Does anyone have an opinion what is going wrong with the English recycling?
Just re-watching the recording of today's game I was surprised at a number of things - but not the result and no whinges/excuses here
1) how little offloading there was before contact 2) how poor the support play was (probably leading to 1) 3) how poor the body angles often were when players attempted to drive the tackler back (except Corry who drove low and protected the ball well) 4) the relatively good support and rucking of the backs compared to the forwards (Lewsey should convert to 7!)
As a result of all this, there was no space and time for the backs to find the right running lines to unlock the excellent irish defence. It was all slow, static stuff.
I think this stuff is maybe a little over simplified, but I think it's the basics that are looking bad.
Looking again at the recording, I felt a bit more sympathy for Ellis who was constantly having to reach deep into a ruck through legs and feet to get bad ball. I had initially thought that he was slow to get to the ball and laboured in his pass - but he was no slouch around the park and the ball was well and truly buried more often than not.
I also felt a bit more sympathy for the ref. If the speed of English ball was all about Irish spoiling then it wasn't always easy to spot from the camera. It just kind of got stuck in a half maul contact situation with the player unable to quickly form a ruck by getting the ball to the deck. I did think that some of the 'holding on' pings were wrong after the replay though!
In contrast, the Irish were often going straight to ground and producing much better ball as a result. There were a number of instances where the ball carrier almost dived to the feet of the defender rather than take a tackle. The pack run over the top of him and result? - fast sweet ball for Stringer.
On Sun, 27 Feb 2005 22:17:54 -0000, "Tim Jesson" <tim@nospamthanksthejessons.co.uk> wrote:
Does anyone have an opinion what is going wrong with the English recycling?>
Just re-watching the recording of today's game I was surprised at a number >of things - but not the result and no whinges/excuses here >
1) how little offloading there was before contact>2) how poor the support play was (probably leading to 1)>3) how poor the body angles often were when players attempted to drive the >tackler back (except Corry who drove low and protected the ball well)>4) the relatively good support and rucking of the backs compared to the >forwards (Lewsey should convert to 7!)
