after Saturday’s embarrassment.
Everything good I said about you after the Australia and French games that got England to the World Cup final, anything good I said about you after the victory over France in Paris two weeks back, which wasn’t as much as before because of the things that have happened in this 6 Nations – the Welsh and Italy games.
All gone with one of the worst performances ever, even worse than the South African drubbing in the WC – at least that was the eventual cup winners. This was England under Andy Robinson and it seemed like you were impersonating him with the befuddled look. And it does leave you thinking who really got the team to the WC final.
A truly awful display against a truly awful team, a team that did bugger all, official stats – Scotland line breaks none – says it all. This is a team who should be lucky to get zero points in the table and should be finishing with the wooden spoon yet again. They should lose to Italy again this year, if the Italians had a half decent half back pair it would be a stuffing.
Yeah you can’t be held accountable for everything that went on out on that pitch but they should have been prepared enough to know and combat what was coming, or wasn’t as was the case. No stupid penalties, because that’s the only chance they have of scoring and don’t keep dropping the ball. It wasn’t rocket science Brian.
But what really comes out of Saturday is the feeling Brian Ashton is another Svennis.
A decent club coach that doesn’t quite get the international game, everything seems to mirror the ex-England football manager. Some resemblance of a plan A but no one is sure what, certainly nothing beyond that, so when it goes tits up everyone is lost.
Half time mogadon session, both do/did something during the break that sees a team performing well, destroying the opposition, come out a totally different side devoid of any idea and ability to get into the game.
And then there’s the favouritism, Svennis had his players that would always start no matter what and it’s happening with Ashton’s set up. No matter what you think about the Cipriani debacle it just seemed an excuse to get Balshaw back in the side. He shouldn’t have been anywhere near the squad, OK he was a complete disaster against the Jocks, he wasn’t great either but his performances so far have been so atrocious there’s no excuse for him being involved.
There was a moment when Ashton decided to go beyond Svennis, when he brought that right Charlie on for Wilkinson, yes Jonny was having a dog of a game, not helped by his forwards mind but that substitution reeked of Graham Taylor bringing Gary Lineker off for Alan Smith.
The question now is, no matter what happens in the last game against Ireland, how long with Ashton’s rolling contract role for and when will Jake White take over? Funny he was linked with the Jock job before Saturday, could the losing the Calcutta Cup be England’s gain and Scotland’s loss in the long run?
All of this made worse by the usual BBC Jockland routine of taking over the broadcast so yet again you get the most one-eyed biased, parochial piece of garbage output from a studio filled with ex-Jock players. Obviously they decided ex captain David Sole being born in England was enough to give the broadcast some sort of balance.
But even going beyond that, just imagine if it was the other way round the whinging from up here, it was the fact the commentary was so abysmal. Now I’ve never played the game at international level like the two wittering away on the box, just against teams that destroyed us containing future internationals, but I can’t remember when the laws were changed so you can call a mark outside the twenty-two and when they got such a basic one wrong, it’s no wonder the rest of the game was so beyond them.