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What now for England as inquest begins in wake of France mauling

By PA
The England players gather together following the Six Nations Rugby match between England and France at Twickenham Stadium on March 11, 2023 in London, England. (Photo by Dan Mullan - RFU/The RFU Collection via Getty Images)

England have begun the inquest into their biggest defeat at Twickenham in the stadium’s 116-year history after France dazzled their way to a 53-10 victory.

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Ireland in Dublin is the final assignment of the Six Nations for Steve Borthwick’s men before preparation for the autumn’s World Cup ramps up and here the PA news agency looks at the fallout from Saturday’s debacle.

What went wrong?
For all but a brief spell in the third quarter, England were overpowered in the contact area and many of their failings stemmed from that. France were magnificent, playing rugby from another world to plunder seven tries, but the way the home pack were physically dominated was disturbing. The obvious powerful differential was compound by England’s lack of intensity that meant they lost the collisions time after time.

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What can be done?
Head coach Borthwick has three main levers he can pull – change the tactics, change the personnel and change the mindset. The gameplan will be adjusted as Ireland’s strength lies in their tactical cohesion rather than the type of power brought to bear by France, while Borthwick is certain to freshen up the team. How he picks his players up off the canvas will be the biggest challenge as it was the type of result that leaves permanent scarring.

Who could be dropped?
Number eight Alex Dombrandt and scrum-half Jack van Poortvliet are the most in danger, while centre Henry Slade can not be far behind. Dombrandt was the most ineffectual of the forwards on a day when he needed to get stuck in and Van Poortvliet has struggled ever since the July tour to Australia, potentially benefiting from a spell out of the team. Slade, meanwhile, has played three games yet has barely been seen.

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Do England have a chance in Dublin?
It is hard to envisage any scenario whereby Ireland – installed as 1/8 favourites by bookmakers – fail to claim their first Grand Slam since 2018. Andy Farrell has guided the Irish to the summit of the global rankings and even allowing for the number of injuries sustained in Sunday’s win over Scotland at Murrayfield, they have the firepower to see off one of the weakest England teams in Six Nations history. Accurate, relentless, skilful – Ireland take some stopping as even France discovered to their cost in round two.

What does this mean for the World Cup?
Passage into the quarter-final was taken as a given but on the evidence visible at Twickenham on Saturday England’s Pool D clashes with Argentina and Japan are fraught with danger. Borthwick has one competitive match followed by four warm-up games to shape the side – precious little time given the mess he inherited from Eddie Jones. Ambitions are being revised and if they get out of a group that is completed by Samoa and Chile, they will have done well.

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2 Comments
T
TERRY 673 days ago

You smear Eddie Jones but his squad would not have taken such a drubbing.

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JW 43 minutes ago
How law changes are speeding up the game - but the scrum lags behind

Very good, now we are getting somewhere (though you still didn't answer the question but as you're a South African I think we can all assume what the answer would be if you did lol)! Now let me ask you another question, and once you've answered that to yourself, you can ask yourself a followup question, to witch I'm intrigued to know the answer.


Well maybe more than a couple of questions, just to be clear. What exactly did this penalty stop you from doing the the first time that you want to try again? What was this offence that stopped you doing it? Then ask yourself how often would this occur in the game. Now, thinking about the regularity of it and compare it to how it was/would be used throughout the rest of the game (in cases other than the example you gave/didn't give for some unknown reason).


What sort of balance did you find?


Now, we don't want to complicate things further by bringing into the discussion points Bull raised like 'entirety' or 'replaced with a ruck', so instead I'll agree that if we use this article as a trigger to expanding our opinions/thoughts, why not allow a scrum to be reset if that is what they(you) want? Stopping the clock for it greatly removes the need to stop 5 minutes of scrum feeds happening. Fixing the law interpretations (not incorrectly rewarding the dominant team) and reducing the amount of offences that result in a penalty would greatly reduce the amount of repeat scrums in the first place. And now that refs a card happy, when a penalty offence is committed it's going to be far more likely it results in the loss of a player, then the loss of scrums completely and instead having a 15 on 13 advantage for the scrum dominant team to then run their opposition ragged. So why not take the scrum again (maybe you've already asked yourself that question by now)?


It will kind be like a Power Play in Hockey. Your outlook here is kind of going to depend on your understanding of what removing repeat scrums was put in place for, but I'm happy the need for it is gone in a new world order. As I've said on every discussion on this topic, scrums are great, it is just what they result in that hasn't been. Remove the real problem and scrum all you like. The All Blacks will love zapping that energy out of teams.

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