One Positive. One Negative

by SecretFly Mon 19 Mar 2018, 12:36 pm

One Positive. One Negative
Only One of each, not tons.

Your team. One positive to take from the Championship. One negative.

For me -

Positive:
More emphasis on attack very welcome. Whether is was deigned as necessary because of bonus points or whether Joe Schmidt is finally being coaxed along to the idea that attack is a much easier form of defence, we have been seeing a much more aggressive stance from Ireland defensively - with the ball and without it.
We didn't just hold onto possession in the end stages of games when often we were under the usual last session assault by the opposition. When in possession we often chose to actively push forward and sustain attacking aggression even though it might be said that possession at that point was more technically defensive and used to count down the clock.

So I liked that defensive possession was being used as a much more genuine 'attacking' threat than Ireland might have been known for to this point in recent years. Sustaining this attitude through all games, even ones without bonus point requirements, will make us a tougher prospect still.
You can't have any opposition being dead certain Ireland will not attack in the last minutes as they cling to leads. That lets the oppostion off the hook and allows them to fully concentrate on their waves and waves of attack. We have to scare teams into being as cautious about their own defence in the last quarter of games as they are intent on attacking ours. I think a real big improvement in Ireland's philosophy through this campaign on that score.

Negative:
I'm not sure it's a negative really. Maybe it's simply more an inevitable gap that appears due to our overall defensive shape - ie. - maybe we know that we sacrifice certainty and resolutness in one area to better resource other areas that have more priority in our over all game style. Being good in one area does tend to weaken other areas.
So yep, the bloody fringe gaps that keep appearing with frustrating regularity all through this contest is my negative.

I can in a way understand why they appear given our determination to be dominant in breakdown collisions but we've still got a lot of work to do in trying formulate a better system that gives us more security when we need it during end games, when other sides have nothing to lose and so release the attacking hounds full blast - or indeed during earlier very apparent 'purple patch' activity from opposition mid game when they come at us in timed waves to put those fringes in a lot of trouble.
I don't think we yet fully adapt to these under-the-cosh periods. I think we've done bloody well and there has been some truly heroic defensive shifts from players - but on a strategy and tactics level, I think we have to find ways of solidifying those periods to wait out the storms in a less seemingly nervous way.

by No 7&1/2 Mon 19 Mar 2018, 12:50 pm

Positive.....erm........
It has underlined that despite there not being enough time in training for 3 hookers scrum half's etc we need a way to help them develop and stay up to speed nonetheless even in a non playing capacity during training.

Negatives the loss in form of our locks. Only Launchbury showed anything close and then had a quite game against the french. When fit they are the envy of every other team. Or should be.

by robbo277 Mon 19 Mar 2018, 12:58 pm

Positive: the perspective gained after Jones' honeymoon period
Negative: the actual rugby

by Guest Mon 19 Mar 2018, 1:21 pm

Wales:

Positive - injuries allowed fringe players the chance to play and show that they could cut it and that has allowed us to develop some depth for a change. The likes of Parkes, Navidi, Shingler, Hill, Dee, Anscombe and Patchell all played well (Pathcell in..... patches!). James Davies and Josh Adams tool, albeit for 1 start. That bodes well going into the World Cup.

Negative - inconsistent. We started poorly against Ireland and England and they built leads that we couldn't claw back. Against Ireland we pulled back a few tries from something like 27-12 down and were in with a shout of winning in the last minute (only to throw the intercept). Against England we finished the stronger of the two teams and had a few chances to score and potentially sneak it. So finishing strongly is a positive, but getting ourselves in trouble and having to claw back was a negative for me. If only we'd contained teams earlier on our strong finishing might have got us the win (and who knows, maybe even the Grand Slam Smile

).

by **George Carlin** Mon 19 Mar 2018, 2:06 pm

robbo277 wrote:Positive: the perspective gained after Jones' honeymoon period
Negative: the actual rugby

by **LondonTiger** Mon 19 Mar 2018, 2:26 pm

Positive: Ability of our wingers to score tries.
Negative: Pretty much everything else.

by munkian Mon 19 Mar 2018, 2:51 pm

Positive - Patchell

Negative - Patchell

by PenfroPete Mon 19 Mar 2018, 2:59 pm

Positive - gaining strength in depth

Negative - being negative against France. The longer the backs were with Howley the worse they got

by Exiledinborders Mon 19 Mar 2018, 3:01 pm

Negative: England players are clearly knackered post Lions
Positive: I expect many to be rested this summer and come back strongly next year.

P.S. It is now time to scrap England's involvement in the Lions or have enforced absence from club games post the tour. Personally I prefer the first option.

by Guest Mon 19 Mar 2018, 3:18 pm

munkian wrote:Positive - Patchell

Negative - Patchell

by SecretFly Mon 19 Mar 2018, 3:25 pm

If English players are knackered, it's their club game that knackers them not Lions duty.

I'm not a fan of Lions so I wouldn't cry any tears if it now gave way to more noble and honest Nation to Nation encounters, but it's the demands of the domestic English club season, run by people that complain a lot about International, that overwork their better players. And that, it seems, is what the fans of the club game want - their star players playing week in and week out - no compromises. You pay your money, you want your big players playing and winning games.

I often find it somewhat humorous the rhythms of rugby fans, and I think I've said this at the end of a few 6N tournaments. It's just always pointed at this time of year.

When International is on, fans dramatically swing their thoughts to all the problems with International and worry that players are overworked and overburdened...and seasons are too long... and too much is asked of them etc etc. In short, the fans want the integrity of the International product to be protected more so that when these International windows come around, what the fans get is the very best players playing the very best rugby.

When International is over and club stuff becomes dominant again, almost the same selection of fans change their colours and preferences. Now it is club that is being mucked about by the nuisance International game, club players coming back injured or down on club form because of their exertions at International, nuisance foreign players that get big club bucks wanting too much time away from club for bloody International windows and training camps etc etc.

Where is the balance? One thing is certain, the poor players who are meant to entertain at both ends of the spectrum (club and country) need a balance. There is too much asked of them by fans. They can't give themselves entirely to two causes and have enough juice for both, year upon year upon year.

by Pot Hale Mon 19 Mar 2018, 3:30 pm

Positive: Sexton deciding to kick pass to Earls
Negative: not scoring a try against France.

by SecretFly Mon 19 Mar 2018, 3:35 pm

Nice thinking Pot.

But then the not scoring a try against France lulled our future opponents into thinking we couldn't score tries at all! Wink

Master plan again by Dr No Schmidt. Whistle

by whocares Mon 19 Mar 2018, 3:45 pm

Positive : not conceding a lot of tries
Negative : not scoring more than 3 points in the 2H against Wales

by robbo277 Mon 19 Mar 2018, 4:08 pm

SecretFly wrote:If English players are knackered, it's their club game that knackers them not Lions duty.

I'm not a fan of Lions so I wouldn't cry any tears if it now gave way to more noble and honest Nation to Nation encounters, but it's the demands of the domestic English club season, run by people that complain a lot about International, that overwork their better players. And that, it seems, is what the fans of the club game want - their star players playing week in and week out - no compromises. You pay your money, you want your big players playing and winning games.

I often find it somewhat humorous the rhythms of rugby fans, and I think I've said this at the end of a few 6N tournaments. It's just always pointed at this time of year.

When International is on, fans dramatically swing their thoughts to all the problems with International and worry that players are overworked and overburdened...and seasons are too long... and too much is asked of them etc etc. In short, the fans want the integrity of the International product to be protected more so that when these International windows come around, what the fans get is the very best players playing the very best rugby.

When International is over and club stuff becomes dominant again, almost the same selection of fans change their colours and preferences. Now it is club that is being mucked about by the nuisance International game, club players coming back injured or down on club form because of their exertions at International, nuisance foreign players that get big club bucks wanting too much time away from club for bloody International windows and training camps etc etc.

Where is the balance? One thing is certain, the poor players who are meant to entertain at both ends of the spectrum (club and country) need a balance. There is too much asked of them by fans. They can't give themselves entirely to two causes and have enough juice for both, year upon year upon year.

There is too much rugby. 12 Internationals, 6+3 European games and 22+2 league games gives 45 games. Even though no player will play all of these, that's too many. There should be about half that for any one player.

It's exacerbated in a Lions year. Our top players played more games at the end of last year and got a shorter rest period. And then they've been thrust back into the same impossible schedule. The Lions year hasn't helped us, but the tour shouldn't have come as a surprise. We haven't managed our players well at all.

by RuggerRadge2611 Mon 19 Mar 2018, 4:21 pm

Scotland

Positive : Discovery of depth, especially in the front row. Pre tournament I was very worried about having practically no 1st choice frontrowers. Now I don't actually know who our best front row is. Hooker is easy, since McInally has been a revelation, pretty much outstanding in every game he played. The fact we had scrum parity with everyone we played is a solid pass mark to our front row. We also learnt a bit about depth at Centre. With Mark Bennett, Alex Dunbar, Matt Scott and Duncan Taylor all out injured Huw Jones got some valuable time with Horne and Grigg, I'd also be reluctant to throw Chris Harris on the scrap heap. Take him on tour in the summer and see how he does with a proper 12 inside him instead of a panicky Huw Jones who offloaded large scoops of excrement onto Harris at every oppertunity down in Cardiff. Also at the start of the championship Ali Price was very much the man in possesion of the 9 shirt. Laidlaw came back and reminded us all of how good a footballer he is and how he can also slot into the 10 shirt if Russell has a meltdown.

Negative - Woeful and depressing inconsistency particularly away from home. This is a problem I don't really know how we can solve. We can beat big teams away, we did that last year when we turned over the Wallabies down under. However we got taught a painful lesson in Cardiff and gifted the game to Wales in the first quarter. Despite being thoroughly beaten by Ireland I really felt we were in that game and if we converted just 2 of the 4 clear cut chances we had it might have been a different game. As for Italy they were great on Saturday. They played the best they have played all tournament and despite us being behind for large swathes we demonstrated plan B and crushed Italy with out rolling maul and second half mastery of the breakdown. The fact Italy only made it into our 22 once in the second half shows how well we dictated the game in the second half and emerged worthy winners. Make no mistake, the Scotland of 2 seasons ago would have almost certainly caved under that pressure.

We have a lot to work on but it's not a false dawn anymore. 2 6N running we haven't been beaten at home and that is the sort of platform that title challenges can be mounted from. How to solve the playing away hoodoo. That's the challenge for Toonie.

by **LondonTiger** Mon 19 Mar 2018, 4:23 pm

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:Scotland

Positive : Discovery of depth, especially in the front row. Pre tournament I was very worried about having practically no 1st choice frontrowers. Now I don't actually know who our best front row is. Hooker is easy, since McInally has been a revelation, pretty much outstanding in every game he played.

I certainly thought you looked better with McInally and Berghan than you did with Brown and Nel

by RuggerRadge2611 Mon 19 Mar 2018, 4:26 pm

LondonTiger wrote:
RuggerRadge2611 wrote:Scotland

Positive : Discovery of depth, especially in the front row. Pre tournament I was very worried about having practically no 1st choice frontrowers. Now I don't actually know who our best front row is. Hooker is easy, since McInally has been a revelation, pretty much outstanding in every game he played.

I certainly thought you looked better with McInally and Berghan than you did with Brown and Nel

I think they would have started had Cockers not asked for some of the fringe Edinburgh guys back to play Munster and maximise Edinburgh's playoff chances.

by Luckless Pedestrian Mon 19 Mar 2018, 5:29 pm

Exiledinborders wrote:Negative: England players are clearly knackered post Lions
Positive: I expect many to be rested this summer and come back strongly next year.

P.S. It is now time to scrap England's involvement in the Lions or have enforced absence from club games post the tour. Personally I prefer the first option.

After. You mean after the tour. 'post-' is a prefix.

Sorry, pet peeve of mine.

Good idea for a thread, Fly. I'll ~~after~~ post something constructive at some point.

by wolfball Mon 19 Mar 2018, 7:56 pm

Positive, our attitude across all matches, a will to win coupled with professionalism.
Negative, While our depth has improved massively, 2,9,10 are still positions I worry about as its the brains not just the skills of our three incumbents which went so far to win us the GS, and while I think we would still have won the GS without 1 or possibly 2, missing all of Best, Sexton and Murray and we would have lost France and maybe the Welsh game.

by Dontheman2 Mon 19 Mar 2018, 8:59 pm

Today at 2:35 am
by SecretFly
Nice thinking Pot. OK

But then the not scoring a try against France lulled our future opponents into thinking we couldn't score tries at all! Wink Master plan again by Dr No Schmidt. Whistle

Black propaganda, Fly? When you’ve got Stockdale scoring tries for fun?

by Yoda Mon 19 Mar 2018, 9:33 pm

Positive: Daly is back!
Negative: watching England play injured players only to completely knacker them up. furious

by Geordie Mon 19 Mar 2018, 10:12 pm

Positive: We're probably not as bad as we showed this 6n and have players that can fix it, and be rested.

Negatives:
1. Lack of leadership on the pitch
2. Lack of ability to TRY and change a losing game plan
3. Lack of genuine aggression, and fight
4. Everything else that happened on the big green rectangle...

by TJ Mon 19 Mar 2018, 10:26 pm

Scotland

Positive -We finally discovered how to play restarts

Negative - we keep on giving teams cheap points early on

by TightHEAD Mon 19 Mar 2018, 10:36 pm

Officials

Positive- loving their watches.

Negative- Scrum feeds!!! So easy to police.

by catchweight Mon 19 Mar 2018, 11:00 pm

The biggest positive for me is that I think we still have a group of players capable of winning the World Cup and we have time to get back on track.

The biggest negative is not really knowing exactly what needs to be done to get things back on track. I also though it was a big negative fore England that when injuries did happen, the players coming didnt lay down any sort of marker with the opportunity. Contrast that to Ireland who also suffered their share of injuries but almost to a man, the replacements coming in made a big impact. Leavy was third choice 7, came in and was oustanding. Stockdale, Farrell, Ringrose, Porter, Ryan etc. In contrast, not many of Englands replacements made a posiitive impact. How much of that is good fortune versus how much is good coaching is hard to know.

An awful lot of Englands players have just lost form. Were it only for England, then you might be inclined to say its gone pear shaped for Jones. But its club form as well. There is a hangover in English rugby after successive seasons of being top in Europe at international and club level. Its a difficult spot for Jones to be in.

Lancaster found himself not really knowing what his best team was by the time the World Cup came around. Jones seemed to have found his World Cup team too early and things have gone a bit stale. A year ago Jones by his own addmission though he was 80/90 % of the way there with his England team and it was hard to argue. Now there questions all over the team.

by Geen sport voor watjes Mon 19 Mar 2018, 11:16 pm

Positive. Beating England comprehensively away from home. First time I have seen that since 2003. Game was finished by half time.

Negative. Second half was a little boring

by Exiledinborders Mon 19 Mar 2018, 11:44 pm

Luckless Pedestrian wrote:
Exiledinborders wrote:Negative: England players are clearly knackered post Lions
Positive: I expect many to be rested this summer and come back strongly next year.

P.S. It is now time to scrap England's involvement in the Lions or have enforced absence from club games post the tour. Personally I prefer the first option.

After. You mean after the tour. 'post-' is a prefix.

Sorry, pet peeve of mine.

Don't be sorry. All you have done is make an arse of yourself in public.

Post is indeed a prefix. It is also a preposition.

Oxford Dictionaries Online wrote:
post preposition

Subsequent to; after.
‘American poetry post the 1950s hasn't had the same impact’

by SecretFly Tue 20 Mar 2018, 12:11 am

I find Grammmere corrections are the biggest thing wot annoys people that be in this place, mostly.

Very road ragey topic.

by yappysnap Tue 20 Mar 2018, 12:52 am

Positive - Brown and Robshaw proved the naysayers wrong again.

Negative - tactically we were well off the pace.

by **George Carlin** Tue 20 Mar 2018, 5:18 am

Positives:
- We actually have test class front row replacements. Who knew?
- Finn Russell's bag of tricks seems bottomless.
- When all players are available for selection, we have a staggeringly talented attacking midfield. Duncan Taylor and Huw Jones need to play together because that could be stellar.
- It is a pleasure to watch proper breakdown specialists operate.

Negatives:
- What the fork happens to our players away from home?
- We rely too much on a couple of key players bringing their A game every time. Ireland don't.
- Finn Russell can be flakier than a stale croissant in a wind tunnel.
- We need a ball carrying number 8 desperately for balance. The future is not Denton or Wilson.

by The Great Aukster Tue 20 Mar 2018, 8:23 am

Negative: Paddy Jackson's absence
Positive: Joey Carberry's presence

by Guest Tue 20 Mar 2018, 8:39 am

Positive: people sticking to the rules in the OP.

Negative: people listing lots of positives and lots of negatives!

Run

by SecretFly Tue 20 Mar 2018, 9:45 am

The Oracle wrote:Positive: people sticking to the rules in the OP.

Negative: people listing lots of positives and lots of negatives!

Precisely! Their names are noted and they'll be getting detention and extra homework because of it.

by munkian Tue 20 Mar 2018, 9:48 am

yappysnap wrote:Positive - Brown and Robshaw proved the naysayers wrong again.

Negative - tactically we were well off the pace.

They did ? Robshaw was workhorse like at 6 but anonymous at 7.

by **rodders** Tue 20 Mar 2018, 9:56 am

Ireland:-

Postives:- probably too many to mention but I'll shoot for the performances of the younger players - Ryan, Stockdale, Leavy obviously were superb but I think also Porter did incredibly well, Larmour less so but will gain a lot of experience. Farrell had a great game against Wales but Ringrose(still a youngster himself) really strengthened the midfield alongside another newbie in Aki, who was a bit of an unsung hero. Carbury looked good as well and in another season will be an able back up to Sexton.

The 09 slam was a bit of a peak but this seems like a small step to something much bigger.

Negatives:- All the matches there was a pattern of starting very strong and dominating but then letting teams come back. It is nitpicking a bit but we conceded too many tries in the second half and need to be more ruthless and not let teams off.the hook.

by TJ Tue 20 Mar 2018, 9:56 am

Robshaw worked and worked and worked - its not his fault he go no support from other forewards. Against Scotland he bust a gut but he was playing against two guys in Watson and Barclay for the breakdown battle.

I was actually pretty impressed with him. For me one of the few england players to come out with his reputation intact

by **George Carlin** Tue 20 Mar 2018, 10:09 am

The Oracle wrote:Positive: people sticking to the rules in the OP.

Negative: people listing lots of positives and lots of negatives!

One Positive. One Negative Ostrich-743694

by SecretFly Tue 20 Mar 2018, 10:25 am

Robshaw. Well, if England had about three other players in the side this season that came with his attitude rather than coming with a notion that they were good enough to canter and still get a title, then it might all have been different.
Robshaw knows that winning requires hard, hard days at the office with 100% commitment the whole way through. Some of his colleagues let him down because I truly think they started this competition thinking they could win but were good enough to save their energies for SA in summer and the ABs in Autumn.
Robshaw finally is the real beating Captain's heart of England - and I suppose for the rest of us, it's good that Eddie Jones either doesn't know that or is unwilling to be proved wrong by returning the Captaincy armband to him.

by Luckless Pedestrian Tue 20 Mar 2018, 10:40 am

Exiledinborders wrote:
Luckless Pedestrian wrote:
Exiledinborders wrote:Negative: England players are clearly knackered post Lions
Positive: I expect many to be rested this summer and come back strongly next year.

P.S. It is now time to scrap England's involvement in the Lions or have enforced absence from club games post the tour. Personally I prefer the first option.

After. You mean after the tour. 'post-' is a prefix.

Sorry, pet peeve of mine.
Don't be sorry. All you have done is make an arse of yourself in public.

Post is indeed a prefix. It is also a preposition.
Oxford Dictionaries Online wrote:
post preposition

Subsequent to; after.
‘American poetry post the 1950s hasn't had the same impact’

Collins and Merriam-Webster don't agree. But they do agree on the definition of 'contrition'.

by munkian Tue 20 Mar 2018, 10:54 am

SecretFly wrote:Robshaw. Well, if England had about three other players in the side this season that came with his attitude rather than coming with a notion that they were good enough to canter and still get a title, then it might all have been different.
Robshaw knows that winning requires hard, hard days at the office with 100% commitment the whole way through. Some of his colleagues let him down because I truly think they started this competition thinking they could win but were good enough to save their energies for SA in summer and the ABs in Autumn.
Robshaw finally is the real beating Captain's heart of England - and I suppose for the rest of us, it's good that Eddie Jones either doesn't know that or is unwilling to be proved wrong by returning the Captaincy armband to him.

I think Robshaw, like Warburton, plays better without the Captain's burden.

by EWT Spoons Tue 20 Mar 2018, 11:01 am

Scotland:

Positive - Maul defence & attack
After seemingly years of getting marched down the field trying to defend mauls, I think we did pretty well this year, and it's certainly getting better. Related to that is our own use of the maul is considerably better than it has been, we're using that as a weapon now, and whilst the chaos rugby approach is nice, a strong and effective maul is a good option to have.

Negative
Away form - Undeniably this has been poor, I'm not sure why we are so bad away, and I know most teams tend to struggle away from home, but they normally do better than us. Not sure how to fix that, but would suggest travelling on the day of the game is not helping.

by yappysnap Tue 20 Mar 2018, 5:52 pm

munkian wrote:
yappysnap wrote:Positive - Brown and Robshaw proved the naysayers wrong again.

Negative - tactically we were well off the pace.

They did ? Robshaw was workhorse like at 6 but anonymous at 7.

Like TJ said Robshaw was consistently better then the rest of his team mates to me. Not saying he's s stand out in that position, but he carries a lot of the pack.

Brown had a funny tournament, but when he was dropped and we saw Watson okay 25, you got to see how good he is.

by Dontheman2 Tue 20 Mar 2018, 9:25 pm

Positive. Halfpenny’s return to attacking form v Scotland
Negative. Absent through injury when Jonny May breezed through to score.

by ScarletSpiderman Wed 21 Mar 2018, 11:04 am

munkian wrote:Positive - Patchell

Negative - Patchell

Priestlan....I mean Patchell is still probably our best option mind.

Positive: Style of play when the big names were missing
Negative: Style of play when the big names returned.

by Luckless Pedestrian Wed 21 Mar 2018, 11:56 am

Positive: Wales not doing their usual thing of starting a tournament slowly. For once, we started at a canter.

Negative: That we couldn't / didn't maintain it. (Consecutive away games didn't help, but still.)

by SecretFly Wed 21 Mar 2018, 12:41 pm

I noticed that Luckless.

Explosive start this time.... then kind of a war of attrition at the end.

I think it means that for most sides (Ireland included) - for all sides then, there really does need to be a plan for which end of the contest you want to be playing your best rugby because, evidently through the years, virtually no team can sustain top hot level through the entirety of the contest. You either have to try to hit the ground running and then hold on towards the end, or you have to plan your peak later in the competition and cling on at the beginning.

It was interesting that I noticed Wales because I was also sensing that Ireland maybe came into this contest 'underworked', hoping that the games themselves would hone the conditioning upwards through the contest. I think that's what happened. Ireland looked progressively strong and more assured the longer the competition went on - the planned peak.

Wales it seems wanted to teach Scotland a real lesson! And yes, they didn't want to get caught out on their legendary slow start. So all their training juice went into hitting the ground fast and hard.

by rapidsnowman Wed 21 Mar 2018, 12:58 pm

Positive: I feel Ireland's whole campaign could be summed up in the the passage of play and drop goal at the end of the France game. Could that be the moment Ireland have truly come of age in terms of sheer will to win?

Negative: Larmour didn't pass to Earls's for a try bonus point against England Very Happy

by SecretFly Wed 21 Mar 2018, 1:07 pm

rapidsnowman wrote:

Negative: Larmour didn't pass to Earls's for a try bonus point against England

Funny...but true! mad

Didn't Joe bring it up too? Oh Larmour got told off in private I'm sure.

Day that's in it, little oversights like that might be allowed in a sense. But I really wanted them to score a 4th. Not to rub anything in but more to just seal the deal.

by carpet baboon Wed 21 Mar 2018, 1:29 pm

SecretFly wrote:
rapidsnowman wrote:

Negative: Larmour didn't pass to Earls's for a try bonus point against England

Funny...but true!

Didn't Joe bring it up too? Oh Larmour got told off in private I'm sure.

Day that's in it, little oversights like that might be allowed in a sense. But I really wanted them to score a 4th. Not to rub anything in but more to just seal the deal.

I nearly spilt my pint when he didn't pass. As you say it wasn't (totally) about rubbing it in. Just wanted the game killed off.

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