England vs Australia

[twitchy]

Theres quite a bit of content and he's well worth listening to.
He does make a good point about England making lots of small errors and players seemingly switching off. I think thats a big part of our problems. We can do some good things - CCS's first try was excellent for instance - but do then make really crass errors that undermine our performance.
How many times do we watch and bemoan a basic individual or unit skill being poorly executed?

they switched off at 12-3 up, live the momentum shift was palpable

I felt it at home. When curry went off, you could almost see them wilt.

[Mikey Brown]

I saw GBR and Goode and assumed GB news had started some sort of rugby spin-off content. He’s very insightful at times but just can’t bear him as a person.

[Mellsblue]

Slade credited with 5 missed tackles… I know the argument is he flies up and can ‘miss’ by sending the ball carrier back towards heavy traffic but…


https://www.englandrugby.com/fixtures-a ... definition

[p/d]

Theres quite a bit of content and he's well worth listening to.
He does make a good point about England making lots of small errors and players seemingly switching off. I think thats a big part of our problems. We can do some good things - CCS's first try was excellent for instance - but do then make really crass errors that undermine our performance.
How many times do we watch and bemoan a basic individual or unit skill being poorly executed?

they switched off at 12-3 up, live the momentum shift was palpable

I felt it at home. When curry went off, you could almost see them wilt.

They started to hurt us with one out carries. Dombrandt for Curry is far from a like for like swap.

[Epaminondas Pules]

Slade credited with 5 missed tackles… I know the argument is he flies up and can ‘miss’ by sending the ball carrier back towards heavy traffic but…


https://www.englandrugby.com/fixtures-a ... definition

Think those stats are a little off. According to them George one missed one tackle which is way out. As I think would be Smiths 3. Regardless Slade missed a lot and made some horrific decisions, or stayed committed to the system no matter if it made sense or not.

[Oakboy]

How many players are familiar with the blitz defence based on club systems?

Leading on from that what does System Bodger do for the SA game? Presumbly, there are three choices: 1. Switch to drift, 2. Improve the blitz system with the same players, 3. Stick to blitz but change the players.

[Danno]

O'Keefe should be getting hairdryers at the review, this is shocking

[Puja]

they switched off at 12-3 up, live the momentum shift was palpable

I felt it at home. When curry went off, you could almost see them wilt.

They started to hurt us with one out carries. Dombrandt for Curry is far from a like for like swap.

I would say this is another instance adding to the body of proof that Ben Earl is not an international quality flanker. He's just not good enough in that role to step in for the likes of Curry or Underhill - he's an 8 or nothing.

Puja

[Danno]

Curry and IFW replaced by Ted Hill and Tom Roebuck

[SixAndAHalf]

Despite it being a very disappointing result and performance, it would be premature to bin Borthers off now. It takes time to build a team and we are very light on talent in certain areas.

However he needs to be more ruthless with players and begin to move on from those who clearly aren't going to be top internationals - especially given our depth of talent. For example I can't remember the last time Slade had a good game for England.

From a playing style perspective we need to throw the shackles off a bit - our scrum is weak and our defence is a work in progress so why do we insist on constantly box kicking the ball back to opponents when we get a slender lead?

(Sharing this video as I leveraged it for the above:

[Cameo]

O'Keefe should be getting hairdryers at the review, this is shocking

I'm always a bit sceptical about the 'ref clearly saw x' chat. It does look like it from the video but in fluid situation he might have thought Curry was moving or just not have seen it properly. He also blew up a few seconds later. It can take a sec to process things. Given he did then blow up, I think it is strange to conclude that he saw he was unconscious but didn't think it mattered.

[Mellsblue]

Theres quite a bit of content and he's well worth listening to.
He does make a good point about England making lots of small errors and players seemingly switching off. I think thats a big part of our problems. We can do some good things - CCS's first try was excellent for instance - but do then make really crass errors that undermine our performance.
How many times do we watch and bemoan a basic individual or unit skill being poorly executed?

The points about switching off and buy in to the defence are very worrying. Both hint at underlying issues.
His take on the first and last try is interesting. He seems to lay all the blame on Sleightholme, with the caveat that he’s v new to the system, but barely mentions Slade whilst completely absolving Furbank and mostly absolving Smith. Fullback bias perhaps!

[Mellsblue]

Despite it being a very disappointing result and performance, it would be premature to bin Borthers off now. It takes time to build a team and we are very light on talent in certain areas.

However he needs to be more ruthless with players and begin to move on from those who clearly aren't going to be top internationals - especially given our depth of talent. For example I can't remember the last time Slade had a good game for England.

From a playing style perspective we need to throw the shackles off a bit - our scrum is weak and our defence is a work in progress so why do we insist on constantly box kicking the ball back to opponents when we get a slender lead?

(Sharing this video as I leveraged it for the above:

Who is this bloke?

[p/d]

Don’t know. But hard to disagree with him.

[Skalyba]

Theres quite a bit of content and he's well worth listening to.
He does make a good point about England making lots of small errors and players seemingly switching off. I think thats a big part of our problems. We can do some good things - CCS's first try was excellent for instance - but do then make really crass errors that undermine our performance.
How many times do we watch and bemoan a basic individual or unit skill being poorly executed?

they switched off at 12-3 up, live the momentum shift was palpable

I felt it at home. When curry went off, you could almost see them wilt.

I thought the same and its not the first time. Would be interesting to analyse how many times our transition from playing well to muh is proceeded by Curry/Underhill going off (whether for injury, sub or card)

[Oakboy]

Picking from who is now in the squad, I think the best available back row is Hill, Underhill, CCS (and I'm not a great fan of the first two). Picking without squad restrictions, it would be CCS, Willis and Willis, a trio that SA would not relish. Conversely, they will not be in the least bothered by facing any of Earl, B Curry or Dombrandt, based on the two AIs to date.

[Oakboy]

Despite it being a very disappointing result and performance, it would be premature to bin Borthers off now. It takes time to build a team and we are very light on talent in certain areas.

However he needs to be more ruthless with players and begin to move on from those who clearly aren't going to be top internationals - especially given our depth of talent. For example I can't remember the last time Slade had a good game for England.

From a playing style perspective we need to throw the shackles off a bit - our scrum is weak and our defence is a work in progress so why do we insist on constantly box kicking the ball back to opponents when we get a slender lead?

(Sharing this video as I leveraged it for the above:

His point of possibly discarding players who can't take us up a level and throwing all into a quest for those that can, despite the consequences, is what I think should have happened at various times - especially with the 9 and 12 shirts. Currently, we have quite a few in the squad in the 'no-future' category who should not be there.

[twitchy]

As a nation we just don't produce centres for some reason. Quite bizarre when you think about how long this has gone on. I think it's very easy to say we should just keep "looking" for new players. That takes years of planning. Is slade just keeping the shirt warm for rensburg who qualifies in a couple of years?

[pjm1]

O'Keefe should be getting hairdryers at the review, this is shocking

I'm always a bit sceptical about the 'ref clearly saw x' chat. It does look like it from the video but in fluid situation he might have thought Curry was moving or just not have seen it properly. He also blew up a few seconds later. It can take a sec to process things. Given he did then blow up, I think it is strange to conclude that he saw he was unconscious but didn't think it mattered.

I was obviously never at that level, but when you're reffing you're always thinking about the next play (or two) in terms of looking for the next offence and planning your next transition and positioning. You're right that it also takes a moment to process what you just saw (and longer in my case!) but I'm afraid there isn't really an excuse for missing this, at this level and the momentum of collisions in Elite rugby (which generally means the consequences of getting it slightly wrong can be higher).

i actually suspect the feedback will be more of a "you should have been quicker to be alert to what you just saw, rather than looking for what is about to happen" than complete hairdryer. I also think it's likely a very small tweak to his approach than anything fundamental. But, on the flip side it looks bad to fans and World Rugby may give a bigger slap simply for that reason.

[fivepointer]

Kitson in good form.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2024/ ... ugby-union

But you still have to think straight and, lately, Borthwick’s England have been having far too many brain fades.
They play when they’re down but not when they’re up. And when they’re up, they don’t quite know how to finish.

Well, yeah.

[SixAndAHalf]

Don’t know. But hard to disagree with him.

He was a recommendation by the YouTube algorithm - think he does the best English focussed content out there. One of the times the algorithm has been useful for me!

[Puja]

O'Keefe should be getting hairdryers at the review, this is shocking

I'm always a bit sceptical about the 'ref clearly saw x' chat. It does look like it from the video but in fluid situation he might have thought Curry was moving or just not have seen it properly. He also blew up a few seconds later. It can take a sec to process things. Given he did then blow up, I think it is strange to conclude that he saw he was unconscious but didn't think it mattered.

I was obviously never at that level, but when you're reffing you're always thinking about the next play (or two) in terms of looking for the next offence and planning your next transition and positioning. You're right that it also takes a moment to process what you just saw (and longer in my case!) but I'm afraid there isn't really an excuse for missing this, at this level and the momentum of collisions in Elite rugby (which generally means the consequences of getting it slightly wrong can be higher).

i actually suspect the feedback will be more of a "you should have been quicker to be alert to what you just saw, rather than looking for what is about to happen" than complete hairdryer. I also think it's likely a very small tweak to his approach than anything fundamental. But, on the flip side it looks bad to fans and World Rugby may give a bigger slap simply for that reason.

I would agree - it looks really bad, especially when that video deliberately cuts off just before he blows his whistle so you can't see how quickly he does, but he's looking and thinking about half a dozen different things as a referee, the ball has been played away from the prone player so there's not an immediate player safety issue, and the difference in look between "That player is lying there unconconscious" and "That player is lying there because he's injured/winded/Nathan Hughes level of lazy" is relatively small. Don't blame him for taking a literal 3 seconds to process it.

Puja

[Stom]

So, as someone who missed this match...predictable.

Seems like Soggy Biscuit is not learning, which is a problem. If the players cannot keep up the intensity, then find players who can.

[Puja]

So, as someone who missed this match...predictable.

Seems like Soggy Biscuit is not learning, which is a problem. If the players cannot keep up the intensity, then find players who can.

In fairness, this week was actually a different problem because our defence fell apart, rather than the usual. We're at least not being boring in our systematic collapses.

Puja

[p/d]

Don’t know. But hard to disagree with him.

He was a recommendation by the YouTube algorithm - think he does the best English focussed content out there. One of the times the algorithm has been useful for me!

It was quite refreshing.

Thought his analysis of Slade very much a reflection on the squad as a whole.