England beat France 17-9 in Six Nations

Game was a bit dull due to basic handling errors by both teams. Gold old fashioned forward grunt with some good backs running from time to time. Scrums still seem a mess. France seem absolutely lost when pressured. Lost all form of gameplan.. Whatever it was. The English lineout looks good.. Managed to steal one or 2 lineouts from the french. Also biggest rugby crowd of the weekend with 82,107in attendance... Strange considering capacity for twicks is 82K.... ????

'The only way to break the habit is for players to actually be seen to allow the player place the ball through holding back deliberately.' I mentioned this to VC on another thread. Ireland target the ball area, and smother it, as opposed to hitting the man, thereby allowing the second man in to contest the ball. It's not going down well with referees. I was pretty unimpressed with Owens, incidentally. I'd start Stringer and O'Gara, ask O'Connell not to touch the ball in open play, get the lineout functioning, reassess the defence and stop faffing about with poorly timed players substitutions. There you go, Deccie. Problem solved.

For some odd reason, the team/squad seems to be lacking in confidence. And yet you contrast someone like O'Gara who bigged himself up in advance, got his starting slot, and played out of his skin. I was astonished to watch him hand off Ross Ford, evade another Scottish tackler, and then decide to take another Scottish player on in order to dot down under the posts. Call it arrogant - but it was a brilliant confidence-moment for the team. Instead they fell apart, conceeding penalties by the new time. During the game, as the penalty count went up, I was beginning to wonder if having giving themselves a tag as a penalty-ridden team, are they bearing the brunt of increased scrutiny from refs same as England were 2 years ago? The only way to break the habit is for players to actually be seen to allow the player place the ball through holding back deliberately. I can see little difference many times between how Ireland players respond at the tackle to any other team. The fine line between not releasing and hanging onto the ball is marginal. Equally, Owens seemed to penalise Ireland for not releasing quickly enough, and yet Scotland had pretty much the same time on a number of occasions. This will result in less players at the breakdown, and less of a contest, but it may be the only way Ireland can break the habit/perception. I noticed that Ireland were standing back from a number of rucks so this behaviour may already be creeping in to their game plan. Given referees are policing this area more and more, perhaps they need to say when a player has been tackled (so the player cannot get up again on the basis of not being held). Or indeed instruct the player to place ball if they've been tackled. All the calls seems to be aimed at the defending team - release him, etc. Maybe some of the focus should be on the attacking side as well.

Me neither actually. It was remarkably similar to the game in Dublin last season. I'm convinced that Kidney is massively out of his depth. It was also quite frustrating to see Scotland made to look better than they are, which gave Andy Robinson yet another chance to do his "Ooh... we're so close, so close to being contenders." rhetoric once more.

Colin, you may be right. Except you misunderstand my point. England have been decent this year. Everyone else has been poor. You rejoin with the statement that previous winners were poor and dull. In the context of the 6 Nations as a contest, Ireland had to scrap for practically every game - particularly England and Wales. Besides England this year, who has put in a decent stirring performance of note? Italy in their first match against Ireland possibly. Given the way Scotland are playing, England should stroll past them. And if Ireland continue to self-implode as they did on Sunday, Lansdowne should hold no fears. Either way, they'll have the championship practically wrapped up by that point. Unless England decide to implode against Scotland which might make the final round interesting.....

He has none. Ireland were simply abysmal. It's head in the hands stuff with each passing match, Ben. I couldn't believe how Sunday's match progressed.

'England might want to borrow the skills coach off Ireland after this sloppy play.' Most inexperienced side in the top tier of Test rugby, wet pitch and conservative experienced opposition. What's Kidney's excuse? ;-)

"England for the championship? No bother. It’s been a pretty poor shambolic 6N with only one halfway decent team in it." In that case, isn't that the same for every six nations? France were poor last year, Ireland were simply dull the year before that, in 2008 Wales were reliant on an England self destruction and Ireland to once again not turn up etc etc.

England might want to borrow the skills coach off Ireland after this sloppy play. And France are but a shadow of themselves. Surprised England couldn't put more past them - sloppy skills notwithstanding. Lievremont is mystery wrapped in an enigmatic oval. The best moment was seeing Ashton's face after he performed his gratuitous swan dive to score a try then turned around to find everyone else waiting to get the ball back for a forward pass. Priceless. England for the championship? No bother. It's been a pretty poor shambolic 6N with only one halfway decent team in it.