[2015 RWC] Pool A: England vs. Australia (03/10/2015)

[Maverick1987]

Maybe you should read Hansen's latest comments about simulating pressure

Fact is Brown played a large part in costing England a spot in the knock out rounds and that can't be argued. It's not like it was Lancaster out there knocking it on and not releasing and in general being petulant and adding to the poor team spirit.

We played 3 matches and he was clear MOTM in the game vs Fiji he wasn't bad against Wales and everyone was poor today . I'm afraid you know too little about NH players to give a fair comment so I'll ignore what you said and we can move on .....

 

[Ospervat]

Amazing, isn't it? That's been gone over on the forum a few times. Still don't have an interesting explanation for England's permanent under-performance.

It starts at the top. The coaching team.
To look at the 31 players selected for WC there is a wealth of talent and skills available.
Where Lancaster and cohorts have failed is to plan, organise, lead and direct that talent into a cohesive unit.

I don't believe there was a lack of passion and belief on the part of the players but if the coaching team haven't given them the tools & skills to execute a plan on the field then the end result is inevitable.

For the likes of Hooper and Pocock (Who's strengths are well known) to have poached that much turnover ball from England without reply is a perfect example of how poor the coaching preparation was. England just didn't have an answer to this.

Quick ball at the breakdown is key in the modern game. England's try came from the only period in the entire game when they managed secure quick successive ball at the breakdown preventing Oz defence getting organised. To be able to achieve this only once in 80 minutes tells me that there was a coaching failure to focus on this aspect as a key component of the game. Why at the breakdown were England constantly out numbered 3:1 or 4:2 even 5:2 on occasions.

What the hell is up with the set pieces. I have never in 40 years known Oz to have been able to push England around quite so easily. What was Lancaster's plan for this. Has he watched Oz this year against Argentina, SA & AB's. Did he see what we all saw. Oz forwards have improved massively in this area in the last 3-4 years. How thorough was the training ground preparation given to this aspect? That cost England 5 penalties.

Selections has been done to death on TRF - the Burgess selection is the tip of the iceberg but it is a small window into the mindset of the coaches and the incongruous selections made. It would appear that Lancaster feels that he does not need to explain his selections despite his accountability and that is quite simply unacceptable.

The England public and faithful fans deserve better. The old saying " you can fool some of the people etc........Well some of the people may be wrong some of the time but not all of the people are wrong all of the time.

Fall on your sword Lancaster. It's game over!

 

[Swansea Osprey]

From a Welsh point of view I'm chuffed BUT I gotta say everyone apart from lancaster knew it would be the Hooper and Pocock show ! Australia have got to be the best side in the world at keeping the ball at the breakdown ! I hope Gatland pick Tipuric and Warburton next Saturday

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From a Welsh point of view I'm chuffed BUT I gotta say everyone apart from lancaster knew it would be the Hooper and Pocock show ! Australia have got to be the best side in the world at keeping the ball at the breakdown ! I hope Gatland pick Tipuric and Warburton next Saturday

 

[ABs2011]

Maybe you should read Hansen's latest comments about simulating pressure

Fact is Brown played a large part in costing England a spot in the knock out rounds and that can't be argued. It's not like it was Lancaster out there knocking it on and not releasing and in general being petulant and adding to the poor team spirit.

The key thing that separated the teams at the beginning of the game was Foley's (and in general OZ's) in-play kicking vs the positional play of the Eng back three. It's hard to know whether or not those 3 made positional mistakes (without re-watching those moments) as opposed to Foley just being brilliant, but Brown certainly did not look good and I believe both his errors from OZ kicks led to first half points.

Not saying he is a bad player at all as he looked great vs Fiji, perhaps he just had a bad game, but his mistakes put Eng on the back foot and they never recovered.

Anyway lads, commiserations to Eng supporters, I do feel for you guys.

And I agree with the post match comments of Lynagh, the RWC is poorer for your exit (and apparently so is the economy by half a billion pounds!!). It's bloody ridiculous that 4 top 9 teams all ended up in the same group and one of those was the host nation. I seriously do not get that!

 

[Kiwi_]

Out of curiosity where would Rugby rank in popularity in England, I know it's behind Football and for reasons I can't fathom Cricket, so it would be third wouldn't it?

Commiserations England, I was rooting for you.

More people play Rugby in England (1.5m), than the entire population of New Zealands South Island (950,000) and equal to the population of our largest city, Auckland.

 

[jomjom]

Looks like the English euro-slow pedantic rugby experiment is at end for the time being. Please continue to disregard superior rugby played in the Southern hemisphere and stick to your guns on playing your predictable brand of rugby. Feel free to make excuses about why another Southern Hemisphere team wins another world cup. Keep doing what your are doing and expect different results next time. English rugby implosions are among the more entertaining aspects of the sport. Well done.

Wow, what a needlessly aggressive, arrogant comment. Good job on making sweeping generalizations. Its just sport man, why such scorn? I dont get it

Anyways... I too did not take any pleasure from seeing such an inglorious defeat. Though Ive always had a soft spot for Australia, I was the only person in the entire pub actually rooting for England... Have you seen Game of Thrones? Do you remember this scene? (dont click if youre not up to date etc). This is what that what this match felt like.

If Ireland make it to the semis Ireland vs Oz will be such a cracker...

So, its looking like

South Africa v Wales
Scotland v Australia
Ireland v Argentina ???
France v NZ???

 

[TRF_Olyy]

Out of curiosity where would Rugby rank in popularity in England, I know it's behind Football and for reasons I can't fathom Cricket, so it would be third wouldn't it?

Commiserations England, I was rooting for you.

Very much depends on the region.
Football is way out ahead nationwide, I'd say it's about even with cricket, maybe a touch more popular (this might just be because i don't know many cricket fans so have a skewed perception of its popularity.)
Go up to the North west and it's clear 4th behind league and cricket.

 

[Chistera]

Lancaster doesn't deserve so many critics, I simply think that English players are inferior individually (especially when the likes of Armitage, Tuilagi and Abendannon are at home).
I don't know if many English players would make it into the Australian XV. Launchbury, Joseph and Watson maybe?

 

[Kiwi_]

We played 3 matches and he was clear MOTM in the game vs Fiji he wasn't bad against Wales and everyone was poor today . I'm afraid you know too little about NH players to give a fair comment so I'll ignore what you said and we can move on .....

Yep, because watching a game and pointing out that he didn't release the ball which meant Biggar kicked the winning goal, knocked it on which lead to a try, missing tackles which lead to tries, but apparently he put in a MotM performance against the 4th weakest team in the pool means I know very little and I'm wrong. Cool bro.

 

[Peat]

Out of curiosity where would Rugby rank in popularity in England, I know it's behind Football and for reasons I can't fathom Cricket, so it would be third wouldn't it?

Commiserations England, I was rooting for you.

Not sure it's behind cricket. It's pretty much as big as anything non-football can be.

The big issue in England isn't football, imo, it's *everything*. There's so much going on that it's pretty easy to pop your head up to support a big event/the national team, then there'll be another big event so you move on to that, and so on. Although football providing so many 'big events' does not help.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

More people play Rugby in England (1.5m), than the entire population of New Zealands South Island (950,000) and equal to the population of our largest city, Auckland.

Those numbers include all the kids playing at school as well, though - and there's a LOT of kids made to play in PE lessons around the country who have zero interest in the sport.
There was an infographic going around showing the percentage of players that are adult males and England's was very low.

 

[General Tah]

Englands knew training gadget to get out of the pool....
To soon?

 

[OverGore]

It's bloody ridiculous that 4 top 9 teams all ended up in the same group and one of those was the host nation. I seriously do not get that!

That is because in NH, rugby is a professional sport controlled by old conservative amateur freaks who have no clue whatsoever. Coaches are usually not selected on their abilities but on how they can asslick the old ones and befriend with an old system. Do you either understand the calendar of this WC? All small teams litteraly screwed cos of it

 

[ShonH]

Wow, what a needlessly aggressive, arrogant comment. Good job on making sweeping generalizations. Its just sport man, why such scorn? I dont get it

Anyways... I too did not take any pleasure from seeing such an inglorious defeat. Though Ive always had a soft spot for Australia, I was the only person in the entire pub actually rooting for England... Have you seen Game of Thrones? Do you remember this scene? (dont click if youre not up to date etc). This is what that what this match felt like.

If Ireland make it to the semis Ireland vs Oz will be such a cracker...

So, its looking like

South Africa v Wales
Scotland v Australia
Ireland v Argentina ???
France v NZ???

I would say that it would be interesting. Ireland is the best NH team without question.

 

[Rich Taff]

View attachment 3999 Englands knew training gadget to get out of the pool....
To soon?

Looks like Gaston has competition for this years TRFies

 

[RJAH777]

This is the third time I've tried to post, the forum must have gone into meltdown like English rugby. Have to say as an aussie, the Wallabies exceeded my expectations. Have learnt to not expect too much from them over the years but that was a complete dismantling..I think I know how all blacks fans feel now

Who would have ever thought the Wallabies would ever scrum shame the English at Twickenham. This has been a world cup of many surprises, I love it.

Hard day for English fans but you guys will be up there again soon. You have plenty of talent, just need proper coaching and management.

 

[Bazzy]

Those numbers include all the kids playing at school as well, though - and there's a LOT of kids made to play in PE lessons around the country who have zero interest in the sport.
There was an infographic going around showing the percentage of players that are adult males and England's was very low.

This one is a bit old but still shows England has significantly more adult male registered players than any other country.
http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n291/greiffel/extra_pics/rugger-blogger-thumb.jpg

 

[Ragey Erasmus]

Also very few children in England play rugby. Many SH teams have kids playing some form of contact sport regularly from a very young age, England doesn't. Rugby in England for children is very much done late in school and in a very half-arsed way. It cannot be overstated how important it is to get people interested and playing regularly young as it allows lots of basics to become second nature. Children aquire skills far far faster than adults and once they aquire them, they tend to retain them well.

However, England can and have beaten the SH regularly at youth level now so that is not the main issue, the main issue is how rugby is played at a senior level. I feel England coaching across the board suffers too much from a lack of creativity and a desire to stifle it in players. We still want to play through the forwards with the backs being very much a second thought both at club and international level. We view rugby too much as a bludgeoning sport with occassional running when it shouldn't be. Too much emphasis on slow set-piece to set piece moves and little randomness. What I think would be interesting was if we could see the European clubs play against the SH clubs. I suspect the European clubs would get shown up in a big way.

 

[Maverick1987]

Those numbers include all the kids playing at school as well, though - and there's a LOT of kids made to play in PE lessons around the country who have zero interest in the sport.
There was an infographic going around showing the percentage of players that are adult males and England's was very low.

Yeh the graphic that just shows how many people play rugby is a bit general . No doubt made by a Celt that wanted to rub some salt . Like you said it's hugely removed from the actual truth

 

[Rich Taff]

Also very few children in England play rugby. Many SH teams have kids playing some form of contact sport regularly from a very young age, England doesn't. Rugby in England for children is very much done late in school and in a very half-arsed way. It cannot be overstated how important it is to get people interested and playing regularly young as it allows lots of basics to become second nature. Children aquire skills far far faster than adults and once they aquire them, they tend to retain them well.

However, England can and have beaten the SH regularly at youth level now so that is not the main issue, the main issue is how rugby is played at a senior level. I feel England coaching across the board suffers too much from a lack of creativity and a desire to stifle it in players. We still want to play through the forwards with the backs being very much a second thought both at club and international level. What I think would be interesting was if we could see the European clubs play against the SH clubs. I suspect the European clubs would get shown up in a big way.

I like the push that's being made during the build up and actual cup. Showing how rugby can help 'troubled' kids. 'School of hard knocks', but at a junior level. Showing kids how to 'channel aggression' in the right ways, and how to turn it off when leaving the field.

Don't think there's any sport better for it.