Shaggy
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Beyond The A games with Shaggy – Pool A qualifiers, France V England, Saturday 8th October, Eden park, Auckland
Finally, we are into the business end of the competition, where it's go hard or go home. The pool games were great, with the emphasis mostly on running rugby, and the pursuit of the four try bonus points, but we are now at the knock out stages where it no longer matters what the winning margin is, or how the points are scored.France go into this game on the back of the upset loss to Tonga, and at the time of writing this blog, they were the only nation to have named their playing 22 for any of the quarter final matches. The team is predictably the strongest side that France can field, with the likes of Imanol Harinordoqoy, Nicholas Mas, and William Servat in the forward pack, and with all of the starting backs having been retained from the Tongan game. This may be the biggest surprise, as French coach, Marc Lievermont having decided to persevere with scrum half, Morgan Parra at fly half, when he may have been tempted to start specialist fly half Francios Trinh-Duc instead.
England will obviously name their strongest side as well. The only certainty to miss this game is winger Delon Armitage, who is suspended for this match, after being found guilty of a high tackle in the last match. They will probably smell blood in the water, after France's shock loss to Tonga, and try to finish them off early, and deny France any opportunity to get into the game and restore their confidence. England have had some pretty close games in pool play, and had very close wins over quarter final qualifying contenders, Scotland, and second placed Argentina.
These and the other games in their pool, could be interpreted as England failing to fire just yet, but could also indicate that they have had to play quarter finals/knock out style rugby just to qualify for the knock out stages, and probably are the more battle hardened side, as a consequence of this. It will be interesting to see who appears in the number 10 jersey for England, as this will give an indication of the tactics they are likely to employ. Will it be the running game of Toby Flood, or the kicking oriented game of Jonny Wilkinson? I think that they might use Flood first, and bring Wilkinson off the bench to close out the game from the 60 minute mark onwards.
France of course, should not be under estimated or written off. They have proven at the last world cup that they can come back strongly after a loss - as the old saying goes "The only thing predictable about the French, is their unpredictability". In truth, either of these sides could defeat the other - 14 matches have been played between these sides from 2003 until now, and they share Seven wins each. England probably have the better world cup record though, and have the better record in recent years, with England having won in 2008, 2009, and 2011, and France winning in 2010.
These matches seem to be close, and don't generally blow out to large margins, with the 2009 win to England by 24 points, being the only recent exception. I'd expect England to win this match by a narrow margin.
