EOYT: England v New Zealand, 01/12/2012

[Draggs]

There appears to be an element of attempting to discredit Englands performance by making out that the ABs were crap (when they really weren't), Mostly from the Celtic green eyed monster. As to be expected.

Eh, maybe from some, but I've seen many congratulatory posts.
If it was Wales, I wouldn't give a single eff what anybody said. You've beaten the All Blacks, what more needs to be said?

 

[Teh Mite]

pfffft. A 1 legged bunch of Kiwi agrophobics wearing All Blacks jerseys, even with Stephen Donald at 10, would still kick the crap out any team in the world 21 times out of 22. So don't **** on my shoe and call it rain.

 

[Saintjay]

Ok next time you get novovirus and feel fine the next day, go to the gym and tell me what happens.

Me having the virus has nothing to do with this. I am not playing for the best rugby team in the world with the team doctors and medical team available. Go ask McCaw how he felt playing an international rugby match after i assume having the virius a few days earlier. Answer i felt fine.

 

[Jockstap]

Me having the virus has nothing to do with this. I am not playing for the best rugby team in the world with the team doctors and medical team available. Go ask McCaw how he felt playing an international rugby match after i assume having the virius a few days earlier. Answer i felt fine.

Cool

 

[Big Ewis]

so this virus thingy...I couldn't believe the lameness of the excuse potentially but thought it was more of a joke to start...but more and more ppl are talkin about it on here like it's this absolute fact and all...
it's legit ?!

I dunno, all I can say is this: I, amongst many, am merely trying to understand their below avg performance rather than justifying a supposed weak form.
During the match, England's play was so powerful and overwhelming I thought wtf is happening here. But moments later, I thought about and...that just wasn't the AB's, regardless of the pressure England put on them and whatever pride they were playing with...and as someone mentioned it here too, against Wales they were really more opportunistic than fantastic...

And I suppose reading everywhere "the AB's, just a class above everyone else" in articles, amongst fans, commentators during matches...we all tend to let it slip into our subconscious that, that's the way it is, it's absolute fact, they're just monsters like, everybody knows that...but it took a bit of weakness from them and a lot of strength from the opponents, and BAM. Not even close...hence the shock, the gigantic gap thus created, the huge contrast.

It's England's 7th time ever beating NZ.

 

[lucky number 7]

Best English Performance I've ever seen ..I think the entire performance was charachterised brilliantly by when Ashton took a bad ball stepped a tackler and was then latched onto by Haskell or another big forward and literally carried them through contact..amazing

 

[Thingimubob]

Yes they did, they scored 1 try and nearly scored another in the last 5 minutes. What game were you watching?

Cant say I've seen more than highlights I'm afraid. Look don't get me wrong, I'm not taking anything away from England at all - they were superb, totally deserved of that win, plus I love a good upset. Just it didn't look completely like the All Blacks we've seen over the past weeks. From interviews I've heard, majority of the squad (all bar 2 I think it was) spend 2 - 4 days having a 'detailed tour of the bathrooms' with various fluids coming out of both ends (icky)... 1 that's gonna hamper your preperations (could explain why they got better as the match went on?) 2 its very hard to bounce back and be 100% after being knocked down by a virus for that long!
Either way, they couldn;t cope with the superbly intense game that England brought - I've never seen All Blacks fall off tackles like that before. If the roles were reversed and Wales had played All Blacks this weekend, i doubt they wouldve won even with the virus - we haven't played a game like England did since the 6N, possibly the World Cup.

 

[Kiwiwomble]

There appears to be an element of attempting to discredit Englands performance by making out that the ABs were crap (when they really weren't), Mostly from the Celtic green eyed monster. As to be expected.

I think we were crap...but i think Engand made us play crap, rush defence, low error rate and some explosive attack...job done. It was exactly the smae as pretty much every time we've been kicked out of a world cup, the other team wanted it more and we had no plan B, we just kept trying to do the same thing over and over and over which england just found it easier and easier to read

so, up at 3am for the rugby on sunday and then up at 130am to see Wimbledon loose to the franchise....really great weekend and a very productive day at work for me!

 

[nickdnz]

I don't think there are any kiwis who justify this loss because of the virus. Like many have mentioned - despite a 20 match undefeated streak - we're a different team from that of twelve months ago. We still lack in physicatily, especially in the breakdown. It's not all doom and gloom, but I think it's good that we've seen that we have some pretty obvious flaws.

We don't steal enough ball and we don't get enough numbers to the breakdown. This has been evident especially since the Australia game. It's all well and good having forwards who can offload - but they need to show more grunt. Aaron Smith for me really cost us in this game. At times he just totally lost composure with average as box kicking (how many has he had charged down this tour). Yes we need quick ball, but sometimes a tempo chance is a good thing - and Aaron Smith needs to know that he's not the answer to kicking. We have two of the best place kickers in Carter and Dagg - we don't need Aaron Smith.

I'm still not sold on Messam. Vito looked a lot more explosive when he came on.

 

[Larksea]

Great result for England.

As for the All Blacks I don't know how much to read into it. The problems they had during the week clearly affected them, hard to measure how much, but for the most part they only really looked like they were 90% some players less. And rather than lifting for the biggest game on tour and last game of the season they were well down on normal.

Still required an impressive effort from England, great intensity, willingness to run the ball.

carter had one of his worse performances in his test carrier missing the two early regulation kicks really started the rot for the All Blacks and put them in undue pressure, McCaw well down on where he usually is and some uncharacteristic performances from most forwards, maybe the worst games at any level from many of them in quite a while. Woody, Franks, Messam, Retalick maybe even Whitelock.

Conrad smith with a defensive blunder he wont soon forget.

The worst thing is they can't come back next weekend and prove that was just a one off glitch caused by a health issues for the squad during the week, game over.

EDIT: was a bit ****** off at some of the refing. In particular the restarts where Read was wrongly penalized and the ref set a standard that took away one of the All Blacks weapons. The ref said the All Blacks "would get the same protection", it's rubish. Richie remained quiet but if the ref said that to me I would have said "we don't want protection, we want it to be a contest ruled according to the book". Read clearly went for the ball, not the player so the contact was legal yet he was penalized.

 

[Big Ewis]

^ yeah that was a stupid call. Even the English commentator touched on the ref's incompetent decision there...

 

[lucky number 7]

Victor Vito is class.. bad knockon but an exciting player

 

[austingtir]

Victor Vito is class.. bad knockon but an exciting player

Other than Tuilagi and the england 10 i thought Vito was probably the standout and i prefer Messam myself but Vito just seemed to bring the right attitude and seemed to be in the right place at the right time when he came on.

Hansen made a total balls up of using his bench and the actual startin 15 in this game. Should of made mass substitutions much earlier. But to be fair when the AB's scored their two tries he probably thought it might turn around but England just shut the door and pounced on any mistake we made.

In hindsight I would have started B smith 13, Cruden, Gear, Romano and faumuina I would still have started A Smith as i have always felt against a big team like SA, France and England he might not cope and that needed to be checked. And the franks brothers need to go im tired of them imo they have done very little in the last year and we have props with more potential than them that we could be developing.

Why Hansen didnt start Cruden in Particular is a real mystery as carter had a leg problem as well as the nuro?

Now im not saying Cruden would of stopped tuilagi when he busted carter but i think his general play thoughout the rest of the game would of been better for us.
Also after this test i will be hugely ****** if B smith has another good super15 and still doesnt regularly crack the starting 15. He needs to start ahead of C Smith or Dagg regularly it doesnt matter which one just whoever is flat should get dropped for a game.

 

[187]

Victor Vito is class.. bad knockon but an exciting player

Yeah I'm gutted Victor is on the bench coz he's an awesome player. So athletic.


Wellington Lions | Wellington Hurricanes | All Blacks | 'Ikale Tahi & now England!

 

[lucky number 7]

Aye and from any interview I have seen of him he seems like a genuine nice bloke too

 

[TRF_heineken]

This was taken after the match, a picture tells a 1000 words... and this one is no exception.

But what a game that was! If England played like that against the Boks last week, they would've scored 50+...

 

[austingtir]

This was taken after the match, a picture tells a 1000 words... and this one is no exception.

But what a game that was! If England played like that against the Boks last week, they would've scored 50+...

Man i can wait for next years test season its going to be very intresting. The finale against England again will be a Huge test as they will have the confidence going into the match this time.

 

[TRF_stormer2010]

Well done, England. How glad am I now I put up some vcash for an England win!

Walked into a restaurant at the 65minute mark of this game after a fantastic day at the beach. Didn't expect there to be a tv (they took it away after the match again), saw the score and just about shouted; 'what!?'

 

[William18]

There appears to be an element of attempting to discredit Englands performance by making out that the ABs were crap (when they really weren't), Mostly from the Celtic green eyed monster. As to be expected.

We were terrible. England played well but we were terrible. In how many games does Smith miss tackles like that? Or how often does Carter play so poorly.

 

[austingtir]

We were terrible. England played well but we were terrible. In how many games does Smith miss tackles like that? Or how often does Carter play so poorly.

Agreed, how anybody can insinuate that the AB's didnt play like **** is beyond comprehension. They had a good 10 minute spell where they constructed two trys the rest was just filled with errors and bad decisions. Not to start another crap fight but England was great they took everything we gave them and we gave them plenty. I mean seriously when you look back through the errors that were made England would of been inept not to put a decent score up.

In that first half NZ had plenty of opportunity to actually be close to leading the match had they done things right. The one moment i remember was when they were down in englands 22 and A Smith box kicked a chip over and the England player just walked over and called for the mark. You could hear the other NZ players through the mic groaning and going WTF!?