Best match of this 6N by a country mile.
Brown caught the eye but for me Launchbury was England's best player. He's like having a fourth backrow. That tap tackle at the death.....
Interestingly I think Schmidt knew Ireland would lose the contact area hence his tactics to take the lineout off the top and keep the ball moving away from the breakdown. When Ireland came under pressure from England's line speed their handling let them down.
Another positive from both sides in that game is it was a lesson to others in how to keep a scrum up if you want to scrummage. Cudos to both forwards coaches and a testament to the quality of Twickers' pitch. It was a superb playing surface.
Looking at the England squad it's hard to choose a weak link. Lawes is showing himself to be a very talented player. I've mentioned the usual suspects earlier too. Would like to see Morgan get some starts in though. I admire the way that he just seems to suck in defenders taking up three to five men to drop him and even then he still gains five metres before he's down.
Felt sexton had a bit of a naff game today. If he was tip top the result would likely have been very different.
There are some really great characters in the England squad. Launchberry, Wood, Robshaw et al, all worked really hard doing the gritty work. Even Hartley is behaving himself!
Massive task in two weeks when Wales bring their direct game to the Cabbage Patch. If the defensive line plays like today they'll get no change from it at all. Here's hoping Gatland continues his one dimensional de-skilling of Wales
On a serious note it'll be train crash collisions and small margins again I suspect.
Very happy to see Scotland win and an excellent drop goal to sneak it but not a classic performance by any stretch. I'm hoping that when Johnson goes we'll get a bit of direction from the new coach.
Well done to England on the win too, I rather thought that Ireland would have had it by 5-10 points but England did play well.
I notice Philippe Saint-André has dropped Picamoles because of his sarcastic hand clap and thumbs up to Rolland when he was given a yellow card.
Bloody good on Saint-André I say, it's a brave decision and sends a strong message to his other players, it's something we don't want to see in the game and definitely an example that wendy ball managers could learn from
**Edit
Billy Vunipola out of the rest of the competition with ankle ligament damage.
Looking at the table, Ireland's points difference puts them in a very strong position and they have to still play Italy. I can't see Wales doing England at Twickenham like they did two years ago, hopefully Jonathan Davies will be back, he could make a difference.
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