England got the win
against Scotland this evening, but many many chances went begging. This could come back to haunt England next week when they, Ireland and Wales
will all be playing to win the Six Nations with the winner most likely being the team with the biggest points difference.
Let's start with the
man of the match – Ben Youngs. He played much better this week as
compared to last week, in particular he finally started to pick up
the pace at the breakdown and his partnership with George Ford worked
very well today. In my personal opinion, Youngs still has a way to go
before I accept his inclusion in the squad. When you look at the
speed of Laidlaw today in comparison to Youngs, and the Scotland
scrum-half won hands down. Having said that, Ben put his kicking to
really good use today and it put England on the front foot time after
time (regardless of the fact that we did not take advantage of this
most of the time). His partner at fly-half, George Ford, played
brilliantly today – he finally managed to take control of the game,
much like we see Sexton doing week in week out. His passing was
absolutely flawless; he set up some brilliant line breaks for the
likes of Burrell, Joseph and Nowell, as well as managing to get himself a try after easily breaking through the flimsy Scotland
defence. Kicking-wise, he was pretty much immaculate, only missing
one penalty kick and using his kicks from hand to great effect.
In terms of Scotland,
for me their best player was Stuart Hogg, which seems to be the case
more often than not. He made two incredible try-saving tackles to
keep Scotland in the game for most of the match, and was consistently pushing at the England defence. Under the high ball, him and Mike
Brown really competed and there was no evidence that they were
put-off by the idea that they might be penalised by going up against
one another, something we are seeing more often now with soft yellow
cards being given in the game. Hogg is one of the best full-backs out
there, and sometimes it feels like his talent is being wasted by him
playing for Scotland. Mike Brown himself made a welcome return to the
Six Nations this evening; he too made two great try-saving tackles
and made some great breaks up the field. He even managed to cross the
whitewash at one point, but was not awarded the try due to a forward
pass by James Haskell. We really missed Brown last week, particularly
as Goode was fairly poor, and he came out all guns blazing tonight to
help us get the win.
Next, on to who I think
was the actual man of the match by a pretty huge margin today –
Courtney Lawes. For the past two weekends he has put in exceptional
performances for the Saints, and it was no surprise that he was named
in the starting squad on Wednesday for today's game. He was
a force to be reckoned with all over the field for the whole match, making himself a real nuisance at
the breakdown. Add to that the monstrous hits he put in that he has
become synonymous for, and he was clearly our most outstanding player
today. In last week's match against Ireland one of the main things we
were lacking was a real physical presence at the breakdown, and we
re-gained that today with the inclusion of Lawes. For Scotland, they
had two good players in Cowan and Hamilton who also put in good
shifts defensively at the breakdown. They earned their team a few
turnovers that allowed them to sink their teeth in the game and
actually go in at half-time in the lead. In the second half however,
these two were effectively contained by England, particularly Cowan
as Hamilton went off after only 47 minutes. This allowed England to
get a real foothold in the match, ultimately stopping Scotland from
scoring any more points and gifting England the win come the final
whistle.
Dougie Fife was another
player who had a solid game for Scotland today. He too made some
really great breaks, and tried his hardest to keep Scotland on the
front foot whenever they had the ball. There is a lot of pace on show
when he does get to run with the ball, and he was next to impossible
to stop today. In terms of the high ball, he like Hogg competed at
the highest level whenever it came his way. In terms of the England
wing, Jack Nowell has a mixed game today. He did play so much better
than last week, making a lot of breaks and metres, however his
passing was way below par. England screwed up multiple chances today
to go over the try line, and at least of those was down to a bad pass
by Nowell. However, he was not the only one to make any passing or
handling errors, as it happened way too often today. The Haskell
forward pass in particular was indicative of England's performance –
he was standing still and could see exactly where Brown was, yet
somehow still managed to pass forward despite the fact that Brown had not
overran and could have easily caught the pass had it been thrown
correctly.
The person for me who
had the worst game for England today was Joe Marler. People always
say that he is one of the best and when he is on the field that scrum
will work perfectly. But today, he was well below how we know he can
play. At the scrum, he gave away multiple penalties for not driving straight and changing the position of his hips. One of these
penalties actually went against us on our own ball, and he seemed to
be more of a liability than a help today. He just did not want to change his style of play despite constant warnings from the referee. There was no way that he did
not know what he was doing, and his actions just seemed really pointless.
Vunipola did a better job in the scrum when he came on, but I still
feel like England are lacking something in that position. It may be
time to bring in someone else to ply their trade in that position and
see what can work. There are plenty of great props to choose from!
Just to end on a little
high, a quick mention about Burrell and Joseph – their partnership
has definitely been a success in this year's tournament. Burrell made
some nice breaks, using his power to crash through the defence, and he also made some nice offloads along the way throughout the match. Joseph got back to showing us
his electric feet in this match, something we haven't seen much
recently, particularly in last week's match when there was no real
ball for him to run with. This of course culminated in the first try
of the match after five minutes, and again demonstrated just how
special a player he is going to go on to be. It would, however, be
really nice to see the likes of Slade in the set-up: he would be a
great substitute for Burrell, and could even get himself into the
starting line-up if he plays well. His inclusion is one thing that
all rugby fans seem to be united on – it makes no logical sense that
Lancaster has still not named him in his 23, and with him recently
being named Premiership Player of the Month for February those shouts
for him to the be in the team will just be getting louder.
Overall, it was a good
performance from England, but it still was not quite good enough.
We need to be way more clinical if we are to beat France next weekend
and potentially lift the trophy. Not to mention the fact that we have
the World Cup coming, and England have got to clean up their act and
become more polished and refined. There is no room for error
in the top tier of rugby, and the team still have a lot of developing
and growing to do. But to still be in the running to win the Six
Nations puts England in a really good place, and they need to grab
the bull by the horns next weekend. We are in a really good position
playing last because it allows us to know exactly what needs to be
done. So now it's onwards and upwards to next weekend, and here's
hoping that it will be the men in white lifting the trophy come the
end of the day.
Carry Them Home,
Jess
Twitter: @JessKebbell @RuckMeGently
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Email: ruckmegentlyblog@gmail.com
Website: ruckmegently.blogspot.co.uk
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