NWR 6N 2021.

After sleeping on that rather unpleasant spectacle, where England contributed so much to their own downfall that it is better to just forget about Gauzere - refs have 'mares from time to time and England's mistake was to not adjust to how he was determined to ref, though I am sure that, being human, he would have watched both team's previous games and noted how they tended to infringe. In respect to the Itoje pings, I suspect there would have been fewer if he had the luxury of playing Premiership every week as so much of the timing is honed by playing. However, an intelligent response to the lack of timing would be to dial back the kick rush etc. I also feel that EJ needs to reboot himself as well - perhaps treat the Ireland and France games as the chance to blood some of the young Turks. If he were to dial in the options, and England come roaring back in 2022 with a strong run for the 2023 RWC we would forgive this stretch. If he just gives us more of the same, he should go to give replacement a year to cobble together a squad that does the shirt justice.
 
England lacked leadership and a change of captain may be needed.
I think many of us have been unhappy with Farrell's leadership for a long while. I did like the comment that England don't appear to have a player that will bollock his own team-mates - like an Alan Wynn-Jones or indeed a Martin Johnson. A player who will stop the "we're being victimised" attitude and when someone does something really stupid like an obvious side entry, that they get told very clearly they've let the side down. Probably George Ford is the only one who seems to have that, but he's not sure of his place in the current England thinking. Maro Itoje looks like the other obvious candidate, but I don't know if he's prepared to be that harsh on his team-mates.

It did seem that little game time was necessary for some players, especially the Saracens ones. The brothers Vunipola both looked much more energetic for sure.
 
I thought Ford had a good game in general and hope he is retained. His passing is so much sharper and the spiral kicks a point of difference. If it were me I'd drop Farrel as the last two games are dead rubbers anyway it would be good to see another centre.
 
Meanwhile, further evidence that society has a decidedly rotten minority, who are finding their voice again
Indeed, what kind of a sad sack of sh*t do you have to be to do that. Farrell and AWJ should also publicly support her.
 
Stop the press, Joel Jutges admits to mistakes in the two tries. Banged to rights with the first one, but I think being hard on himself with the second.

I do hope we see some new blood in the last 2 English games. I particularly would like to see Dombrandt be given a chance at No8
 
Ah, Bon, Fermer la porte apres le depart du cheval. Bravo.

Sadly I think this will not precipitate some necessary change but engender a 'we were robbed' attitude and Eddie will want to give them the chance to set the record straight. I agree with you though Sean, would be good to see some newer faces given a go.
 
Ah, Bon, Fermer la porte apres le depart du cheval. Bravo.

Sadly I think this will not precipitate some necessary change but engender a 'we were robbed' attitude and Eddie will want to give them the chance to set the record straight. I agree with you though Sean, would be good to see some newer faces given a go.
There was a rumour he's done it for exactly that, to engender the "we woz robbed" cries from Dan and he'd send back his burgundy to France in protest
 
I'm not too interested in rehashing it, as England started with the same sloppiness (5 penalites in the first 14 minutes!) that they finished with so I remain unconvinced that Wales wouldn't have won anyway, but Jutge's quote on the second try is hilarious politician level of deflection:

Addressing the Williams try, Jutge said: “The ball is not controlled by the wing and falls on his thigh. The situation became confused because at the time there was no notion of loss of control. The reality is that if he had whistled for a knock-on, no one would have found fault with him. This is one of the perverse effects of the video system, looking too much [at an incident] in microscopic detail. There is a tendency to refer to the TMO too often when one can make the call on the pitch and stick with it.”

To paraphrase "He got it wrong because he ignored that the player dropped the ball. If he didn't ignore it, he wouldn't have got it wrong. By looking at the replay, he become distracted by the high quality of the video feed, and a wave of rugby law related amensia came over him. This is the risk of using replays too frequently."
 
Dan, you got robbed for tries but Wales got robbed as a few English players did not get a well deserved yellow card. This English team reminded me of the infamous French team of a few years ago... (actually we were hardly half the first half that Yachvili was wondering why the referee was not giving yellow cards as he risked losing control not punishing ill discipline...)
 
Dan, you got robbed for tries but Wales got robbed as a few English players did not get a well deserved yellow card. This English team reminded me of the infamous French team of a few years ago... (actually we were hardly half the first half that Yachvili was wondering why the referee was not giving yellow cards as he risked losing control not punishing ill discipline...)
As I noted before, the ref could equally have handed out numerous penalties for offside and sealing off against Wales. He chose not to do so or even to warn the Welsh players whilst warning and/penalising english players at every ruck or maul. Only he knows why he chose to ref the game the way he did but it wasn’t a case of favouring the attacking team as there were key penalties against england almost every time they got into an attacking position too. Whichever way you cut it, the ref decided he would determine the outcome of this game and that made for a very poor contest.
 
Whatever the standard of officiating, good players and good teams develop the ability to play to the ref, and it can be decisive - witness Warburton's appeal to the ref in the third Lions test in NZ. Johnson was another who could do it, and there are plenty of others.

This England team don't have that ability and, notwithstanding the specific situation on Saturday, it is undeniable that Farrell is weak on that score, always has been.

The post mortems can go back and forth, but by that time the game has gone, and this team needs to be able to latch on to what they need to do to deploy all that power and skill that Jones has instilled in them while the game is still there for the taking. I think having fought back to parity it would have been a huge psychological step forward to have been able to compose themselves and exert control in order to win, but that seems to elude them at this stage of their development
 
A very close game and France might wonder how they lost, after leading for so long. I felt they sat on their lead a bit. To be fair though, England created a number of promising situations in the second half and kept throwing them away in the rucks - until the last few minutes. Earl coming on seemed to energise England.
 
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