England vs Ireland review:

This game under delivered massively. Both teams came of a win and were supposed to be on good form, but in the game there was only one team playing rugby at all. The Irish attacking structures was useless against the rush defense of the English and the English pounced on errors of the Irish and also played some nice to watch running rugby.

England:

At some stages in the game it seemed that they were running a captains drill against no defense and well if it weren’t for the Irish’s last try the scoreboard would have said the same. England got of to a good start by keeping the ball away from the Irish and making them defend against their big runners the whole time. That made the defense if the Irish shift in which gave them space on the outside for their quick men to exploit the space. When they were asked to defend they did that great as well using a rush defense to shut down the Irish attack and and made sure they never got the ball out wide. They also played the Irish as a team well putting Sexton under pressure and making certain that he never had time to settle into the game. Their flyhalf Ford on the other hand was amazing and had one of his best games in my memory. The English was also able to dominate the forward battle and that took one of the Irish’s strengths away. They got into the heads of the Irish and that made the Irish play bad rugby and focus more on the off the ball stuff. They were also able to disrupt the Irish set pieces. All in all they played a great game and it was almost the same as when they played against the All-Blacks in the world cup hopefully they an continue on this run of form and end of the tournament well and play some lovely and nice to watch rugby.

Ireland:

Wow did they had a bad game? John Mitchel said after the world cup final that it looked like it was men playing against boys and well this time the Irish is the team that looked like the boys. They were dominated in every part of the game. In (I believe something like) 99% of the contact areas they lost and was dominated. The Six Nations has a very interesting graphic that shows the dominant tackles, but I believe that that was not spot on because every tme when Ireland had the ball they ware tackled behind the gainline and that put their entire attacking structure on the back foot. That had Sexton worried and he started forcing play which only made it esieer to defend against. From the moment when Sexton got flustered Ireland never got back into a good attacking shape and that made it very hard to watch. He is a great 10, but even he slightest pressure of his forward pack not being dominant makes him play very bad rugby and making bad decisions. Another player that under preforms is Jordan Larmour. He is a very exciting prospect with ball in hand but he is not as secure as Kearny at the back. I know that Kaerny is not that dangerous on the counter but his presense at the back settles the team down because they can relly on him to be secure at the back. I just think that if ireland had a 10 that can take a bit of presure they would have been able to win because the rush defense mad it very easy to just put a little chip over the top or even a long Finn Russel pass to put the wing in space.

My MVP:

Owen Farrel: He might not have been the best player but I believe that he was the reason that his side won. He was in the faces of the Irish the entire time and made them focus on him and his team rather than the ball. I know that Courtney Laws got the man of the match award, but I don’t see him as the man of the match the best player on the day for me was Maro Itoje.