The Rugby Union Thread

Marcus Smith plodding towards the Ireland line like a hooker who fancies himself as an outside half

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Two years; for some reason no matter how shit we are we seem to be the only reliable northern hemisphere presence at a world cup.

Personally hoping this serves as either a wake up call to Borthwick or the RFU regarding Borthwick

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Him looking over his shoulder, seeing someone chase him, and then thinking “nah, can’t be bothered” sums up Marcus Smith in an England shirt.

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Well deserved result for Ireland. Here’s hoping Italy and Wales can manage upsets in their games

Welsh rugby is at a point where to find good things to say about us the commentators are crediting the stadium and the anthem :woozy_face:

Should’ve been a Welsh penalty, that. Why’s he swinging his arm out?

I don’t understand tugby anymore. That tackle looked totally reasonable to me with the Scot ball carrier leading with his head. Commentary sees nothing controversial in it so I accept this is just a me thing, but I dont get it

Rugby has been trying harder to get on top of head injuries so the rules have gotten stricter. Tbh I wouldn’t be surprised to see it lifted to a 20 minutes red

Very strong reaction from Wales, well worked try. Hopefully they can keep it up

Edit: and another. Much better showing than the previous two games

Hell of a game so far. Im not sure what that says about the quality of the sides though

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Missed the 1st half with a hospital visit..

Enjoying this now. Fantastically worked try by Scotland there. Can’t fault going through that many phases.

Game on now.

Holy Fuck. I have NEVER seen that before

England should be far far better than they are which is one reason for the banter. The other being the self belief that builds on a foundation of sand which eventually gets exposed at some point.

I think it goes far deeper than just the national coach. There is something about how players are told to play and developed as youngsters.

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Fuck

Ryan Elias now on. I fear for us now.

Unreal

Stupid penalties now.

Well I’ll take some solace from getting the result right in the work sweep.

Might have got the try count right as well.

Fair play Scotland.

I’ve no issues with the banter :sweat_smile: oddly enough was joining in with that comment :grin:

If we’re going for a more serious comment on it I’m gonna rant because Borthwick annoys me, feel free to ignore. Also I’m on my mobile so I’m sure autocorrect will have a field day fucking with it:

on the one hand, we could and perhaps should, have a better record than we do re the six nations. On the other barring the early 2000s we rightly haven’t been the best team on the planet and therefore haven’t had the results to match that. At times Ireland France, and for short while Wales, have all been very clearly better. Currently France are far ahead. The gap between Ireland and England I don’t think is as big as the previous game made it seem. Farrell dropped players that weren’t effective (namely Sam Prendegast who is yet to show he is the player the Ireland set up hope he is) and Borthwick kept the majority of our worst offenders. I half expect him to do the same next week. A poor result against Italy would surely spell the end for him.

Borthwick is uninspired and makes uninspiring picks for the most part. If I could be bothered to scroll up to last year’s six nations you’ll see me make a similar point about him. If I was posting about in this thread during the last world cup I would have made similar complaints re. Vunipola being picked over Ludlum or Underhill in the SA semi. Then again if Owen Farrell could keep his gob shut the ref wouldn’t have given SA vital yards at the death.

Currently in the form of Bath and Northampton we have two of the form rugby teams on the planet both also playing very good rugby. We have plenty of quality littered around the league, not to mention the talent we’ve bled to France (some for money and some because they weren’t getting the proper look in with England - no I will not forgive Borthwick for his role in us Ludlum :sweat_smile:). The fact that Borthwick cannot organise players to play good rugby who are doing it consistently at the highest level of club rugby (champions cup) is baffling. The club coaches have already solved how to get, for example, the saints fly half and scrum half to play well together. Why disrupt that to persist with Ford (good player, but uninspiring and the current choice because of his performances with England while both the Smiths were on tour with the Lions - something Ford wasn’t playing well enough to get called up for.)

Maybe my earlier Arteta analogy was inaccurate. Maybe he has a touch of the Southgates about him instead. As with the football team I can’t help but feel there’s something of a missed opportunity in persisting with him

Seeing as there’s now no trophy on the line maybe Scotland will actually win it

Edit:

Spit shine would sort that right out :sweat_smile:

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Wholesale changes for England with a very early line up announcement.

Some good, some meh.

Fin Smith in, no Arundell :grin:

Tommy Freeman at centre and not paired with his clubmate Dingwall, or better yet on the wing where he belongs with Ojomoh in at centre :face_with_steam_from_nose:

Menoncello and Brex have been playing great, are used to playing with each other, and will be running at an untested centre pairing.