Talk:England national rugby union team

Too long?
Is this article now too long and would be better split into separate pages based on the sub links? RichardLowther (talk) 10:30, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Succession box discussion
A discussion has been started about the breadth and formatting of succession boxes for national rugby union teams at WikiProject Rugby union. Please see the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Rugby union. - Shudde   talk  22:35, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Record verses
Why do we not have a page of each country who has played england and have list of all of them —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.136.163.106 (talk) 15:55, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

First Match
England's 1st match against Scotland in 1871 wasn't lost 4-1, but 1-0 ie 1 goal to 0 (points hadn't been introduced then)

Exile 18:26, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Where did you get this information from? The scoring systems was complicated, and often different in different countries at this point. However going by rugbydata.com the score was 4-1 with two tries and a conversion to one try; see the reference here. We should use the sourced score. - Shudde   talk  20:12, 9 October 2007 (UTC)


 * (Bumping this down to the bottom of the page for further discussion). rugbydata is wrong then (and the same error appears on a lot of websites for some reason). The RFU site contradicts it with "Scotland won by 1 goal, 1 try to 1 goal", but I'd say that is wrong as well. Exile is right as far as I know, and I'd say the history of rugby union page has it best with "The game, played over two halves, each of 50 minutes, was won by Scotland, who scored a goal (a try followed by a successful conversion kick). Both sides also scored a try, but these did not count as the conversion kicks were missed." which it sources from a book. That's supported by this scoring through the ages page, as well as scrum.com and best of all, the official Scottish rugby site --Travis Basevi (talk) 02:17, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
 * The scrum.com reference says 1t 1g to 1t, yet credits two Scottish players with scoring tries? None of the references you give really confirms what the score would have been, because like i said above, the scoring values depended where you played. One reason the IRB was formed was because during early international rugby in the 1880's the winner of a match would be different depending who's scoring system was used. Until it was standardised, it was generally the home countries scoring system that was used. Your reference to the rfu's rules regarding scoring is somewhat irrelvant due to this (plus the fact that the RFU was formed after the match was played). To say that rugbydata is wrong however is probably pushing it. I don't mind changing the description of the score to one (or two) tries and a goal to one goal, but certainly not to 1–0. A footnote may be the best option, as detailed information regarding the scoring system is prob. a little unnecessary. - Shudde   talk  04:36, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, we'll have to discount scrum as a source because of that discrepancy. Anyway, upon looking further I did find this description of the match at rugby football history: The first ever international game: Scotland v England played at Raeburn Place in Edinburgh, March 27th, in front of a crowd of 4000 (Scotland won by one goal and one try to one goal, the teams were 20-a-side and Halves were 50 minutes each). The try was awarded after a 10 minute argument, leading to a famous aphorism by Dr. HH Almond, the Scottish umpire: "I must say, however, that when an umpire is in doubt, I think he is justified in deciding against the side which makes the most noise. They are probably in the wrong." The scores for Scotland were obtained by Angus Buchanan, from whose try W. Cross kicked a goal, but he was unsuccessful in his attempt to convert the second try which he scored himself. The English try was credited to R. H. Birkett, but F. Stokes, the English captain, was unsuccessful with the place kick. And that bizarrely contradicts itself by saying that that Scotland scored 1 try England scored 1 goal in the first paragraph but it was actually 2 and 0 respectively in the second paragraph. Maybe it was the amateur ethos, but it really is an indictment on rugby that there can be so much confusion over such a significant event in it's history. Perhaps it's this confusion that should be noted in the main article. The only thing that I'd say is not in doubt is that the idea of points by saying Scotland won 4-1 did not exist at the time. --Travis Basevi (talk) 16:06, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

That is NOT a "group hug"; They are stretching out their lateral dorsimus and upper back... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.114.58.46 (talk) 21:47, 9 April 2008 (UTC)


 * In this match, Scotland beat England by a goal and a try to a try. This score is published in a number of books, the earliest which I can lay my hands on presently is the 1892 publication by Francis Marshall: Football; the Rugby union game (London Paris Melbourne, Cassell and company, limited). A contributor to this book was H H Almond, the umpire of that very match. Page 140 if you are interested. A more modern publication is Steve Lewis', One Among Equals, published in 2008, on page 274. Steve Lewis points out on the same page that it was only after 1890 that a format allowing the introduction of a points system was provided. In addition, scrum.com notes that Up until 1875 international rugby matches were decided by the number of goals scored (conversions and dropped goals), but from 1876 the number of tries scored could be used to decide a match if teams were level on goals. Essentially, in those early days a team could score 9 tries, convert one of them and lose to a team scoring just two tries but converting both of them. Goals were the important thing in rugby football's early history, not tries.Kwib (talk) 09:58, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Sandbox
I have moved much of this page to Talk:England national rugby union team/Sandbox. There was a lot of material here that was simply a list of results or tours, and not really discussion of any kind. It is much easier if this is kept on a separate subpage. - Shudde   talk  10:59, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Martin Johnson's role
What exactly is Johnson's job? Have a look at this. Because it's not entirely clear, he has been appointed manager, but is that the same as coach? There is no rush, but before England play their next game, we have to consider who is going to have their name beside "coach" in the infobox. A footnote may be necessary to clarify Johnson's role&mdash;whatever that may be. - Shudde   talk  01:41, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Lists and tables added to article
There seems to be a lot of lists and tables being added to the article lately. For example and. The article had been largely delisted before it got promoted to Featured status, and adding lists that simply repeat information already present seems unnecessary and acts only to inflate the size of the article (compare with ). It's already 61kb (see WP:SIZE). My point is can we avoid the addition of lists and tables unless neccessary? Maybe if any are to be added they should be discussed here first. We don't want this article to go to WP:FAR. - Shudde   talk  07:51, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Head Coaches

 * The list of Coaches currently lists Johnson as the current coach but it is my understanding he is the Team manager with coaches reporting to him? Or has the head coach position been retitled as a manager? Discojim (talk) 05:07, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

England Most Memorable Wins Top 4
ENGLAND - SOUTH AFRICA 53-3 ENGLAND - Australia (world cup finals) 20-17 ENGLAND - All blacks 15-13 England - Samoa 44-22 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Azjz3 (talk • contribs) 08:32, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Inherently point of view.GordyB (talk) 13:53, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

1888–1889 New Zealand Native football team
There appears to be a slow-motion edit war of the 1888–1889 New Zealand Native football team link. This is in the table in the Overall section. Part of the issue may be an attempt to link to 1888–1889 New Zealand Maori football team. In any case, the current changes aren't working. wcrosbie (talk), Melbourne, Australia 07:45, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Overall all time record
The figures for the overall all time record table don't add up. The win percentage appears to ignore the drawn matches, and instead be a straight win vs. lose ratio. Even the opening line that claims that England has a win record of 57.03% doesn't add up to source it lists, which actually claims a 53.16% win record out of all games played.--Allthestrongbowintheworld (talk) 23:22, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Should this overall table include non-cap matches? The table currently lists the June 2013 game v the South American XV plus 13 matches v Barbarians, none of which carried full cap status for England, and the Argentina row includes only the 16 capped games and not the uncapped draw in 1978. Personally, I'm for only including England's full cap matches - anyone have any other opinions? --Bcp67 (talk) 04:28, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I completely agree. Only include matches for which the RFU awarded caps (this includes matches in which their opposition may not have been awarded caps). It's confusing otherwise, and we shouldn't include some non-Test records and not others. - Shudde  talk 09:35, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Actually note [80] says "This table excludes matches played against the Barbarians and New Zealand Maori as they are not full representative teams." - so whoever decided to add Barbarians matches didn't bother to read the note immediately prior to the reference they added. Is everyone happy using espnstats for the data? - Shudde  talk 09:49, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I'd be happy with that personally - I did a query on England's results and the list of opponents tally with what I think are the full capped games, e.g. the 16 matches with Argentina. Obviously the NZ Natives game from 1888-89 is included, as it was a capped international whereas the recent Maori games aren't. I'm going to be bold and remove the rows for the Barbarians and South American XV. --Bcp67 (talk) 17:28, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Copyedit
I have given the article quite a prune back. A lot of cruft had been added, much of it unreferenced. Some editors had also added duplicate information. I'd welcome anyway taking a further axe to things; some sections, especially the "Rugby World Cup" and "History" sections are far too long considering they're only summaries of independent articles. -- Shudde  talk 04:16, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

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Coaches
I've updated the games played under Eddie Jones to 13 wins from 13, it was previously showing as 14 wins from 14 games, which is the current record for the team but includes the win against Uruguay at the end of the pool stages of the 2015 RWC. Does Stuart Lancaster's records need to be updated to reflect this change? White&#38;BlueWasp (talk) 13:00, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

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Ranking
There appears to be an error in the rankings. Ireland are shaded instead of England. Mobile mundo (talk) 16:26, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

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Six nations records
On the individual Wikipedia pages of the competing countries, and the Six Nations page, Ireland are quoted as having won 1 Six Nations grand slam. They now have 2. Please amend. BRACK66 (talk) 18:23, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

England rugby Wikipedia page
Needs updated please!! BRACK66 (talk) 15:23, 6 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Working on it :) Although bear in mind that this is a featured article so you'd expect most of it to be pretty accurate already. I'm busy doing an offline copyedit at the moment and will introduce updates as and when ready. Have already done a few. Rodney Baggins (talk) 17:02, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

Thankyou.

Just the 2019 record that needs amended, to include the draw with France from the cancellation, and the overall record.

Should read: P51 W36 D1 L14 BRACK66 (talk) 18:24, 13 November 2019 (UTC)


 * Should a match that never happened be recorded as a draw? For the purposes of the competition it was but do other sources count it? noq (talk) 18:43, 13 November 2019 (UTC)


 * Personally I think it should be P50 W36 D0 L14 because they didn't play the match against France, so to say they've actually physically played 51 WC matches is incorrect, and they only drew with France by default, so to say they've literally drawn one WC match is also false. Rodney Baggins (talk) 20:25, 13 November 2019 (UTC)


 * Hello again and thanks for your recent 'cleanup' edit. It would be helpful if you could make the edits in a slightly more piecemeal fashion as a series of smaller changes that can be easily checked, with an edit summary for each one. Some of the changes you've made are entirely cosmetic and unnecessary, e.g. changing dates in citations, as these are automatically picked up and converted according to the template up top. I've been introducing changes to this article bit by bit with explanations where necessary and giving plenty of time and space for people to see what I'm doing. Rodney Baggins (talk) 16:06, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

Historical vandalism reverted
Ref.28: "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot: A Concise History of the England National Rugby Union Team" by N. S. Owen does not exist. It was changed from Grand Slam: A Concise History of the Five Nations Championship to Swing Low, Sweet Chariot: A Concise History of the England National Rugby Union Team in this edit. Neither of these books exists. Four consecutive edits were made by an unregistered IP (2.31.213.165) on 15 & 16 November 2014, see this diff. I strongly suspect that all of this was vandalism so I've reverted the lot. Rodney Baggins (talk) 14:29, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Records Section
I attempted to add a Single Game records section to a separate List of top England international rugby union points scorers and try scorers page however it displayed upon the main England national rugby union team page. Nations such as Ireland and Wales have separate pages dedicated to their records, should England not have a similar feature? Felixsv7 (talk) 11:07, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Ok, I've gone somewhat rogue and placed the Records in their own separate page as I intend to bring the page in line with the aforementioned Irish and Welsh records pages. Not sure if you're able to edit the page's title as would like it to be more broad. Suggestions welcomed. Also, I'm not very good at writing copy (better with tables) therefore have only left a brief line in the Individual Records section on the main page, if anyone could flesh it out, that would be much appreciated Felixsv7 (talk) 11:07, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

FA concerns
This article has unsourced parts and more weight on recent events than the past, and repeats material in the history and then describes it in prose in the results section Bumbubookworm (talk) 21:22, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

England records
England have won 13, not 14, Grand Slams.

Please amend. BRACK66 (talk) 22:41, 20 March 2023 (UTC)