The Rugby Union Thread

exocet

tbm said:

Bernard Jackman on RTE yesterday saying Galthié could be gone sooner rather then later. Mad given where they were a few months ago. 

Unbelievable really. I'm struggling to understand what has gone wrong - I refuse to accept that it's all about the absence of DuPont unless of course the decision to allow him to focus on 7's has caused internal divisions.

tbm

exocet said:

tbm said:

Bernard Jackman on RTE yesterday saying Galthié could be gone sooner rather then later. Mad given where they were a few months ago. 

Unbelievable really. I'm struggling to understand what has gone wrong - I refuse to accept that it's all about the absence of DuPont unless of course the decision to allow him to focus on 7's has caused internal divisions.

Jackman made the point that Galthié is a pretty spikey figure - there a number of buffers within the coaching team that deal with players - and that he has made money elsewhere implying that he may jump. That its not worth the hassle for him. 

Gassage

tbm said:

Bernard Jackman on RTE yesterday saying Galthié could be gone sooner rather then later. Mad given where they were a few months ago. 

Ironically just been discussing this with Bernard on the phone. The missing link IMO is Laurent Labit, one of the best back coaches in the game, who has left France's coaching team to lead Stade Francais.

France strange. Cros almost kept them in that game single handedly at times. Phenomenal shift from a hugely underrated player.

Jalapeno

bertie said:

Ford needs to learn how to pass

True, people saying Furbank gifted VdM a try from a knock-on - looked to me that Ford fired a missile at Furbank's head and he had no time to adjust.

Number of Lawrence's and Slade's knock-ons unacceptable, but how much of that was Ford ?

Well done Scotland and all that, but they didn't really do much, just watched England give it to them.

fretmeister

Jalapeno said:

bertie said:

Ford needs to learn how to pass

True, people saying Furbank gifted VdM a try from a knock-on - looked to me that Ford fired a missile at Furbank's head and he had no time to adjust.

Number of Lawrence's and Slade's knock-ons unacceptable, but how much of that was Ford ?

Well done Scotland and all that, but they didn't really do much, just watched England give it to them.

That pretty much mirrors my views of it.

Furbank has been targeted because of Steward being dropped, but Furbank got round the field well and got stuck into the breakdown too. He's definitely a lot faster than Steward and butter fingers aside, is more of an attacking threat.

Ford's pass to him was incredibly fast, and on the evidence, Lawrence or Daly wouldn't have caught it on that day either.
Lawrence & Daly made more errors than Furbank but they aren't getting the ire of the fans.

He did ok.

Others did less well.

digitalscream

fretmeister said:

Jalapeno said:

bertie said:

Ford needs to learn how to pass

True, people saying Furbank gifted VdM a try from a knock-on - looked to me that Ford fired a missile at Furbank's head and he had no time to adjust.

Number of Lawrence's and Slade's knock-ons unacceptable, but how much of that was Ford ?

Well done Scotland and all that, but they didn't really do much, just watched England give it to them.

That pretty much mirrors my views of it.

Furbank has been targeted because of Steward being dropped, but Furbank got round the field well and got stuck into the breakdown too. He's definitely a lot faster than Steward and butter fingers aside, is more of an attacking threat.

Ford's pass to him was incredibly fast, and on the evidence, Lawrence or Daly wouldn't have caught it on that day either.
Lawrence & Daly made more errors than Furbank but they aren't getting the ire of the fans.

He did ok.

Others did less well.

From where I was sitting, the only part where Furbank fell short was under the high ball - he's just not as good at retrieving kicks as Steward. Of course, nobody in the England camp saw fit to adjust for that, so they were chucking up high balls that Scotland could collect at their leisure all day.

TimmyO

I don't follow sports reporting so I don't know if there's other reasons that he has the 'ire of fans' - I just know that watching the game he made some clangers in really important moments to the point where I wouldn't have been surprised to have seen him subbed off. 

fretmeister

TimmyO said:

I don't follow sports reporting so I don't know if there's other reasons that he has the 'ire of fans' - I just know that watching the game he made some clangers in really important moments to the point where I wouldn't have been surprised to have seen him subbed off. 

Wouldn't have surprised me either, I just think it would / should have been after Ford, Lawrence, Daly were subbed, and those 3 probably should have gone after the first 20 minutes.

crunchman

digitalscream said:

From where I was sitting, the only part where Furbank fell short was under the high ball - he's just not as good at retrieving kicks as Steward. Of course, nobody in the England camp saw fit to adjust for that, so they were chucking up high balls that Scotland could collect at their leisure all day.

The kicks they put up weren't very good.  Hardly any of them had the right length on them.  A lot of them were too long so the chase couldn't get there, and there were also some that were too short.  Steward might have come down with most of those, but it doesn't change the fact that the kicks were poor.

From my point of view, Care had a poor game with his kicking.

tbm

Gassage said:

tbm said:

Bernard Jackman on RTE yesterday saying Galthié could be gone sooner rather then later. Mad given where they were a few months ago. 

Ironically just been discussing this with Bernard on the phone. The missing link IMO is Laurent Labit, one of the best back coaches in the game, who has left France's coaching team to lead Stade Francais.

France strange. Cros almost kept them in that game single handedly at times. Phenomenal shift from a hugely underrated player.

He has great insights into French Rugby does Jackman. He a great pundit. 

digitalscream

crunchman said:

digitalscream said:

From where I was sitting, the only part where Furbank fell short was under the high ball - he's just not as good at retrieving kicks as Steward. Of course, nobody in the England camp saw fit to adjust for that, so they were chucking up high balls that Scotland could collect at their leisure all day.

The kicks they put up weren't very good.  Hardly any of them had the right length on them.  A lot of them were too long so the chase couldn't get there, and there were also some that were too short.  Steward might have come down with most of those, but it doesn't change the fact that the kicks were poor.

From my point of view, Care had a poor game with his kicking.

Oh, I don't disagree. I guess my point is that Steward flatters everybody with his ability to get under high balls, but they didn't even make an attempt to adapt when they replaced him with Furbank. Even during the game, when it was blatantly obvious - they'd already lost most of the contests in the air, for whatever reason, and yet...final 10 minutes and two scores down, not a single one of them stopped to think, "Oh, hang on, we really need to keep the ball here, so perhaps we shouldn't do the one thing we usually rely on that's been failing for the entire fucking game".

That's the biggest failing I see with the England setup - there's only one circumstance in which they successfully adapt, and that's when they're a man (or two) down. In every other situation, they stick to the game plan regardless of how successful it's been thus far.

bertie

excuse my ignorance, but WTF has Jackman got to do with French rugby ?  if he's just a pundit, why is his view so important above other pundits?

Blaendulais

bertie said:

excuse my ignorance, but WTF has Jackman got to do with French rugby ?  if he's just a pundit, why is his view so important above other pundits?

i think he worked there quite a while and played there and speaks the language andd loves the country. Fuck all really i agree

tbm

bertie said:

excuse my ignorance, but WTF has Jackman got to do with French rugby ?  if he's just a pundit, why is his view so important above other pundits?

It's not more important, but he has been  a Top 14 head coach. Has relationships with a lot of current French Top 14 coaches and has dealt with the FFR . He has good insights. 

bertie

tbm said:

bertie said:

excuse my ignorance, but WTF has Jackman got to do with French rugby ?  if he's just a pundit, why is his view so important above other pundits?

It's not more important, but he has been  a Top 14 head coach. Has relationships with a lot of current French Top 14 coaches and has dealt with the FFR . He has good insights. 

aha  -  gotcha,  makes more sense now 

Blaendulais said:

i think he worked there quite a while and played there and speaks the language andd loves the country. Fuck all really i agree

"insert sticky out tongue emoji"  (cos the tongue one comes up as angry face !)

I honestly didnt know.

Pjon

sev112 said:

koneguitarist said:

Thought first half reffing against Wales seemed to be very one sided, and forward passes galore. 

Agree, I was screaming at the ref for highly inconsistency - Irelands 2nd and 3rd pkayers always immediately off feet off the ball, yet only Wales penalised for it when the Ireland player pulled him in.

Ireland entering mauls from the side, and agreed forward passes

I agree, even through a tint of bias. He was awful.

Two minutes into the second half he penalised Ireland for tackling players beyond the breakdown. (I think it might have been O Mahoney who claimed it was counter rucking, which it isn't, it's taking out players off the ball.) This had been happening all through the game up to that point, because it's part of their game plan, how Ireland are so effective at the breakdown - they stop the opposition from even getting to it and competing. If that means tackling a player before he gets to the breakdown they do it. 

Once he had pinged them for it, Ireland stopped doing it so blatantly and Wales came back into the game a bit, but by then they were too far down on points anyway. Of course, the mystery is why it took so long for the ref to see it, and indeed why any ref allows Ireland to get away with it. Stop them from doing that and they look rather more ordinary. 

Blaendulais

bertie said:

tbm said:

bertie said:

excuse my ignorance, but WTF has Jackman got to do with French rugby ?  if he's just a pundit, why is his view so important above other pundits?

It's not more important, but he has been  a Top 14 head coach. Has relationships with a lot of current French Top 14 coaches and has dealt with the FFR . He has good insights. 

aha  -  gotcha,  makes more sense now 

Blaendulais said:

i think he worked there quite a while and played there and speaks the language andd loves the country. Fuck all really i agree

"insert sticky out tongue emoji"  (cos the tongue one comes up as angry face !)

I honestly didnt know.

No worries ! 

fretmeister

bertie

he can't play #9  cos he doesnt know how to pass,  apart from that, Id agree

wont be long before he gets his own tartan

p90fool

bertie said:

he can't play #9  cos he doesnt know how to pass,  apart from that, Id agree

wont be long before he gets his own tartan

I loved the Freudian slip in his post match interview, "It's the first hattrick I've scored for England".