RugbyRebels

Sandydragon wrote:Hopefully Patch is OK. Not sure what to make of his contribution today, defensive issues aside, his attacking contributions weren’t brilliant. A long way from the imposing performance of last week - is he more of a super sub?

He was ok, didn't have a whole lot of time before the injury. Give him a 60-70 minute game. Not this game though - in the second half we had so little ball that no fly half could have looked good.

Bigger was good, but to be fair, it wasn't so much an interception as Sexton going colour-blind and passing straight to the guy in the red shirt.

Halfpenny was ok. But please, we must have Liam as first choice 15.

We offer bugger all offensively.
Sad that we're this close to RWC & we look like this.

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Anscombe aside, I was feeling fairly positive about the warm-ups... until today. That was our RWC XXIII, at the end of the warm-up series, and we were awful. No sense that we knew either (a) what to do with possession of the ball, or (b) how to go about getting it back once Ireland decided they didn't want us to have it any more. Like others I'm wryly hoping it's all part of a cunning plan to manage expectations. But it's not, though, is it?

My only happy thought is that the players had one foot on the plane and weren’t fully engaged. We know they can be more aggressive and yes Ireland were making ground through tackles at will. Hopefully that attitude changes once serious games start.

It’s not much of a straw to hang onto and I still feel that even if we play as we did in the six nations we are too limited to get that far.

Ive been completely underwhelmed by our performances

We dont look like scoring tries and our pack has looked lightweight with few carrying options.

I was really hoping for a Patchell performance to get the thought in Gatlands head that what he was doing with Anscombe/Biggar was the right way around, Biggar has a heart like a lion, but with him starting, I fear for our offesive ability to score tries.

I think Williams will make a difference and Id stick with Ball at lock, My guess is Tips and Wainwright will start so they will be the lienout options.

I think the starting team will now be

L Williams, North, Davies, Parkes, Adams, Biggar, Davies
Smith, Owens, Francis, Ball, AWJ, Wainwright, Tipuric, Navidi

B: Dee, Wynn Jones, Lewis, Beard, Moriaty, Williams, Patchell, Amos (Id go Amos to cover wing centre over 1/2p)

Well in the first half we completely dominated Ireland, away from home, I can't remember seeing us do that ever before, it's a shame we couldn't convert the possession and territory into points, I thought Patchell was distributing the ball well before his head knock. The scrum was good so any fears over that have been allayed.

We missed a very kickable penalty and they scored a non-try, so all things considered we could have won that game despite not really creating that much in attack.

Let's see how we get on at the tournament.

Hilariously, if we hadn't had any warm up matches, or had had sensible ones with Italy, Georgia, Scotland etc we'd still be world no.1.

At least the WRU got a cash injection - that's probably the only real upside from such a tough series. We'd have been much better off warming up with matches we could have won comfortably.

I know we had a grand slam without him but Falatau's absence is hurting us.
I love Moriarty's enthusiasm and defensive strength but I honestly can't remember the last time he made any meaningful metres going forward.

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PoolerSaint wrote:I know we had a grand slam without him but Falatau's absence is hurting us.
I love Moriarty's enthusiasm and defensive strength but I honestly can't remember the last time he made any meaningful metres going forward.

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Our lack of big ball carriers is a real problem. We don’t have many real brutes who can make a dent, Jake Ball is probably the closest we have and Navidi can cause problems for defenders , but in a more subtle way.

Faletau is a brilliant no.8 but he's not an exceptionally powerful ball carrier. He has all-round skills.

Son of Mathonwy wrote:Faletau is a brilliant no.8 but he's not an exceptionally powerful ball carrier. He has all-round skills.

He does tend to make yards though, often by running at half gaps.

Sandydragon wrote:

Son of Mathonwy wrote:Faletau is a brilliant no.8 but he's not an exceptionally powerful ball carrier. He has all-round skills.

He does tend to make yards though, often by running at half gaps.

True, but I'm not convinced he's better at that than Moriarty.