[Munki Bhoy]

Might not have made a difference in the championship, but for England to not only lose the grand slam they wanted but to lose it in such a convincing manner...

What they do next could be interesting. They could take that as a big blow to their confidence before this autumn's World Cup, or they could use it as a wake-up call.

[Yudster]

Or they could just ignore it, pretend it didn't happen, or at least pretend its not significant - you know, like we do with sport. Bah.

[Boboff]

That game all came down to the way you play Rugby, our guys were frightened of the Irish, they won the battle of "hard" It would not have happened with more experienced players on the pitch to Needle properly, the Irish on the other hand were as Johnson put it "Canny" or whatever the word was, basically they played every trick to get the mental edge on England, the best trick was the two blokes holding the English guy up off the floor then tossing him around like a baby, and they nicking the ball, it meant where were were happy previously to only commit two or three people to a ruck, win phase ball, and play "fast" rugby, we needed 5 forwards into every break down, which is a shit load of running for someone who is 18 stone.

[Yudster]

It was a nervous performance to put it mildly. Biased refereeing too, but it certainly didn't affect the result - or probably even the score much. This England side have never looked like a Grand Slam team and I think Ireland knew exactly how to highlight the weaknesses. Johnno seems to have things moving in the right direction, but there's no way they'll have travelled far enough to make any real impact in the World Cup. Its come at least a year too early for this side. Actually I have my doubts they'll be ready for the NEXT world cup if I'm honest. It is good to see things getting better though, and you never know, maybe one day there will be a group of players who can break through into the really big time again.