[2014 Mid-Year Tests] New Zealand vs England (3rd Test)

[McTallshort]

Well thats it 3-0 perhaps we are not as far forward as we thought, caught napping against the best team in the world for the first 40 minutes, all these arguments about who plays in the centres or whos the best tight head are all bloody irrelvent if you dont do the very basics right from the start. Very disappointed I thought the days of getting badly turned over by SH teams were in the past but it appears they are not. Very very disappointed.

 

[awardy94]

Does anyone else feel that England need another year before the world cup to figure out what our team is and how we want to play? Obviously with the prem final it's been disjointed but we haven't seemed to be able to figure out how we want to play and who we want to play with.

 

[Darwin]

Right my thoughts. Overall I'm happy with the performance, but we did seem to switch off a bit after half-time (it didn't help that England started playing rugby....).

For England I though Launchbury and Wood got through some good work up front, and Brookes looked handy when he came on (who is he?). Ben Young looked very good in that 2nd half. He was spotting a lot of space close to the AB's breakdown, and was putting people into gaps with his delayed passes. Yarde may have made a few errors, but he was a weapon with ball in hand. He looks to have a big future to me.

For the AB's:
- Woodcock had his best match in black for some time IMO. He seemed to be all over the park. There were a few issues at scrum-time in that 2nd half, but most seemed to be on the other side of the scrum. Franks and Coles were solid too (though I wish Coles had just tried to step/run over Ashton rather than make the pass). Mealamu was poor when he came on though - he seemed to forget he was meant to throw the ball in!
- Kaino looked much better at 6. Read was very quiet - the only time I noticed him was when he was winning lineouts. McCaw... meh. At least he made his tackles this week, but he conceded some completely unnecessary penalties. I thought Messam did some excellent work off the bench too, mainly on defense.
- Aaron Smith was much better this week. There was one poor box-kick, but his passing was superb (I loved that one handed pass in one of our early tries), he made some good snipes around the breakdown, and his support play is world class.
- Cruden was much better this week, though he did have much more room to run than he has all series. Barrett looked sharp with ball in hand (and has pace!), but really struggled to get any distance on his clearing kicks when we were under pressure.
- Nonu was ok, and Fekitoa had a strong debut. However there were a few times when he should have passed the ball...
- Savea was in beast mode again. Jane was excellent too - his best match all year IMO. Barring blowing that try Ben Smith had another superb match at 15. He made a number of linebreaks, made some key tackles, and was getting some good distance on his punts.

 

[Kapa O Pango]

Savea could of had a quad-trick.

 

[RoosTah]

Why? Australia have looked excellent against the French. Going to be a tough Rugby Championship.

Wallabies were great against the full strength France today, but watching NZ they just seemed so much more clinical and did it against a better opposition. The other major concern for us is the way the French scored a push over try from the line-out - something the All Blacks neutralised 3 tests in a row against a powerful England pack.

All in all quite similarly dominant performances and score lines from both the All Blacks and the Wallabies. A real joy to watch too - love watching you guys play England, one of the few times I basically become a full All Black supporter haha.

 

[LeinsterMan (NotTigsMan)]

Does anyone else feel that England need another year before the world cup to figure out what our team is and how we want to play? Obviously with the prem final it's been disjointed but we haven't seemed to be able to figure out how we want to play and who we want to play with.

England maybe needed to try more combos in the earlier 6N's and AI when they had a chance. But then loses would have put more pressure on Lancaster head.

I still feel Eastmond would have benefitted more playing in the 2nd test off the back of a very solid first test.

Vunipola, Launchberry, Wood, Brown need a long rest imo.

I think if we had Haskell, Foden and Attwood starting it could have made a difference.

 

[squirrel]

yeah England very shoddy this game, ABs seem to be taking shortcuts for me, maybe its a sign of age with some of there key players but I don't see how they can improve their game with the players they have
maybe some justice can happen one day and a team thrashes them 50-0

 

[smartcooky]

Jane was awesome today. Good to know coaches for the ABs keep their head unlike half the NZ fans who never wanted to see Jane again after the last game.

That is why they are coaches, Its easy for fans to criticise, the teams they pick never have to play!

 

[awardy94]

I think after the French game it was important that we made a statement and won the rest of our games, wouldn't have been a good move to risk those games.

I agree with starting more rested players, Davey Wilson also looked off colour.

It's a shame for Eastmond, he's a great player, but he did not look good today. He didn't seem to have any of the cohesion with Tualangi that he did in the first test.

 

[ratsapprentice]

Clearly Eastmond was at fault for the first try when he got done by the Nonu dummy run - but can someone explain what he's supposed to do when there is a 30m gap between the man inside him and the man outside him?
It didn't matter what he did there was still going to be a massive gap on one side.

 

[Peat]

Does anyone else feel that England need another year before the world cup to figure out what our team is and how we want to play? Obviously with the prem final it's been disjointed but we haven't seemed to be able to figure out how we want to play and who we want to play with.

Completely agreed.

I don't get why people are so down now. For forty minutes we committed suicide and, surprise surprise, the All Blacks punished us. It's what they do. Then we were able to correct things and go out and show that the first two results were not flukes.

There's still a lot between us in a few critical facets of the game. We knew that. But unless we think we're about to routinely be as awful as we were in the first half, it's only a painful memory, not a forecast of future failure.

As for the All Blacks - hats off the ruthlessness - a bow in the face of such clever analysis of England, they'd singled out Eastmond as a weakness and they used the pick and go to put us on the back foot very well - but an excellent half against suicide ball doesn't convince me that there are no problems there in the least.

 

[TheSaffycen]

Right my ratings-
Marler 5
Hartley 4
Wilson 5
Launchbury 5
Lawes 6
Woods 4
Robshaw 5
Vunipola 4
Youngs first half 3 second 7
Burns 5
Yarde 6
Eastmond 3
Tuilagi 5
Ashton 4
Brown 4
Subs
Brookes 7
Cips 6
Attwood 6
Morgan 6
Burrell 6
Dickson 4

 

[goodNumber10]

Well thats it 3-0 perhaps we are not as far forward as we thought, caught napping against the best team in the world for the first 40 minutes, all these arguments about who plays in the centres or whos the best tight head are all bloody irrelvent if you dont do the very basics right from the start. Very disappointed I thought the days of getting badly turned over by SH teams were in the past but it appears they are not. Very very disappointed.

i'm not as dissapointed as i thought i'd be. I always thought we'd lose 3-0, and i said earlier int he week this was a game too far for england - AB's were excellent first half but our boys were completely out on their feet after 3-4 minutes of being stretched.

We've got lots to work on, but we knew we would and we always thought we'd get one spanking.

Defence wise we were shocking - and i think this was because we were trying to shut down Read & Smith around the scrum - which is why Burns was sitting tight and Eastmond defending between Cruden and Nonu - terrible alignement if Tuilagi doesn't step in.

I don't think either of our wingers were particularly at fault today as they were being asked to rush on the 13/15 channel but to do that midfield has to be rock and solid for 80 minutes ans HAS to get off the line. Eastmond was actually tackling but they were all over the gainline and sliding back - if we want to play a rush then we have to get off the line, otherwise run a drift and congest the oppositions passing options.

I think Farrell Sr got it wrong today, with all the changes and the little guys we should have swapped to a drift defence on set piece ball. Easy in hindsight.

I think Eastmond is done, they seem to have no faith in him and they dont seem to give him the opportunity to excel - he should have been given a run last week. I understand why he didd't get one but i think he was hungout to dry on this one, fair enough he did himself no favours but i really don't think he's had a fair crack - he seems a very unhappy man and i wonder if he will be heading back to League soon, or to a club closer to home.

New Zealand? Superb, they went at and isolated Tuilagi (who is a poor defender) and sent runners down his channel off set piece and that meant the game was fast and on the front foot, perfect for the NZ halfbacks.

Set piece was solid and over the course of the series they have gradually worked he england set piece game out - and used it to their own advanatge - their ability to adapt and learn is unrivalled in the game. Rettalick was immense the whole series.

Well done New Zealand.

 

[goodNumber10]

Clearly Eastmond was at fault for the first try when he got done by the Nonu dummy run - but can someone explain what he's supposed to do when there is a 30m gap between the man inside him and the man outside him?
It didn't matter what he did there was still going to be a massive gap on one side.

i don't understand the defensive alignment we played today - it was just suicide.

 

[ratsapprentice]

Yeah - the bipolarity of the English press and fandom has made itself very apparent in the last hour.

As for the All Blacks - hats off the ruthlessness - a bow in the face of such clever analysis of England, they'd singled out Eastmond as a weakness

Not really - they exploited him as an individual once.
Until someone can explain otherwise - there was defensive positioning error by the entire backline for the second try.
I'm not denying that that's probably his international career over - and very possibly his Union career on the back of it.
I just think that's very harsh and fickle - particularly when considering the sheer volume of positioning errors and missed tackles in the last two games committed by a number of other players.

Cipriani, Webber, Brookes all did themselves proud though.

 

[Peat]

... they went at and isolated Tuilagi (who is a poor defender) ...

One would be intrigued in hearing your logic. I don't think he's looked a weakness before today, I don't think he looked like a weakness in the second half, the entire unit looked like they played Kent Merit League in the first half. Not to say I'm definitely right, but as I said, intrigued as to why you think it.

This one also finds you far too kind to the wingers.

edit:

Yeah - the bipolarity of the English press and fandom has made itself very apparent in the last hour.



Not really - they exploited him as an individual once.
Until someone can explain otherwise - there was defensive positioning error by the entire backline for the second try.
I'm not denying that that's probably his international career over - and very possibly his Union career on the back of it.
I just think that's very harsh and fickle - particularly when considering the sheer volume of positioning errors and missed tackles in the last two games committed by a number of other players.

Cipriani, Webber, Brookes all did themselves proud though.

The way I saw it was they'd spotted that Eastmond was standing very close to Burns and quite far from Tuilagi, probably with the intention of filling the gap on the drift - and I feel they sent dummy runners to keep him tied in a little too long to drift out with success at least twice. To be fair, that may be the system rather than Eastmond - but I feel they'd looked at how the system functioned in the first test and decided that Eastmond standing close to Burns was a thing and that they could exploit it.

 

[McTallshort]

Completely agreed.

I don't get why people are so down now. For forty minutes we committed suicide and, surprise surprise, the All Blacks punished us. It's what they do. Then we were able to correct things and go out and show that the first two results were not flukes.

There's still a lot between us in a few critical facets of the game. We knew that. But unless we think we're about to routinely be as awful as we were in the first half, it's only a painful memory, not a forecast of future failure.

As for the All Blacks - hats off the ruthlessness - a bow in the face of such clever analysis of England, they'd singled out Eastmond as a weakness and they used the pick and go to put us on the back foot very well - but an excellent half against suicide ball doesn't convince me that there are no problems there in the least.

Disagree.

The fact they commited suicide for 40 minutes shows we are not anywhere near were should be, its OK beating Wales or Ireland at home but if we really have ambitions on the WC we need to be beating NZ and we should have been completly up for this last test and should not have been caught like that. No way would that have happened to the BOKs.....

 

[Peat]

Disagree.

The fact they commited suicide for 40 minutes shows we are not anywhere near were should be, its OK beating Wales or Ireland at home but if we really have ambitions on the WC we need to be beating NZ and we should have been completly up for this last test and should not have been caught like that. No way would that have happened to the BOKs.....

World Cup ambitions were borderline delusional before the tour and are only slightly more so. I strongly suspect that we will never see that defensive unit and system combined ever again, so we can be reasonably sure we won't see that in the World Cup. The first half was as much an aberration as our first half victory.

To me the tour confirmed we're about 5-8 points behind the All Blacks on your average day.

 

[McTallshort]

Then we might as well not turn up next year....

 

[TheSaffycen]

The defending was not just Eastmond but the whole.team. Everyone was missing first up tackles and letting the All Blacks get over the advantage line, even players like Robshaw and Woods. This game was terrible for Farrell snr as his defensive system was completely ripped open. But he cant help if the players aren't up for it. With Eastmond standing so tight to Burns I dont know why he.was ? As the first test showed he wasn't a defensive burden, maybe phycologically he just didn't trust Burns ?