June Internationals: Argentina v England, Second Test (15/06/13)

[Ragey Erasmus]

Nice Eastmond. Reminds me of Robinson with the small stature and rapid direction changes.

 

[Jaguares]

For me, Joe Marler is the man of the match

 

[ratsapprentice]

Some freakish agility.

Love Gomarsall pretending he used to watch him play league!

 

[Peat]

Eastmond's defence is slowly winning me around. His attack certainly has.

 

[Ragey Erasmus]

Argentina are just going to use forward only and try to push over the line here I bet.

 

[Jaguares]

Oooohhh ****!!! A tough injury for the Argie, knee problems...

 

[Tony Manx]

Come on England what was that.....you are ruining my prediction of 30 point margin!!

 

[Ragey Erasmus]

England really need to sort out having opposition forwards simply walk through us. We have a stronger pack and simply should not be letting this happen.

EDIT Damn England actually have a back line that we use. Lovely play and great how much they moved the ball about.

EDIT EDIT How are we still getting pushed back by such a one dimensional Argie attack?

 

[ratsapprentice]

EDIT EDIT How are we still getting pushed back by such a one dimensional Argie attack?

How many tries has the way we're dealing with it conceded?

 

[Jaguares]

I really like the away kit of England, light purple. I'll buy the jersey

 

[TRF_Olyy]

Been massively impressed with Kvesic this tour - strong at the breakdown and in defence, great carrier and very combative without getting the ref on his back.
Robshaw is going to have to really work for that 7 shirt back.

 

[Ragey Erasmus]

How many tries has the way we're dealing with it conceded?

2, it's more being pushed back into our territory where the penalty kicks were taken from. Argentina never put any width on the ball so most of the time they got in range for the kicks from the purely 1 dimension attacks. The thing is this is against Argie forwards who are clearly weaker by some way in the scrum and they simply shouldn't be able to do that against our forwards.

 

[j'nuh]

Been massively impressed with Kvesic this tour - strong at the breakdown and in defence, great carrier and very combative without getting the ref on his back.
Robshaw is going to have to really work for that 7 shirt back.

Been a great teaser for next season. I cannot contain how excited I am to see Kalamafoni/Qera/Savage, Kvesic and Morgan in the Glos backrow.

 

[Crapspray]

Happy with that result. Highlight of the night being Eastmond beating five Argentinians to score. Sloppy at times, and poor defence of the pick and go, but by no means bad. Glad the Argentinians applied a lot of pressure; helps sort the men from the boys.

Mission accomplished for the tour. New players brought in, and all games won by ~25 points. I can't remember the last time I was waiting, rather than hoping, for England's backs to score. I'm welling up...

 

[Peat]

Just to be needlessly dour for a moment, but that was clearly not a great Argentina side and it showed and we should remember that. Their set piece in particular has wobbled like a fat girl getting sodomised and its not exactly surprising we won by the margins we did. Whether the likes of Eastmond, or Webber, or Attwood, or Yarde, or Kvesic or so on will look as good against harder opposition still deserves a big question mark. I'm also not happy about the middle 50 minutes or so of these two tests, prolonged periods of casualness.

That said, a lot of players looked really good, and really deserve the chance to show they can contribute against better opposition. Some really interesting calls ahead.

But to go back to being dour - I think both Tom Wood and Mike Brown missed chances to put down markers. Both players are in really competitive positions, both looked behind the standards of the younger men. Neither anything like Strettle though.

 

[ratsapprentice]

2, it's more being pushed back into our territory where the penalty kicks were taken from.

The first was scored by a winger running from depth.
The second was scored from a pick and drive after holding them out for almost two minutes, and was partly down to PDJ (Our 4th choice utility prop) falling over and not being in a position to tackle.

The scrum =/= open play.

But to go back to being dour - I think both Tom Wood and Mike Brown missed chances to put down markers. Both players are in really competitive positions, both looked behind the standards of the younger men. Neither anything like Strettle though.

I agree on that. The pressure mounts on Wood particularly though, his supposed leadership skills not exactly having shone through.
With Croft playing like he did today and Robshaw being the captain.... looks tough for him.
Foden and Tait coming back into form will have him under pressure too.

Although this was weaker opposition, it should not be forgotten that a lot of these guys have out-performed their competitors in the premiership/heineken too.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

But to go back to being dour - I think both Tom Wood and Mike Brown missed chances to put down markers. Both players are in really competitive positions, both looked behind the standards of the younger men. Neither anything like Strettle though.

True enough.
I wonder if Lancaster might put Robshaw at 6.
Would like to see Foden back at 15, but not sure whether Lancaster would do it - hopefully his recent good form will have put him ahead of Goode and Brown (who I like, but hasn't been playing as well as Foden).

 

[j'nuh]

But to go back to being dour - I think both Tom Wood and Mike Brown missed chances to put down markers. Both players are in really competitive positions, both looked behind the standards of the younger men. Neither anything like Strettle though.

It seems to be a very England thing to go through the fullbacks. Let's see - Balshaw in 2008 I believe. Armitage for the next two or so years. Foden up until the end of the 2011 WC. Brown took over soon after. Goode took over in 2012. Who next?

Seriously, I'm not too thrilled by Brown or Goode, and Foden isn't at his absolute best. Ideally, I really, really, really want to see Daly step up. Partly because he's young and exciting and has bags of pace and a decent kick, but also partly because I've seen him hit penalties from over the halfway line. I hope he puts his hands up for goalkicking duties at Wasps next season with Robinson on the way out. Could be our Halfpenny.

 

[Big Ewis]

(not taking anything away from this England side, but...)
I'd really like to see this side against some good opposition, like, not the Barbarians or this Argie side. Just as an experiment, like, scientific-minded.

I wonder how good they really are, because I was pretty surprised with the Baabaa game, but c'mon, these guys couldn't beat a soccer team (despite the good players there). But England looked good regardless, good fundamentals, and good in many sectors. Semi-props to England.

But this, as I've said, after the first test, and now confirmed by this showing in Game 2; I've seen things from the Argies that enable me to say it's not England that's good and winning, it's Argentina that's terrible and letting England win.
Defense was MISERABLE. They looked under tremendous pressure as England was merely distributing the ball wide in the most standard way, practice-like.

Now - this England team looks good, but those last 3 tests are awfully flattering.

 

[j'nuh]

tbf, some of the passing down the backline was very varied. Burns switched it up nicely, with some flat and some deep passes.

One very, very big thing missing from this particular England backline though, was power. Burns, Eastmond, Joseph, May, Wade - fast players with other skills, but not the kind that break through tackles up the middle. We often went wide before earning the right, and we are going to need some power players to suck in defenders. Tuilagi and Morgan (not a back, but often plays like one) cannot be our only options here.

(On the power angle, in terms of forwards I thought Attwood was a very good addition to the squad and I have him ahead of Lawes now.)

Would love to see somewhere down the line:

9. Youngs/Care 10. Burns 11. Benjamin/Yarde 12. Twelvetrees 13. Tuilagi 14. Wade 15. Daly

21. Youngs/Care 22. Flood 23. Foden/May