England

What do you think? You can have your say by posting below.
If you do not already have an account Click here to Register.

Good luck to Italy- they challenged England legally and caused some problems. Really quite entertaining - even for this England fan!

It does though highlight a couple of farcical points;

1. World Rugby often create more problems than they solve when they tinker with the laws.

2. The ruck is already confused enough. Viz: ""a ruck requires one or more players from each team to be on their feet in a contest over the ball."

a. "on their feet"? How many AP or 6 Nation rucks meet this criterion? Tonight's BBC news item showed a clip to illustrate a ruck- from Saturday's Scotland -wales match -all the players went off their feet! You could not make it up!

b. "over the ball". Why then are teams allowed to get away with clearouts 5, 10, occasionally even 15 metres beyond the ball? Or several metres to the side of the ruck?

In practice the refereeing of the ruck has not met with the definition for years.

I hope the RFU & World Rugby start to insist on policing it properly.

PG

YOU say you are not bitter - you are clearly bitter. Italy did nothing illegal, and 15 professional rugby players couldn't work out what to do about it. Where was the captain? Where was the plan? Italy made England look like utter fools, and that is why Eddie Jones gave the most appalling press conference I've ever seen - he sounded like a rambling drunk man in the pub.
"that wasn't rugby" - well,it was played with a rugby ball, to the laws of World rugby...so it was Rugby, just not the rugby you were expecting
Well played Italy
(if you want to retain any credibility, try not to quote Dawson as a legitimate source!)

I never want to watch another match like that again. Awful.

Once England started dealing with it, towards the end of the first half, they tore Italy apart. Very satisfying.

Quote:

rikholmes
YOU say you are not bitter - you are clearly bitter. Italy did nothing illegal, and 15 professional rugby players couldn't work out what to do about it. Where was the captain? Where was the plan? Italy made England look like utter fools, and that is why Eddie Jones gave the most appalling press conference I've ever seen - he sounded like a rambling drunk man in the pub.
"that wasn't rugby" - well,it was played with a rugby ball, to the laws of World rugby...so it was Rugby, just not the rugby you were expecting
Well played Italy
(if you want to retain any credibility, try not to quote Dawson as a legitimate source!)

I'm an out and out England fan & I totally agree. Jones' moan was to deflect the fact that he couldn't work out how to counter it for over 30 mins. Then Haskell finally worked it out. Do what you need to do to create a ruck.

Jones was talking ever since the Wales game about smashing Italy in the Ruck. And yet people seem to think it's Italy's fault for ensuring that there were fewer rucks.

Jones' comments came back and bit him on the ar5e!

I was at the game with friends and having paid £70ea for tickets, we were all glad to see that Italy were still it for long periods.

We all want to see a contest for the ball as that is what rugby ultimately is but many sides now do not commit players to unwinnable rucks. Why should Italy especially when they know England want them to?

I agree. The essence of rugby football is a fair contest for the ball. This contest is based on strength, skill, and yes tactics and guile also have a place, however, what went on last Sunday was the ugliest thing I have ever seen on a rugby field. It reminded me of the time years ago when scrum-halves behind the ruck would fake a pass without the ball to draw the opposition offside, this was, at that time, not against the laws but it was clearly not in the spirit of the game. I think the lawmakers should have a look Saturday's antics in the same light.

It is certainly the case that many people, rugby players or otherwise, will applaud anything which discomfits England, it is also the case that England should have reacted more quickly and with less complaining to counter the tactics, as they did in the second half. England were certainly taken by surprise and apparently lacked a knowledge of the laws nevertheless the sight of a great player like Parisse ignoring the ball and standing alongside the scrum half waving his arms was little short of sickening.

If Connor O'Shea thinks that Italy earned respect by only loosing by a margin of 6 tries to 2, I can only say I respectfully disagree with him.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 28/02/2017 15:14 by alforth.

and I respectfully disagree with you. If you offload out of a tackle, that avoids a ruck. If you only commit two men to a breakdown, that pays only lip service to a ruck, if you feed a scrum, that means it isn't a scrum, if you don't compete at a lineout, if you don't defend a maul... Rugby has laws, but no set way of playing.

It was embarrassing to see a rudderless England, no guidance whatsoever from the captain, and it is embarrassing to see so many England fans whinging.

Oh, and its "losing", not "loosing"

I'm not quite sure what you are disagreeing with. There are clearly different ways of playing including those that you mention. The tactic that Italy used was legal and they were perfectly entitled, under existing laws, to play in the way that they did. What I complained about (whinged about, if you must have it) in my post is the fact that the laws permit this. I believe I would have found it equally ugly whichever teams were playing.

I doubt if the IRB will be too concerned about my opinion; if there is to be any modification of the Law it will come from wiser heads than mine, of which I am sure you are one. I agree entirely with your comment about England, this only added to my perception of the ugliness of the situation. I must stress that it is only my perception, others will disagree.

Thank you for correcting my spelling. Oh, by the way, you missed the apostrophe in "it's" (contracted form of it is).

You say "It is obvious that Conor O'shea has kept this tactic for England Only! Why not deploy this tactic against the Welsh or Irish? You can't tell me he just had this eureka moment prior to the England match."

Maybe this article on the BBC can help you there: [www.bbc.co.uk]

Quote:

Conor O'Shea
There was an offside in our game against Ireland that was clarified as being onside. Brendan came to me and said: 'Please listen and don't think I'm mad.' We talked as a group of coaches and said: 'OK, will we go for this?'