It is good to see England lose. I am English but I hate the rugby team. Ireland played really well and England basically imploded. But how did they dominate so much? Simple, they played old style rugby.
When teams play England using the modern game, using heavy props and locks to break through the defence, England will almost always win. It's the game they play, and they know how to defend it, especially seeing as they have a forward coach in Martin Johnson.
What Ireland did, to a lesser extent in the second half, was play using backs. It is something that only 3 teams do on a regular basis in the world: South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. All from the southern hemisphere. This is really why the southern hemisphere almost beat the northern hemisphere.
Backs are much more effective than forward play in terms of scoring tries. If you keep a deep line, you backs can get momentum and for the most part break through the line. Now this may sound pretty obvious but I fail to understand why more teams don't play using their backs.
All I can say is well done Ireland, well done O'Driscoll for your 25th 6 Nations try (the new record) and thank you for beating England and ensuring that they didn't make the Grand Slam. Rugby is becoming too much like american football, and somebody must do something to make sure the game doesn't become a defensive, low scoring bore and also ensure that there aren't stoppages every 5 seconds, like in American football.
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