There was a lot of poor decision making, especially from the likes of Ford and Daly when they had the chance to keep the ball in hand a little more. That said, it looked sharper and brighter, especially with a few of the subs on. That said, it is still difficult to see England really threatening the likes of France/SA/Ireland/NZ.
The players said afterwards it was really difficult to hold the ball, it was so greasy. I think that may have semi explained the incessant kicking (although we're always going to do a lot of that anyway). But in the end, a half decent performance.
England should comfortably win the group now. They have the two lowest ranked teams in the group still to play. I've seen nothing from Group C which suggests England shouldn't win a QF. The draw (like 2007) would then see them play France in a semi. I've just got a feeling that by that stage of the tournament, England's pretty horrific style of play might cause the French some problems. Don't see us winning, but think it could be tight. Long way to go before then mind....
1. If Fiji keeps 15 on the field and wins 40% of the ball, there is no reason why they shouldn't beat England in the quarters.
If Australia beat Wales, then I suspect Fiji will top the group. The one area where Fiji seem to struggle is the lineout, if they don't sort that out then securing 40% ball could be an issue.
I also think that Ireland's knockout record is something that might also be a psychological issue.
I think they'll need to score 4 tries in the process. Fiji should take 10 points from their remaining two games, which would then leave it as a points difference between the two. I don't see Aus scoring 4 tries against Wales to be honest.
Not if we continue to kick everything away and then get monstered at the breakdown
Yep, I think the best chance Aus have is to make a it an open, free flowing game with lots of tries. If they keep it tight, I think the Welsh pack will be too good. I also don't see Eddie Jones playing a free flowing game either, so the more I think about it, the more ****ed Aus seem to be.
Campese (yeah, I know) reckons that he’s been told that Eddie has coached all the spontaneity out of the team to the point where nobody trusts themselves so they just hoof it
For Leicester he had probably the best back row in the league the season we won and it was also the most balanced with Liebenberg (lineout), Reffel (fetcher) and Weise (tank). It almost didn't matter that we were playing kick and chase because we were so good at the breakdown that year. For England our back row rarely makes it through 80 minutes without a spell on the pine so there's a crying demand for flexibility that Leicester just didn't need. This is also why even when we were in the midst of our best season for years we were stuffed by a Leinster team with a fully international pack.
In one sense it's impressive that you've found a gameplan that works equally well with 14 men as it does with 15, but it also suggests that it's not exactly maximising your resources.
The last 2 years of England under Jones saw the spontaneity gradually coached out of them. To go with that, you had to put up with an arrogant coach talking some embarrassing rubbish that made the team impossible to like.
High in entertainment, maybe lacking a little in quality.
Yeah this 2nd half hasn't quite been on the same level of the first. Handling and general errors piling up, despite the better weather
Absolute howler there at the death.