England to win Six Nations

[baz1664]

We're crying out for a ball winner in the back row and Steffon Armitage is the solution and would give us that cutting edge, if Lancaster keeps ignoring him due to this ridiculous ruling then it would be criminal. Once Manu is fit partner him with Joseph, replace Marler with Corbs and give Tom Youngs a run instead of Hartley who is out of form and ineffective. England have a chance at the World Cup but without Lancaster making the right selections we will be quarters at best!!

[jgriffin]

At what point do this England squad stop being 'young and inexperienced'?

Sure there are a couple of young players with just a few caps, but the majority of the squad aren't exactly lacking international experience.

Yes the team has improved, but Lancaster needs to stop using youth and inexperience as an excuse and identify the real reason the team is failing to meet expectations.

I have a theory. There's nothing wrong with the pool of players, but they are being schooled to play a game that doesn't gel with their collective experience. Dare I say it, a simplistic game?
The reason for the relative excellence of Youngs and Ford is, as Ford himself has noted, they have history of playing together in matches and training at Tigers. Wrigglesworth/Ford is noticeably less fluent. JJ/Watson works OK, OTY/Cole similarly.
What's wrong with England is, as many have said for a long time, the coaches and Lancaster in particular

[4071]

Little gains of metres with ball in hand, whereas the Scots made ground with ease, so the tackling wasn't the best either.

England made 611 metres with ball in hand with 48% possession.
Scotland made 372 metres with 52% possession.

England made 17 clean breaks to Scotland's 5.

England tackled at 88% success rate to Scotland's 82%.


You do know that England were the ones in white, right?

[tigerburnie]

Little gains of metres with ball in hand, whereas the Scots made ground with ease, so the tackling wasn't the best either.

England made 611 metres with ball in hand with 48% possession.
Scotland made 372 metres with 52% possession.

England made 17 clean breaks to Scotland's 5.

England tackled at 88% success rate to Scotland's 82%.

You do know I was talking about our backrow at the time....................
You do know that England were the ones in white, right?

[tigerburnie]

French pack came good today, can't remember so many balls stolen against the head, Italy were crushed up front. England can forget about running up points, if the same sides turns up next week, England will be lucky to come second.

[jgriffin]

Little gains of metres with ball in hand, whereas the Scots made ground with ease, so the tackling wasn't the best either.

England made 611 metres with ball in hand with 48% possession.
Scotland made 372 metres with 52% possession.

England made 17 clean breaks to Scotland's 5.

England tackled at 88% success rate to Scotland's 82%.

You do know I was talking about our backrow at the time....................
You do know that England were the ones in white, right?

And squandered most of the advantage. Scotland should've been put to the sword.It is almost as if England create the holes and then say 'where now?' or just muff it. Scotland often looked the more dangerous and direct side ball in hand.

[tigerburnie]

In the context of a 6 Nations, England lost to Ireland away, it happens. But with a World Cup round the corner with aspirations of doing well in it, we should be doing better than we are. When we won it we were beating southern hemisphere sides in their own back yard, here we are struggling to work out who is in the side and how do we beat sides that we should be brushing aside.

[covrich]

For the most part I thought England played okay and created a lot of chances it was just the poor execution that really let us down several times.

It is a shame because I think one more try really would have made next week seem a lot more simplier as in there is a good chance England would probably only have to chase a win of a likley reasonable margin..

I would hate us to have to go into the match knowing that we need 20 pts to be champions, that will affect our direction and mindset in a way which I think will be detrimental..

But hey ho it is what it is and you cannot deny Ireland England and Wales all have a game which means something on the final day and you can probably say all being equal there is not a lot between these 3 sides.

[Sajerj]

In the context of a 6 Nations, England lost to Ireland away, it happens. But with a World Cup round the corner with aspirations of doing well in it, we should be doing better than we are. When we won it we were beating southern hemisphere sides in their own back yard, here we are struggling to work out who is in the side and how do we beat sides that we should be brushing aside.

It was a completely different game in 2003, and in the years building up to it. Injury absences were a tiny fraction of those a decade later. Woodward didn't remotely have to deal with the selection issues facing Lancaster a decade later.

The list of top players who have been unavailable to Lancaster during this cycle for big chunks of time reads like a whose who of English rugby.....Croft, Parling, Manu, TY, Lawes, Launchbury, Morgan, Cole, Corbisero, Mako, Barritt, Farrell. These are just players who have missed months and months our of the games, and doesn't even touch on the endless list of players that have been unavailable because of injuries lasting a few weeks or a month.

[4071]

Little gains of metres with ball in hand, whereas the Scots made ground with ease, so the tackling wasn't the best either.

England made 611 metres with ball in hand with 48% possession.
Scotland made 372 metres with 52% possession.

England made 17 clean breaks to Scotland's 5.

England tackled at 88% success rate to Scotland's 82%.

You do know that England were the ones in white, right?

You do know I was talking about our backrow at the time....................

No. Because your sentance structure wasn't particularly clear. But even so, you still managed to be wrong.

ENG back row: 35 tackles made, 1 missed
SCO back row: 27 tackles made, 4 missed

ENG back row: 28 carries for 60m
SCO back row: 23 carries for 43m


The incessant complaints on here about how dreadful we were seem to be more grounded in a general frustration than anything specific, because most of the specific complaints seem to be, well.... wrong. Or dubious at best.

England left around 20 points behind in missed chances and still won convincingly. They sit top of the table going into the last weekend. This is not a terrible side failing abysmally under the stewardship of an incompetent yeoman 'leader'.

[The Boy Dave]

tigerburnie wrote:
Little gains of metres with ball in hand, whereas the Scots made ground with ease, so the tackling wasn't the best either.


4071

England made 611 metres with ball in hand with 48% possession.
Scotland made 372 metres with 52% possession.

England made 17 clean breaks to Scotland's 5.

England tackled at 88% success rate to Scotland's 82%.

You do know that England were the ones in white, right?


You do know I was talking about our backrow at the time....................




No. Because your sentance structure wasn't particularly clear. But even so, you still managed to be wrong.

ENG back row: 35 tackles made, 1 missed
SCO back row: 27 tackles made, 4 missed

ENG back row: 28 carries for 60m
SCO back row: 23 carries for 43m


The incessant complaints on here about how dreadful we were seem to be more grounded in a general frustration than anything specific, because most of the specific complaints seem to be, well.... wrong. Or dubious at best.

England left around 20 points behind in missed chances and still won convincingly. They sit top of the table going into the last weekend. This is not a terrible side failing abysmally under the stewardship of an incompetent yeoman 'leader'.

Stats, an idiots tool.
611m divided by 17 England breaks is nearly 36 metres average, 372 divided by 5 for Scotland is over 74 metres.
Similarly for the backrow England made 28 carries for 60m which is 2.1m per carry on average, Scotland made 43m from 23 carries which is about 1.6m average per carry, 50cm difference on average.
This is where stats are very misleading, one simple line break, one easy carry or one simple missed tackle can affect the stats massively.
A player can make massive metres because his teammates created the space for him elsewhere but the stats will give the one player the numbers, numbers never ever tell the full story and you can twist stats any way you want.
Even individual player stats do not tell the full story, how hard were the yards etc.
In the main when it comes to hard metres made I agree with tigerburnie, going on what my eyes saw and my own brain deducted.

[Iain]

Of course, England won, so let us not be too critical.

But the problems were based around the fact that we were doing the difficult things well. Some well created line breaks and some smart play. But we did the simple things, like catching, passing, looking around us for the offload really poorly. "Inaccurate" as Cockerill would say.

We should have won by much more, but the game was rightly won by being the better side.

[Roly]

Little gains of metres with ball in hand, whereas the Scots made ground with ease, so the tackling wasn't the best either.

England made 611 metres with ball in hand with 48% possession.
Scotland made 372 metres with 52% possession.

England made 17 clean breaks to Scotland's 5.

England tackled at 88% success rate to Scotland's 82%.


You do know that England were the ones in white, right?

Yes, England were the team in white who managed a 12 point win against wooden spoon contenders Scotland, at home, with all those lovely statistics that show the winning margin should have been bigger.

Stats....the tool of the (connection terminated).

[tigerburnie]

Stats are part of the picture, I would not dismiss them, but it still has to be said that was not a great performance against a pretty poor Scotland side. As an example, Tigers can afford to do that occasionally in the league, but play like that in the European Cup and we were out.
If England want to go into the World Cup with some sort of momentum, we should be doing better than that. Injuries aside, the team that took the field were not particularly the worst , but it is clear to quite a few that some of the wrong people are starting the game.

[4071]

tigerburnie wrote:
Little gains of metres with ball in hand, whereas the Scots made ground with ease, so the tackling wasn't the best either.


4071

England made 611 metres with ball in hand with 48% possession.
Scotland made 372 metres with 52% possession.

England made 17 clean breaks to Scotland's 5.

England tackled at 88% success rate to Scotland's 82%.

You do know that England were the ones in white, right?


You do know I was talking about our backrow at the time....................




No. Because your sentance structure wasn't particularly clear. But even so, you still managed to be wrong.

ENG back row: 35 tackles made, 1 missed
SCO back row: 27 tackles made, 4 missed

ENG back row: 28 carries for 60m
SCO back row: 23 carries for 43m


The incessant complaints on here about how dreadful we were seem to be more grounded in a general frustration than anything specific, because most of the specific complaints seem to be, well.... wrong. Or dubious at best.

England left around 20 points behind in missed chances and still won convincingly. They sit top of the table going into the last weekend. This is not a terrible side failing abysmally under the stewardship of an incompetent yeoman 'leader'.

Stats, an idiots tool.
611m divided by 17 England breaks is nearly 36 metres average, 372 divided by 5 for Scotland is over 74 metres.
Similarly for the backrow England made 28 carries for 60m which is 2.1m per carry on average, Scotland made 43m from 23 carries which is about

Statistics are not idiots' tools, but they aren't useful tools in the hands of an idiot.

The decision to divide metres made by clean breaks has created an entirely irrelevant number that tells you nothing useful. Well done.

As for your decision to do the maths and point out that England's back row average only half a metre more per carry than Scotland's, I thank you. It proved my point which is that the statement (in reference to the back rows) that "[England had] little gains of metres with ball in hand, whereas the Scots made ground with ease" was inaccurate.