Ireland 19-9 England
It wasn't to be for
England today in the Six Nations, as they went down 19-9 to Ireland
in Dublin. Right from the get go, England's game was fraught with
silly errors and the poorest discipline that has been seen from them
for a while. But which players stood out for both teams, and which
players failed to show up?
Let's start with the
winning team, Ireland, and the man of match. Henshaw had an
incredible game, busting his way through 6 defenders (the most of any
player in the match) and also scoring the sole try of the match. The
try resulted from a poor attempt by Goode to catch the high ball, and
all Henshaw had to do was pluck the ball out of the air, walk over
the line and dot the ball down before going into touch. The high ball
was, amongst other things, a real problem for England today in many
ways. For starters, whenever the kick did go high there was no chase
from England. They provided Ireland with no competition. Secondly, Nowell had the misfortune to drop the ball on multiple occasions. Add to that
the fact we continuously kicked the ball to Zebo, who put in an
impressive performance, and we were simply outdone by Ireland in the high ball department.
Kicking brings us on
two the battle of the fly-halves, and there was only one winner –
Jonny Sexton. Everyone (coaches, players and fans alike) knows just
how much of a world-class kicker he is. So why in the hell did
England give away the most ridiculous amount of penalties? Some of
the penalties themselves were stupid ones to give, such as for
offside, which happened countless times. It was like the team
completely forgot how to follow even the most basic of laws, and it
allowed Sexton to rack up the points. George Ford didn't have a bad
game, but it also was not his best. His drop goal was, in my opinion,
an intelligent play regardless of the fact we had a penalty
advantage, but other than that he failed to control the game like
Sexton did. The amount of times he kicked the ball in Zebo's
direction baffled me, especially as Simon is great with the kind of
possession that sees him with the ball in hand. Ford's inexperience sadly showed itself very clearly
today, but hopefully he can only improve and get better.
One player for England
who I personally felt had a good game, although I am sure many will
disagree, was Billy Vunipola. Sure, there were a lot of problems at
the breakdown, but it was not all his fault. In general, I think
his defence was solid – he put in some great tackles and gained
some great turnover's for England at crucial moments. Likewise for
Ireland, Devin Toner had a superb match for much the same reasons. He
was an absolute nuisance at the breakdown today, and went on to help Ireland win multiple penalties which ultimately punished England.
Conor Murray also had a
stormer for Ireland today, and he was up there for the man of the
match award. His box-kicking was done almost to perfection today, and
it's clear he and Sexton make a great 9/10 pairing. They both control
the game exceptionally well, and it's nigh on impossible to beat
Ireland when they are playing like they did today in the kicking department. England, however,
were not good at all in the scrum half department. Ben Youngs is
consistently poor, game after game. The speed at which he gets the
ball out at the breakdown is incredibly frustrating – no team can
ever be on the front foot when the ball is that slow! Wigglesworth is
also too slow at retrieving the ball, and I firmly believe Joe
Simpson and Danny Care need to be put in the squad.
Jonathan Joseph too had
a good game, but it was in defence today rather than in attack.
Because England continued to give the ball away throughout the match,
no opportunities presented themselves for Joseph to make those
exciting runs we all saw in abundance throughout the first two
rounds of the competition. He did, nevertheless, put in some really
great tackles today, and helped England stop many Ireland advances.
Burrell too had a good defensive game, and at one point he held
up the Ireland players over the line to deny them a try.
Before I finish, a
quick word on the two captains today. Robshaw was, compared to the
last two matches, diabolical with his decisions today in my view.
There was one in particular I vehemently disagreed with: we were 6-3
down, and had just been awarded a penalty that was easily kick-able
for Ford. But what did Chris decide to do? That's right, go for the
corner. For the whole of the match up until that point (and even
beyond), we had shown no indication we were anywhere close to
scoring a try, and as it was Ireland managed to win the ball and
clear the lines after we went for the corner. Of course, those three points would not have made a
difference, but at this point no one was to know that. Levelling the
scores by going for the 3 points was clearly the correct option, and
no one in their right minds would have gone for the corner. O'Connell
on the other hand continuously made the decision to go for the posts,
and it allowed the team to kill any chances or momentum England may
have had in the match. A lot of people call for Robshaw to be
replaced but of course him being captain means this will not
happen. Hopefully for the remaining two matches he can back to his
best like we saw against Wales.
Ireland exploited
England to very good effect today, which wasn't hard for them to do considering we essentially gifted them all of the possession and
eventually the match. No team can even hope to compete let alone win
a match if they play like we did today. I know it sounds negative,
but we did everything wrong – there were silly errors, too many
penalties and just poor decision making. Ireland weren't brilliant,
but they didn't have to be. If we had come out and played as well as
we did in the last 15 minutes, the outcome of the match could have
swung in our favour. Unfortunately, the team just did not click today
and we failed to fire on any cylinders. Having said that, we are
still in the Six Nations, and there is still the possibility we
could win the competition. England need to go out and convincingly win the remaining
two fixtures – if we do that, we give ourselves the best chance of
winning. After that, it is down to other results. Either way, we
should all keep the hope alive and continue to fully support the
team!
Carry Them Home,
Jess.
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