England & Eddie

So after being thoroughly outplayed by SA last night (phew), a few observations.

Does his inability to coax a peak performance when required - indeed England clearly played their final in the semi final, almost re-defining the cliche - cast a shadow over Jones' credentials, again? I believe so. Careful what you wish for, Wallabies fans.

The petulance, immaturity and indignity shown by Itoje and Sinckler in snubbing their losers' medals leaves a sour taste in the mouth and England fans should be really disappointed with this behaviour.

Are England chokers? Lost finals in 1991, 2007 and now 2019. That's a very, very ordinary record, now levelling France (1987, 1999 and 2011), although England have at least won one. Still, chokers.

I look forward to reading more articles about this new English rugby dynasty, Sir Eddie Jones and Sir Owen Farrell.

Bunch of fluffybunnies.

Is this a troll post? No English here to troll....

Last night showed how tough it is to win a World Cup. If you look at the three tournaments South Africa have won, they haven't been very good in any of them.

• 1995 they beat Samoa, France and New Zealand.
• 2007 it was Fiji, Argentina and France.
• 2019 it was Japan, Wales and England.

Relatively speaking those are very easy runs. In the two most recent cups we won we had off performances in the knock outs. 2011, it was the final. 2015, it was the semi. We could have lost either game.

Before this game people clearly discounted the effect that England's tougher run had had. It's exceptionally tough to win a World Cup having had three tough knock out games. In 2015, we beat Australia in the final who had a much easier draw. However, Australia were much worse than us. England and South Africa are generally closely matched so the tough run was always going to be a factor.

People also discounted how South Africa were a much different team to us. We didn't try to take England on up front; South Africa were always going to. If Sinckler doesn't get injured, England could have won. Maybe if the first couple of minutes of how semi had happened differently, we could have won as well.

Eddie Jones is a great coach who has achieved great things with England over the last four years. I would still have him as coach of the year.

@hydro11 Sinckler would have got destroyed in the scrums.

I thought I noticed one of England's management taking off his medal immediately and thought it was pretty rude. What did all the rest do?

Nothing rude about taking off your medal. If they don't see it as an achievement, they don't see it as an achievement. That's up to them. Being a good loser is about coping the loss on the chin and not blaming others. It doesn't stop you being disappointed in yourself.

@hydro11 said in England & Eddie:

Nothing rude about taking off your medal. If they don't see it as an achievement, they don't see it as an achievement. That's up to them. Being a good loser is about coping the loss on the chin and not blaming others. It doesn't stop you being disappointed in yourself.

So why would you need to rip off your medal on camera if it doesn't matter? Unless you're trying to prove some point. Seems like being a sore loser to me to have to show petulance.

I reckon they care heaps about what I think too.

@Bones said in England & Eddie:

@hydro11 said in England & Eddie:

Nothing rude about taking off your medal. If they don't see it as an achievement, they don't see it as an achievement. That's up to them. Being a good loser is about coping the loss on the chin and not blaming others. It doesn't stop you being disappointed in yourself.

So why would you need to rip off your medal on camera if it doesn't matter? Unless you're trying to prove some point. Seems like being a sore loser to me to have to show petulance.

I reckon they care heaps about what I think too.

Stoked I can carry on not only thinking Itoje is a massive douche and now I have better evidence than his idiot clapping

@jegga I don't know if you saw, but before the game he was wearing a jacket with the English rose.

IT WAS GOLD

@Bones said in England & Eddie:

@jegga I don't know if you saw, but before the game he was wearing a jacket with the English rose.

IT WAS GOLD

The rose on most of their training jackets was gold. I saw it on tv during the tourney more than once

Blimey. Talk about looking for things to get upset about.

I had doubts over England's ability to win a world cup as I honestly thought they were too big - I thought going Argentina, France, QF, SF, F would be too much for them. Hence, when the France game was cancelled, I really thought it was theirs. The showing vs NZ was them at their absolute peak.

But it all crashed down in the final. But it wasn't just the forwards, I thought the backline was woeful. They couldn't seem to pass to each other and the SA rush defence just put them under all sorts of pressure and they couldn't cope.

Tuilagi barely saw the ball, and the final was much worse off because of it.

Eddie prepared them for the NZ game, not to win the world cup. I think he didn't really realise it. He was so obsessed with us, had mentioned us so many times. He barely spoke about SA. And hence, they got completely ambushed.

He's still a great coach and has achieved great things with his squad. But it was one step too far today.

@canefan said in England & Eddie:

@Bones said in England & Eddie:

@jegga I don't know if you saw, but before the game he was wearing a jacket with the English rose.

IT WAS GOLD

The rose on most of their training jackets was gold. I saw it on tv during the tourney more than once

Haha thanks Cotton

@hydro11 said in England & Eddie:

Is this a troll post? No English here to troll....

Last night showed how tough it is to win a World Cup. If you look at the three tournaments South Africa have won, they haven't been very good in any of them.

*** 1995 they beat Samoa, France and New Zealand.

• 2007 it was Fiji, Argentina and France.
• 2019 it was Japan, Wales and England.
  **
  Relatively speaking those are very easy runs. In the two most recent cups we won we had off performances in the knock outs. 2011, it was the final. 2015, it was the semi. We could have lost either game.

Before this game people clearly discounted the effect that England's tougher run had had. It's exceptionally tough to win a World Cup having had three tough knock out games. In 2015, we beat Australia in the final who had a much easier draw. However, Australia were much worse than us. England and South Africa are generally closely matched so the tough run was always going to be a factor.

People also discounted how South Africa were a much different team to us. We didn't try to take England on up front; South Africa were always going to. If Sinckler doesn't get injured, England could have won. Maybe if the first couple of minutes of how semi had happened differently, we could have won as well.

Eddie Jones is a great coach who has achieved great things with England over the last four years. I would still have him as coach of the year.

I got some grief here for pointing out Jake White wasn't much of a coach and the boks weren't much of a team in 2007 and were easily the worst rwc winners ever . The easy paths they've had to every rwc win wouldn't be much of an issue if there wasn't a belief amongst bok fans that the first two rwcs didn't count because they weren't there.

@sparky I assume the walrus would have to attend and watch rugby to see anyone else there.

@MajorRage said in England & Eddie:

Eddie prepared them for the NZ game, not to win the world cup. I think he didn't really realise it. He was so obsessed with us, had mentioned us so many times.

Bang on...I said as much in another thread, even Gats mentioned last week was their final.

Eddie has always been good at devising a plan, and I expect all his talk of planning to beat NZ was good fuel for the Boks as well.

That's not to detract from how good they were last week, but he was geared towards beating 1 team, he took his eye off the prize.

@taniwharugby said in England & Eddie:

@MajorRage said in England & Eddie:

Eddie prepared them for the NZ game, not to win the world cup. I think he didn't really realise it. He was so obsessed with us, had mentioned us so many times.

Bang on...I said as much in another thread, even Gats mentioned last week was their final.

Eddie has always been good at devising a plan, and I expect all his talk of planning to beat NZ was good fuel for the Boks as well.

That's not to detract from how good they were last week, but he was geared towards beating 1 team, he took his eye off the prize.

TBF, he said last week that the win against us would be for nothing if they lost this game.

@hydro11 said in England & Eddie:

Is this a troll post? No English here to troll....

Last night showed how tough it is to win a World Cup. If you look at the three tournaments South Africa have won, they haven't been very good in any of them.

• 1995 they beat Samoa, France and New Zealand.
• 2007 it was Fiji, Argentina and France.
• 2019 it was Japan, Wales and England.

Relatively speaking those are very easy runs. In the two most recent cups we won we had off performances in the knock outs. 2011, it was the final. 2015, it was the semi. We could have lost either game.

Before this game people clearly discounted the effect that England's tougher run had had. It's exceptionally tough to win a World Cup having had three tough knock out games. In 2015, we beat Australia in the final who had a much easier draw. However, Australia were much worse than us. England and South Africa are generally closely matched so the tough run was always going to be a factor.

People also discounted how South Africa were a much different team to us. We didn't try to take England on up front; South Africa were always going to. If Sinckler doesn't get injured, England could have won. Maybe if the first couple of minutes of how semi had happened differently, we could have won as well.

Eddie Jones is a great coach who has achieved great things with England over the last four years. I would still have him as coach of the year.

Not sure about this and commented on it earlier.

England's schedule was tough on paper - and I wrote before the tournament started that England wouldn't win the WC because they had Argentina, France, Wales/Australia, SA/NZ, SA/NZ on the trot - but the reality was very different.

They comfortably beat a 14-man Argentina; the France match was cancelled; and they comfortably beat an average Australia side who'd already lost to Wales.

They produced one of the performances of the decade by dismantling NZ in the SF but really that was their only serious challenge prior to the Final.

Conversely SA had to play NZ first up; then a very good Japanese side who were unbeaten with wins over Ireland and Scotland, in the QF; then Wales who were also unbeaten, in the SF.

For me, SA had the harder path - admittedly losing to NZ didn't derail their progress.

Eddie has done wonders with England but he made some fatal flaws this tournament and in the years leading up to it.

1. Sinckler.
   Great tournament. But if his best back up is Dan Coles then you're always going to struggle if Sinckler gets a YC or an early injury.

2. Youngs
   Great going forward. Shithouse going backwards. I would have yanked him at half-time. Spencer couldn't have been any worse.

3. Daly
   Great athlete, average full-back. Exposed badly today. Willie looked like Cullen in comparison.

4. May
   He was carrying an injury. Barrett caught him ffs. No way Barrett was catching Watson.

5. Slade
   Not match fit and made significant mistakes in the games he played in

6. Ford
   This was not the match to start Ford

7. No nasty cunt in the forwards
   England have great, technical athletes in all positions but no real hard bastard in the Martin Johnson mould who can bollock them.
   Lawes was stuffed twice by Kolbe ffs

How's that for starters?

Someone may come up with some stats to show im wrong ,

But I think Eddie will be remembered more as a guy capable of masterminding a one off massive win more than anything else , and that in itself still deserves some respect , but losing 2 finals , he will have the bridesmaid tag now, unless he can win one .

Allblacks 2003, Boks, 2015 , Allblacks 2019 are his one off moments of WC glory