[EOYT] England vs. Australia 02/11/13

[ratsapprentice]

I think disposing of 36 would be very rash.
He played pretty poorly.
But we have to back him to turn that around - he's played well in his previous 5 caps.

It would be interesting to see how the lineout goes with Hartley throwing - the jury is out on Lawes' ability to run it.

 

[Peat]

He has been in better form than both in the premiership and HC, so he deserved his start today. Next week? Perhaps not, but I'd be hesitant to drop him on the back of one performance. Burns is nowhere near good enough form, and Flood has never been enough to address the wider backs problem; as was shown against Australia last year and Italy in the Six Nations.

Its not one performance, its the tale of the majority of his senior career. He does not interest the line. He does not pass well. His passing off his left hand is particularly dodgy. His running is good if presented with a gap but he will not unpick a hole. Owen Farrell's backlines are mostly static. He stands there kicking the corners - not very well either - and shovelling the ball on. Both Flood and Burns are far, far better distributing fly-halves - I am curious as to what you mean about Flood not addressing the wider backs problem - and they are in good enough form to start for me. Farrell's form can be attributed to being behind a stronger pack. I would also start Myler or Cips ahead of Farrell as well.

I am rapidly moving to a position where I cannot support a coach who believes Owen Farrell is a starting international fly-half. It seems quite a popular position amongst elite coaches that he is, so maybe I am just being an idiot, but I believe a fly-half is first and foremost there to pass and kick the ball in open play. Compared to most fly-halves, he's just a bit ordinary. If your pack and backline are incredibly dominant, you can get away with that, but England's isn't.

 

[TRF Mr Fish]

Just watched the game... England very lucky to get the win given one of their tries definitely shouldn't have been given, and the second was 50/50 at best.

 

[Crapspray]

I am curious as to what you mean about Flood not addressing the wider backs problem

I mean that England have just changed to Flood in the past assuming that one change would solve the wider problem. I'm not against starting Flood, but that alone won't get the backline going. The centres were a greater problem today, in my eyes, than Farrell was.

 

[Bada-Bing!]

Pleased England beat the Wallabies. Ok not a great performance but overall I thought England deserved to win. Got to remember the England boys have only been together a couple of weeks, whereas the Wallabies have been together for 3 months and are battle hardened having played 6 games in the RC.

Line out for England was not convincing; don't know whether this is a combination of Tom Youngs not being able to throw straight and Lawes not calling the line out right, but this has to be sorted for next week.

I think Twelvetrees needs to play the next two games to see where he is at; too soon to drop him for a poor display today.

Billy Vunipola was awesome today; I can see why he is so highly rated in the loose.

 

[Bada-Bing!]

As a neutral, I must say that's the most disgusting display of refereeing I have seen in a long time, lets hope It gets sorted out before 2015. All in all neither side looked good enough to win a test match.

What even worse than Romain Poite's display in the ABs v SA game this year at Eden Park?

 

[Wasps For Life]

Changes to be made

In
Dylan Hartley
Christian Wade
Matt Kvesic (on the bench)
Alex Corbisiero if fit?
David Wilson
Luther Burrell

Out:
Tom Youngs
Chris Ashton
One of the Subs
Mako
Dan cole
Joel Tomkins

 

[Darwin]

As a neutral I quite enjoyed the match for some reason. The rugby wasn't that great, but it was tight, and the controversy kept it interesting

Australian fans have a right to be a bit annoyed, with two shocking refereeing decisions proving costly. As has already been mentioned the 'Mike Brown foot in touch' incident was forgivable, as it was very close and happened in real time. However the decision to allow England's second try was shocking - what made it worse was the fact both the ref and video ref seemed to agree it was the right call! The were some other interesting calls made by the ref throughout the game - I counted at least four knocks/forward passes that were missed by the ref (yet he managed to pull up at least one that looked like it was passed back...).

Despite this I don't actually think Australia deserved to win the match. They offered very little on attack - indeed I think England were probably the more dangerous of the two sides with ball in hand (largely due to Mike Brown). As I predicted before the match the only consistently dangerous Aussie back was Israel Folau, but he got few opportunities.

The English front row generally dominated at scrum time, but Youngs was a bit shaky at lineout time. I was impressed with the English loose-trio. Robshaw is perhaps not the most fashionable player but he got through a lot of good work both in the loose and tight. I have always been a big fan of Wood (he played for my local provincial side (North Otago) a few seasons ago), and I was very impressed with big Billy Vunipola. Vunipola made yards whenever he got the ball - he seemed to really enjoy running at Quade Cooper! Farrell had a mixed game but took his try well (albeit with some help from Hartley and the referee ), but the midfield combination needs work. I wasn't impressed by Ashton, but Yarde looks very handy, and Mike Brown had an outstanding match (he is like an English version of Ben Smith!).

For Australia I thought Horwill had his best match in some time - perhaps taking the captaincy off him gave him the kick up the ass he needed. Timani added a bit of muscle but made a few errors and missed some tackles on defense. The loose trio was solid, if unspectacular. I thought Genia had a bit of a shocker at halfback - I wonder whether we will see Nick White starting again next week? Cooper was pretty average too. He struggled to control the game, threw a few poor passes, and reverted back to a turnstile in defense. Toomua had a mixed game too. He ran hard (and took his try very well), and was very physical and accurate on defense. However he made a few errors, and missed touch from a penalty a couple of times. Kuridrani had one good run but a made a few errors, while Cummins and AAC didn't get many chances on the wing (though we generally pretty accurate). Folau certainly looked dangerous with ball in hand, but apart from one clean break was generally pretty well contained.

 

[ABs2011]

So all the talk coming out of the OZ camp (and from OZ supporters) of a Grand Slam scuppered at the first hurdle….Why am I not surprised?? This OZ team is a poor one. I really fear for the state of OZ rugby. Their depth is average, NRL, AFL and football dominate, but more worrying than all that is Australia simply don't have the star players to carry the team that OZ teams of the past had! Where are the Greegans, the Larkhams, the Eales, the Mortlocks, the Horans, the Kearnses, the Lynaghs, Farr-Joneses, and the Campeses of this current team?? I used to rate Genia up there, and Horwill but both have slipped massively. Pocock is a fantastic player, but otherwise this OZ team is average at best…. now 0 and 6 against the top teams since McKenzie took over….

What can/will Australia do to turn this around?

 

[TRF Mr Fish]

There was one moment around the 70th minute mark the looked very suspect from Hartley. He went flying into a ruck with his fist, I'd love to see a replay of it.

 

[McTallshort]

Changes to be made

In
Dylan Hartley
Christian Wade
Matt Kvesic (on the bench)
Alex Corbisiero if fit?
David Wilson
Luther Burrell

Out:
Tom Youngs
Chris Ashton
One of the Subs
Mako
Dan cole
Joel Tomkins

Would keep Mako on the bench and drop Marler but otherwise agree, think they maybe a citing for Hartley......

Also what would bringing Kvesic on the bench offer?

 

[Chikwa]

So all the talk coming out of the OZ camp (and from OZ supporters) of a Grand Slam scuppered at the first hurdle….Why am I not surprised?? This OZ team is a poor one. I really fear for the state of OZ rugby. Their depth is average, NRL, AFL and football dominate, but more worrying than all that is Australia simply don't have the star players to carry the team that OZ teams of the past had! Where are the Greegans, the Larkhams, the Eales, the Mortlocks, the Horans, the Kearnses, the Lynaghs, Farr-Joneses, and the Campeses of this current team?? I used to rate Genia up there, and Horwill but both have slipped massively. Pocock is a fantastic player, but otherwise this OZ team is average at best…. now 0 and 6 against the top teams since McKenzie took over….

What can/will Australia do to turn this around?

Eat humble pie and appoint jake white! I was really hoping for an Australian victory for the sake of rugby.Now the othernations Australia has to play will believe they have a real chance against them.
In the first half I thought Genia and Cooper were playing well. It was the second half when Genia in particular cut a forlorn figure.I wasn'tparticularly impressed with England either .If the play like this against AB's.They 'll be put to the sword..

 

[j'nuh]

Am I the only one who thinks Twelvetrees isn't at fault for the Aus try?

I made this:

Genia and Hooper are collectively marked by no less than 4 forwards (Lawes, Binny, Robshaw and Mako).

First picture shows Genia starting the mis-pass. Hooper is clearly marked by Robshaw and Mako.

Second picture shows Toomua receiving the pass and Tom Youngs stepping into the defensive line. What the heck is he even trying? Not only does he create a gap for Toomua, he doesn't get anywhere near Hooper either.

In any case, as you can see in the last picture, Twelvetrees is coming at such an odd angle (since he's tackling a player further up the attacking line than he should be) against a player that has gotten really low (and is short to boot, giving him a really low centre of gravity) and the rest is history.

The graphic I made is a vague representation. I may have gotten some of the perspectives wrong. Toomua may be slightly wider and Youngs/12T slightly tighter (I was only able to predict their starting positions). But I just hope it demonstrates how much Tom Youngs ballsed up given the numbers, and how Twelvetrees is probably taking far too much flack for it.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

Yes.
Regardless of any positioning/defensive alignment Toomua ran directly at Twelvetrees who went to tackle him head on, but didn't make the tackle.
I could understand if he'd had to dive across to try and make it, but it was as one on one as you can get.


I do think it's a shame that people are getting so worked up about his performance, though. I fully expect Burrell to start next week, and I think Lancaster would've had that planned all along, yet now the media will have a field day slamming 36 and saying how he's been ditched for Luther and how Luther shouldve started vs Aus blah blah blah

 

[j'nuh]

It was 1v1, but the circumstances made it very difficult for Twelvetrees. He has to adjust for a tackle that he's not ready for, he has to tackle at an angle (as shown in pic 3) reducing the force he can exert on Toomua in the opposite direction, but also meaning that he finds it hard to wrap his right arm fully around Toomua and also Toomua can drop his shoulder. Straight-on tackle, and that's easy. Under the circumstances? I'm not so sure.

Problems in tackles are nearly always about positioning - and that's exactly what created the Aus try. But you cannot fault Twelvetrees for positioning because of the aforementioned circumstances.

 

[SuperEagle]

12T was not covering anyone else. He just missed a straight one on one tackle and I sure 12T will hold his hands up and admit the same. It happens but blaming youngs won't wash

 

[SuperEagle]

I thought the English performance was scrappy, but that's to be expected given that this was their first match. Overall, they were the better team on the day and deserved to win.

Aus looked surprisingly toothless in attack and their forwards were second best all day.

We missed Parling's influence in the lineout and we missed Manu in midfield, but I don't think we need wholesale changes. The team needs time to gel together.

A good win.

 

[j-dawg]

A lot of numbers were being committed to the rucks, which in my opinion was a strong tactic to use against an aussie side. I raised a chuckle on more than one occaision when an Aussie would fancy his chances at having a poach to an isolated tackled England player, only to get completley and utterly blown away by a tide of 4 England forwards. It was great.

Plenty of work to do. Attacks fizzled out and ran out of ideas too quickly for my liking, although I liked Marland, his chasing of the kicks and that burst of speed down the wing made him an instant threat. If we could use him well, he could be very dangerous. Ashton was fairly average.

All in all, could have gone either way but a win is a win, and a win against Australia is just that.

 

[Big Ewis]

Am I the only one who thinks Twelvetrees isn't at fault for the Aus try?

I made this:

Oh, God, no....really ?!!! :lol: guys it's cool, you won the game, and it's a November Test match !! woowwww !!!!
Better to be extremely pedantic than not focus any energy at all, but goddamn !!! :lol: A GRAPH OF THE PLAY ????!

 

[j'nuh]

12T was not covering anyone else. He just missed a straight one on one tackle and I sure 12T will hold his hands up and admit the same. It happens but blaming youngs won't wash

It was not a straight tackle at all. Proof: third pic.

Oh, God, no....really ?!!! :lol: guys it's cool, you won the game, and it's a November Test match !! woowwww !!!!
Better to be extremely pedantic than not focus any energy at all, but goddamn !!! :lol: A GRAPH OF THE PLAY ????!

I was bored, not much to do, it's easy to make, so why not?

I'm glad we won, but I'm also worried that England will shoot themselves in the foot by discarding Twelvetrees just as fast as they did Sharples.