The game flew by for me. Partly because I had company- we still have social distancing regs here so we made a night in the garden. The other reason it flew was a box of real cider for which I am paying dearly today. Watched the match twice and was still drinking into the small hours discussing the game.
The game was one of those ones where I felt we were lucky to be in it at HT. The style of rugby was awful compared to the wonderful Aus-Fra series recently- although to be fair I don't think many series will live up to that. On sheer intensity in the SH I felt we deserved a win, but we could not have complained if it had gone the other way.
Daly was indeed straight from the underwear section at M and S. He was not the only one in that first half, but there were enough standout performances in the pack to be confident that we have a good shot next week. Not sure why we asked a 9 with an attacking, sniping game to try and play like Ben Youngs, that did mystify my guests, who favoured Davies as the player best suited to that type of controlled, conservative game. Whether that was the plan or not is open to question. I think the plan was to see us challenge more with ball in hand. It is similar I guess to Dan Robson's issue with England- he might be the best all round 9 in the league in terms of sniping, service, support lines and taking the correct options, but England just look at the box kicking as the default option and that is not him.