England Player Ratings

[dailywaffle]

Sporting Life:

DELON ARMITAGE: 6/10.
PAUL SACKEY: 5.
JAMIE NOON: 5.
RIKI FLUTEY: 6.
MARK CUETO: 7.
ANDY GOODE: 5.
HARRY ELLIS: 6.
PHIL VICKERY: 6.
LEE MEARS: 6.
ANDREW SHERIDAN: 5.
STEVE BORTHWICK: 5.
NICK KENNEDY: 6.
JAMES HASKELL: 7.
STEFFON ARMITAGE: 6.
NICK EASTER: 6.

REPLACEMENTS
JOE WORSLEY (for Armitage, 55): 6.
DYLAN HARTLEY (for Mears, 55): 6.
BEN FODEN (for Ellis, 61): 6.
SHANE GERAGHTY (for Flutey, 61): 5.
JULIAN WHITE (for Sheridan, 61): 6.
TOM CROFT (for Kennedy, 78): 5.
MATHEW TAIT (for Noon, 78): 5.

rugby365.com:

15 Delon Armitage: 6/10.
14 Paul Sackey: 5/10.
13 Jamie Noon: (replaced by Tait in the second half) 5/10.
12 Riki Flutey: (replaced by Geraghty in the second half) 6/10.
11 Mark Cueto: 8/10.
10 Andy Goode: 6/10.
9 Harry Ellis: (replaced by Foden in the second half) 9/10.
8 Nick Easter: 4/10.
7 Steffon Armitage: (replaced by Worsley in the second half) 4/10.
6 James Haskell: 5/10.
5 Nick Kennedy: (replaced by Croft in the second half) 5/10.
4 Steve Borthwick: 4/10.
3 Phil Vickery: 7/10.
2 Lee Mears: (replaced by Hartley in the second half) 3/10.
1 Andrew Sheridan: (replaced by White in the second half) 2/10.

Replacements:
16 Dylan Hartley: (replaced Mears in the second half) 4/10.
17 Julian White: (replaced Sheridan in the second half) (not enough time to be rated)
18 Tom Croft: (replaced Kennedy in the second half) (not enough game time to be rated)
19 Joe Worsley: (replaced Armitage in the second half) 5/10.
20 Ben Foden: (replaced Ellis in the second half) 5/10.
21 Shane Geraghty: (replaced Flutey in the second half) Silly challenge resulted in a yellow card. Thus not enough time to be rated.
22 Mathew Tait: (replaced Noon in the second half) Not enough time to be rated.

I'll maybe do mine in a minute, once I've got my head out of the oven.

[dailywaffle]

15 D Armitage - confirmed that he was overhyped following the AIs - 5/10
14 Sackey - bit part player - 4/10
13 Noon - just too limited - 3.5/10
12 Flutey - nice work in Ellis' second try and one decent punt, but another disappointing display in the white shirt - 5/10
11 Cueto - gave it a rip, best of the outside backs - 6/10
10 Goode - typical Goode, two flashes of brilliance and a whole heap of rubbish - 4/10
9 Ellis - took his tries well, but kicked poorly and went AWOL mid-match - 6/10

1 Sheridan - completely stuffed by Castro, no redeeming features at all - 1/10
2 Mears - made little impact - 4/10
3 Vickery - best of the front row, but not saying much - 5/10
4 Borthwick - overpowered, continues to confirm that he is not good enough. Team discipline still an issue - 3/10.
5 Kennedy - best of a pretty poor front 5 - 6/10.
6 Haskell - as ever, effort better than attainment. Brainless yellow card - 4/10.
7 S Armitage - looked totally out of his depth, never settled - 2/10.
8 Easter - solid, if you're being charitable - 5/10

None of the replacements particularly impressed, some didn't have enough time. Please tell Ben Foden to stay at 15.

[G.K]

The sporting life ones are a joke, rugby 365 are nearer the mark.

The problem remains: there are players wearing England shirts that should not be doing so: Borthwick, Easter, Worsley & Noon; along with some that are not doing a lot if they do put one on, today this was: Sheridan, Mears, Sackey, D Armitage.

Ellis was the best but was by no means outstanding, Goode and Cueto had a reasonable return to international level but the rest just did not seem interested and Haskell needs a brain.

I'm beginning to wish Martin Johnson had stayed in retirement as he is in danger of becoming even worse than Robinson and Ashton.

[Snorbins]

They get ratings for that abject performance?
No positives and no game plan. Goode played his game ( and England won) but as usual we kick away possession and say come and attack.
Wales are laughing?
As Deano said any win is a good win!!!!!

[Tircoeds]

An honest appraisal from you there DW ... If I have paid £85 to be there this afternoon I would have wanted my money back ....

Not sure how what the No.7 did all game .... did he touch the ball / make a tackle ? Easter, IMO was the pick of the forwards, with Ellis the pick in the backs (only becuase he scored two tries - he still managed to get scragged on too many occassions.) Haskell lived up to his reputation of silly indiscipline ..... not sure he did himself any favours with that one, though he did help set up on of Ellis' tries, admittedly, Bergamasco played a bigger part.

Borthwick is not fit to be captain and Sheridan should be ashamed of that performance ...... I hope we fare better tomorrow.

[SimonP in Surrey]

Only Ellis, Easter, Cueto, Goode and Vickery (never thought I would say that) really showed up. Borthwick now a major issue as he get dumped back 5 meters every time he touches the ball. Foden kicked 5 or 6 times time when he should have spread the ball. Think Geraghty and Tait need to be given some game time .. at least they may go for it and not freeze ??

England have a confidence issue, so in that sense a win is a win. They need to get really aggressive to stand any chance at all against Wales. Else Wales to win by 25 to 20 points !!

Pleased for Goode overall .. not Perfect but a Good game !!

[Mat]

Ellis best of a bad bunch. Terrible performance. Back 3 had no ball to show what they could do so cant realy fault them. Aimless kicking by Goode, Forwards slow and no power,

How long can we keep Wells with his dire old fashioned pack. they just hav not adapted to modern rugby. Looka how quickly the irsh cleaned out the contact area and got the ball away. They frove in and up and counter rucked with real passion. We have no skill, no pasion and no idea how to play.

Italys back line outplayed ours once they got a scrum half on the pitch! Thats Italy the land of no backs !

We are in for a mighty hammering if wales , irsh or France realy click

[Mr. Grumpy]

From the Sunday Times (by Stephen Jones):

D. Armitage 5/10
Sackey 5/10
Noon 5/10
Flutey 7/10
Cueto 6/10
Goode 5/10
Ellis 6/10
Sheridan 5/10
Mears 5/10
Vickery 6/10
Borthwick 5/10
Kennedy 8/10
Haskell 8/10
S. Armitage 5/10
Easter 6/10

8/10 for Haskell and Kennedy. Did I miss two marvellous performances there? Borthwick’s marks must equate to the metres that he made in the match. Is it me, or do they use random number generators when they complete these things?

[G.K]

If you look at the author you will understand better why they are so inaccurate.

[tigerburnie]

Parrisse was the only player on the park to score more than 5 in my opinion,so where the hell they get those scores from I don't know.England lack two major qualities at the moment.............leadership off the field............leadership on the field.We have talented players but they are being suffocated by the rfu's total inability to do anything right.
Unless Wales get hammered this afternoon,we will get the beating of our lives next weekend if we continue like that.
Tigers against the Ospreys at their place is possibly the way to go,but with a little more will to actually win the game.

[MR]

Not going to go through the whole team.

I thought Haskell carried well and would be worth a 7/10.

Goode was obviously under instruction to kick into the Italian half and play that sort of game. His place kicking wasn't as accurate but worth a 6/10.

Gerraghty showed when he came on he is not ready to start.

Easter I thought also played with a bit of passion. 6/10

Kennedy jumped well and worked hard. Doing all the donkey work for a below standard Borthwick. 6/10
Ellis had an easy ride against an opposite number not up to the job. 6/10

Otherwise i would agree they were were well short of the form of France and Ireland who put on a great game of rugby.

I have to say the style did look familiar to our own this season.
Could there be a new disease caleed "WELLS syndrome" .

Other player who I thought was worth MoM contention
CASTRO 8/10. Murdered Sheridan in every department.
(Didn't like it though when he limped off.)

[El Guapo]

You've forgotten to rate England's best player:

Bergamasco 10/10

[TigerCam]

Don't think Castro is 100% fit. He was the only Eyetie to walk out on to the pitch and he didn't have that usual confident look about himself? Did a really good job on Sheridan but then who doesn't these days.

[The Tigress]

I don't know enough about the game yet to possibly rate each player individually. Its a bit of a steep learning curve for me. However, I thought a lot of England's game yesterday was reminiscent of Tigers play this season - every time they had the ball they kicked it straight into the hands of the opposition. IMHO we only won cos they were so bad. Haskell was indisciplined and I hate that kind of sly play. Harry Ellis just about got away with one of his tackles again but may not have done under a different ref.
Ireland game much, much better - good running rugby and now I finally understand what the phrase "quick ball" means.
I think we'll have to do a lot better than that next weekend. On a brighter note it was nice to see Goode and Castro obviously sharing a joke at the end. Castro looked in pain to me and limped off - any news?