I'd disagree about Sam. He's a marked man these days as such struggles to do the eye catching stuff. I thought he was much better than in recent weeks. The attention he attracts creates space for others, as a team we need to be better at exploiting that. I believe he's playing injured and not training much. I would be surprised to see him become unavailable for England.

I thought both teams did ok tonight without being spectacular. Could have gone either way.

Terrible idea. The game would become a mess

Expand please - you suggest its not a mess now ?

If you allowed ball steals with more than one defender in the tackle the game would become a farce. Teams would kick out of their own half for territory regardless of the tackle count, players would focus on protecting the ball and finding the floor rather than fighting for metres, every other tackle would end with players with their arms round the ball trying to claim possession; forcing the referee having to determine who has possession and whether the ball was stolen before/after the tackle was complete. The game has its flaws but what you are suggesting would be totally unwatchable.

It wasn't unwatchable when ball stealing was allowed with more than one player in the tackle in the past. It was much better. None of your downsides ever occurred. The current rule penalises defenders when the fault often lies with the attacking player for carrying the ball loosely. We see this a lot where players even try to milk penalties or the ref awards one when in fact the attacker just dropped the ball.

If it was just a just a question of refs expecting ball-carriers to take more responsibility for ball security, and calling more 'loose carries', I think most fans would support you in that. I fear what's being suggested would lead to an awful union-style mess, though.