Quote:
Originally Posted by suzublu
Where's that Irish bloke   |
Ha!! Enjoy it, ya lig.
I watched it in the pub, only home an hour or so. England fully deserved that, no question - I was saying to my mate after only half an hour that I didn't see us winning this one. England essentially brought Ireland's own game plan of accurate boxkicking, massive pressure and huge competitiveness at the ruck and delivered it better than we did. Thought you were lucky shortly before your second try not to have possession turned over when we had your ball carrier held up for ages, but it wouldn't have changed the result. Murray's passing was way below par (he missed the first three months of the season with a neck/shoulder issue and I hope it hasn't recurred) and that killed our momentum, at least 6 times by my count. The decision to return Henshaw to the 15 slot when he hadn't played there since his debut 5 years ago was clearly made with a view to getting him ready for Japan rather than this game, as there were at least two other candidates who would have been more capable and with much more recent experience there than him. For me, that's symptomatic of a reluctance to look beyond anyone but Kearney at full back that I've been banging on about for several years, and it came back to bite us today. Joe's a great coach, but has his blind spots as a selector!
Still and all, today will stand to the players and coaches. No harm to get a kick up the behind every now & then in case you start believing your own hype.
Between us & yourselves it's honours even over the past 8 years, with one Grand Slam and two other championships between us - the leek-eaters will be hoping to catch up this year!