{"id":503121,"date":"2026-02-25T12:32:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T12:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/503121\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T12:32:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T12:32:09","slug":"the-mike-tindall-comments-on-ireland-which-have-caused-a-stir-online","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/503121\/","title":{"rendered":"The Mike Tindall comments on Ireland which have caused a stir online"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The wave of criticism levelled at England<\/a> in the wake of their defeats to Scotland<\/a> and Ireland, and the secondary wave of those saying it is an overreaction, has been quite extraordinary.<\/p>\n

But the take that has appeared to have been most inflammatory across the Irish Sea is that of former England captain Mike Tindall.<\/p>\n

A clipped-up segment from his\u00a0The Good, The Bad & The Rugby<\/a>\u00a0podcast, where he said Ireland \u201cdidn\u2019t have to do anything to win that game,\u201d has done the rounds on social media this week and has been met with widespread disagreement.<\/p>\n

Ireland<\/a> ran out 42-21 victors at Twickenham\u2019s Allianz Stadium in round three of the Guinness Six Nations<\/a> to all but end England\u2019s already faint hopes of winning the title. It was a performance that has not been seen so far from Andy Farrell\u2019s side, but Tindall\u2019s comments can be seen to diminish Ireland\u2019s efforts in London.<\/p>\n

This is what was said in the clip that was shared: \u201cThey were desperate to win that game, and a few of their individuals stood up and had great games, but, and there is a big but in this, they didn\u2019t have to do anything to win that game. It was all given to them by England.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Italy <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

England <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cMy genuine worry isn\u2019t about dropsies and stuff like that, because that can happen. It can become infectious. You ultimately try harder when someone else makes a mistake, and then you make a mistake, and they need to find a way of resetting.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy worrying thing was urgency to attacking breakdowns in certain parts. The amount of times that the ball flew out the back to Mitchell, where it rolled out the back so it wasn\u2019t controlled.<\/p>\n

\u201cIreland were after it, which is fair enough from their point of view, but it was never on a plate, especially in the first half.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was watching the Wales<\/a> game. The urgency of the Welsh.<\/p>\n

\u201cTomas Williams, if no one was there, he\u2019s clearing out, whereas I felt a lot of time our guys were exposed, because no one was there. The urgency to clear out wasn\u2019t there.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat would be my biggest concern. There were times when I\u2019m going, \u2018why is he jogging\u2019 or \u2018why has he not read that?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

While Tindall\u2019s initial point was backed up in the clip, he provides much more context to his comments in the full podcast, where he discussed at length England\u2019s error count. Nevertheless, he has not impressed any Ireland fans this week.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cEngland had enough position, they had more metres gained, more defenders beaten, more carries, more dominant carries, more yards after the tackle, they had more territory, they had more possession. People have said they\u2019ve been kicking too much \u2013 they only kicked 18 times in the game, whereas normally they arrive around 32. It\u2019s not about kicking, it\u2019s how it\u2019s kicked and where it is.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do feel this is one that England completely gave away because you can\u2019t make 38 mistakes.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The wave of criticism levelled at England in the wake of their defeats to Scotland and Ireland, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":503122,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-503121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=503121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/503122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}