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RWC 2011 game preview – England v Romania
There can only be one winner in this game as Romania are ranked 14 places lower than England in the current IRB world rankings at 18th. While Romania have had an extra rest day since their last game against Argentina they will be unable to live with England's superior fitness and skill levels. The real interest will come from HOW England win the game, not IF they win it. They are unbeaten in the tournament so far, having beaten both Argentina and Georgia, but neither of these wins have fully satisfied Head Coach Martin Johnson, the England supporters or the English media.
The 13 – 9 win over Argentina was marred by some of the worst goal kicking in recent memory, from both teams, the overall success rate for goal kicking in the game was an atrocious 35.3% with just 6 accurate kicks from 17 attempts. England's difference maker was substitute scrum half Ben Youngs, who took advantage of a fatigued Argentinian defence to find a gap when he sniped around the fringes of a ruck 5 yards from the Pumas try line and dived under the posts in the 67th minute to virtually guarantee a successful conversion.
The score line of England's second victory against Georgia was a much more edifying 41 – 10 but since it was Georgia's second game in just 4 days and given the fact that Georgia are ranked 12 places below England in 16th the display still lead Martin Johnson to say that England will "go home early" if they don't improve in future games.England's failure to dominate a team who had only played 4 days earlier caused the team to have a "clear the air" meeting this week and also lead to headlines on the BBC Sport website like "England nowhere near best – Flood", "Haskell wants players singled out" (there's no I in team, eh James?) and possibly even more concerning "Steve Thompson relishes England inquest" surely most players would prefer not to feel the need for an inquest at all? Georgia's experienced and strong forward pack managed to perform at the same level as England's in their previous game and over 80 minutes they won 50% of the possession, territorially Georgia outperformed England and they spent 57% of the match playing in England's half of the field.
These statistics should not be repeated against Romania as Romania only have 3 household names in their pack, so the way that England use and recycle the ball will be crucial. After the Argentinian game many supporters laid the blame for England's poor back play at the door of fly half and record points scorer Johnny Wilkinson, he was dropped in favour of Toby Flood for the Georgia game but the forwards' inability to provide the majority of quick ball for him to use does explain why it took England until the 62nd minute to really cut loose as Manu Tuilagi scored the 4th try and 2 more followed in the last 20 minutes to exaggerate the score against an exhausted team.
England's final group game is against the Auld Enemy, Scotland, and depending on how Scotland fair against Argentina that game could decide who qualifies for the Quarter Finals as Pool winner, with the Pool winner likely to avoid a meeting with the All Blacks in the first knock out stage. England's team selection for this game will be intriguing as they will want to give their starting players the chance to shine and build their confidence against an inferior team but they won't want to risk injury to any of their starting players either. Courtney Lawes is still suspended for England having been cited following the Argentina game so they will definitely be missing one of their integral players. With recent injuries to Lewis Moody, Ben Youngs and Mark Cueto lingering fresh in Martin Johnson's memory along with Andrew Sheridan returning home and Nick Easter's back injury causing England to call Thomas Waldrom up as "temporary cover" any more injuries in this game would seriously concern Johnson. The bookmakers make an England victory by 41 – 45 points the favourite result for this game, but if they are to make a statement to the teams ranked above them they should dominate both in terms of possession and territory and winning by more than 45 points.
Blog by @Buck_Mitchell
