stronger XV than the Italian game, I expect will be a combination of possibles and probables in the starting XV with an experienced bench getting to stretch their legs in the final 20 minutes.

 

[LardFingers]

It seems to me that for our key players the risk of injury (or doing a Farrell) outweighs the benefits of game time in these matches.

England should have kept a bigger squad together and mainly used the possibles in the warm-ups, reserving our best players for cameos as subs.

 

[BrokenWing]

hopefully Steward doesn't play which should help with this, the clumsy ****.

Nothing clumsier than running face first into someone's hip.

 

[Ragey Erasmus]

It seems to me that for our key players the risk of injury (or doing a Farrell) outweighs the benefits of game time in these matches.

England should have kept a bigger squad together and mainly used the possibles in the warm-ups, reserving our best players for cameos as subs.

Kinda worrying that what we put out against Wales first were the reserves and the second lot were our "best" players really.

 

[Wasps92]

Yeah something like 32-18 but with it being reasonably close at HT. though I'm saying that as someone who's never got a prediction right in his life.

Goes without saying I would love to see you destroy them but as you say you don't generally match up well to them.

No way England score 18 points.

 

[Don't Skip Leg Day]

Yeah I can't see us actually scoring v more than 2 tries in one game unless Ireland are down to 14 and our players are ignoring the idiotic 'kick the ball every second phase' gameplan that will never work.

Head tells me we are in for a thrashing unless it's a scratch Ireland side it I'm guessing the Leinster 2nd team would smash England right now.

 

[Jimbo]

Imagine if SB ripped game plans up said boys everyone's doubting us, 'let's play what's in front of us and see what happens', this wouldn't translate into us beating world No1 over night on their own turf, but hell if we actually showed some glimpses of attack and dog (like the last 10 mins against Wales) I'd ultimately feel a lot better about English rugby, regardless of the score to some extent.

 

[Zed]

Imagine if SB ripped game plans up said boys everyone's doubting us, 'let's play what's in front of us and see what happens', this wouldn't translate into us beating world No1 over night on their own turf, but hell if we actually showed some glimpses of attack and dog (like the last 10 mins against Wales) I'd ultimately feel a lot better about English rugby, regardless of the score to some extent.

They would probably go a lot better. I'm always bemused as to how reluctant coaches are to change tactics, gameplans, players etc when things are dire. You would think SB would realise there is something fundamentally wrong with how England are playing and performing and start looking at a completely different strategy. Instead, he'll probably just have them working on ball-skills, fixing the lineouts, practising box kicks etc.. WTF have they been doing the last however many months!

 

[Zed]

Reckon we'll go full strength here and then back to muddled up for Samoa. No major injuries and the rest should deal with itself, hopefully Steward doesn't play which should help with this, the clumsy ****.

How are Samoa travelling? I know Tonga has got a few ex-ABs plus Folua in their squad are reportedly going to be a bit of a challenge.

 

[Barnabee]

Imagine if SB ripped game plans up said boys everyone's doubting us, 'let's play what's in front of us and see what happens', this wouldn't translate into us beating world No1 over night on their own turf, but hell if we actually showed some glimpses of attack and dog (like the last 10 mins against Wales) I'd ultimately feel a lot better about English rugby, regardless of the score to some extent.

I am not sure that your suggestion would work

 

[Leonormous Boozer]

Just saw this. Can we start bigging up Johnny as a Livewire who can unlock a defence at any moment? Or at least any moment minus the .02 that Marcus has over hiim.

 

[ncurd]

View attachment 17338

Just saw this. Can we start bigging up Johnny as a Livewire who can unlock a defence at any moment? Or at least any moment minus the .02 that Marcus has over hiim.

Marcus isn't that great this stat just proves it. Although you do wonder how much both of their stats would increase playing outside DuPont.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

All I'm seeing is that Smith is a significantly better 10 than Sexton, as if we needed stats to tell us that