New Zealand vs England

[QLD]

New Zealand have the edge after defeating the Poms in the pool stages but can England finally find some form and book a spot in the final?

I might get tickets if there's any left.

6:55pm Brisbane time (7:55pm AEST) Saturday, November 15 Suncorp Stadium.

 

[St Helens RLFC]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_league/7721897.stm

England team news.

No Gardner and McGuire? OK, so you decide to omit our only genuine threat with ball in hand in the backs, and you decide to omit Super League's best winger for the last two seasons?

He's either lost the plot or he's playing mind games. If he means this, he should pay for it with his job when we lose. Gardner should be starting and McGuire should be at least on the bench.

I despair, I really do.

 

[Vambo]

hmmmm.........

Won't matter who plays on the wing since neither of our centres seem capable of getting the ball to them but no McGuire? That's just plain stupid.

Lets hope this is indeed just mind games.

I'm working Saturday morning and whilst I could get out of it, given the crap served up by England so far I think I'd rather be at work :wacko:

 

[danny]

I pick England to finally put together a good performance and march through to a final humiliation against the Aussies.

 

[Gay-Guy]

NZ 32
ENG 22

Such a tense game...almost worthy of a final.

England forwards had a clear dominance over the kiwis.  They always seemed to make easy yards.  Their halves seemed to have so much more time and space to work their magic English backs looked very dangerous and their patterns were impressive.  

The NZ team looked very workmanship with their forwards...nothing flash at all.  They had to do a lot of running from the ruck to be able to get any sort metres.  The backs were very so and so.

To me it seemed like the winning and losing of the game simply came down to handling errors.  England played with more enterprise....however a lot of mistakes can come from playing an enterprising game and it seemed that sometimes their fast paced wide game with its variety often had lapses of concentration which resulted in knock ons, forward passes, etc.  The two final kiwis tries came from the English bumbling of cross field kicks...and multiple bumbling at that. For instance the second to last kiwi try came from a cross kick which had an English guy jump to kick it but instead spilling it backwards....the next English guy trying to clean up the loose ball on the ground totally misses it.  The Kiwis last try was just as comical as the ball went loose from another cross field kick....Benji Marshall picks up the ball and runs infield then turns to pass it back out INTO THE HANDS of an English guy WHO BUMBLES the intercept (and a possible chance to run 100 metres to the Kiwi tryline) straight into the hands of a kiwi.  How did the kiwis get to this end of the field in the last minute?  Well England on attack with 4 minutes to go 15 metres out from the kiwi line mis pass a ball....the player who goes back for the bad pass BUMBLES it....NZ scrum...a few rucks upfield....kick...England field the kick on their line....winger runs it straight at two kiwis and BUMBLES the ball straight into the hands of a kiwi!!!!!

I was obviously supporting the Kiwis but I could only sit after a while flabbergasted that a team that should have beaten us have such poor ball retention skills.  It started to make me wonder whether the NRL based kiwis are used to game that is slightly harder in the contact area.  The kiwis did play with less enterprise and seemed to protect the ball a bit more from handilng errors than the English.  In the end the lower error rate from the Kiwis got them home despite their suspect defence and lack of go forward in their pack.  

 

[Fozastuta]

For a top international side, to make that many errors, it was only going to end in tears for the English. Alot of work needs to be done on the game as a whole.

 

[St Helens RLFC]

Very sad way to go out, because it's the first time we've summoned the much vaunted English pride and passion. As Gay Guy said, it came down to handling errors. I didn't think we got the rub of the green with the officiating, for the fourth game out of four, but the referee doesn't drop the ball, and we just did it way too much today.

 

[bates]

Saw the review on BBC, only the England Skipper made a good impression on me, like the hosts said, there's not really a team on the pitch.
NZ brought some nice rugby.

 

[Wally]

LOL England. Can't wait for the final... n't.

 

[esoj]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (St Helens RLFC @ Nov 16 2008, 01:14 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div>

Very sad way to go out, because it's the first time we've summoned the much vaunted English pride and passion. As Gay Guy said, it came down to handling errors. I didn't think we got the rub of the green with the officiating, for the fourth game out of four, but the referee doesn't drop the ball, and we just did it way too much today.[/b]

I don't know about that, I think england definitely got some big calls going their way in this match. Vatuvei was definitely taken out while challenging for a bomb which should have been a penalty to nz but none was given.

 

[QLD]

Fark sake England that was an awful tournament all up very disapointing

 

[Gay-Guy]

England have a whole lot more potential to beat the Kangaroos next week than the Kiwis do.  England just needed one more week to get match toughened especially with their ball retention.  NZ are now playing at their peak....however their peak is not good enough.  If England had not done so many mistakes with their handling then they would have dominated the Kiwis.  The English attack is very similar to the Kangaroos....in fact it may even be a bit MORE flamboyant than the Kangaroos.  The Australians have an edge on everyone else because they can play at a higher tempo WITHOUT as many handling errors as other teams.

Remember the game where the Kiwis won the 3N in 2005?  Both sides played very well.  The only difference was that the Kangaroos made a heap of handling errors while the Kiwis made very little.  Every handling error in league means one team did not finish a set and have to now defend.

 

[Vambo]

England RL will win f*** all until the Superleague gets over it's obsession with doing everything at 100 miles per hour!
The Aussies are lightyears ahead of us and the gap is actually widening and sadly I can only see it getting bigger. Hopefully lessons will be learnt from our pathetic showing but somehow I doubt it.

 

[Gay-Guy]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Vambo @ Nov 17 2008, 01:32 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div>

England RL will win f*** all until the Superleague gets over it's obsession with doing everything at 100 miles per hour![/b]

Good point.
Perhaps it is the defence that is lacking in its ability to slow down the 100 miles and hour attack play?  I am sure the NRL teams in attack try and play at 100 miles an hour....it is just that the defence is also going at its fastest trying to rush up and kill it.  The theory is the faster the line speed is the slower the attack will move up.  Aussie teams do so much fitness on defence trying to have a good line speed that can last the 80 minutes.  This is where the NZ Warriors have over the years fallen a bit short where our big poly boys sometimes struggle to keep up.

 

[Vambo]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Gay-Guy @ Nov 17 2008, 12:54 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div>

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Vambo @ Nov 17 2008, 01:32 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

England RL will win f*** all until the Superleague gets over it's obsession with doing everything at 100 miles per hour![/b]

Good point.
Perhaps it is the defence that is lacking in its ability to slow down the 100 miles and hour attack play?  
[/b][/quote]

Unfortunately the defence is penalised out of the game over here. The refs penalise anything they can at the PTB except the actual PTB which they have allowed to become nothing more than a token gesture of aiming a boot in the general direction of the ball.
It seems sometimes that teams are more interested in playing for penalties and the easy yards that comes with them instead of actually trying to get the ball upfield through good carries or creating breaks.