{"id":9039,"date":"2012-03-18T03:17:29","date_gmt":"2012-03-18T01:17:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/03\/rugby-england-revel-in-st-patricks-day-scrum-massacre\/"},"modified":"2012-03-18T03:17:29","modified_gmt":"2012-03-18T01:17:29","slug":"rugby-england-revel-in-st-patricks-day-scrum-massacre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/rugby-england-revel-in-st-patricks-day-scrum-massacre\/","title":{"rendered":"Rugby-England revel in St Patrick’s Day scrum massacre"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

By Mitch Phillips<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

LONDON, March 17<\/span> (Reuters) – England’s rugby heritage is
\nbuilt on the power of their forwards and Twickenham was in
\nseventh heaven on Saturday as the English scrum utterly crushed
\ntheir Irish opponents to set up a convincing 30-9 victory in
\ntheir final Six Nations match.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

For all the demands for running rugby and quick ball, the
\nbase appeal of the scrum remains at the heart of the game and
\nwhen one side takes total command, as England did in remarkable
\nfashion, it means there can only be one outcome.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

England led 9-6 after a scrappy first half but when Ireland
\nlost prop Mike Ross with a rib injury just before the break the
\ngame swung dramatically in England’s favour.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

The home side had already won two scrums against the head, a
\nrarity in the modern game, and they immediately realised that
\nreplacement tighthead Tom Court was the weak link.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

In scrum after scrum England forced Ireland down and back
\nbefore Welsh referee Nigel Owens ran out of patience and awarded
\na penalty try after 58 minutes.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

From then on, at every opportunity, England opted for a
\nscrum and proceeded to treat their opponents as if they were a
\nschoolboy team.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

It was all the more remarkable for this being largely the
\nsame Irish pack, although missing the key presence of lock Paul
\nO’Connell, which embarrassed the Australian scrum in their World
\nCup pool stage game six months ago.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

At almost every engagement they went backwards, leading to
\npoints from penalties kicked by Owen Farrell and a second try by
\nreplacement scrumhalf Ben Youngs with a tap and go.
\n\u00a0 Continued…<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Mitch Phillips LONDON, March 17 (Reuters) – England’s rugby heritage is built on the power of their forwards and Twickenham was in seventh heaven on Saturday as the English scrum utterly crushed their Irish opponents to set up a convincing 30-9 victory in their final Six Nations match. For all the demands for running […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-9039","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9039\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}