coaches

Deee

I remember reading an article about Edwards 'ruining' their game with such methods

I should like union as my dad played it and I was brought up watching it in the times of the Williams brothers, Gareth Edwards, Phil Bennett, Serge Blanco etc, but if we hadn't cremated him, my dad would be spinning in his grave with the way it's played now.

No effort to score tries and too much rolling on the floor for my liking. On the basis that you're allowed to carry the ball and run, I still can't work out why they actually don't

I read a Stephen Jones article about how league coaches had ruined Johnny Wilkinson. Basically, instead of being allowed to "weave his magic" he was being asked to make some tackles (sometimes upto 2 or 3 in a game) which caused him to be injured all the time



Came across a couple of bits of England RU info this week, Englands route to the last 2 WC finals had produced 3 tries in 6 knock-out games (Charlie Mullan twitter that one) & England have never won a game in their history from 12 points behind



England have never attempted to play any sort of expansive game, the only difference this time was Johnny Hoof missed a load of his kicks

I hate Union. Get the ball "oh no, what should I do? Oh yes, I'll kick it back to them".

WTF? Get the ball and run. they wont expect it. lol.

I played Union before I played league to a reasonable level, it was what my school did at the time.

Years later I played in a Union sevens tournament with a league team. As I was the only one ever to play everyone looked to me for what to do.

In the end we decided to just run it all the time. First game we received the kick, I ran it back, no one tackled me, drew the full back and put my winger in under the posts.

It continued like that until we won the tournament.

We were clueless at line outs, but we had a great time pretending we had set plays. They were called "Marigold", "Buttercup" and "Daffodil". They didn't actually mean anything but they did achieve the aim of annoying all the Hymers types as we were obviously taking the michael with it.

LOL, Like it! I have no interest in watching a ball returned to the opponent at every opportunity. I'd watch Tennis if I did (which I wont).

Its just boring, long winded etc. The only good bit is the competing in the scrum, but even that can take 10 minutes to set up!

And as for Wilkinson, another David Beckham for me, take away his set peice specialities and there is nothing else to their games

looks like Joel Tomkins is going to union, like i said in my earlier post, England losing is bad, they'll want new options, which, unfortunately means trying to cherry pick available talent from League, the wolves are at the door and we are trying to fight them off with pea shooters. What we need in future is England doing well enough to make semis and finals but never winning and them thinking everything is rosey but they were just unlucky.

Hope they take his brothers too.

except that every other one (being generous) collapses...

Though the Tongans dont seem to know that they can take the ball to ground - blinding stuff that is hard to argue with however one-eyed you are.... Pity (or maybe not) that none of the others seem to want to / can play like that.

OK I admit to probably being the only Union fan on here...I'm not posh either. Far from it, I often say damn and blast.

I was gutted England lost and I also felt for Wales at the weekend.

Anyway my love of union does not detract from my love of league.

Feel free to slate me...

I won't slate you. I feel pity. RU and Shorpe - poor lad!

Everytime I've watched Sevens there seems to be little emphasis on kicking and a lot of priority on ball running and possession rather than territory. I actually find it the one derivative of yawnion that I can watch as there's only the occasional line-out and little in the way of kicking.

I think I once read that Super 13s is the halfway house between 7s and Union. Never watched it myself as it's only contested by Teams from Oz, NZ and SA, so far as I understand.

Edit: it's super 15s, apparently.

Yes, you can imagine the pain I'm in right now. England dumped out of the RWC and Shorpe being generally appalling this season!

I must admit to liking a good game of union... this comes from watching my lads play the game as well as league!!!

Unfortunately a good game of union only happens about 3 times a year.

If you wear blinkers!!!

I don't mind union and watched a far bit of it over this WC, but having watched the 2 semis I fail to understand how it can be classed as rivetting like the commentators say. The Wales one was only good because it was close and that was only because the Welsh kicker would have missed the cows rear end. I think RU is getting worse as more teams seem to be emulating Englands tactics of grinding out a penalty fest.

I watched the RL 'friendly' straight after and had to admit the pace flair and general interest in what was essentially a one sided rout was light years ahead of the RU games.

How funny was it watching England RU?

Not as funny as it was when they won the competition only 8 years ago, and appear in the final 4 years later.

Compare that to England RL's record of ...........never winning the World Cup! (Yes, GB some 40 years ago!)

Don't feel threatened by Union, it's not the enemy. ANYTHING English gets my backing. Call yourself an Englishman?

No. I'm a Northerner. And after that, a European.

Not really no, If Yorkshire could go for independance then maybe I could get a bit patriotic.

If England entered a dwarf throwing team would you follow them? (actually, thinking about it, it would be far more entertaining than watching old Jonny boy attempt his 12th drop goal of the game).

i want England RU to win games, but dont get upset if they dont! The only way england ever score points is penalties! When they won the world cup, how many tries did they score?

Though it was Super 14's and that was the amount of teams in the league? Its still Union. Its their Rugby Union Competition.

They tried doing it in this country with the tops teams from the 4 home nations competing in a kind of "champions league" competition. All countries were up for it except for.... You guessed t England. They wanted a bigger share of TV money and the like. England stuck with their own league and the others formed the gaelic league to compete against each other.

I think we are seeing the benefits of this higher level of competition for the other home nations teams with their improvements this year.