Rugby

[Joy Nktonga]

With thirty minutes already on the clock, England are looking much better than they did last weekend. More direct, more attacking. Will it last? We'll have to see. Already a much, much more entertaining game than last weekend's and than we had any right to expect against Wales.

[aaaaaaaaaargh!]

Jonathan Kaplan can fuck off for not giving a yellow for the "tackle" in the air.  If a player in a white shirt had done it he'd have flashed the yellow the massive cunt.

This is a cracking match

[Joy Nktonga]

Agreed on both counts my good man. Kaplan is pinging England for all sorts while letting Wales get away with the same infringements. Wales have a great line out today though.

I never thought I'd say it (refer back to my rant last Saturday), but Worsley's been brilliant in defence today.

[morgs]

Good match - I thought the ref was pretty good overall, but favoured us a couple of times when he could have easily penalised us.  Relief is the word!

[SOTS]

One of the pubs in my town are offering a free pint if Scotland win when you're in watching the game. They clearly know how unlikely a win actually is.

[actwithoutwords]

Ref definitely harsher on England. Wales got away with it a bit in the second half, Flood's kick through to Sackey that didn't produce a try, the dubious offside decision that put them more than one score ahead, and then Flood's poor miss towards the end when England weren't far from the try line.
England played some half decent stuff in the second half, though still in the main looking fairly toothless. I was impressed with Flutey with ball in hand though, he made a couple of nice breaks. They defended very well. Wales showed flashes of good back play, but it's indicative that their only try was against 14 men.

[rjd2]

Indeed, I was utterly pissed and apologise to the board for my attitude, which was fairly horrific.

I stand by what I said, in essence, as it was fairly accurate account of England's performance.

I feel no more optimistic following Wales' result against Scotland, because England will pose a different challenge.

They should kick to the corners and challenge our piss-weak lineout, and they'll have a chance.

Once again, my absurd rudeness was inexcusable and I apologise, especially to rjd2.

Gash
x

No worries, it takes a month to bloody post these days so I was meant to respond sooner. The Wales match was very enjoyable, I wonder will Goode be playing next time round?

[confettiinmyhair]

I think slowly things are coming together for England. They just need to sort out their discipline and put the meat on the bones of their squad, certainly it was their best 'performance' of the last 18 months. For the 2nd consecutive game they have had a gameplan, which to an extent has been been executed. Against Italy they played a safety first, hideously ugly (yet effective) kicking game, against Wales they worked hard to nullify the running power of Powell and Roberts.

13 is still a big problem, Noon and Tindall are not international quality. They've also got to work out how to integrate the wealth of talent coming through (Turner-Hall, Banahan, Croft, Cipriani, Crane, Morgan, Corbisiero, Guest, Cato, Smith etc.)

[aaaaaaaaaargh!]

Good match - I thought the ref was pretty good overall, but favoured us a couple of times when he could have easily penalised us.  Relief is the word!

Jonathan Kaplan is a fairly weak, hometown referee, who has proved in the past that he can be swayed by large home crowds.  His "performance" in the Ireland v England match in 2005 where he flat out disallowed two perfectly good tries without even going to the video ref was regarded in a match report at the time as making Andre Watson (who, for reasons best known to himself, didn't show any yellow cards to the Australian front row in the 2003 world cup final in spite of their constant dangerous play and scrum collapsing) look like an Anglophile.

Wales should have had a man binned for taking out Armitage in the air, and how Ryan Jones didn't get a yellow for a very obvious piece of ball killing near his own try line, something not dissimilar to Goode's binning, was completely beyond me.  England are really paying for their reputation as a dirty, ball-slowing team at the moment, despite them being pretty much like everyone else.  I've posted before about Kaplan's seeming tendency to decide what's going to happen in a match before it has even kicked off and referee accordingly, no matter what may be actually happening on the pitch (here).

Andy Goode is too unreliable to keep his place in the team, he'll do something good(e), then spoil it by making a big fuck up moments later.  I thought the Kiwi lad in midfield had a good match for England, I'd like to see him link up with Tait, there would be some decent running there, and I think it might open up the team a bit and give them a bit of confidence.  The England players aren't inherently shit, they're just playing shit at the moment, yesterday notwithstanding.

Couldn't tell much from watching Wales, they won without really having to get out of about third gear - I'd have been interested to see whether they could have gotten out of that gear if they needed to.

As for Italy v Ireland which is just about to start, I think if Ireland play like they did last week there could be a huge score.  Check out Paul Griffin's sideboards everyone!

[actwithoutwords]

What a dire game of rugby. I came in just before Luke Fitzgerald's first try so I think I missed the only part of the game that was competitive. The second half was amazingly turgid stuff. Very little else to say really. Italy seemed much better than last week, but still had very little to offer with ball in hand. Decent win for Ireland, another game out of the way, and nice to get those 2 undeserved late tries to give the scoreboard a more convincing appearance.

[Old Thrashbarg]

A good night watching an understrength Leeds team beat Hull KR by a fairly comfortable margin. Although any Rovers defeat is comforting generally. Noble gone by Monday!

[actwithoutwords]

Allez!
What a cracker of a game that was. Second half slightly less so than the first, but a gripping finale. Really thought Wales were going to do it there. Would have been completely undeserved. Since when have Wales  been constantly in receipt of spawny refereeing decisions? They got an awful lot of benefit of the doubt in the first half (second half they didn't really have the ball), including the second crazy mid-air takeout non-yellow card in two games.
Sets Ireland up nicely for our annual bottle job. Though if anyone is capable of preventing us bottling it, it's Declan Kidney.

[aaaaaaaaaargh!]

What a fucking match, magnificent to watch!  There was alternate slick and loose play throughout that match.  God I love rugby when it's played like that, it had me gripped all the way through.  France looked a lot more balanced when Baby went off injured to be replaced by Eddie Butler favourite Francois Trinh-Duc, although it has to be said that Baby played a few lovely kicks.

Brilliant try by Lee Byrne, I'm fairly sure the pass which he grabbed wasn't meant for him, but he made it his and was running a hell of a line to cut through.  From then on though, France took it up and Wales had to face up to Good France.  Eddie Butler favourites Dusatoir and Harinordoquy had huge matches, that's for sure, but I don't think enough was made of the French centre pairing of Jauzion and Bastareaud who are both massive fuckers who both run dangerously and creatively and are going to make it very difficult for most teams.

I thought Wales were a wee bit subdued, the forwards fronted up as they usually do, but the backs were a bit subdued.  Halfpenny was obviously being targeted by the high kick, Williams had a couple of decent runs and Byrne was world class, as usual, but that was about it. 

AWW, the reason why there weren't any yellow cards is because of the ELV which says they cannot be issued to a player wearing a red shirt.  That's my understanding anyway, and it seems to be the understanding of the referees too, given their failure to issue yellow cards for tackles in the air and the most blatant ball killing you'll ever see for the second match in a row.  So it goes.

What a fucking cracker of a match though, the two tomorrow won't be anywhere near as good.

pre-submit edit - Thought Nick Mullins and Jonathan Davies were an excellent commentary team this evening, a really good pairing.  We've got the delights of the Eddie and Brian show for the Ireland v England match tomorrow then!

[aaaaaaaaaargh!]

Some philosophy from Brian O' Driscoll:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_union/7915424.stm

Here's a link to footage of the overhead camera being hit by the ball (twice) in the match last night.  The first time it happened I looked at my drink in comedy cliche style!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_union/7916178.stm

[koeman]

That last minute try just cost me £90. Bollocks.

[actwithoutwords]

That last minute try just cost me £90. Bollocks.

Ha. Sorry about that.  Shocking stuff from Ireland there. Just about scraped it with a fly half having his worst kicking performance in years, a malfunctioning line out and a back line that never really got going. Got away with murder there thanks to England being so incredibly limited. The only highlights of the game were the regular cuts to Martin Johnson swearing angrily in the stands after English fuck ups.
Phew. I don't think I could have handled it if England had nicked that at the end, after that Liverpool result earlier.

[koeman]

Phew. I don't think I could have handled it if England had nicked that at the end, after that Liverpool result earlier.

Liverpool to win was the other bet I had yesterday, AWW! I'm just glad I'm not tempted to gamble more often.

[aaaaaaaaaargh!]

Oh blimey, when will the England players learn?  I really think that Vickery and Care must have sawdust between their ears.  Johnson should be giving the players the hairdryer treatment after that, the penalty count was through the roof.  England aren't going to win many matches if they persistently force themselves to play with 14 men for a quarter of the match.  I don't think that England were particularly limited, their backs were more inventive than they have been for a while, great runs from Tindall and Tait in the second half, but if you're making yourself play with 14 men for so long what's the point?  England have had six players sin binned in three matches in the six nations now, most of them being justified (although they're not the only sinners by any stretch, their reputation goes before them so they will never ever get the benefit of the doubt from referees).

If O'Gara hadn't have been so poor (have his alleged gambling problems resurfaced?) the margin of victory could have been much larger, the scoreline didn't really reflect the match that much.  O'Driscoll has looked pretty handy the last few matches and, because O'Gara was so poor, his scores proved to be the difference between the teams.  I love Brian O'Driscoll, he gave a very good interview after the match, very gracious in victory.  I imagine he'll be Lions captain again (I say "again", what I mean is effectively for the first time seeing as he only played about 50 seconds of the first test in New Zealand before being spear tackled) later on this year.

I can see that Wales v Ireland is the final match of the Championship.  Assuming Ireland get past Scotland (which is not a formality by any stretch) I think it may be a match too far, although Ireland haven't exactly shot their bolt formwise, so they could potentially turn it on. 

[aaaaaaaaaargh!]

Ooh, Leeds v Manly is in danger of turning into a massacre, Manly have been scoring heavily in this second half.

[mikeyg27]

Leeds will be kicking themselves over that spell at the start of the second half. Still, the better team won. I went to the Quins-Manly game last weekend and they did that blitzkreig at the start of the 2nd half there - their attack when they get going really is a sight to behold.

[Old Thrashbarg]

Just got back from the WCC and Manly were outstanding. They completely dominated the Leeds pack, Peacock in particular, and when they got the room that came off the back of that hard work, they produced some of the best attacking play I've seen. I'll definitely have to watch it on TV (mainly for a better view of the fights and a couple of the big shots).

Behind the Australian national team, they produced the best rugby I've witnessed live. Leeds did well to come back towards the end, but Manly had visibly dropped the intensity by that time and it still took some outstanding play for Leeds to get over the line.

[aaaaaaaaaargh!]

Le Crunch is off to a cracking start!

edit - more than a cracking start, this is magnificent domination of the French by England.  I'm loving every second of this.

I can't believe this, bloody amazing stuff, fucking incredible.

another edit - 29 nil at half time, it's a while since I've enjoyed watching England this much.

[wheatgod]

I just ejaculated!!

[aaaaaaaaaargh!]

In a good way I hope.

Just need to keep giving the ball to Monye, he completely skinned Malzieu in one bit of play in the first half.

edit - YES!  Decent finish by the Kiwi lad there.

From the BBC:

41 mins: TRY Flutey England 34-0 France
You think I'm making this up, don't you?

[actwithoutwords]

Madness. After the performance against Wales two weeks ago, I wouldn't have expected one of France's patented 'shockers' to come now. Strange. Only saw a few minutes at the end of the first half but England were pretty impressive going forward for once.

That leaves Wales and Ireland to go mano a mano, tete a tete next Saturday. Can't wait. Ireland were again tense yesterday, but once they upped the intensity after half time there was only going to be one winner. Disappointing lack of fluency though for the second game in a row. Kidney again proving himself to be a master of grinding out results though, one wonders whether he is Irish at all. The country will have reached fever pitch come next weekend I'd say. We've had little to cheer about sporting-wise in the last few years (the cricket world cup aside), and there has been immense frustration that our consistency over the last decade in the Six Nations has never resulted in a Championship. It's going to be a very very tough game though. As Max Gogarty would say, I'm shitting myself already.

[dr beat]

Congratulations to Harlequins RL this weekend.  Always amusing to see Warrington on the end of 60 points.

[mikeyg27]

Congratulations to Harlequins RL this weekend.  Always amusing to see Warrington on the end of 60 points.

I was at that game. Scott Grix getting Tony Clubbed quickly followed by Chris Melling returned the ball the length of the field was one of the best things I've see at a live match.

[Old Thrashbarg]

I was at that game. Scott Grix getting Tony Clubbed quickly followed by Chris Melling returned the ball the length of the field was one of the best things I've see at a live match.

Just seen that and it looks worth the admission money on it's own. After seeing the highlights of that game, I almost (almost) felt sorry for Warrington, which shows just how much of a beating they took. Ah well.

In other news, five wins from five is a pretty good start to the season for Hull and with four internationals to (possibly) still come into the team, things are looking rosy currently.

[Gulftastic]

............. followed by Chris Melling returned the ball the length of the field was one of the best things I've see at a live match.

I liked the commentary on BBC's Super League Show:

'And a Lee Briers kick finally led to a try.....'

[dr beat]

'And a Lee Briers kick finally led to a try.....'

There are dark rumours that he might be coming our way to Widnes.  God I hope not.