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Ugly red card incident mars Leinster win over Dragons

By PA
Dan Sheehan of Leinster on his way to scoring his side's first try during the United Rugby Championship match between Dragons and Leinster at Rodney Parade in Newport, Wales. (Photo By Harry Murphy/Sportsfile via Getty Images)

Dragons fell to their third home defeat of the season as Leinster came away from Rodney Parade with a bonus-point victory.

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The opening two home fixtures for Dragons saw them lose to Edinburgh and Cardiff and this latest defeat crowned a miserable weekend for the Welsh regions, with all four of them losing at home.

Aneurin Owen scored Dragons’ try with Cai Evans kicking a penalty and a conversion.

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Dan Sheehan, Thomas Clarkson, Ciaran Frawley, Charlie Ngatai and Scott Penny scored Leinster’s tries with Ross Byrne converting four.

It took Leinster eight minutes to open the scoring when skipper Sheehan finished off a driving line-out but Dragons soon responded with a penalty from Evans.

The opening period was largely a featureless one with constant penalties being awarded by Italian referee Gianluca Gnecchi, which prevented any flow to the game.

Poor handling in the miserable conditions also contributed to the lack of continuity in the play but the Dragons’ pack did make a decent fist of testing their opponents to the full.

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However they were clearly on the wrong side of the referee in scrum engagements by conceding six penalties in that area in the first half-hour and that certainly cost them a lot of territory.

Dragons’ ill-discipline eventually told when Leinster scrum-half Ben Murphy showed some initiative to quickly tap a penalty and race into the opposition 22. From there Dragons conceded another penalty and a pre-planned move saw Clarkson walk through a paper-thin defence to score.

Byrne’s conversion gave his side a 14-3 interval lead and within a minute that advantage had been extended.

Rio Dyer lost possession in his own half for Leinster to counter-attack in style with Frawley finishing off a sweeping move.

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However the visitors were dealt two blows in quick succession. First Tommy O’Brien was helped off with a leg injury before Owen chased a Rhodri Williams chip and won the race to touch down.

Taine Basham
Taine Basham targets Ross Byrne

Dragons lost Jarrod Rosser and Aaron Wainwright to failed HIAs before a well-judged cross-field kick from Byrne created the bonus-point try for Ngatai.

The hosts’ woes continued when Taine Basham was sent off for making head contact with his arm before Matthew Screech was yellow-carded, with Scott Penny’s last-minute try harsh on Dragons.

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Tom 1 hour ago
England player ratings vs South Africa | 2024 Autumn Nations Series

That 2019 performance was literally the peak in attacking rugby under Eddie. If you thought that was underwhelming, the rest of it was garbage.


I totally get what you're saying and England don't need or have any God given right to the best coaches in the world... But I actually think the coaches we do have are quite poor and for the richest union in the world, that's not good enough. 


England are competitive for sure but with the talent pool up here and the funds available, we should be in the top 3. At the very least we should be winning six nations titles on a semi-regular basis. If Ireland can, England definitely should.


England's attack coach (Richard Wigglesworth) is Borthwick's mate from his playing days at Saracens, who he brought to Leicester with him when he became coach. Wigglesworth was a 9 who had no running or passing game, but was the best box kicker in the business. He has no credentials to be an attack coach and I've seen nothing to prove otherwise. Aside from Marcus Smith’s individual brilliance, our collective attack has looked very uninspiring.

 

England's defence coach (Joe El-Abd) is Borthwick's housemate from uni, who has never been employed as a defence coach before. He's doing the job part time while he's still the head coach of a team in the second division of French rugby who have an awful defensive record. England's defence has gone from being brutally efficient under Felix Jones to as leaky as a colander almost overnight.


If Borthwick brings in a new attack and defence coach then I'll absolutely get behind him but his current coaches seem to be the product of nepotism. He's brought in people he's comfortable with because he lacks confidence as an international head coach and they aren't good enough for international rugby.


England are competitive because they do some things really well, mostly they front up physically, make a lot of big hits, have a solid kicking game, a good lineout, good maul, Marcus Smith and some solid forwards. A lot of what we do well I would ascribe to Borthwick personally. I don't think he's a bad coach, I think he lacks imagination and is overly risk averse. He needs coaches who will bring a point of difference.


I guess my point is, yes England are competitive, but we’re not aiming for competitive and I honestly don't believe this coaching setup has what it takes to make us any better than competitive.


On the plus side it looks like we have an amazing crop of young players coming through. Some of them who won the u20 world cup played for England A against Australia A on the weekend and looked incredible... Check out the highlights on youtube.

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