Tell us what you thought of today’s match between England and Italy. What were the main talking points? Which players stood out?
Give the match a rating out of ten, and then share your opinions in the comments below.
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Not a great game when the highlights are all from the ref.
1. Telling Haskell hes a ref not a coach and amybe he should talk to his coaching team at half time.
2. Calling an italian offside “the guy with a beard… number 16”
I thought the way Poitre reffed was pretty awful.
He seemed over the moon that he was centre of attention.
I also didn’t like the Italian tactic, that whilst within the laws, wasn’t within any levels of sportsmanship (in my opinion, and it’s only an opinion) or was in anyway conducive to a good game of rugby. It would certainly turn the casual or new watcher off the game. If experienced internationals can’t work it out how do you expect a lay person to do so.
Having said that, that is where Italian rugby is and in the end England did solve it and looked impressive when it clicked. Is there another NH team who could have worked out what to faced with such tactics, Ireland perhaps.
I sussed it out straight away either pick and drive through the middle for a free 2-3 meter gain until they start to commit or play an offload game to keep the ball alive
Exactly Leon, my Dad and I copped it fairly quickly. Either pick and go for 2 meters (the Italians weren’t allowed within 1.5m of the ball with that tactic), avoid contact with offloading, or box-kick. Poite even penalised Italy for charging down a kick, and England never went back to that.
I was screaming at the tv “Just effing pick it up and run!” So frustrating.
Amen to you Leon I sniffed out the pick up and drive within a couple of minutes, if Care would’ve been on his game gaps were there to be sniped.
Jaysus I completely disagree with everything you said there.
Poite had a fairly decent game in my opinion, can you point out major issues? The only mistake I recall led to an England try. It’s not his fault if the players don’t know the game or keep whining in his ear.
And I liked the Italian tactic. Teams do the same thing with lineout/mauls all the time and no-one really cares. And it’s well within Italy’s rights to do that for 80 minutes if the other team doesn’t deal with it. Which England didn’t. Apart from Launchbury, they were still complaining late into the second half.
I thought England were being vaunted for on-field leaders? Very few stood up for me, certainly only Daly and Launchbury from the first 15. And I feel England never dealt with it fully, Ireland would have dealt with it much earlier. Probably Scotland, and maybe Wales too.
Scotland should be picking their lips for next week.
On what evidence do you say Ireland, Scotland or Wales would have dealt with it any differently? Quite frankly you are talking rubbish.
The fact that, unlike all the teams you mention, England have now won 17 games in a row against all kinds of opposition, in all conditions, in both hemispheres, home and away, suggests that they are far better at reacting and dealing with different situations than any of the teams you mention.
As for Scotland licking their lips, I think it far more likely that they will be worrying about the power and the speed England showed once they got their act together.
I also saw no whining from the England team, just confusion and polite questions to the ref.
The tactic was a clever one but it makes for a disjointed game lacking in physicality and a contest at the breakdown. I hope it doesn’t become common.
Don’t think Poite had a good game at all, initially didn’t have anything against Italy’s tactics and agree with comments above that the pick and go seemed the obvious counter and disappointed England were slow to figure that out. However, that said, I also thought that Poite was incredibly inconsistent about defining what was or wasn’t a ruck. There was more than one occasion where a tackle was made then a clear out affected, and this was still not a ruck and Italian players were allowed to back out of it and things that started out as rucks were suddenly no longer rucks as players disengaged themselves after the point at which an offside line had been established.
Totally agree Liono. Poite’s interpretation of what was a ruck was incredibly inconsistent and often incorrect. If teams are going to be cute with the rules like that then reffing needs to be clear, concise and accurate. Poite failed on all counts – especially the number of times Italian defenders joined rucks and then backed out followed by him calling it a tackle.
Also it appears that he has decided to move longer police line out throws for being straight
Ha ha. Yes negative tactics always justified when used against Eng. If you really enjoyed that as a spectacle lord help you! Although as an Irish supporter (I think), your kin have inflicted the gawd awful choke tackle on rugby, something that should have been strangled at birth imo.
Scotland can ‘pick’ their lips all they want for next weekend as they are guaranteed a win against no team………
I am a casual watcher, I only watch a few games a year, and I seriously found it fascinating – England’s inability to deal with the new tactic added greatly to the interest. The reaction from some England supporters and ex-players is absurd, they are saying for narrowing the margin of the England victory Italy should be replaced by Georgia but if they had rolled over like good little boys and been hammered 60-0 then they can stay in.
Those calling for Georgia’s inclusion dont do it because of the game this weekend they have been saying it for some time and it is a view backed up by the fact that Georgia are ranked higher than Italy. The system needs to make room for them somewhere and the 6N seems the obvious place
The referee for a change had a good game. If the players dontt know the laws then to bad.England are overated and built up by themselves and the English press!!!!
It’s erroneous to suggest England didn’t know the law, they did. They struggled with interpretation which for me went against the spirit of the game if not the law.
As John McEnroe used to say “You cannot be serious”. He had clearly given the Italian coaching team carte Blanche to try a new tactic without realising that it would be impossible to police accurately and would ruin the game as a spectacle. And as long as England keep winning we can happily keep ignoring the criticism. They will be a lot better by the time the world cup comes round and are at least moving forward, unlike Wales.
The above was in reply to Bill Burgess
They new the law, but as no team ever exploit it in this way it took a while to adapt.
Over rated? Really? Why don’t you ask all the teams they beat in the last year if they think they’re over rated.
17 games unbeaten including a 6Ns grand slam and 3-0 Aus on their own turf. Yeah, they’re really overrated.
Lol Bill Burgess yes they are very over rated, loads of really overrated teams win 17 on the spin and all against non-competitive opposition especially 4 over that lowly ranked side Australia, 3 over Wales, lucky in every game they have played in my opinion.
No sour grapes at all eh Bill.
My main disatisfaction is the slow start-lack of urgency pace intensity.This let Italy impose their game on us for long periods.I query Hartley’s leadership and lack of impact as a player. Nowell must start ahead of May.England have gone backwards this year.We badly need a good win v Scotland but I am hopeful there is a good chance this will happen
Hmm. Not a great match. Thought Italy played a very negative game plan and still got well beaten, if Faz hasn’t had an off game with the tee it would have been a respectable score.
That said, you can’t blame Italy for the unacceptable number of unforced errors by Eng. Farrell marked his 50th cap with his worst ever match, missing touch at the end was the cherry on the turd.
However one thing we can thank Italy for is that their tactics forced England to play an offloading game, which at times was pretty good. Hope we see more of that.
Benjit i’m not sure the score would’ve been better if Faz had his kicking boots on as the Italians left a lot of points out on the pitch too.
On Faz’s kicking we should’ve just said look not your day today pick up against Scotland and let Ford or Daly have a crack.
If refs are going to define the ruck as Poite did this afternoon the game will become virtually unplayable with both sides refusing to commit players to the breakdown. All credit to O’Shea and Ventner who had clearly got in Poite’ s ear before the game. My heart sank when I heard he was in charge. Zero marks for the “leadership group” particularly Hartley, who seemed to have no idea how to counter it until someone explained it to them at half time. Disappointed to see Care replacement he was really fizzing, and I thought there was enough power up front to be optimistic about Scotland. Hope Farrell finds his kicking boots in time. Itoje is looking much happier at 6 and with Launchbury and Lawes in good form and Kruis to come back he should stay there.
This afternoon the commentary during England’s game against Italy, especially the input form the two “expert” contributors, Dave Flatman and Ugo Monye, was so one sided and ill judged that I wanted to turn them off.
I realise these two ex players have been closely involved with England over the years but they are not there to be cheer leaders for their mates in the current England team. They should be providing reasonably balanced and above all intelligent insight to add to what the commentator was saying.
Brilliantly employed tactic by Italy which has Venter’s signature all over it. They new they had to upset England somehow to have any chance of getting a result.
Eventually a great reaction from England with the finishers doing what they do best.
The result was good in the end, but my god it was stressful getting there. I wouldn’t be at all surprised, or disappointed, if the rules got tweaked so Italy’s tactic today is never seen again. While full marks go to their coaching staff for the ingenuity, it ruined the game as a spectacle to the extent it barely resembled Rugby any more. Interesting to watch certainly, but if allowed to remain in the game it would lose its novelty very fast indeed and damage the sport as a whole.
As for the actual performance, dire, aside from the 10 minutes after half time and the final 10 minutes. Nowell showed why he should get the nod over May with 2 good finishes (and I’m a huge fan of May). To be fair to Jonny, he’s a confidence player playing with no confidence right now, and has only recently come back from almost a year out through injury. There were a couple of chances for him to do something special today but the pass to him just wouldn’t come with the space gaping, a tad unlucky. But Nowell certainly looked good and is the better player rn.
Brown was much improved, although he still never looks up for the pass and I’d still move the excellent Daly to full back in the near future. Farrell and Ford were both pretty abject, and I thought Youngs coming on really hurt us as Care was electric once we’d figured out how to deal with the interesting interpretation of the breakdown. Te’o was ok, but imo is a much more effective impact 12 than he is a starting 13. The forwards were largely woeful apart from the 2nd rowers and Itoje, who was absolute immense today and was marginally my pick for motm over the also fantastic Launchbury.
Nervous about Scotland, they’re the real deal and we’ve really ridden our luck. Much improvement needed
Brown was awful, along with Hartley England’s worst performer (and that includes an off par Farrell.)
The non tackle for Italy second try was close to not trying. Nearly said cowardice.
No more than a 4 out of 10.
Seconded. Brown rarely beats the first tackler, lacks the vision to offload in time and his missed tackle on the Italian 13 was abject. Compare this to Daly who was again impressive and with Watson coming back from injury, he no longer merits his place. If he and Hartley are there for their leadership then today’s lack of nous says they’re both yesterday’s men.
Very harsh. Brown caught everything made good yards with ball in hand and was solid apart from missing a man that he didn’t get anywhere near because the bloke stepped him brilliantly. The suggestion of cowardice is utterly ridiculous and completely undeserved Jez.
I said nearly cowardice. There is a difference.
But he certainly didn’t put his body on the line which is a criticism that is levelled at Alex Goode as to why he shouldn’t replace Brown.
If your main advantage is your status as a committed and tough hard as nails player then you make those tackles.
Utter balls Jez. Brown was turned inside out by some excellent stepping from Campagnaro. The only fault in tackling in that try lies with George Ford getting put on his arse.
Whether you like Brown or not, and today he was decent, anyone who accuses him of not putting his body on the line doesn’t have a f***ing clue what they are talking about.
Agreed brown was beat by a fantastic step not a lack of courage!
If that was me making a rickets of that tackle I’d be embarrassed. Mike Brown did not cover himself in any glory there.
I have to agree with some of the early posters in that England should have clued-up sooner and simply resorted to pick & drive straight through the middle. When they did that the metres came easy and they’ve could have picked&gone all the way over the try-line. The italians would have been powerless to slow the progress up field because as soon as they tried to slow things up and form a ruck they’d instantly be forming an off-side line and putting all their team-mates offside. We should have dealt with this smarter and sooner…
I also don’t think that a rule-change is needed to deal with this because when correctly handled by the attacking team then the tactic actually detrements the defending team so it won’t get employed again.
Agree completely. All the comments saying anything along the line of ‘Italy ruined the spectacle’, ‘the tactic should be banned’, ‘gimmick’/’trick’ or words to that effect, are missing the point – the reason that the Italian’s tactic isn’t used often is because it does have inherent weaknesses, and England failed to adapt and exploit. No matter how much fire is being aimed at Italy tonight, Jones is likely to be both incandescent and worried in equal measure that England today completely failed to stand up and meet the challenge, instead trying to make the square peg of the gameplan match the round hole of the actual situation for far too long. And he knows full well that both Cotter and Schmidt in particular are crafty, intelligent coaches who are now going to have sat up with a real gleam in the eye in their quest to find a way to beat England. Worst of all, he will know that even if he can out-think the opposition, he can’t necessarily trust his men on the field to do the same when it matters. I’m wagering on a fretful fortnight for Jones…
… except that this means we won’t get complacent for the Scots. This genie’s out of the bottle and we have 2 weeks to deal with it. The Ford-Farrell axis had a shocker -it happens but we still won relatively comfortably (try watching it again when you know the result). Hopefully, this will have shown EJ that he needs to make some changes and also that Hughes isn’t the answer at 8. That said I thought Launch and Itoje were immense.
Exactly my thoughts. I imagine Italy intended to use it while it lasted and as soon as England figured it out, revert to largely standard play as it verges on suicidal. It just took England longer (too long) to counter it than Italy would have imagined.
EJ’s major gripe should be that his team, that he ultimately wants to direct from the touchline as little as possible and which has proved itself to be pretty adaptable, let themselves down on that front.
A very scrappy game caused by the tactics used by Italy. Working within the very fine line of the Laws of the game it was a tactic that worked for Italy.
However if these tactics were used in premiership or club rugby it would reduce our great game into a total mess to coach or referee.
Yet another whinging Aussie who struggles to cope with some unexpected but fair challenge. So he moans to ref and the RFU cos he can’t respond to some unexpected pressure. It’ll be amusing to see how much the press line up behind him or not, if they really are that independent
Whist EJ was clearly peed off that this tactic prevented him from trying out new combinations, I can’t help but think that his “whinge”, for want of a better word, is a clever media tactic to prevent journos pointing out how error strewn and lacklustre Eng were for the majority of this match, which could in turn lead to a loss in confidence of some of his players
Benjit. Totally agreed. EJ is the master of misdirection.
I have to say on the back of such an impressive year, England really haven’t been great in this tournament. They have scraped there way to earn three wins and with all due respect to scotland they could probably scrap there way to a fourth, given the home field advantage. But if they play like this in Dublin they will be utterly exposed. They to beat scotland well to build some momentum for Ireland.
I thought poite had a great game, the only excitement in the first half was the comical comments between him and the England players questioning the decisions, standing in the ground it was obvious within 10 minutes what was required & it was not until the second half that England were told what to do – Whoefull !! kicking from Farell, Ford and Care was very poor in the first half too. A very substandard performance in the first half. Brown is unfairly criticised for doing what the coach requires & I always defend him but today he had his worst game in an England shirt for a long time. 3 poor performances from England but 3 wins, a winning mentality ??
This exposed Englands lack of on field leaders and inteligence
Scotland will be confident
The one thing no one has mentioned is the absence through injury (long term and short) of half the front-line/first choice England line up. With an injury list as long as your arm they are STILL winning against ALL sides, EVERY newcomer and against ALL whily tactics. This is virtually a second string outfit working things out on the hoof and beating FIRST choice opposition!
Who else could manage that and have the player depth to compensate for such a huge injury list?
Crooked List:
BV
Robshaw
Watson
Haskell for a vast period of 6N
Hartley not match fit still
May on the come back
Mako just returned
And yet they still win! Just trying to put things into perspective.
Also Kruis, although Launch and Lawes are great replacements. But i think saying this is second string is going wayyy too far.
BV is easily missed the most, followed by Robshaw.
Bv undoubtedly but Robashaw almost just as much in my eyes, I’ve always been dubious about his, “unseen work”. But without him we’ve has much less fluent at the break down.
Over the past 12 months or so it’s really become obvious how important Robshaw is to England, especially now. He cleans up so much mess and is far more effective at the breakdown than I think he’s given credit for.
You have to wonder if BV and Robshaw would have twigged the situation earlier?
Off on a tangent, IMO Hughes is the worst offender in this whole situation seeing as he played these exact same game laws in his favour against Toulouse in the Champions Cup.
Thanks Matt B
That reinforces my argument even more.
With Kruis (whom i omitted) i make that with my rudimentary arithmatic EIGHT first choice players either back or on the come back.
Thats over 50% of a rugby team.
I do indeed call that a second string team under the circumstances; the very team that still won on Sunday!
Oh all the doom mongers!
The things that have been thrown at them! RUCK GATE, injuries of WW1 proportions and shenanigans about closed roofs and still they go on winning!
Definite cause for joy rather than doom and gloom!
All that remains is the ABs!!!!!!!!!
I didn’t have a problem with Italy’s tactics, and it isn’t new, teams have been using it on and off for at least the last 3 years (mainly SH granted).
It seems as if the main complaint is that they didn’t just roll over and let England put 70 points on them. Dawson’s twitter rant was just incredible.
However, as someone mentioned above, if this tactic was employed by your average village team it would lead to absolute carnage! Purely because i’m not sure the quality of referee at that level would be able to cope.
Maybe the law does need tweaking? but not to protect the international game, but the lower leagues.
lower league refs would have just pinged the “Italian” team off the park as offside at every ruck. They dont understand the nuances of the rules as well as international refs so they would penalise the most obvious offence
I wonder if Italy expected to be able to use the tactic for so long. England were useless at working out what to do.. Just pick up the ball and run forward! It was working, so i have no problem with them doing so.
There’s no need to tweak the rules, teams know how to counter it and make easy ground.
Plus, i was wondering.. If a tackle creates an offside line straight away, regardless of ruck formation (as Eddie Jones suggested) then what happens in the following:
Team A player makes a break, runs 50m and gets tackled by the Team B full back only (no ruck) and no other Team B players get back behind the tackle line. Second Team A player passes the ball out quickly.. So then no Team B player running back can try to intercept or tackle the ball reveiver. What are they meant to do?
I think it was Woodward who made the very good point, it was very easy to see what to do watching form the outside, its a lot harder when you’re in the pressure cooker. I’m not sure which teams could adapt to it within one half?
I’d say the confusion created amongst the England team had a far bigger effect than the direct aim of avoiding an offside line. I’d like to think (hope) with that resting so heavily on their minds caused the disruption and poor execution
Wales have been frequently criticized for playing by rote and not thinking on their feet.
Eddie has been bigging up this England teams ability to adapt and play whats in front of them, this proved that we are no better at adapting the game plan than anyone else.
I would like to think that most team would have seen what was staring them in the face and adapted much quicker than we saw on Sunday in worries me that instead of being ahead of the curve in this respect as Eddie would like you to believe we may be some way behind it
I don’t think a comparison can be made to any other team, as none in the 6N have had to deal with this except for England. As mentioned its easy to sit and observe and come to a conclusion on how to counter what Italy were doing, but having an Italian jumping around in your passing channel couldn’t have made the decision making process any easier.
England adapted well after half time and were able to deal with the tactics. The progress then slowed when Poitre’s interpretation of a ruck started to change so even when a player (not the tackler) had been cleared out, he still called “Tackle only”. Only towards the end of the game did he start calling offside.
In the end, despite the above, when England did get the ball to the backs they looked dangerous. Teo did well to straighten the line and break the gainline, and provided good offloads. May was unlucky to trip in the first half as he would’ve easily run in for a try.
Ah, the clear out not defining a tackle, I remember getting particularly irate at that change in interpretation in the second half…
Leon
But they did adapt. Perhaps not to your speedy requirement (you must be an ex-All Black Leon – so high are your standards!)
But respond they did – in time to convincingly win! 21 points is convincing enough for me under the furore that is NO RUCK GATE!
They move on now having learnt from it and are all the wiser – including us the armchair critics who of course know more than they do, could have reacted quicker were it us wearing 1 to 15, all of us being more skilful and capable players across the board!
Having now watched the highlights it’s actually obvious that England did react a lot quicker and change tactics than being given credit for. What was the problem was poor execution contributed to by the weather playing a big part.
Alex
They only adapted at halftime after input from the coaching team
My point is that our players are supposed to be able to think on their feet and adapt the game plan to the opposition tactics.
I saw precious little of that yesterday, I saw players asking the ref time and again what the laws are and failing to notice that the opposition are conceding 2m of space in front of every ruck and had holes all over their fringe defence. But because the game plan was to play expansively they kept trying to pass around the not offside defenders without first earning the right to go wide
No they did not Leon, they reacted in the first half, but were clearly more drilled after the break. Eng first picked and went successfully to nullify it in the 20th minute but continued to make silly errors right up until 70th minute.
Leon
Point accepted!
I think they are all still recovering from the vestiges of the Lancaster era when they were spoon fed and treated like little boys with no or little input allowed by the players.
Perhaps that explains their crankiness/ineptness for want of a better word on Sunday!
They can only get better was my original point and they continue, despite trying and testing circumstances, to deal with (for the most part!) anything and everything thrown against them!
Fair enough that we all as supporters and fans have high expectations of them but keep the eyes on the prize! Its not the Lions for me but NZ and the WC shortly after!
That being the case they still have the time to improve, develop and strengthen their squad.
I love the 6 Nations. It is the only rugby I watch. Its great because we see really brave men slog it out to win a truly physical contest. The Italians tactics were potentially ruining the game for me , A) Because I don’t know the rules that well but I thought I knew the offside rule B) Good players were being frustrated , so it was enormously satisfying to see England come through. Credit to Jones.
Don’t forget that O’Shea had thoroughly briefed Poite before the game. Why? Because he wanted him to be fully “on ” the rules. And he’s an international ref that should be beyond reproach in that regard. To critic England players without prior knowledge is harsh I think. Yes it’s been used in Super rugby and now largely dropped after the tactic was blown. But not after 10mins as England’s critics are suggesting, but after games had been played. It was a pretty good display in the second half, and has already been said, winning even when things aren’t going as well as you would like is good trick to manage. NZ have been doing it for years….
I have another question about the refereeing at the weekend. A Jack Nowell try was quite rightly disallowed as he ran into Hughes on his way towards the line. Italy got a penalty for the offside. When I was playing rugby it was always given that running into your own player was accidental offside which was a scrum office not a penalty. Have the laws changed since then or is it just an interpretation thing? If anyone knows I would be really interested, Cheers
My understanding is that it depends upon circumstance. If the consequence of running into your own player is such that if the player that you run into is blocking an opposition player from tackling you then that is an obstruction and therefore a penalty, a don’t remember the incident you mention but it sounds like the right scenario. Accidental offside is given if you run into your own player but by the course of this action there hasn’t been a more serious offence occuring.
I for one did not see this as an obstruction as Nowell did not go behind the player, yes he ran into him but from the side and not from behind so the defense had every opportunity to tackle.
In regards to the refereeing in general, I thought Poite was poor and seemed to relish the fact he was “in on the ruse” and so policed the ruck / no ruck but missed a lot of other stuff.
Can anyone explain how Lawes is playing second row when he packs down as a flanker or how Itoje is playing flanker when he packs down as a second row? What exactly constitutes playing second row if not in packing down in the second row of the scrum?
Is this a clever ploy of Jones to disguise the fact that he picked a player at flanker who hardly anybody but Jones would pick in that position? How can anybody be a good second row who is such a weak scrummager that he can’t be trusted to push in the second row of the scrum?
The answer is not that Itoje is such an outstandingly good scrummager. He is a good but plainly not as powerful a scrummager as Launchbury or Kruis or indeed Atwood. Itoje’s very high abilities lie elsewhere.
Tuppy – the positional differences between flanker and second row will be very different for England’s systems. Although either packing down in the second row or binding on the flank may be the only obvious Ines to us spectators, they will fill very different roles elsewhere (at restarts, in line outs, defensive realignments and generally what they are charged with during open play in the game). Changing ‘position’ will mean itoje has to fill those roles normally expected of a flanker rather than a lock (and the other way round for lawes). They have spent ages learning the systems and drills in training so swapping position will mean a lot more to them than us. It is easier to say – do everything expected of a number 6 bar packing down behind the tighthead than it is to say, play as a lock but don’t do the usual things you do there, rather fill the roles we want of a 6. Hope that makes sense?
I think this buggering around with Lawes and Itoje is a large part of why England have been so disjointed at the breakdown this 6 Nations.
Oh to have Robshaw back and Itoje back where he belongs in the second row.