Wilkinson dropped

Ashton has just made the biggest decision of his career by dropping Wilkinson to the bench. A lot of pressure is now placed on Cipriani as he makes his first start for England in the most important position on the pitch. He’ll be up against Irish captain Ronan O’Gara, someone I consider to be one of the best fly-halves in the world on his good days. O’Gara and Cipriani have met before though- when Wasps got knocked out of the Heineken cup by Munster. Despite the result, Cipriani had a terrific game that day. I’m hoping he will on Saturday.

If Cipriani plays well on Saturday, he’ll be a real contender if not the holder of the 10 shirt. So what does this mean for our beloved Johnny? A switch to 12 or 15? No. Even if he doesn’t regain a starting spot, I think that Johnny will remain in the setup for some time now. I can foresee him being used to close a game out. Be it defending a 6 point lead and playing the territorial game or dropping a goal to win a close one. Of coure that’s assuming wonder boy Danny lives up to the hype.

Cipriani plays a new breed of rugby. I hope he’ll define the way England start to play rugby for many years now. The sort of ‘attacking space’ style that Ashton wants England to play is similar to the way that Cipriani plays. The annual rugby watcher is really going to enjoy Saturday, if Cipriani has a good game. I can see the sport sucking in new fans with his floating passes and little chips into space.

Good luck Danny!

Scotland 15-9 England

Oh dear, what a shocking performance. All I can really say is that I agree whole-heartedly with what the pundits have said at the BBC.

England didn’t use route one enough during the game and couldn’t go through the phases, this meant that Scotland’s defence stayed strong throughout the whole game. The Scottish pack were not pushed at all. They should have been. But the team didn’t do this and Wilkinson kicked balls straight to the Scottish back three, who weren’t pressurised enough- those are the two simple reasons why England lost the game. If these simple things were done then the rest would have followed.

Defensively Balshaw had his best game yet for England, but he didn’t pose much of a threat in attack, which is what he’s been picked for. His defence is still generally poor and he’s simply not good enough to play for England.

Sackey, I thought, was England’s best player, his defence was solid, as usual. He made good decisions in  attack as well, despite being smashed by Jason White when he came on in the second half.

The threat of Vainikolo was neutralised efficiently by the Scots. However, I feel that he needs more players supporting him as he likes to offload in the tackle, and off the floor. His hands and offloading were poor yesterday, most probably due to the conditions.  I would still pick him for the Ireland game, though. Flood played fairly well, but wasn’t used enough. Noon didn’t have his best day defensively and wasn’t an attacking threat.

Scotland lost two players, to injury, in the first 25 minutes and England failed to take advantage of this. Nothing else went England’s way. The weather made it very difficult to play proper rugby. Having said that, we’ve all played in rain and wind. I do think that the game of rugby is due to change as a result of the change in weather we are experiencing. But that is a post for another time.

One can’t help but think that the team is disjointed at the moment. I think that this is due to Ashton’s incapabability of managing people. It was highlighted by Catt and Dallaglio after the World Cup. And his handling of the Cipriani issue, which has been criticised by many, has highlighted it further. The players have re-realised this now, they need to front up in the next game and put in a performance similar to the ones they did after the 36-0 defeat to South Africa in the World Cup. Dallaglio, Barkley, Catt, Robinson and others were responsible for the bounce back. Let’s hope that there are some similar players within the current England side. England played without a leader on Saturday. You can criticise Ashton for taking off Vickery and Wilkinson with 10 minutes to go, like I did at the time. But their lack of leadership, in the Scotland game, showed as England’s game didn’t change when they went off. That also shows that Stevens and Hodgson made no impact.

I don’t think Ashton should be sacked. He is a good coach. He just needs a manager to handle certain aspects of his job. Dropping Wilkinson is a big decision, I think it might not have a positive effect on the team. Especially if Hodgson is the replacement. If Wilkinson has to go, Cipriani should start. I’m glad I don’t have to make that decision.

Scotland v England

The Calcutta Cup, it’s probably my favourite match in the 6 Nations, with the England France game being a close second. Scotland always seem to play 10 times better than they’re capable of in it. Let’s hope England can do the same.

It’s imperative that England rack up the points against Scotland, a feat they failed to do against Italy as it is a possibility that this year’s tournament will be decided on points difference. However, racking up points against Scotland is not an easy feat this year. After spending the summer in the gym Scotland are solid and it will be like running into a brick wall for the first half hour. England will need to use the pace and power out wide.

Cipriani controversy aside, I would like to see Balshaw bought in to the line so he can cut them up. If he can’t cope under the high ball or position himself correctly, then he can at least join the line in attack where appropriate. It’ll be nice to see the front five taking some crash balls as well- hopefully aimed straight at Patterson. He’s one man England definitely need to put pressure on.

The Calcutta Cup can be one of the most exciting games of the 6 Nations or a stupidly boring one that you would usually turn off if not for fear of the Scots winning! Let’s hope it’s the former.

It’s also a game that some might sing the 6th verse of the National Anthem to, not me, I wouldn’t dare.

Lord grant that Marshal Wade
May by thy mighty aid
Victory bring.
May he sedition hush,
And like a torrent rush,
Rebellious Scots to crush.
God save the Queen!

Here are the teams, courtesy of BBC Sport.

England team:
I Balshaw (Gloucester); P Sackey (Wasps), J Noon (Newcastle), T Flood (Newcastle), L Vainikolo (Gloucester); J Wilkinson (Newcastle), R Wigglesworth (Sale Sharks); A Sheridan (Sale Sharks), L Mears (Bath), P Vickery (Wasps, capt), S Shaw (Wasps), S Borthwick (Bath), T Croft (Leicester), M Lipman (Bath), N Easter (Harlequins)
Replacements: G Chuter (Leicester), M Stevens (Bath), B Kay (Leicester), L Narraway (Gloucester), P Hodgson (London Irish), M Tait (Newcastle), C Hodgson (Sale Sharks).

Scotland team: H Southwell (Edinburgh); R Lamont (Sale Sharks), S Webster (Edinburgh), G Morrison (Glasgow Warriors), N Walker (Ospreys); C Paterson (Gloucester), M Blair (Edinburgh, captain); A Jacobsen (Edinburgh), R Ford (Edinburgh), E Murray (Northampton Saints), N Hines (Perpignan), S MacLeod (Llanelli Scarlets), A Strokosch (Gloucester), S Taylor (Stade Francais), A Hogg (Edinburgh).

Replacements: F Thomson (Glasgow Warriors), A Dickinson (Gloucester), C Smith (Edinburgh), J White (Sale Sharks), K Brown (Glasgow Warriors), R Lawson (Gloucester), D Parks (Glasgow Warriors).

Breaking News- Cipriani gives friend tickets

According to some, Cipriani was merely dropping some tickets off to some friends, spent only 10 minutes inside a London nightclub and didn’t drink, yet he’s been dropped by Ashton. So, Charlie Hodgson comes up onto the bench and Balshaw goes back to full-back. That’s probably not the best news to read two days before kick off. It underlines the fact that Tait won’t play full-back this 6 Nations under Ashton’s reign unless he has to.

It’s also very interesting to see how the game has progressed in the last 20 years. After England beat France in 1991 and won the Grandslam, the BBC were quite happy to show footage of Carling and co singing drinking songs in the changing rooms. But in the todays era of professionalism, it’s not on at all. If Cipriani did drink on Thursday night then he should definately be dropped. If he didn’t, then he was purely dropped because he was out late. If that is the case then we must admire what the young players are doing today, they are sacrificing what most normal people do, in order to represent their country. They clearly don’t get paid enough. I hope Ashton made these rules clear to his players in the first place. It really does seem like an overreaction otherwise.

Footballers seem to do whatever they like and get paid an absolute fortune. Their lack of discipline is ridiculous in comparison with most rugby players. But I’m not one to generalise. As for Cipriani, England’s loss is Wasp’s gain. I’m sure Dallaglio can give him some tips at the clubhouse on dealing with the press anyway. Good luck Quins.

Sky Sports

BBC

Inter-Hemisphere Series

The IRB are drafting plans for an Inter-Hemisphere Series as highlighted by scrum.com here. However this has come under criticism by many.

Other ideas that were floating about include a World Club Challenge between the winner of the Heineken Cup or Guiness Premiership and the Super 14 and a game between the winner of the Tri-Nations and the Six Nations. These are all very exciting ideas and ones that rugby fans have talked about for years. I went to watch the World Club Challenge at Elland Road last week (Rugby League) and that’s obviously something that has been working well for many years. I do think that this can work well in Union.

A game between the winner of the Tri-nations and the winner of the 6 Nations, however, has obvious problems, when and where to play the game, being the most obvious ones. As a result, it isn’t materialising.

But returning to the point of plans for an Inter-Hemisphere series- I can’t help think that this is just another way of keeping Argentina quiet, as although everyone agrees that Argentina need more games, they also agree that it is difficult to have them in either the 6 Nations or Tri-nations. Making an Inter-Hemisphere series is a patchy solution though as we are still left with Argentina playing less games then the other top 10 nations and getting less exposure. Although I’m sure a cynic would argue that this is a good thing for Argentina.

I think the IRB are either going to squeeze another tournament into the four year schedule at the detriment to the regular club season and possibly rugby tours or they may decide to award points for the Summer and Autumn tours, which are generally used to blood players and try new things. However, making the IRB rankings decide which pools countries should be in for the RWC (see here) seems to make these tour tests pretty important anyway.

All of this is speculation though and I don’t think anyone should be criticising a plan for another rugby series that hasn’t even been made yet. Maybe the clever people on the IRB Council will develop a plan that makes everyone happy- Let’s hope so, as the idea of more rugby definately excites me.

Watch this space.

Quins 30-25 Gloucester

Top of the league Gloucester lost to an on form Quins side today. Gloucester really played well though and utilised their back three very well. Vainikolo was used more in the 80 minutes he played today than in the three games he has played for England. I’m certain the England management were watching this game. Vainikolo demonstrated how he has developed as a good rugby union player today through try saving tackles and getting involved at the breakdown, where necessary.

Care had a good game as well. Whilst Care’s runs didn’t open the gaps up straight away, they did suck up the defence at the fringes and this created gaps in the next phase. This was evident in Mike Brown’s try, where Care drew in some of the Gloucester’s defence and quick rucked ball allowed Mike Brown to score, from 20 yards out, picking it up straight from the base of the ruck and fending someone off- a prop, I think. Being a full back himself, he knew he was home free after taking it from that ruck. Balshaw’s runs, as per usual, cut through the Quins’ defence. Despite Balshaw having a good game, he still seemed like a winger playing full-back and he could learn a thing or two from Mike Brown under the high ball. It’s not just technique, it’s skill that Brown has over Balshaw.

Good game from both sides. Gloucester should have kicked their goals though as Quins failed to turn pressure into points in the first half. A good defense after Robson scored his first ever try won the game for the London team.