So the World Cup should be held in Japan, except with only 10 teams so Japan has no chance of ever playing in it?
Tonga beat France, but the French go through on points, sadly. They won’t survive the quarters, though, on current form.
Si
In most events of this type the host nation is normally given a berth.
In any case it wouldn’t be the case that Japan “has no chance” the qualifying tournament would give them that chance.
Bombshell No.1 - Carter is out for that game, and possibly for the whole tournament.
Bombshell No.2 - Tonga dick France, Sacre Bleu!
And Scotland are leading England- Heh.
England beat Scotland 16-12, Far be it from me to say “I told you so” but…see above!
I think I’m going to be sick.
A terrible, terrible game of rugby. Quality very low, handling errors all over the place, lots of boot to ball as a result. Both sides hugely negative.
I have no sympathy for Scotland. They should have closed the game out against Argentina but played traffic cop to Ambrosino to lose. They should have closed today out but they’re simply not good enough to maintain the necessary pressure to stop even a mediocre side like England digging themselves out of a hole. Lots of guff on ITV about how “brave” they were - bollocks. Get your basic skills up and try and keep the tempo high and you’ll beat England. Second half in particular, they were incredibly limited.
England v France in the QF could be another terrible, terrible game following France’s performance this morning and England’s general ineptitude at breakdown and proclivity for giving away penalties. Already not looking forward to it.
I haven’t seen a great deal of the games but going on results, it is becoming difficult to find a team that could seriously challenge the All Blacks. I know they normally find a way to get beaten, but all the teams that you would think may trouble them (IMHO RSA, England, Australia and possibly France) seem to be going very ordinarily.
Hang on- I am off to see the price on the All Blacks winning.
Well that was a no brainer. The All Blacks are already $1.60 (about 2 to one on) to win.
Oh come, it wasn’t that bad. England really started to come together in that second half and…
ah no! I can’t keep it up. We were crap, just slightly less crap then Scotland. It was just so ponderous. I can take a power game if the recycling is speedy and there at least appears to be a game plan well executed. I saw none of that today.
Lord alone knows how the France game will pan out. Perhaps one of them will “click” but I’m not holding my breath.
You know what the really frustrating thing is from an England perspective? The one time that the scrum half (in this case, Wigglesworth as he had come on by then) got to breakdown and just swept the thing to the backs, instead of taking 3 steps with it before passing, we scored the try that won the game.
It is not rocket science. Quick ball is golden in rugby union. Attack the breakdown close to the tackled player, preferably with 2 or 3 blokes, sweep the opposition out of the way, move it on. Because the defence has to be behind the hindmost foot of their own side of the breakdown, you put the defence on their heels (and having tied a tackler or two in, they may be slightly less organised for that reason too). It makes everything so much easier.
Which is why I spent this morning screaming at the TV. Problem #1 for England, not sweeping the breakdown clear with sufficient numbers to stop spoiling of the ball by Scotland (entirely legally I might add - on more than one occasion, the Scots came through the middle of the ruck and played the ball with their feet to knacker it for Youngs). Problem #2, even when secure ball was produced, too often Youngs would walk and pass or wait for England to be organised. The first of these things brings the defensive line up, particularly out wide (thus stopping England from using Tuilagi, Ashton, Armitage and Foden). The second is better than throwing bad ball to a disorganised back line, but allows the defence to line up their men, which means generation of quick ball is unlikely. It inevitably leads to a territorial play (euphemism for hoofing the bloody thing as far away from our line as possible). Problem #3, as I have alluded to in previous posts, is that our boys are thick - they can’t change the plan on the fly and we don’t have personalities on the team who really take a game by the scruff of the neck; our on field leadership team is there due to time served, not because they have the ability to lead.
#1 and #2 - I assume are tactical. We want forwards to carry the ball up to get over the gainline and suck tacklers in. The problem with this though, is that if they don’t win the thing in the first place, or the ball is crap because they’ve not secured it properly, it is difficult to generate momentum and thus let our backs fly. We want Youngs to try and keep fringe defenders honest (though doing it too much really limits your options for attack and funnels the play back to the very same fringe defenders - who are usually pretty strong). Basically, I think we’ve got it wrong - our strength is actually our outside backs and we don’t want to give them the ball, because we are so keen on trying to win the battle up front physically. I would be very keen for John Wells (England’s forwards coach) to be replaced after the tournament, preferably by Toby Booth from London Irish, who will want them to be much more dynamic and will try to generate the quick ball the outside backs need. Because he worked with our attack coach a few years ago, it should make the tactics a lot more joined up (I actually think Brian Smith is a good coach and has done a decent job from where we were when he started).
tl:dr. England frustrate the living fuck out of me and I advocate change that will allow us to attack more using our outside backs.
A relief to see England tough it out in a terrible game, and bearing in mind the earache we’d have got if the Scots had managed to piss on our bonfire I’m sorely tempted to react similarly, but I won’t. Well, every serious contender bar New Zealand has had at least one shite game so far - must be the AB’s best chance of their first World Cup of the professional era, but let’s wait and see; they’ve managed to find a banana skin to tread on for the last twenty years…
Deep cleansing breaths Cumbrian, deep cleansing breaths.
Think yourself lucky. I was watching the game in a hotel room with the wife and kids in attendance and I didn’t have the luxury of copious swearing. I just wept a little.
Not only were we getting it wrong tactically with respect to how to play the game, as Cumbrian says, we were also getting it wrong tactically with respect to the scoreline (in my opinion). I reason thus - on at least one occasion when we were 6 points in arrears, we elected to kick for goal rather than for territory on winning a penalty. But reducing the gap from 6 to 3 was fairly irrelevant, because either way a try fucks us. The only benefit of it was that it prevented a drop-goal from being effective for the Scots, which is reasonable. But the relevant penalties were far from gimmes, particularly with the weather, the ball, and Wilkinson’s recent form to take into account. Going for territory instead would also have used up more time.
Conversely, right at the end when we were three points behind (having succeeded with the penalty I refer to above), we opted to kick for the corner rather than the posts. 3 points here would have been excellent, as it would have meant that even a converted Scottish try would see them still out of the money, whereas had the kick to the corner then resulted in a turnover and a length of the field break (far from unlikely given the quality of our lineout and passing) by Scotland, we could have been out. As it was, we scored a try of our own and that was that. Am I wrong in the above analysis though? At this level, shouldn’t this sort of thing be talked about at length before the game, and then implemented accordingly?
Ireland hammered Italy, Wales thumped Fiji, ABs crushed Canada, and Argentina beat Georgia.
Quarterfinals time:
Ireland v Wales: tough call, as both are playing pretty well. I can’t call it.
England v France: another tough call, as both are playing poorly. Probably England, though.
Australia v South Africa: tough call again, but I think that Australia will have the edge. It will be a bruising match, maybe some injuries, and the winner will have to face the All Blacks
All Blacks v Argentina: The Pumas are really up against it. ABs to go through.
Si
Very fair assessment. What it confirms for me is that lack of clear tactical leadership on the field. In 2003 we had three or four captains, all capable of doing the job. Now? we are missing that central driving force. Moody isn’t doing it, nor will JW. I’m still a big fan of his, no-one gives more to the cause and his execution is normally excellent, but he needs a solid gameplan *to *execute as do them all. I’m not sure where it is going to come from.
Ireland v Wales - Fine weather? I’m going for Wales, I think they have the edge on invention. Monsoon? - Ireland to grind it out. But either way this is a classic in the making.
England v France - not a classic in the making. My head is saying France as I don’t think they can play worse and England may struggle to play better.
Australia v South Africa - Aussies I reckon, but again a tough call.
All Blacks v Argentina - All Blacks, but can they afford to lose anyone else to injury? The Argentinians are not known for their gentle demeanour.
I agree with you, but I think the situation I described is more indicative of a lack of off-field nous. I can just about forgive handling errors, missed passes/tackles, people running when they should have passed, etc., because these are all made in the heat of the moment in intensely pressurised physical situations. But when you are deciding whether or not to go for the posts, you have several seconds to mentally step back and take stock. Wilko (and/or the captain, and ideally the whole squad) should have been briefed beforehand on exactly these situations and what to do in them, and apparently no-one took the time (goodness knows they have enough of it) to do that.
All’s well that ends well for the time being, but I’m still far from convinced about Johnson as a coach - his strength should be his motivation, but it is not obvious he is the best person at that even. I will, however, be delighted if events of the next few weeks prove me wrong.
The Ireland/Italy match was worth getting up for. Things really seem to be gelling for the team at the moment. Its hard to think that before his injury David Wallace was probably first choice for the number 7 jersey. I have a lot of time for Wallace and thing he is terrific. But I can’t imagine a back row without both Ferris and O’Brien in it. They are playing out of their skins at the moment.
Wales in the QF looks like its going to be a great game. Wales are in such good form at the moment.