Rugby World Cup 2015

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Re: Rugby World Cup 2015

Post by Worthy4England » Sun Oct 18, 2015 8:50 pm

I think there's plenty of drawing board coming England's way. And quite right n'all.

Turnovers won. We were below Namibia.

Tackles made, we beat just Tonga.

Offloads behind Georgia.

Carries over the gainline. In 12th behind Canada and Romania.

Clean breaks we were ok. Still in 5th, but ball so slow half of them were probably behind the gainline.

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Re: Rugby World Cup 2015

Post by thebish » Sun Oct 18, 2015 9:39 pm

quick ball at the breakdown - and what they appear to be calling "micro-skills" nowadays - flying right on the very edge (and slightly over it) and getting away with it - those things also mark the difference... our pack skills are lacking - it's not just about scrums and lineouts...

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Re: Rugby World Cup 2015

Post by Worthy4England » Sun Oct 18, 2015 9:46 pm

We had too many one man breakdowns imo. If there's only one or one and a spare, then the ball is going to get turned over or take more time to come out. Sure, if it's recycled instantly, then theoretically you have additional numbers spare. But that hasn't been prevalent. We looked a long way back in the pack.

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Re: Rugby World Cup 2015

Post by thebish » Sun Oct 18, 2015 10:15 pm

Worthy4England wrote:We had too many one man breakdowns imo. If there's only one or one and a spare, then the ball is going to get turned over or take more time to come out. Sure, if it's recycled instantly, then theoretically you have additional numbers spare. But that hasn't been prevalent. We looked a long way back in the pack.

aye... i'm not usually a sack-the-manager type - but I'd welcome a change and a new direction at the top... no idea who, though...

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Re: Rugby World Cup 2015

Post by Zulus Thousand of em » Mon Oct 19, 2015 2:25 pm

thebish wrote:
Worthy4England wrote:We had too many one man breakdowns imo. If there's only one or one and a spare, then the ball is going to get turned over or take more time to come out. Sure, if it's recycled instantly, then theoretically you have additional numbers spare. But that hasn't been prevalent. We looked a long way back in the pack.

aye... i'm not usually a sack-the-manager type - but I'd welcome a change and a new direction at the top... no idea who, though...
Mallinder from Northampton. I hope not, from a selfish point of view as a Saints follower. Bloody good coach though.
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Re: Rugby World Cup 2015

Post by thebish » Mon Oct 19, 2015 3:22 pm

Zulus Thousand of em wrote:
thebish wrote:
Worthy4England wrote:We had too many one man breakdowns imo. If there's only one or one and a spare, then the ball is going to get turned over or take more time to come out. Sure, if it's recycled instantly, then theoretically you have additional numbers spare. But that hasn't been prevalent. We looked a long way back in the pack.

aye... i'm not usually a sack-the-manager type - but I'd welcome a change and a new direction at the top... no idea who, though...
Mallinder from Northampton. I hope not, from a selfish point of view as a Saints follower. Bloody good coach though.

aye - he's certainly been named as in-the-frame...

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Re: Rugby World Cup 2015

Post by Worthy4England » Mon Oct 19, 2015 3:51 pm

He was named in the frame last time around too. Can't make my mind up whether we need fresh ideas from Southern Hemisphere

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Re: Rugby World Cup 2015

Post by thebish » Mon Oct 19, 2015 4:07 pm

Worthy4England wrote:He was named in the frame last time around too. Can't make my mind up whether we need fresh ideas from Southern Hemisphere
that is where my my is wandering... whether our club-culture is part of the problem or not...

I know nothing abourt southern hemisphere coaches who might be persuaded to do the job, though.. anyone?


Gatland and Wales... there were times when i really thought we missed out there - but standing back and looking coolly at it - have they really progressed THAT significantly under Gatland? yet another WC quarter-final failure... some success at 6-nations - but not total dominance... we beat them last go round.. ireland have been better...

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Re: Rugby World Cup 2015

Post by jaffka » Mon Oct 19, 2015 6:13 pm

Worthy4England wrote:I think there's plenty of drawing board coming England's way. And quite right n'all.

Turnovers won. We were below Namibia.

Tackles made, we beat just Tonga.

Offloads behind Georgia.

Carries over the gainline. In 12th behind Canada and Romania.

Clean breaks we were ok. Still in 5th, but ball so slow half of them were probably behind the gainline.
All good and well but doesn't take into account that in our group were 4 of the top ten sides in the world.

I'm all for a thorough review of what went wrong and still think that heads should fall but lets not forget that this group was a total balls up.

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Re: Rugby World Cup 2015

Post by jaffka » Mon Oct 19, 2015 6:21 pm

thebish wrote:
Worthy4England wrote:He was named in the frame last time around too. Can't make my mind up whether we need fresh ideas from Southern Hemisphere
that is where my my is wandering... whether our club-culture is part of the problem or not...

I know nothing abourt southern hemisphere coaches who might be persuaded to do the job, though.. anyone?


Gatland and Wales... there were times when i really thought we missed out there - but standing back and looking coolly at it - have they really progressed THAT significantly under Gatland? yet another WC quarter-final failure... some success at 6-nations - but not total dominance... we beat them last go round.. ireland have been better...
We are the richest union in the world, if the RFU means business then they should be going for the best.

There will be interest in it as the job is massive and the rewards will be great. For example Jake White the 2007 winner with SA has stated his interest.

Lancaster is highly qualified and i'm very sure that he is a nice man but he seems to lack in personality, we have under achieved massively and there are definitely issues around selection. Who knows how he was influenced and will a change of coach still have the issues surrounding selection?

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Re: Rugby World Cup 2015

Post by Worthy4England » Mon Oct 19, 2015 6:40 pm

^^ In ranking terms, yes, we had a tough group. So did Wales, Fiji and Australia none of whom were playing at home - they're not second bottom on tackles made. South Africa, Scotland, Japan all in top 10 too...when we're drawing comparison with folks like Georgia, Canada etc. then it clearly ain't good enough. I think Lancaster is a decent chap, he gave us a lift after Johnno, but I'm not seeing that "next level" we're heading towards, or really what he's trying to achieve. It started out as "let's get the ball to the backs and score tries" but we still had solidity up front. We've lost that along the way and without that there ain't enough balls to get to the backs, too many turn overs etc.

We also seem to have got a chokers mentality. There needs to be some culling...and a change at the top, for me.

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Re: Rugby World Cup 2015

Post by Worthy4England » Mon Oct 19, 2015 6:54 pm

jaffka wrote:Lancaster is highly qualified and i'm very sure that he is a nice man but he seems to lack in personality, we have under achieved massively and there are definitely issues around selection. Who knows how he was influenced and will a change of coach still have the issues surrounding selection?
There are a number of areas we need to back one horse over twò or three....and a couple where we just have the wrong horses. Up front, I'm not convinced by Marler, Youngs, Robshaw. Back division has too many options around different styles (which might be viewed as a benefit, but actually we're not masters of any of them).

The whole Burgess thing wasn't well handled. I wonder how much Farrell input into that decision? I do think if we sort out the front 8, then there's less of a problem around who's bringing the aftershave and hair gel.

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Re: Rugby World Cup 2015

Post by jaffka » Tue Oct 20, 2015 9:56 am

Worthy4England wrote:^^ In ranking terms, yes, we had a tough group. So did Wales, Fiji and Australia none of whom were playing at home - they're not second bottom on tackles made. South Africa, Scotland, Japan all in top 10 too...when we're drawing comparison with folks like Georgia, Canada etc. then it clearly ain't good enough. I think Lancaster is a decent chap, he gave us a lift after Johnno, but I'm not seeing that "next level" we're heading towards, or really what he's trying to achieve. It started out as "let's get the ball to the backs and score tries" but we still had solidity up front. We've lost that along the way and without that there ain't enough balls to get to the backs, too many turn overs etc.

We also seem to have got a chokers mentality. There needs to be some culling...and a change at the top, for me.
but that's exactly it, we didn't play the against the same sides as Georgia, Canada etc so therefore these comparisons are meaningless and pointless. The fact that we failed to go through our group is damming enough.

The only good thing for England is that we avoided the ignominy of having to pre qualify for Japan next time round.

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Re: Rugby World Cup 2015

Post by jaffka » Tue Oct 20, 2015 10:12 am

Worthy4England wrote:
jaffka wrote:Lancaster is highly qualified and i'm very sure that he is a nice man but he seems to lack in personality, we have under achieved massively and there are definitely issues around selection. Who knows how he was influenced and will a change of coach still have the issues surrounding selection?
There are a number of areas we need to back one horse over twò or three....and a couple where we just have the wrong horses. Up front, I'm not convinced by Marler, Youngs, Robshaw. Back division has too many options around different styles (which might be viewed as a benefit, but actually we're not masters of any of them).

The whole Burgess thing wasn't well handled. I wonder how much Farrell input into that decision? I do think if we sort out the front 8, then there's less of a problem around who's bringing the aftershave and hair gel.
I was surprised at Burgess making the squad but I have to say I like the guy and he definitely has something about him, glad that he wants to stick around. It's clearly not fair on him through when his club plays him in a different position to the international one where the game is about 4 paces faster.

As for Marler he's going to be there about as Corbisiero was well off the pace in the warm up games.

In the squad Tom Youngs was out best available hooker with Hartley being deemed in selectable. Youngs is good in the loose and carries well but importantly it seems he carnt hook and his lineout can go wonky. Exeters luke Cowan-dickie hopefully can continue to improve.

I'd bin off wood, Haskell and robshaw. Robshaw isn't s natural 7 he does tackle well but he isn't fast enough to be top class in that position, he's decision making under pressure is suspect as well. Wood is still living off the glory of when we gubbed the ABs and Haskell is a big unit but has suspect rucking skills. He best northern hemisphere 7 steffon armitage should have been there. In the wings are itoje and ewers.

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Re: Rugby World Cup 2015

Post by thebish » Tue Oct 20, 2015 10:16 am

^ I agree about Armitage - I think this policy, whilst there is a kind of logic to it, has the effect of totally shooting ourselves in the foot...

also - agree about Robshaw - I'm not inspired by his captaincy... I don't think I'd bin him off entirely, though it is hard to have been captain and then not be captain yet continue to play a part...

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Re: Rugby World Cup 2015

Post by jaffka » Tue Oct 20, 2015 10:29 am

Robshaw is chalk and cheese, he's very much a follow me and leads by example type of captain but his decison making has been shown to be questionable.

Although Australia and New Zealand prove me wrong here I don't like flankers as captains as they are too involved in what's going on, constantly. Those two sides though have genuine world class players in Giteau and Carter to voice their opinions and be listened to when play has stopped.

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Re: Rugby World Cup 2015

Post by Worthy4England » Tue Oct 20, 2015 10:44 am

jaffka wrote:
Worthy4England wrote:^^ In ranking terms, yes, we had a tough group. So did Wales, Fiji and Australia none of whom were playing at home - they're not second bottom on tackles made. South Africa, Scotland, Japan all in top 10 too...when we're drawing comparison with folks like Georgia, Canada etc. then it clearly ain't good enough. I think Lancaster is a decent chap, he gave us a lift after Johnno, but I'm not seeing that "next level" we're heading towards, or really what he's trying to achieve. It started out as "let's get the ball to the backs and score tries" but we still had solidity up front. We've lost that along the way and without that there ain't enough balls to get to the backs, too many turn overs etc.

We also seem to have got a chokers mentality. There needs to be some culling...and a change at the top, for me.
but that's exactly it, we didn't play the against the same sides as Georgia, Canada etc so therefore these comparisons are meaningless and pointless. The fact that we failed to go through our group is damming enough.

The only good thing for England is that we avoided the ignominy of having to pre qualify for Japan next time round.
I don't think the stats are entirely meaningless at all - in and of themselves, they might mean little - so we might have been second lowest to Namibia on tackle count because we beat every bugger 58-0. They are indicators of where our game is letting us down - you'd expect our tackle count to be higher in a series of games where we lost 2 out of 4. There's much analysis of all of those things after a game. We did play against the same teams as Wales, Fiji and Australia and don't compare at all well to them either - which you'd probably expect given we didn't make it out of the group.

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Re: Rugby World Cup 2015

Post by CAPSLOCK » Tue Oct 20, 2015 12:25 pm

I missed the Aussie game, but we beat Fiji comfortably

And for my money, losing against Wales was a freak result

I never felt we were going to lose
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Re: Rugby World Cup 2015

Post by Worthy4England » Tue Oct 20, 2015 12:32 pm

CAPSLOCK wrote:I missed the Aussie game, but we beat Fiji comfortably

And for my money, losing against Wales was a freak result

I never felt we were going to lose
Good miss on the Aussie game - never at the races. Fiji, I thought we gave silly pengies away, but they weren't quite good enough to make them pay and the result worked out ok. Wales, I started worrying about half time...

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Re: Rugby World Cup 2015

Post by jaffka » Tue Oct 20, 2015 1:31 pm

I don't think the stats are entirely meaningless at all - in and of themselves, they might mean little - so we might have been second lowest to Namibia on tackle count because we beat every bugger 58-0. They are indicators of where our game is letting us down - you'd expect our tackle count to be higher in a series of games where we lost 2 out of 4. There's much analysis of all of those things after a game. We did play against the same teams as Wales, Fiji and Australia and don't compare at all well to them either - which you'd probably expect given we didn't make it out of the group
I agree that statistical analysis of the game is useful and also interesting.

I also agree that statistical analysis of the other teams in our group against the teams we have played is useful but less so as the variables will be different, such as starting 15 the same, the replacements same, conditions, injuries etc.

I don't accept that statistics comparing us against teams we haven't played and therefore they haven't played the teams we have, are of any use. They might make interesting headlines but still utterly pointless.

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