[EOYT] England vs New Zealand 16/11/13

[Chikwa]

Tuilagi is injured Larksea, good for us i guess he is a pretty damaging player. I agree on Perenara, I thought by next year he would be our starting 9, but he hasn't even had a sniff yet. TKB has been pretty bad in the black jersey, defense aside. He is quite frantic and rushed, and doesn't make the best decisions. He is the new Jimmy Cowan.

I think the English guys on here are being overly pessimistic. If your defense can stand up like last year and you put some pressure on us we are not invincible. Keep the game tight and whack it down our end, get a few penalties early, anyone's game.

The English are quietly optimistic.Particularly after they watched the arm wrestle against the French.If the Ab's are not mentally and physically exhausted they will be hard to overcome.Nonu looked tired and seemed to miss several tackles.But as you put it by no means a walk in the park.It will be a true test Match.Ab's should not eat at the Hotel.Take a stroll along Kensington high street and buy some health foods! Lol!

 

[TRF_Olyy]

The English are quietly optimistic.

I...disagree

 

[ratsapprentice]

Yeah I don't know why you think that... we have little to no chance of winning and could very well be battered.

 

[jessta]

Interesting to see luatua on bench over cane

 

[tenpm]

The overwhelming agreement that the All Blacks are going to win is starting to worry me, remember the last time the All Blacks were tipped to win comfortably, with the added motivation of a player earning his 100th cap?

 

[kesh]

Once Corbs got ruled out really. Plus Yarde not adding "something", even though Foden didnt put a bad shift in against Argentina. No sign of Wade. Team selections. Manu out. Ashton... (Cuetos' 50 game to 20 tries came under norway near the pressure heaped on Ashton after, like two games not scoring a try, even when it was clear Cueto obviously needed put out to pastor). Just saying, hope Yarde/Wade dont experience that.

 

[Darwin]

Anyone else starting to get really annoyed that TJ Peranara misses out again?!

Other than one nice bit of defensive work in the last test, Kerr-Barlow has been pants in every AB game he's played - and Peranara has looked a far more complete player during Super Rugby. The only area KB perhaps beats Peranara in is fringe defence, but to be honest Peranara's defense is still very good, better than probably any other halfback in broken play.

While I'm looking forward to seeing Perenara in Black, I'm not sure a key test vs England is the ideal time to start a debutant who has not played rugby for 2 months. Perenara seems to get him self injured at the worst possible times - if he hadn't had those ankle issues a few months ago he may have debuted against Argentina, and almost certainly would have received game-time versus Japan. It is only a matter of time before we will see him getting regular game-time for the AB's (I suspect we will see him debut from the bench next week). He just needs to be patient and take his chance when he gets it (which I suspect he will).

It seems to a very English thing, having a 10 playing 12. It just doesn't work. 12 is a very different position to 10 and it requires a different type of player. You stick Farrell in at 12, your game becomes very limited.

It isn't exclusively an English thing - Australia have a 10 playing at 12 at the moment

 

[RoosTah]

Hard to see England getting up in this one. I though Australia really should have won their test against England if not for a loss of composure and a couple crappy calls, so I really can't help but think England are really more at our level than either NZ or SA... It will be an interesting match, but I expect the All Blacks to put them away by 15+.

 

[rugby_mad]

Would the great rugby minds on this site ever consider Flood at 10 and Farrell at centre. Flood lying flat to get the line on the front foot. Farrell seems to like to tackle and is a good distributor but maybe hangs too deep at 10. Just a thought. Must be a reason. Never seen it suggested.

Farrell may prosper at full back.. Andy Goode in my opinion is a better 10 in England

 

[McTallshort]

Would the great rugby minds on this site ever consider Flood at 10 and Farrell at centre. Flood lying flat to get the line on the front foot. Farrell seems to like to tackle and is a good distributor but maybe hangs too deep at 10. Just a thought. Must be a reason. Never seen it suggested.

Or Flood at 10 and Farrell dropped?

 

[Kapa O Pango]

View attachment 2534

Spunky looking lad Mr. CJ

 

[St George]

View attachment 2524

Oi....leave my missus out of this....

I wish Kiwi fans wouldn't continually raise the whole "virus" or "we were tired" excuses. If they were sick they shouldn't have played and brought in replacements. I don't hear other nations moaning about being tired or being sick.. irrespectively even if they were so sick that they were unable to perform at their best, you just take it on the chin and don't whine about it.

We fans are what we are, and we moan and whinge at the most stupid of things to gain credit for our teams. But to be fair to the Ab players themselves, they havent used the so called Norovirus as an excuse, in fact im sure i read that McCaw dismissed it by saying that they would not have been able to execute their initial comeback if they were still sick.

Who knows?? Maybe Suzie?

 

[Patchey]

Farrell may prosper at full back.. Andy Goode in my opinion is a better 10 in England

Farrell at full back? Really?

 

[Atco]

All noted. My point, really, was that you have Flood on the bench, not least because you need a test match level proven kicker. Thus, if Farrell is injured you replace with Flood. But, if a centre is injured you bring on Flood and at that point, where you have both Farrell and Flood on, of necessity, it's never suggested that Flood goes to 10 and Farrell to 12. I think my observation has been answered by greater minds than mine but...

 

[Mrs. Peter Quinn]

Farrell at full back? Really?

Moving swiftly on...

As for the optimism thing; well, I think us English are vaguely optimistic that perhaps the days of 40 point losing margins are past; I mean, what with last year, our 10 point defeat in 2010, and the French getting close to the AB's in the world cup, there's a hope that whilst last year was an unprecedented result, perhaps it's part of a trend of better results against New Zealand for us and others.

As for the game itself...well I think every fan of any team will go into a match thinking "What if"...it's natural. But in terms of this test match we simply do not have the component parts in place to get a result. As I've said previously, you simply can't shut down the All-Blacks for an entire 80 minutes; they will score tries, and you need to be able to respond in kind. As others have said, I simply don't see where that's going to come from. My main hope rests in Vunipola making big yardage and hopefully forcing penalties this way. I expect scrum time to be evens, and I hope our lineout doesn't get beasted!

All the six nations teams kick loosely at some point or other during a game, and this is when I expect tries to be scored.

 

[Aristodemus]

Looking over the fence is worrying however I don't think the AB's performance this year justifies the hype they are getting in our media this week. For me SA are very close, not a "million miles away" as is touted. They are an amazing team (NZ) but far from unbeatable. They are the best, but not that far ahead of #2.

If our pack can instill our game on them early it might go better than I currently think. However, a team with Corbs, Morgan, Youngs (B), Burns, Yarde, Tuilagi and Wade would be cause for optimism but I am left with very little now

 

[Largejanner]

Looking over the fence is worrying however I don't think the AB's performance this year justifies the hype they are getting in our media this week. For me SA are very close, not a "million miles away" as is touted. They are an amazing team (NZ) but far from unbeatable.

I agree, can`t doubt the quality of the AB`s but firk me lets not elevate them to supermen status. Until recently rugby punditry was mercifully free from football like hyperbole. Sky`s TV`s Rugby Club was vomit inducing at times last evening.
Come on you F**king Whitemen!!

 

[ratsapprentice]

Erm... did neither of you watch the second test vs SA?
The hype is justified by that match alone.

 

[Ragey Erasmus]

If our pack can instill our game on them early it might go better than I currently think. However, a team with Corbs, Morgan, Youngs (B), Burns, Yarde, Tuilagi and Wade would be cause for optimism but I am left with very little now

I don't think England have yet played with all of those in the team at the same time. I would really like to see it.

 

[Bada-Bing!]

Erm... did neither of you watch the second test vs SA?
The hype is justified by that match alone.

Agree, that match was THE match of the year in terms of quality and intensity.