English Fella

I agree that had Wales been able to win more possession then the your backline would have made the scoring look a little easier than England did, but you would expect that given the experience in your backs. The problem was (with the exception of the scrum) the Welsh pack was outplayed in most areas and so was unable to provided little quality ball. This also put cooper under a fair amount of pressure which led to his poor kicking display.

There was no luck in the interception. Jones threw a very poor pass and that led to a well timed intercept, great running and handling to run from 1 end of the field to another changing hands a total of 4 times. That passage of play pleased me most in an otherwise avarage performance.

All that said Taff I still expect Wales to bounce back with a comfortable win over Scotland and could well challenge for the trophy as I suspect there will be know GS this year and all teams will lose at least 1.

Spicy MacHaggis

Well I'm leaving Aberdeen at 4am Thursday. Got a pack o cairds to remember the players and mair sayings than Bill McLaren.
By the time Saturday comes, if the game's sh1te, we'll just tell tour stories!

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[COLOR=Blue]Alba gu Brath[/COLOR]

TaffinEastbourne2

Agree with most of that but Armitage had added nothing to the party up until that moment and SJ was desperate to make something happen and forced the miracle-pass.A moment.SJ is/was a Lion.With Byrne and Kearney around ,I doubt that Armitigage will achieve this accolade unless SCW returns.
As an old soandso,I would suggest that pleasure should be taken from creation rather than perloining though it could be argued that scoreboard pressure created that pass.
When my "region" Newport Gwent Dragons can push Leicester and beat Saracens the tale is being told,as my Welsh chums would tell you,we are poor!
Your lot are on the slide and have a novice manager.We are holding and targetting the WC.Round and round we go.

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Tom James needs to calm down!!!!

Mikey R

I thought it was generally an awful game with the quality of execution quite low.

England looked very very very nervous. For that reason I think this win is HUGE. Yes, we didn't play that well and we hung in there. In 2005 Wales beat England by TWO points and the score was 11-9. There was nothing amazing about the performance and you doggedly hung in there to grind the win out - it was the first time Wales had delivered that kind of cussed 'winning' performance for years. It delivered the platform for the team to go on and take the GS.

I honestly think this win will have a massive impact on the confidence of the players. At the top level of international rugby, the top two inches make all the difference and confidence or lack of it is a massive boost/handicap. I for one am very pleased by the way the players dug in and ground the win out when Wales came back. Yes we were lucky a few times during the game, but you take the luck and you move on. We won. I think we could do well in this tournament now.

However, in spite of coming back strong in the 2nd half I thought Wales were very poor. Your control of possession was non existent and has to raise HUGE questions about the quality of your back row and half backs. I thought that we totally dominated the rucks and agree with Scarletlion that Williams looks a spent force. Against the fast, more dynamic, and better supported Moody he lost. Against Wallace/Dusautoir/McCaw he will be eaten up. I thought Adam Powell offered him little to no support however... that guy is NOT an international back row player. He is worse than Joe Worsley - another one-trick-pony.

James Hook rescued Wales from being totally rubbish with one great break. Taff - it was not Tait's tackle to make. He had the outside player, Hook jinked past the tackle of Tim Payne. It was classic outside back play - isolating the slow boy, fixing him and then stepping out and round. Once he was through the cover defense should have got him though but they failed. I think it was Cueto coming across.

finally - yes we won on an intercept. However we would not have scored that try last year. I know it sounds ridiculous but THREE players were in support for the final pass. Last year we would have wasted that opportunity by getting close, not scoring, and taking a drop goal.

Personally I feel England took a good step forward. This is a good win and let's see if we can now build a performance of 80 minutes of sustained quality against Italy.

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"I have impressed upon them the advantages of a Mediterranean diet over ketchup and chips." Fabio Capello on revolutionising the off-pitch regime of the England squad.

fordy

Does no one else feel that the Hook try (if you are going to deny it being anything other than sublime skill and awareness) was Wilkinson's fault?

I don't mean because he got stepped after Payne had missed the tackle but because he wasn't in the defensive line. Inside the 22 it is not the job of the FH to be covering that is for the back 3 and the SH. If he had been in the line, Payne could have been closer to the ruck and Hook would have had second thoughts over making the break.

Mikey R

Didn't notice. I don't think there was an overlap and I think it was man-for-man at that point so the real issue is that Payne was in the midfield and not close to the ruck. You could argue that Jonny was doing what he should do - and either a) covering or b) moving into position for the next phase of defense.

This is the problem with Mike Fords' "Pod" system for defense because it means that you get mis-matches - particularly after 5th phase ball - when fat forwards are expected to be nimble enough to pick off a lithe three-quarter. Riki Flutey was had such a good year partly because he wandered around into first receiver position and picked off cumbersome forwards. It is also what NZ and AUS do very very well.

Personally I thought Jonny had an average game and he still fails to step up and get the backs moving when he needs to. But I am not sure this defensive mistake is his.

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"I have impressed upon them the advantages of a Mediterranean diet over ketchup and chips." Fabio Capello on revolutionising the off-pitch regime of the England squad.

Zinny.

What annoyed me was his bloody kicking, with the Welsh lineout falling to pieces I thought he'd have done what he used to be so good at, pinning the corners, instead there was all this midfield bomb crap which 9/10 times results in a return bomb ad nauseam.

England has no backs, they just look like backs, the day you fellas "get the backs going" is the day I put on a miniskirt & hit the gay bars.....aint gonna happen.

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fordy

England need to find room for their spark. i.e Ben Foden. A look through YouTube tells you how important The **** ( Austin Healey) was in creating a fear of the england backline.

You just need one player to open things up an then the rest can feed

Mikey R

Yep - agree entirely. Cueto and Monye are not good enough wingers for the long term IMO. Cueto is solid - that is it. Never been that good and will always go down in my book as the bloke who should have scored the winning try in the WC final in 2007 but failed to finish properly...

Monye is a good, quick, powerful player who runs good lines, but seems to lack the devil that top wingers have.

Could Foden play 14 and Ashton 11? or vice versa?

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"I have impressed upon them the advantages of a Mediterranean diet over ketchup and chips." Fabio Capello on revolutionising the off-pitch regime of the England squad.