52 thoughts on “Rate the match: England vs Uruguay, RWC 2015”

  1. Poor. I know it was a hiding to nothing, but why did it take them 40 minutes to realise that running straight and fixing defenders creates space out wide. Lateral in the first half. We so didn’t deserve to go any further!

    On the plus side, we do have a core of players to take the team forward, but a 37 year old player getting mom. Not exactly what we were hoping for!

    Sorry SL, but your time is done. Enjoy Skafell Pike and St Bees. Decent chap and he did do some good things but we need something more.

  2. SCW and LOL correctly concluded we have made a mess of selecting SL and his 3 predecessors.Of paramount importance is a selection process to select a world class coaching team.The current team is barely premiership standard

  3. Thought there were some good performances, which made certain selections/omissions even more bizarre. SL and co should bow out and SCW, as new performance director, can pick a new coaching team. Thought SCW reaction to LOL recommendation should have the RFU drawing up a contract tonight.

  5. Meh? Some bright performances, I thought Slade looked good, especially when he had Joseph outside him. Is it me or is it damning that our best player was a 37 year old and one who has spent the least amount of time with this coaching set up?

    If we can’t hold our own at the breakdown against Uraguay god help us. Haskell was utter sh*te and the tactics woeful.

    I was hoping that Lancaster would show some honour and dignity and resign after the match. No. He plans to talk to the premiership managers to learn yet more lessons. Can people not see that he is not the “good guy” he purports to be.

    SCW summed it up well. The RFU have ballesed up the coaching appointment the last 3 times. What hope can we have that they will do the right thing now.

    1. Benjit I can absolutely see SL is not the good guy he says he is.He is a brilliant pr guy.After being responsible for the greatest failure ever in English rugby anyone with a shred of decency and honour would admit that failure and resign.Instead he started his campaign to keep his job 48 hours after the Oz game.He is acting in his interests not those of English rugby.

  6. Out best vs a team ostensibly of amateurs and we only had 3 tries at half says it all. No one could look good against double glazing salesmen and farmers. I could be classified as looking good at 56 and double by pass, but not our brightest. We still can’t offload in the tackle. Their first instinct is to set up another bloody ruck. I can’t remember anyone taking it to defence and then offloading behind opposition back. Pitiful. We need a major overhaul of how we play this game. Time to rethink the points system again. We spend an inordinately long time trying to suck a penalty from a situation. Wales were a perfect example today. Tactics and skills are missing for playing the modern game.

  7. Sorry, but what difference does it make how old Easter is and why that is significant? I’m so fed up of the fall out from the England campaign.

    1. Because, ostensibly, he is a player from outside the Lancaster cabal. A contrast to the brainless penalty giving simpletons like Wood, Haskell and even Robshaw to whom Lancaster is most aligned.

          1. Just watched. SL I think they should keep on in some capacity for all he has done in altering the image of England rugby and restoring the pride of the fans. The coaching role, in my humble opinion, should be passed on. How exciting is this backli e though…. Younggs, Ford, May, JJ, Slade, Nowell, Watson….scary.

            1. Well said Egg Chaser. Lancaster was probably the right man to sort things out after 2011 and in that respect he’s done a good job and maybe has a +-continuing role to play but maybe he’s reached his limits and it’s time for a more technical approach. Personally I think his coaching team have a lot to answer for. Can anyone explain how our pack has gone from ‘world class’ capable of destroying Wales and the Wallabies to the P*** poor performances we’ve seen in this competition.

            2. Maybe in the future in a off field only capacity. But I think it’s also fairer to a new coach if the last one isn’t lurking around in the background somewhere.

              if he wants to continue as a coach then he should move to club coaching, where he’ll get to coach for >30 games a season rather than some RFU development coach where he’s coach 3 games a season.

              But I think we’ll be more likely seeing him contribute to the administration of the game than coaching in the future.

              1. 100% Matt. If Eng get a new coach in then SL has to be gone or it’ll never be a clean sheet for the new coach.

                I am, as I’ve repeated, of course much less impressed by SLs culture realignment HR courses than others which is why I would say he offers England very little – poor at being a rugby coach (by top 5 countries in the world standards).

                I see Vuni on the BBC has been hinting that perhaps SL swung things too far one way so that it ended up being a sterile environment. I agree with this and honestly think it’s not too far to say that if you treat players like kids/drones off the field then you affect their spontaneity on it.

                For me a classic SLism was how he dealt with the 30-3 result to Wales. Very little was made of the rugby (apart from blaming Walsh) – it was put down to the noise and what patriotism means to the Welsh. So the solution was to have a film on Englishness commissioned rather than, you know, analysing how the side got outplayed that night…

                I’ve now gone from assuming SL will be sacked to actually thinking he might get another pop. The man appears to be a master politician – I think he’s already working on the right people, saying all of those HR things, bigging up the cultural change he made that saw a team perform worse than his pilloried predecessor. They’ll be calling him Teflon next if that name wasn’t already taken for Andrews.

                Admission statement : We in Wales would love it if the current coaching team stayed so I find it hard to be completely impartial. When one of your biggest rivals wants your coaching team to stay put you know it’s not a good thing.

    2. Egg chaser. Personally was hoping to see the future hold it’s hand up, but unfortunately it was the past that shone brightest. That’s why I was disappointed. Nothing personal to Easter who put in a strong performance.

  8. Another point, how often did England resort to the line out and maul. Seriously what do we learn from out mauling a semi pro side.

    1. Very much agree. Couple of points I’d add, George looked a lot better than youngs, robshaw seemed a bit like a broken man, let’s do the kind thing and put him out of his misery, Farrell is no 12- we don’t have to fit him in no matter what!
      Slade good, nowell good, launch good, Watson good.
      But there weren’t enough ball carriers.
      Haskell bad, Ford a bit off, Cole didn’t do much neither did parling

  9. It was an ok performance. Players such as George, Nowell and Kruis did very well. Farrell was good, Ford was below par. Robshaw was rubbish (didn’t hit a single ruck first, his prime job) and him and Haskell butchered attack after attack.

  10. If you’re good enough you are old enough, if you’re good enough you’re young enough.

    Let’s play our most talented players, who cares about a ball carrying back if they are not good enough. We don’t have any at the moment,and no to tuilagi he is a quick lump and that is it, no intelligence and not much skill. Emperor’s new clothes spring to mind with the way he is rated. I am sure SH teams would fine a way around not having a ball carrying back if they didn’t have players good enough to get in the team. Let’s develop players by all means but also think outside the box until these players are of the required standard.

    I thought Slade and JJ worked well together in the centre and should be given time to develop as a pair. They both possess the required skill, nous, temperament and fitness and they can tackle!

    At the breakdown england again were shown to be deficient and that against amateurs

  11. Felt sorry for Ford. His confidence looked shot (can’t imagine why), hence he tried to force things.

    Love Jonny though I do, I found his analysis incomprehensible. I found this quote from the Telegraph comments section hilarious:

    “what on earth was the jonny saying? he sounded like some zen buddhist, trappist hippy on methaqualone”

  12. Slade and Joseph in the centre a great pairing! George is the future instead of the lightweight Youngs. That it’s taken this amount of pain and self-inflicted damage to identify promising players highlights the sub standard selection policy over the last two years!
    As for the whole Steffon Armitage might upset the dressing room ambience thing – pathetic!
    More like scared for their own cosy competition free positions in the team!
    England need a coach who can shake it up, lays down the law (why becos he’s the coach!) and isn’t afraid to do so. Bollocks to the PR spin (look how popular that was for Labour!) and ‘stroking/massaging’ players egos.
    A foreign coach by definition is needed to instill all of the above. Only a foreigner could challenge the vested interests of the RFU.

  13. I think England showed in this match why they warrant no more than third place in this group. A lot of these players have beaten Wales and Australia. This team’s yet again underwhelming performance is just not good enough. Everyone keeps saying we have some brilliant young players, yet they keep underperforming. So either we are looking at the team through rose tinted glasses and the players aren’t good enough ( so they have to go ) or they are not being managed/ motivated well( in that case the coaches should go). Personally I think, like a lot of you, that SL and his team should have lept onto that sword after the final whistle yesterday.
    This WC campaign has just not been good enough regardless of the lenses in your glasses. We need a foreign international coaching setup-I cannot see any other way forward

  14. Although not against a foreign coach I’m not sure it is a necessity? Surely we have an English core of coaches capable of providing technical direction to this team. Personally I would like the RFU to spend whatever is necessary to bring in an experienced team of premiership coaches with a mentor figure in order to secure quality coaching into the next decade. I think I read somewhere the coaching development head at RFU is retiring after 14 years….about time maybe!! This could be the ideal opportunity to put someone like SCW in a position to make a difference.

    1. That head of coaching development retiring at the RFU after 14 years – Kevin Bowring, a Welshman and former welsh coach and player.

      Job well done Kevin. Far more help to Wales over there than he ever was over here ;-)

  15. Interesting, England beat Uruguay by 57pts, Australia beat them by 62pts, Fiji 32pts and Wales beat them by 45pts yet still the knockers find lots to criticise. Rugby by it’s nature is unpredictable, that is what makes it so good to watch. Lots to be commended from the youngsters & lots of areas to improve. No where near the same knocking of the other teams performance against these part timers, try praising the good parts for a change.
    What is wrong with bringing Easter back when 2 no. 8’s injured & being disappointed when he plays really well. Crazy logic.
    Also try a little self assessment – if the criteria being applied to calls for mass sackings were applied to you and your job would you still be employed ? I suspect not so get over it we played we lost were out end of.

    1. Actually Col, if staff under performed like SL in a normal workplace environment it might lead to the sack!

    2. Think you are missing the point Col tbh. We are talking about a four YEAR “building” process that was supposed to culminate with a decent chance of winning this tournament.

      Measured by that yardstick,SL and his staff have failed spectacularly,not because we haven’t won the world cup but because we have never even looked like serious contenders. Last nights game meant absolutely nothing in this context.

    3. How you can still defend SL is beyond me. He asked to be judged on this WC. We went crashing out at the group stage and deservedly so.

      No one is disappointed Easter played well; people are disappointed that having been sold that we would see our young generation shine through in this game – our best player was none of those but a 37 year old.

      On the sacking question. Yes, if I spent 4 years telling the company I worked for that I was working just for one specific goal and then failed miserably; I’d be out of a job.

    4. There is a flip side to your point about how many points we scored etc. Most of the Uruguayan team are either semi-pro or amateur. They had played the same amount of games as us leading up to this match, but one of those games was last Tuesday, so had just a four day turn-around.

      All of the the England team are professional players, playing at the highest level of competitive club rugby. This should’ve been a 70-80 point win easy, and yet because of our lack of accuracy, basic skills, and poor decision making, we threw away chance after chance to score more tries.

  16. A wonderful try- filled extravaganza of English rugby at its best.

    Free flowing, no tuck it up the jumper stuff.

    Champagne rugby that would make the Fijian 7s squad ever so jealous.

    The rest of the rugby world must be quaking in its boots at the sight of that team’s performance last night which was the highlight of England’s now defunct RWC 2015 campaign.

  17. Although not the greatest Enoch England did manage to win by more than Wales did and got the BP vs Fiji that Wales could not. While criticism is justified let’s not forget 1 poor decision less and Wales would be out rather than England – people in glasshouses and all that.

    1. But you are out and we are not.

      I’d stop trying to get the better on that one if I were you.

      Make them pygmies…O2 pygmies…..

      Bleed for England.

      We are at home and we back always back ourselves at home.;

      Ha ha ha England RWC 2015 shirts 4 for a £

      1. Seriously, Enoch – Why are you such a c*nt?
        I usually take you with a pinch of salt, but you’re just getting boring now.

  18. If common sense prevails then surely Haskell, Parling,Barritt,and possibly Wood have come to the end of the line? We desperately need dynamism in the back row. Where are the strong carriers who will run straight to keep defences honest?

    Lawes needs a rest, ditto Robshaw who must be an emotional wreck. George deserves a run as does Slade. Attwood should be brought back in and possibly Kitchener.

    Sam Hill or Ollie Devoto rather than the Burgess monster, who hopefully will now go back to Bath and learn his trade as a back rower.

    Cole is becoming an enigma. Last night provided no real test for him so ,consequently,he had a decent game. That’s fine if he is happy to be a flat track bully. Wilson and Brookes would be my choices with the door open to Daniel when he starts monstering loose heads again.

    All conjecture of course but then that seems to be all we have for now.

  19. Thanks prophet, as always objective and constructive summations. I suspect that if I were as denigrating, as you are to England, toward the other home unions, I would be labelled resentful, vindictive and bitter. No offended . In response to Col’s conclusions, I would emphasize the following:
    1. The Premiership does not have a wealth of successful English managerial teams( the standard being winning the European Cup surely)
    2. The other teams of note( Wales ,Australia were not playing Uruguay under the same circumstances as us and to be honest the back lash isn’t about this game it’s about the not putting Wales to the sword- unforgivable
    3. In terms of self assessment, national and multinationals regularly get the machete out to slash through layers of management. This isn’t a company, it’s a game with which a lot of the UK public identify with. England have the biggest Rugby player base, financial backing and history in the world, we have whimpered out of this home competition and it’s just not good enough. I don’t care if the next coaching team are “bloody nice blokes” or not, I want them to be pure unadulterated winners.

    1. Perhaps Sharpy they could be the ‘World Beaters’ that the ‘House of Lancaster’ book written by a Daily Express journalist (pub August 2015) declared they were b 4 the tournament even started???

      Have you actually read the preface to that book?

      Joseph Goebbels would have been proud to write rubbish like that.

      The most jingoistic nonsense since Thatcher’s speech to the Tory Party Conference in 1982.

      I am merely quoting what your countrymen have said and put out in the media for all non-English residents of the UK to be forced to endure over and over again since England were awarded RWC 2015.

      Are you actually so dull that you cannot see this pro-English utter bias for rubbish it really is????

      England ‘bigged’ (sic) themselves up so so much b 4 this even tournament began and the warm-up games v France showed it was all based on feet of clay.

      There again, are you saying that England v Uruguay was the greatest open running rugby you have ever seen??

      It was rubbish. Utter utter rubbish. It was really really bad.

      As my old Grammar School History Master always said

      ‘There’s many a slip twixt cup and lip…..you are only as good as your last result’

      Which means losing to Wales and then Aus on consecutive weekends at home and then going back to maul maul trundle score against Uruguay shows have far England have gone backwards in 2015.

      Inquest Mr Lancaster…..inquest…..

      Tthe English Blue…they certainly are feeling blue now……..

      bootiful plumage…..its bleddin demised……its been demised since the Wales game……

      bereft of life its shuffled off its mortal coil………

  20. One of the most depressing things was we were so bloody predicatable. We had two moves… dummy runner > miss pass to the wing and crash it up the centre. That was it. No invention, no style, no nothing. Ford was abysmal again, ok, his confidence may be low, but he’s a professional, this is your time to shine. Watson and Nowell managed it and we the few bright sparks in a workmanlike performance. You compare it to the NZ-Tonga game, where there were multiple players supporting, quick hands, good skills, quick rucks… It looked like we were playing a different game to be honest.

    Agree with the assessments. Given time, some of these players will be the core of a creative and exciting time, but they had been given no time to gel as a team, constant chopping and changing, no fixed starting line-up. Going into a world cup you want a team who know each other inside out. Our lot looked like they’d just been introduced…

  21. Did anyone else notice that had we kicked the 3 points against Wales and got the draw; we would be through.

    We don’t deserve to be but still.

    I said at the time, having for the BP vs Fiji, and knowing Wales were playing them just a few days later – a draw was a good result. Why could Robshaw not see that? I was several pints in at the time and it was completely clear to me.

    1. I’ve seen it mentioned a few times about Eng would have been through if they’d taken the draw – only thing I would say is that if Wales needed a losing BP against Aus to go through then we’d have played differently.

      We lost by 9 pts. We turned down 2 easy kicks to go for the win in the corner but were not good enough to score the try for the win – if we’d needed to be within 7 pts then we would have been drilled to go for that and hence I think that on balance, the way the game went, we’d have got the losing BP. So I don’t think Eng would have gone through even with a draw.

      What surprised a lot of people is how well the Welsh contained the Aus defence. Not well enough to win but given the way Aus ran all over the park in their previous match most were expecting a win by a try or 2 hence the grief Robshaw got – but now we’ve seen Wales play Aus I can’t see that a draw would have been enough to put England through.

      1. If you had got a losing BP then we’d have been level on points. Going down to tries scored I believe? Since we’d have theoretically drawn.

        Again, we would likely have gone through playing Uruguay knowing what we had to do tries wise.

        That being said – Wales deserved to go through far more than England did so it would have been a bit of a travesty if we’d have got through.

    2. Always take the points. That’s my motto. I don’t care if the fans would rather see a try. Just take the points at the earliest opportunity.

      Wales were just as guilty against Australia, arguably far worse. Should/could have made a relatively easy 9-point gain during the period when the criminals were down to 13.

  22. Anyone else think its more than somewhat strange that SL has said he’s off on his hols and won’t be watching any more of the RWC??

    Surely if he wants to stay in place, he should be watching every minute of the remaining games, preferably multiple times. It may give him some kind of clue as to what he’s been doing wrong.

    BTW this game demonstrated the need to have at least one big-ish bloke in the backs who can carry the ball and drag in defenders.

    1. Completely agree on both points. I think SL is off on his hols because he knows he it out of a job anyway.

      On the backs; it really did show what positive effect a large carrying center does. Tuilagi with either Slade or JJ is ideal. If we do pair JJ and Slade then we need a big carrying winger that we can bring into the game. Either Roko, Yarde or even using Tuilagi on the wing?

  23. One of the most frustrating performances by this England team. If all we can come up with is continuous dummy runners, and forwards running up blind alleys then I’m glad we will not be going any further in this tournament.

    This game should have been an opportunity to put their hand up and say give me the shirt, I deserve it. And yet their was only a few that did that. Jamie George was excellent all round, and deserves another chance, Slade did well, but I though he looked better at 12? Kruis made some good carries, and worked well with George in the lineout. Launchbury was excellent as always, Mako did ok in the scrum and make a few carries, but looks better with Brookes playing.

    There are some positives to take, but have to say that is only because of the individual players abilities, and nothing to do with the coaching. We need a new coaching set-up with a fresh perspective, and some different ideas. The lack of attacking nous compared to teams like Australia is evident in this match which should have been a cricket score.

    1. Slade at 12, Joseph at 13.

      I can see no logical reason why that centre partnership has not had the time from the six nations until now to gel together and get settled as a unit. Not big enough for Stuart and Andy? Well they’re not exactly small though are they? And I can’t recall seeing either particularly embarrassed in defence. And selecting a behemoth and a bloke who smashes things with his own face didn’t exactly prove the case for size at all costs.

      1. I’m split on this. Slade and JJ could be great but I do think it lacks a carrier; which is why if we played those two together I’d pick Yarde, Tuilagi or Roko on the wings.

        Never understand that one’ lacking a big lump has nothing to do with defense; why do much people jump to that conclusion? Its pretty irrelevant in defense.

        However, like we saw for the Uruguay game and also whenever Barritt played with JJ; not having a significant carrier to straighten and draw defenders in attack makes the space out side and in that 13 channel significantly smaller and more difficult to work in.

        1. As Jacob says, having a big fella in the centre is about bending the defensive line and dragging defenders in, whether through a dummy or actual carry, to create space elsewhere. This game showed that without one and even against a semi-pro team, the ball just gets passed laterally and the defense merely has to drift to deny the back 3 space in the outside channels

          As an example, watch the England try against Wales to see how the Welsh defence is fixed by the threat of Burgess, creating space outside for Watson to exploit.

          All top teams have some beef in the centre – think of Nonu, De Allende, Kuridrani, Roberts, Bastereaud – and they’re not doing for the sake of it. There are sound, tactical reasons for playing a unit there.

          That said, whilst being big and being skillful aren’t mutually exclusive, it’s a combination that is somewhat harder to find. I cannot think of a English centre currently playing who is both. Tuilagi is the best of the lot as at least he can off-load quite well. Burrell probably second but he hasn’t set the world alight.

          Jacob’s idea of a strong wing is a good one but on the proviso that they don’t just hang around on their wing but come inside looking for work. Yarde on form is probably the hardest to put down, but Rokoduguni is a decent bet as well.

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