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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mrs. Peter Quinn" data-source="post: 457016" data-attributes="member: 12190">Ok, so first off well done France, and congratulations to all the french fans on here, elgringoborracho, zefrenchy, aout, Mr cyclopede, enjoy the feeling! A world cup semi-final is nothing to be sniffed at, and I do think France have what it takes to cause problems for any team.Now, England. Gingergenius I'm surprised you were not more critical of our performance. I think Johnson is in trouble. Not because, he makes insane selections, but just his stubborn rejections of common sense. How many times do we have to see that Corbisiero is a better loosehead than Stevens before we do something about it!? I don't care if Easter plies his trade at 8 and can control the ball off the back of the scrum, if he can't do anything else then he shouldn't be there. Haskell has been our best backrow forward for ages, offering some new power and go forward ball from the back, yet he gets dropped? I don't care if Moody is ferocious and throws himself about like a 'crazy horse'. We need a 7. I think we would have had a better world cup campaign with a backrow of Croft, Fourie and Haskell, not because thats the best we can do but because thats a better balance. Is Moody really our answer to Warburton, mccaw, pocock, brussow etc? Deacon played ok against Scotland but why did Shaw not get any gametime at all? Palmer always deserved to start, and lawes is great but if hes not quite hitting the mark, why resort to Deacon. Hooker is a problematic position. I think Hartley offers a much better all-round game, as long as he has any semblance of form. I don't know where to begin with the backline. People will start announcing that wilko's england days are over but I don't see what happened today that we didint already know before. He is still failing to do the basics well, whilst Flood is attacking the opposition line and showing a way forward. The thing that exasperates me is how long mj has persevered with hape, only to lose confidence at him in precisely the worst moment. He played one of his best ever games against georgia, and didint play a single world cup minute after that. He is a 12! If you are going to use him to take up a precious spot in the 30 man squad, ****ing use him! You can't just shove other people around out of usual position. By ignoring the problem that has been wilkinson at 10 you shift the problem elsewhere and make things worse. I just cant believe that hape took up a place and then wasnt used when he was most needed(sad as it is).  if you are going to try flood and wilkinson together at 12 and 10 why wait until the quarters? what was wrong with 10) flood 12) hape 13)tuilagi? I don't know about scrum half, I still think youngs is a great hope but if he keeps spazzing about then why ignore simpson.Wigglesworth is, as teh mite would probably say, a club "journeyman" at best and not an international. ultimately you have to be picked on merit and recent eprformances and simpson was great last season for wasps.Lastly we can't just keep ignoring deserving players who play well every week. You have to pick the best, most desering players first, and then choose your gameplan. Not, as MJ does, works out how he wants to play, and chooses the players according, hence tindall and hape in midfield for so long. On that point, johnson wasted so much time with hape and tindall together, only to change it at the critical moment! Unbelievably inept coaching. we cant just keep ignroing robshaw and JSD for example. Robshaw could rise to be as good as warburton has, but you have to give him a chance!I think martin johnson is learning all the time, but he has to go basically, (and i'm usually one to despise knee-jerk reactions to poor performances). the management set-up is not right, and we cant keep ignoring it simply because we win games from time to time. we mostly have played poorly for a while now.we have a talneted team, we just need someone who knows how to use that.P.s thank you tuialgi for being our best player yet again.and well done wales and france!What really enrages me is how much spotlight we put on our sports teams(old news i know), and also how much time our rugby team gave the media. I hate reading bbc pieces in which flood says 'england to blitz france from the beginning'. You can spout as much **** as you want but it doesnt make you any more likely to actually do the deed. I don't want to constantly hear england players saying 'we've turned it around after a good team-meeting', until we actually see them do that. I honestly think the England team should be seen and not heard. We can blame the tabloids for being wankers as usual and kicking up shitstorms but ultimately all other media groups followed after that</blockquote>

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