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Vunipola singles out two Scots England simply weren't ready for
By Chris Jones
Mako Vunipola has given a brutally frank assessment of England’s failing against Scotland admitting England “let themselves down” but will learn the painful lessons from their Murrayfield defeat before facing France in Paris on March 10.
England now trail Ireland by five points and meet them in the final round of matches at Twickenham on March 17 but to still be in with a shout of winning a historic third successive title they must overcome the French who gained much-needed confidence with a 34-17 victory over Italy.
Vunipola highlighted England’s problems at the break down where Scotland captain John Barclay and fellow flanker Hamish Watson caused all kinds of problems.
England committed more players to the break down later in the game but had left themselves too much to do having trailed 22-6 at halftime. Vunipola said: “We all realise that wasn’t good enough. We know we’re still growing and right now it’s hurting, but we have to move on and we won’t forget the game.
“We let ourselves down a bit and it comes down to individual responsibility because we had good preparation all week. It comes down to responsibility on the 15 players who each have a role in the team. We just didn’t have that.
“We just weren’t good enough in attack and too slow to get to the ball. I thought Barclay and Watson were very good and we were too slow to react.
"In international rugby if you take too long, one second here and there, the game starts slipping away from you. Scotland did a great job in that area of the breakdown - not just in defence but in attack.
“You can make all these excuses about being due a flat game, that’s not the mentality that we want. We want to go out there and put on our best performance every time.
"Scotland were the better team on the day and we didn’t really give ourselves a chance. Scotland came out and dictated to us in the breakdown area.
"It wasn’t a case of feeling rattled. Scotland controlled territory very well and made it hard for us to get out of our half. Just shows how good a team they were.”
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Latest Comments
I was at this match. Jordie Barrett earned his money with a massive hit to slow a connaught attack to win the math when Leinster had 14 in the last few mins. Mack Hansen had a real go at the refereeing after citing a serious head hits on Iaone and Aki.
connaught were up for this. Snyman tried a trademark dirty after, and the onnaught 4 and the onnaught pack absolutely laid into him.
Leinster hose to kick to the corner when only winning by 5 with 10 left and qith only 2 tries scored. onnaught should have punisihed them for that utter stupidity after they broke out and Leinster yellowed to stop the attack.
13 changes from last week. It seems teams are scoring about 10 points less against Leinster this year. With Neinaber in his second year, the new attack coah established, surely they will be a bigger threat in champions up? Or will the attack recgress further.
They must adopt the SA philosophy of take your 3 pointers and the bonus points will come.
connaught back line inluding Iaone, Murphy, Aki, Forde, cordero is the seond best in Ireland surely. Leinster were lucky here
Go to commentsShould have played more for England but he jumped ship just as he was breaking through.
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