It's not like being heavily penalised is an occasional thing for England though, or just an occupational hazard to be shrugged off. We commit a lot of stupid penalties game in and game out. If you get pinged for slowing down ball in a dangerous position, that's one thing. A lot of teams get penalised when stretched and needing to push the envelope to hold out. We seem to give a way an awful lot of penalties either when in possession or when the other team is just running through a couple of non-threatening phases before a kick. Some of this is a lack of numbers and aggression at the breakdown, but some of it just seems to be an inability to calculate the risk-reward. I often think - like every fan - that we get the rough end of things from the ref, but so often I think they just lose patience with the ridiculous choices our players are making. I do wonder if much of it comes from not having any real intent to win possession and so people just try it on due to the lack of shared conviction that defending can be a positive thing. Anyway, the point is that far from the penalty count in that game being an anomaly, it is typical of the last 6 Nations and likely typical of games to come unless something changes.

I'd say a good slug of the penalties are from running out of support after a few tight phases resulting in the carrier being isolated against two or three defenders who can then pick off the ball at their leisure.

Wasps now working with midlands law firm, Wright Hassall... brilliantly named law firm!

Aptly named, in my experience!

It was 13-7 v Scotland, 10-2 v Wales, 15-11 v France. It's something of a habit now to be on the wrong side of the penalty count. Ireland is the one exception, when the count was even.

There's a lack of 'street smarts' in the England side. I'm sure SA committed more than 4 infringements - but, like most sides, they play the ref far better than we do.

Singleton called up as cover for LCD who reported tightness in his hamstring after the 1st test.

Why did we only have 2 Hookers on a 3 test tour ?????

Because Dylan's aura was traveling with us.

God knows. It's one of Eddie's strange quirks.

Singleton looked really good the other week- never really seen him before.

While you're here, if you make any 'jokey' predictions about stupid selections for this test, I will fûcking cut you

Don't worry 45, he's all bark and no bite. He's a teddybear in real life.

And I’ll roll you in salt.

Last 6 test matches (6 Nations plus first test v SA) the average is 12 penalties conceded vs 8 awarded against the opposition. That's with 6 different refs.

Possible reasons:
1. We are poor at the breakdown and give away a lot of pens there.
2. The players are ill-disciplined and the coaches can't get through to them.
3. The coaches and senior players are failing to prepare well for how the refs officiate.
4. The captain and other leaders on the pitch are failing to influence refs positively.
5. Refs have some kind of unconscious bias against England because they are perceived as ill-disciplined.

5 seems unlikely, but if true is a function of 1-4, which is down to the coaches and senior players.

What? Can Brad Shields not play hooker?

Him or Mike Brown.

Believe me, my lips are firmly sealed in that regard for this test

I think we’re looking for a bit of pace at hooker to supplement the back row?

The fact that Eddie and his f**king team of analysts haven't done much yet is the most worrying part. I at least hope they've identified where the problems are, and are now trying to fix those problems. Obviously Eddie's not going to be broadcasting our problems over a loudspeaker so we don't know, but you'd like to think so given the amount of resources he has available.

I feel so much is based around our stodgy back row.

Small locks.
Wings to carry around the fringes.
Etc.

We're missing a 'Haskell'.

Can’t really argue with that.

Curry did well but billy doesn’t contribute and robshaw is knackered.

And here I was thinking you were all clamouring for more aggression in the pack.

I’d deffo have iron mike at 15- starting to worry borthwick is building a pack in his own image though

The truth of the matter is that SA targeted two areas- Robshaw's lack of pace when there's a wide blindside and Ford in the route 1 channel.

Anything else is just fluff although it was a masterstroke to abdicate the lineout completely.

Can't understand why BV wasn't used to defend in 10 channel as he did in 2017.

You need to watch the game again. Isiekwe abdicated any form of ruck clearing. He made his first completed tackle around the 30 min mark and fell off so many it wasn't funny. He was shockingly bad and the freedom and speed of ruck SA enjoyed was embarassing- people call Launchbury and Cole plodders but by christ they clear out the rucks.

Launchbury gets through a hell of a lot of work. He's usually high in the tackle stats.
Itoje and Isikewe made 8 tackles each, Robshaw 7; Curry made 20

Isiekwe was fine in tackles, he blew himself out by 30, but he was tackling. No arguments over the ruck work, as shown in my analysis. Can't blame Isiekwe as such, it's Eddies fault that he relied on his first 2 locks being fit. I do wonder if Isiekwe would even be there if he didn't play for Sarries though. He doesn't stand out anywhere near as much as Itoje did at a similar stage.

Marler does excellent clearing work, I’d give mako a breather and start marler with genge benching

I'd need to check my notes . I do think he does more than Mako, but then Mako does more carrying (and often a ton of tackles too I believe), so it's swings and roundabouts in a sense.

Marler takes a carrier away, Launch puts one back, but that's only because we were missing one to begin with. I do agree that resting mako could be a good thing though, and starting Genge seems risky.

Again, it’s covering for the back row deficiencies. Mako probably does more than his brother?

Isiekwe made as many tackles in his brief period on the pitch than most of the England pack managed for their entire time. He missed one.

Sinckler's developed a habit of missing a ton of tackles, and did so again. Robshaw barely did anything of note. Shields decided rucks were his thing but carries and tackles weren't, Curry tried his heart out, Mako took the day off.

I believe they said shields was sent on to try and stem the quick ball?

Sinkler doesn’t tackle, he seems to chop only? Gonna hurt himself soon.

I felt sorry for Curry, he worked his absolute socks off for very little reward and had to do it all on his own.
I've always been a fan of Robshaw but he looks seriously done now. Like the Baabaas, as soon as SA put pace on it he looked like he was chasing shadows. Sheilds or Wilson really must come in for the 2nd test.
Billy looked unfit but will hopefully be better for the workout and he's still better than our other options.

Oh, and just as importantly, Isiekwe's discipline was excellent. George was hard done by, but Robshaw and Sinckler coughed up 2 each (only one of Sinckler's was scrum I think?), Mako 3 and a yellow.

I might well watch that first half again but pulling Isiekwe to bring on a fucking flanker at second row was just asking for a beating and it's what we got.

Baabaas game saw Robshaw missing countless tackles and having people just run through him constantly. He didn't miss a tackle against the Saffers, though he certainly looked off the pace at times. He was anonymous, not a liability.

Sinkler was very disappointing, definitely need Williams' work rate for next week.

Sinckler really should try and do his one man choke tackle more, he's bloody brilliant at it.

Hill?

Johnny. Not sure how Raggs reached that conclusion, though.