England might surprise today.

France scores within 2 minutes!

Brilliant Frog try showcasing the value of the offload

0-10

7th min 

Weird...as a neutral,  finding myself favoring England ATM ...normally would have supported the French. 

That underdog thing I suppose. 

Turned into a bit of a kick-a-thon .

dog not wagging yet...

50 -22 one of the better law changes to date.

France putting England to the sword ATM.

Frogs are breaking the odd crucial tackle…and score.

England getting bullied. Does Borthwick have a plan?

Huge cheers as England get 3. Frog forwards dominating the breakdown and stopping the maul dead.

Fatty English back row is nowhere.

That’s a statement….Pom scrum destroyed ….and the Frog back row romp over. England can’t scrum, they haven’t been able to scrum all the way back to the WC.

Frogs number 8 is really good!

Almost as poor as Wales

Stewart may be big and good in the air, but he looks like a bit of a carthorse. Ludlam is also hopeless.

I’d take Ollivon at Bok blindside in a heartbeat.

England seem like cart horses, very little skills are evident.

Carthorse Stewart gets the ideal opportunity and scores.

Getting Von Poor Feet off was one good decision by Borthwick.

Great try France!

The short tactical kick works….most of these kicks are kicked too far. Du Pont is a joy to watch.

"Getting Von Poor Feet off was one good decision by Borthwick."

Boy England has fallen since being RWC finalists!

Weirdest try ever.

Not...but that's how it goes...

10-41

Having your captain be a sub who couldn’t make the starting team is another oddity.

poms playing better with Farrel on.

lol!!!

Is it too late to change Borthwick?

Brilliant ….the passes in the last try were all perfect.

Frogs look pretty good, they have power, skills & smarts!

Outstanding break by Smith, but nobody in support.

England were outclassed in every aspect of the game! Congrats to the frogs!

Smith is one scared fly-half.

Reminds me of Elton.

England demolished by the French team as well as the England manager.

Very much enjoyed watching the English side getting run over by a good French team.

Sure to silence my neighbour who is a loudmouth Pom.

Excellent result.

There’s too much rugby league type play in rugby these days. A lot of forwards staggering forward with ball in hand & then passing for the next forward to repeat, and repeat. Not a good look for rugby IMO.

Vive la France :)

That’s mean, Mpower

Well done France. No complaints from me. 

Oh and it’s Steward not Stewart, Mozart. 

Sorry Becs…but Besides the Boks , AB and France are my Favourite teams….I do like ENG better than OZ : )

Thanks Becs, it’s very  inconsiderate of me not to get his name right when I’m going on about his lack of pace.

Although Jones was under attack by the English media at least what we can say about him is that his teams were not entirely disgraced by opposing teams - they normally were quite competitive in most tests they played in.

If ever a new coach has started off badly - he was on par with Coetzee in that regard - one could only expect longer term disaster from such a coach.    Watch out for him being a combination of the 10 year disasters we had as Springbok coaches from 2008 to 2018.   

Australia have more material to work with to form a top level lineup . The English player pool reminds me of the Boks between 2012 and 2016. They are going to have to grind through a period of lean resources. 

 The Springboks did not have lean resources in 2012 to 2015  - they suffered from a clueless coach - who made a mess of team selection (he selected retired players and did not build up a squad  to cater for the future) and did not understand how to coach backline players.    Just think about Stade Francais where Meyer was given a massive amount of money to contract players and he spent 90% of the money on contacting ol d and useless forwards.   He consequently nearly bankrupted the club  and they were on the point of being demoted to second level club rugby and he was effectively fired.   The contracts of 2 of his favorites  (Morne Steyn and Fat Farce Alberts) were terminated at the same time.     Like in the case of the Springboks Meyer was a disaster in Stade Francais as well.

By the way if Meyer did any squad building he would have left Coetzee a better squad to work with.      

Let’s just take you last sentence. Here’s the WC team starters:

Willie…Meyer

Kolbe…Harrassmiss

Am….Coetzee

Dud Allende…Meyer

Mapimpi…Harrassmiss

Pollard….Meyer

Faf de Klerk…Coetzee

Beast…snor

Bongi…Coetzee

Malherbe…Meyer

Etzebeth….Meyer

Lomp….Meyer

Dud Toit…Meyer

Kolisi….Meyer

Vermeulen…Meyer

So 10 of our WC team were Meyer Springboks….almost the whole pack, except for Bongi, who came in under Coetzee. The backline is more or less equally spread between Meyer 3/ Coetzee 2/Harrassmiss 2.

So Harrassmiss contributed exactly 2 new Boks to the mix. Meyer contributed 10…..4 years after he was no longer the coach.probably the greatest player legacy in Bok history.

Please think before you write.

Some of the Meyer Bokke were dropped by Coetzee and braught back  by Rassie...interesting that the 2 RWC Final try scorers were Rassie manne...but the real interesting part is that Rassie was also much involved with the Boks during the Snor&Meyer eras .

Hmmmm pretty thin reasoning there…..he gets credit for bringing backs Boks?. My thought is if HM had played the 2019 AB team in the semis he would have beaten them and won the WC, he was close to beating a much better AB team, having led at the half.

The trick is not to cap new players...picking the best possible team regardless of caps.

I agree….the point is HM left his successors a stellar squad.

Mozart

You really are a total BSter.     You picked players selectively and claimed they were regulars used by Meyer.    I will expose you for your normal BS spreading.   

Lets look at some of the players you regard as selected by Meyer:- 

Willie came in as a result of an injury to Kirchner - he was very good  and Meyer kept him in the team.   He started off playing exceptional rugby  - but started deteriorating and by the start of the WC against Japan Meyer reverted to Kirchner in the Japan test.   However, Kirchner failed badly in that test and Willie came back in the rest of the WC matches - but produced a s much as Kirchner did in the famous Japan mess.   He never played a single test when Coetzee was coach.

De Allende was brought into the team - but he was at best a bench player with starts when De Viliers was not available.    He even played at outside center in two tests    By the start of the 2015 Rugby Championship  De Allende had played in 10 tests for the Springboks - mostly from the bench.   In 2015 he became a regular starting player bar in the Argentina test in Durban and in the Japan disaster.    After the departure of Meyer he was not a regular test player under Coetzee.   

Pollard was indeed used by Meyer against the Aussies and AB's in the 2014  Rugby Championship and played very well.    In the subsequent end of year tests he used Pollard in one test and then reverted back to Lambie. with Pollard on the bench.   That charade went on to the start of the WC - when Lambie was the preferred starting flyhalf until the Japan disaster.   Ater that one Pollard ws brought in as Springbok flyhalf - but he produced zero in the tests and Meyer tried to get him to play Morne Steyn dead  backline play.   He enver played for the Springboks when Coetzee was coach.

The starting tighthead for the Springboks were virtually always Du Plessis and with rare exceptions that was the case while Meyer was coach.    

Etzebeth was brought into the Springbok team in 2012 and showed he was an exceptional lock.  That did not stop Meyer from trying to bring back Bakkies to replace Etzebeth in the Springbok team.   Botha only went out of selection after he confirmed his retirement.   

De Jager was brought into the Springbok team and was constantly replaced by the useless level achieved by Matfield.   When the useless version of Matfield was injured in the WC match against Samoa - he never played until the semi where he was a disaster as well. 

Du Toit played exactly in 2 matches when Meyer was coach - in a test in 2013 when eh played for ten minutes coming from the bench  and in the  Japan disaster when he was brought into the squad  to play because Alberts was still not fit to play.    Up to then Du Toit never played at flyhalf.   

You write about 15 players brought into the team by Meyer yet only 3 of those in fact were regular starters for the Springboks and the rest were fringe players at best.

Well lets go on - why not indicate the list of 8 unplayable players in the 2015 RWC squad.  The fact that they were unplayable cost the Springboks dearly against Japan.  

As a result of Meyer and Coetzee mbecility  the players Erasmus inherited from them   were totally demoralized and had to be built back into good rugby players from 2018.