Rugby union?

fez said:
Conditions are awful for kicking so... let’s kick for goal at every opportunity.
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Yep, that baffled me. But they scraped the win in what we're clearly horrific conditions. The team doesn't seem to have the awareness to realise something isn't working and switch it up at the moment.
 
Sadly, this was the game for Youngs, the conditions were right for being slow, and box kicking well.

We looked much better going forwards with Heinz' snappy delivery, it just wasn't the right game for it. Can't be too hard on his kicking with the mad wind.

Ford and Farrell both showed their experience today, and Eddie his selection.

Curry carried pretty well actually, although I'd still rather see Underhill, Dombrandt, Curry as the backrow.
 
England took their chance and were rock solid in the set piece given the conditions. But England's open play was poor. Kicking was bad in second half, refused to go through any phases most of the game. If Scotland's line out had worked at all England would have been in a really tough place. It was basically a get out of jail card for really dumb play. England looked good physically and the back row looked better, Curry looked a bit more like a No8.
 
This was not the game for phase play. As evidenced by all the knock ons that Scotland gave when they tried it. We had the right tactics, and a good selection.
 
Scotland managed several decent bits of phase play I don't remember it being a major problem for them. And whilst I agree it wasn't the weather for it to win you have to take risks. If Scotland hadn't gifted us the game we never looked like actively winning it. You can at least try and build some pressure in the final third. We looked clueless most of the second half.
 
When they did string phases we turned them over. We smashed their lineout, so why wouldn't you kick, even with so many going out on the full. We left i think 12 points in missed kicks on the pitch. They knocked around 9 times, maybe more, in total conceding 20 turnovers to our 7. At no point were we behind and we led for most the match.

Yes it was close due to conditions, but if England looked unlikely to score, Scotland struggled to achieve even that.
 
PinkFloyd said:
Yep, that baffled me. But they scraped the win in what we're clearly horrific conditions. The team doesn't seem to have the awareness to realise something isn't working and switch it up at the moment.
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Kicking for goal was arguably 50/50 success rate given the conditions, but 50% chance of points is probably better odds than going to the corner. It is also important to send the message to the opposition that giving away a penalty might result in 3 points... I think the defending team win a psychological battle when the opposition give up kicking for posts when awarded a penalty.

I agree that we should have played a bit more ball in hand in Scotland's half, even with limited creativity, but they got the job done. However, the kicking early in the second half was terrible... any kick was hard to catch, there was no need to attempt to send a kick down the 5 meter channel.
 
Stu said:
Kicking for goal was arguably 50/50 success rate given the conditions, but 50% chance of points is probably better odds than going to the corner. It is also important to send the message to the opposition that giving away a penalty might result in 3 points... I think the defending team win a psychological battle when the opposition give up kicking for posts when awarded a penalty.
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My previous comment was more aimed at the box kicking rather than necessarily kicking for goal. As you said, kicking down the channel was risky, the few times they kicked down the middle to get territory seemed quite effective versus risking not actually gaining any ground due to kicking straight out.
As for kicking for goal, I'd have liked to see England try going for the lineout in Scotland's 22 a few times - just for the extra pressure. Can't recall what the final conversion percentage was for Farrell, don't think it was as high as 50% was it?

In other news. France vs Italy was a fun match to watch. Some well taken tries, great offloads and clever direction changes. A stark contrast to the England game!
 
Wales France looks like a good game so far. Can't believe that guy didn't kick the ball there though; why on earth did he try and pick it up on the touchline?!
 
France are playing some good rugby here. Wouldn't mind seeing the French win the 6 nations.
 
Lovely work by England so far minus a few silly errors (that bloody kick!).

Cruz letting himself down mind you...
 
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