Management, poor RFU leadership, off-field antics, age over youth, there's a whole host of things wrong with the England set-up at the moment, but as I said about the game vs Scotland, the most worrying thing for me about the England team is that apparently there's no-one on the pitch who can think for themselves. They either have to wait until half-time or get a message from the water-carriers before they can figure out what the tactics should be. In today's fast-moving game you can't survive if you don't have players on the pitch who can think on their feet. Contrast that to any of the other home nations - or any of the other teams in the RWC - and you can see why the England team are currently tucking into the drinks & nuts served up by the trolley dollies.
It was a woeful display yesterday, with hardly anyone from the England team emerging with any credit. Schoolboy errors time after time. Crap line-out, poor scrummaging (scrummaging for God's sake, that's where we used to dominate!!) and terrible handling - for England to complete a sequence of passes we'd have needed the ball to be dwarf-shaped. France played a superb tactical game and the win against England was thoroughly deserved. I had a text message from a French colleague after the game that was almost apologetic in terms of how badly England had played, it was that bad.
I would like to think that there will be a root & branch review of what went wrong and changes made, but that's exactly what the FA said after the last Football World Cup and look at what's happened...nothing. With the lunatics in charge of the asylum at the RFU at the moment I doubt they're thinking of anything more strategic than their own survival.
Wales played a blinder, and I'd love to see them go all the way. Ireland caused the upset of the tournament by beating Australia in the pool matches. Scotland showed us what playing with pride and commitment is all about.
Today's game between the Wallabies and Boks was another classic. The Puma's have played a spirited game but with 5 minutes to go the fitness and quality of the All Blacks is now proving it's worth.
At least now we can focus on the rugby.
willie_gunn