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I'd forgotten what a good game this was, shame wales lost....again again again
Good grief, how does Jonny "sideways" May stay in?
Forwards (13)
Dave Attwood (Bath Rugby)
Kieran Brookes (Newcastle Falcons)
Dylan Hartley (Northampton Saints)
George Kruis (Saracens)
Courtney Lawes (Northampton Saints)
Joe Marler (Harlequins)
Matt Mullan (Wasps)
David Wilson (Bath Rugby)
Ben Morgan (Gloucester Rugby)
Chris Robshaw (Harlequins, captain)
Billy Vunipola (Saracens)
Rob Webber (Bath Rugby)
Tom Wood (Northampton Saints)
Backs (10)
Brad Barritt (Saracens)
Mike Brown (Harlequins)
Danny Care (Harlequins)
Kyle Eastmond (Bath Rugby)
Owen Farrell (Saracens)
George Ford (Bath Rugby)
Jonny May (Gloucester Rugby)
Semesa Rokoduguni (Bath Rugby)
Anthony Watson (Bath Rugby)
Ben Youngs (Leicester Tigers)
So
Brown
May
Barrit
Eastmond
Rokoduguni
Coaches kid
Or Coaches kid at 12 with the Other coaches kid at 10? Looks a bit unsettled to me.
Why not just put "Slammin' Sam" straight in there! After all, England are great at converting run'n'wrigglers in to world class rugby players...
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Oh wait, they weren't English. 😀
It's a forward orientated plan. The Abs are going to run right through that back line as soon as they've pulled Barrit out of position and worn out Brown. God help us, at least he's seen sense over twelve trees. We have Eastmond to attack - by himself.... 😐
Have we sorted some dodgy food at the NZ hotel yet? Did the trick in 2012.
Big game for Eastmond after the last all blacks match he played in. So none of you Englishers expecting Farrell at 12 and Ford at 10?
Eastmond is a good player but I'm not sure he is big enough to be an international 12. Ye cannae change the laws of physics captain
I would love to see England play Farrell at 12 and Ford at 10,but I'm Scottish,so no for any positive reasons tbh 😈 I am looking forward to seeing the carnage caused by Reid and McCaw at "HQ" Apparently there are numbers above 8 in a rugby match,but meh.
AA - yes, I think that's quite likely. Ford has played inside Farrell in all English age groups, and they are actually very good friends.
Agree on Eastmond. Very good attacking threat and seems to spot a gap, but he'll have other centres who are 20kg+ more than him running all day long. With little Ford along side him, that's going to be an issue. They can't hide behind each other!
Bring on the Six nations with hopefully a decent pack back with Super Burgess and Tuillagi fit and running at the Welsh. See how you like Gatland ball! (these two both way more than 30kg more than Eastmond....)
jambalaya - Member
The ABs are even more awesome in bad conditions, no matter the weather at Twickenham it won't be like Duneadon.
True, it won't be like Dunedin.
Their stadium has a fixed roof.
So none of you Englishers expecting Farrell at 12 and Ford at 10?
Not me, I don't see Farrell as a 12 with ball in hand and he's not big enough either.
May needs to start running forwards or he'll have to go
In defence Forwards all on the ground nullifying McCaw, Barrit defending the other 15m of width against a full AB back line. Great. I really hope there's some kind of ace in the hole.
In attack it's all about Vunipola and Morgan carrying up hoping the forwards score the hard way. It's posdible an Rastmond offload will get to Roko if he's aloud to pay his own game. But the issue us we will take 30 minutes for one scores where the ABs will take one every ten mins at least.
We are just not dangerous in the backs.
Not me, I don't see Farrell as a 12 with ball in hand and he's not big enough either.
May needs to start running forwards or he'll have to go
He's as big as Conrad Smith, that's big enough. Seems to know how to pass, can kick, good defender but not great as an attacking threat, but better there than at flyhalf...
Let's face it, he's a cert to start, and he's going to be better there than Barrit!
Barrit gets a tough time on here (i used to slate him myself) he was immense in the win against the AB's in 2012 and offers a lot more going forward than he gets credit for. I have always thought that Eastmond was small for a centre. No biggi if he's playing next to someone the size of Tuilagi, but if you've got Care at 9 Ford at 10 Eastmond at 12 and Brown at 15 then the backline is starting to look microscopic.
I'm struggling to see Farrell at 12....no real international experience there and surely we've got better centres. I reckon that he'll get the nod at 10 personally.
Israel Dagg, 14 Ben Smith, 13 Conrad Smith, 12 Sonny Bill Williams, 11 Julian Savea, 10 Aaron Cruden, 9 Aaron Smith, 8 Kieran Read, 7 Richie McCaw (c), 6 Jerome Kaino, 5 Samuel Whitelock, 4 Brodie Retallick, 3 Owen Franks, 2 Dane Coles, 1 Wyatt Crockett.
Replacements: 16 Keven Mealamu, 17 Ben Franks, 18 Charlie Faumuina, 19 Patrick Tuipulotu, 20 Liam Messam, 21 TJ Perenara, 22 Beauden Barrett, 23 Ryan Crotty.
No Carter or Nonu, must be shit, mighty stout yeoman englishers by 20
Bahh, even my one eyed optimism is in decline here. AB's by 20 at least.
I'm feeling miserable already.
I'm feeling miserable already.
+1 thats a full AB's side vs a depleted English side - is our only excuse. 🙁
Yeah or that fact that we are shite..
I predict (somewhat predictably as I moan about this every time england play) that we will resort to Tindall-Ball.
Here the first receiver gives the ball to a trundlemuppet who charges into a wall of All Black and goes to ground despite having umpteen fast movers outside him, who can actually catch. No attempt or consideration of offload will be made, because in true Royal Mike style the fantasy of breaking 7 tackles and heading for the line in solo medal winning effort is way more powerful than the reality that rugby is normally won by creativity and fast ball movement. Especially as the Queen or David Beckham may be in the crowd.
This is about selfish glory hunting and pretty much the opposite of teamwork that we see from the Kiwis.
After going to ground 13 of the men in white will be drawn in to a man mess, the kiwis will commit a couple of defenders. Then we will either give away a penalty for holding on/off feet/offside or they will turn it over and score a try by passing the ball 6 times in as many seconds.
Repeat ad nauseam.
The English way of making the defeat look smaller is to limit the number of tries the All Blacks get by making sure the ball spends 50% of the game buried under a mountain of quivering englishmen.
Ha ha the optimism of a few day ago has gone 😆
In my experience it pays to have low expectations of England
thats a full AB's side
Missing one of the best players in the world in Carter and the worlds best 12, in favour of a bloke who gets pissed and misses flights and some bloke who only plays Union once every four years or so....England by 30
toys, that is possibly the most accurate prediction I've ever seen of a rugby match!
optimism pigface? nope, none here. If we had the almighty Tuilagi in there to beat the all blacks by himself then maybe, but not now.
I would love to see Rokoduguni (sp?) get a run at few lesser teams before getting a harsh lesson in defensive work.
Hmmm, worrying that my excitement around the England team at the moment surrounds an injured league convert, an injured Samoan, an uncapped Fijian and half a dozen injured forwards (including another pacific islander)!!
I would love that bloke who only plays union every few years pulling on a white shirt!
edit: 3:38 in this. I like league converts!
A-A why the bitterness towards S-B Williams?I thought he was your back up man crush 😛
May and Rokoduguni start ❓
Considering the injuries, that's not a bad 1 - 10, and Barritt and Brown are solid, I don't fancy our chances of winning, but I don't think we'll be far behind. Not happy with the wings though, especially May, and that's coming from a Gloucester fan through and through.
Pretty much as expected:
15. Mike Brown (Harlequins, 29 caps)
14. Semesa Rokoduguni (Bath Rugby, uncapped)
13. Brad Barritt (Saracens, 18 caps)
12. Kyle Eastmond (Bath Rugby, 4 caps)
11. Jonny May (Gloucester Rugby, 7 caps)
10. Owen Farrell (Saracens,25 caps)
9. Danny Care (Harlequins, 48 caps)
1. Joe Marler (Harlequins, 22 caps)
2. Dylan Hartley (Northampton Saints, 57 caps)
3. David Wilson (Bath Rugby, 37 caps)
4. Dave Attwood (Bath Rugby, 12 caps)
5. Courtney Lawes (Northampton Saints, 32 caps)
6. Tom Wood (Northampton Saints, 30 caps)
7. Chris Robshaw (Harlequins, 28 caps, captain)
8. Billy Vunipola (Saracens, 10 caps)
Replacements
16. Rob Webber (Bath Rugby, 8 caps)
17. Matt Mullan (Wasps, 5 caps)
18. Kieran Brookes (Newcastle Falcons, 2 caps)
19. George Kruis (Saracens, uncapped)
20. Ben Morgan (Gloucester Rugby, 23 caps)
21. Ben Youngs (Leicester Tigers, 38 caps)
22. George Ford (Bath Rugby, 2 caps)
23. Anthony Watson (Bath Rugby, uncapped)
I'd have swapped Yarde for May TBH, even just on the basis he gace the AB's something to think about last time he played them, provides a distraction at least.
A-A why the bitterness towards S-B Williams?I thought he was your back up man crush
Dont need him now Henson is back to light up the LV Cup!!!
Anyway I was being sarcastic, pretty funny eh!!!!
In reality I think that england are set for a spanking but if I say that Zokes will appear and accuse me of racism or something then I'll have to tell him what I think a d get banned again!
All of which is just an elaborate ploy to avoid talking about Wales and their chances.
I'll stick my neck out and say I think we could well win the game but it will probably be a narrow loss. I do not see NZ running up a big score, we didn't see too much of that in the 4 Nations and the USA game tells us very little.
Glasgow stepping up to play Argentina this weekend 🙂
15 Stuart Hogg (Glasgow Warriors); 24 caps
14 Sean Maitland (Glasgow Warriors); 13 caps
13 Mark Bennett (Glasgow Warriors); uncapped
12 Alex Dunbar (Glasgow Warriors); 8 caps
11 Tommy Seymour (Glasgow Warriors); 10 caps
10 Finn Russell (Glasgow Warriors); 2 caps
9 Greig Laidlaw CAPTAIN (Gloucester); 31 caps
1 Alasdair Dickinson (Edinburgh Rugby); 36 caps
2 Ross Ford (Edinburgh Rugby); 77 caps
3 Euan Murray (Glasgow Warriors); 60 caps
4 Richie Gray (Castres); 39 caps
5 Jonny Gray (Glasgow Warriors); 5 caps
6 Rob Harley (Glasgow Warriors); 7 caps
7 Blair Cowan (London Irish); 3 caps
8 Adam Ashe (Glasgow Warriors); 1 cap
- Substitutes -
16 Scott Lawson (Gloucester); 45 caps
17 Gordon Reid (Glasgow Warriors); 3 caps
18 Geoff Cross (London Irish); 32 caps
19 Tim Swinson (Glasgow Warriors); 9 caps
20 Alasdair Strokosch (Perpignan); 40 caps
21 Henry Pyrgos (Glasgow Warriors); 12 caps
22 Duncan Weir (Glasgow Warriors); 15 caps
23 Sean Lamont (Glasgow Warriors); 88 caps
Poor Kyle Eastmond, stuck between a fly half who can't make a break, draw a man or pass the ball and inside an outside centre who can't do anything except tackle.
SL can drop him with a clear conscience after Saturday.....?
I can't understand his ignoring of Christian Wade. Sure, a couple of defensive bloopers with bouncing balls this season but he's the most dangerous finisher available. Can't see what May and Nowell are doing in the squad.
It's all looking a bit muddled to me now. I can't see England kicking their way to victory. You generally need to score 30+ points to beat the ABs so that requires a few tries.
The ABs have a great lineup. No real weaknesses there. Carter is not quite up to speed so better to let him ease back in against a tier two nation like Scotland.
France team to play Fiji. Some well known names there......oh......wait a minute - PSA has been taking whatever pills Lievremont was taking!
France: Scott Spedding, Yoann Huget, Alexandre Dumoulin, Wesley Fofana, Teddy Thomas, Camille Lopez, Sébastien Tillous-Borde, Alexandre Menini, Guilhem Guirado, Nicolas Mas, Pascal Papé, Yoann Maestri, Thierry Dusautoir (c), Bernard Le Roux, Damien Chouly
Replacements from: Xavier Chiocci, Benjamin Kayser, Uini Atonio, Alexandre Flanquart, Sébastien Vahaamahina, Charles Ollivon, Rory Kockott, Rémi Talès, Maxime Mermoz, Mathieu Bastareaud
The only surprise (to me) was that he hasn't dropped Wesley Fofana.
FYI Spedding and Kockott are both Saffers but I think Teddy Thomas is totally French - despite the moniker.
Australia (15-1) - Israel Folau; Adam Ashley-Cooper, Tevita Kuridrani, Christian Leali'ifano, Joe Tomane; Bernard Foley, Nick Phipps; Ben McCalman, Michael Hooper (capt), Sean McMahon; Rob Simmons, Sam Carter; Sekope Kepu, Saia Fainga'a, James SlipperReserves: James Hanson, Tetera Kaulkner, Ben Alexander, James Horwill, Will Skelton, Matt Hodgson, Will Genia, Quade Cooper, Rob Horne
So Quade and Genia to come off the bench and shatter our dreams with the last play?
What's happened to Yarde? Is he injured, or has the fact that to him a rugby ball really is a wet bar of soap at the minute seen him dropped?
Can't say that the England team fills me with huge confidence tbh. Conservative choice in the backs as always.
Predictions for today
Aus by 12 against a rusty wales
NZ by 8-10 England lacking attacking threat
Scotland by 5 because thats what TJ would say
SA by 3-5 v injury ravaged ireland.
I'd say similar a_a, although I reckon SA may have a 10+ winning margin and maybe there'll only be a couple of points between England and ABs
Wow. May answer critics a bit.
Wales don't have that mental strenghth,they more often than not panic/make mistakes that the top teams just don't do.
Bit of an odd match so far, ref letting an awful lot go. Not bad viewing for a neutral.
Right. So now the AB's will come out like bullets from a gun. Can we respond with 40 mins of match winning intensity?
May and Brown need to have a chat with each other that's for sure.
Same old same old
Yep. Abysmal. Taught a lesson by the ab's - again.
So england lost too? Bunch of arse they are just used to a higher intensity all the time, its why aussie play so well under pressure.
Bloody solid stuff from the AB's second half!! We never had the ball and played 90% in our own half. 135 games and 89% win record for Maccaw. Roll on him Meelamu Read and Cater retiring!!!
Edit, nice little try at the end to confirm my scoreline prediction!
Meh. How is farrell still in an England strip.
Farrell?? Forget him how the hell is Priestland allowed to even be in the squad. Arse so close again, 😥
Is it too much to expect Keith Wood to know its Alun-Wyn Jones not Alun Wyn-Jones...it really pisses me off.
Priestland is poor him coming on was a disaster. Not really anyone else though. Patchel would be my pick and this new kiwi poach may do the bench backup to Biggar.
And don't forget your bootees, 'cause it's cold outside.
Go Bokke 🙂
Good start by Ireland .
The gouger is on. C'mon Ireland
Ireland reserves going well here!!
Well done ireland
Fantastic performance from us. BOD who? POM at the breakdown was immense
Well, SL can rest soundly if he wants to drop eastmond next week, he'd be well within his rights. Roko fared very well. I do wonder if there is a fair case just to not select any tiggers players? The club is quite obviously doing something very wrong considering all of their injuries.
wow, did not see that coming - well done Ireland.
We need at least a wee Scotland mention! Well, that was very pleasant to watch for once. Lots of promise, ambition and adventure but without the panic, errors and woeful finishing of recent years.
It would have been nice to really make a statement in the second half and to have made the final score somewhere closer to 50-10, which it easily could have been. Some fragility still there in the second half, despite some good tackling and defence at times, that does leave me concerned we could easily still get a hiding next week.
Still, all-in-all very positive and the best I've seen from us in a long time.
England weren't good enough to win that game, they should look very hard at how they performed against one of the poorest displays I've ever seen from a NZ side. Owens was clueless from the point he awarded that first try to missing a typical McCraw hands in the ruck move but in reality that made no difference.
Haven't seen the highlights of Irish game but great result.
What on earth were Scotland doing right at the end?
What on earth were Scotland doing right at the end?
I think the intention was to play one simple phase then kick it out to end the game (otherwise the line-out would have been played). They made an ar$e of it.
Lot of positives in the scotland performance, finally looks like we have an assured 10 with a kicking and running game.
Jonny G was superb in the 2nd row his failure to release Bennett was probably his only mistake.
Finish to the game was poor and unnecessary and Argentina were not great bit we still had to go out and win the game.
not seen any of the match but great result for Ireland.
In the Millennium Stadium for the Wales game on the try line and got to see 3 Wales tries over it 🙂
Despite having the ref radio on I couldn't get what the 1st Aus penalty was for. Joubert called not releasing but the ball was passed out of the tackle and the following Aussie knocked on. Thought it was advantage but the kick was taken from by the play. What did I miss?
Jambalaya, Owens clueless.. yeah right
I thought Owens was being a bit of a homer to be honest, didn't think the AB's got out of third gear to be honest. Who knew May could run in a forward direction 😆
I thought owens let england off with Whitelocks dive through I'd have given that.
Horrible niggly ****s those kiwi's arent they.
Horrible niggly **** those kiwi's arent they.
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Yep. Which is a massive shame, as all of their nasty thuggery detracts from them being a great rugby side. The whole pandering to their "brand name" and silly dance is equally annoying. The IRB are a bunch of pussies about it.
Same old rhetoric from SL - we're no closer to beating the ABs regularly than we were before.
Terrific result for Ireland but can they build from it?
Scotland may have a backline at last. Maybe Cotter will succeed where many have failed.
Wales should cancel all future fixtures against the Aussies. It's getting really, really tedious.........
Thats outright thuggery. Savea's pushing Roko's head into the dirt showsca lack of class
No, AA, when they do it, it's "pission"(Accent required).
Much like it was "pission" when they speared BOD in a targeted assault.
Detracts from them as a great rugby team.
I just don't see it like that Flashy The Hore thing was condemned by the Kiwis I know.
Yes they got a bit silly about us saying as hosts we will perform our anthem after the Haka but 90% of the crowd was looking forward to it.
The Haka is a Maori challenge, and one which I believe expects a reply. If any of the NZ team were Maori, they should respect that. (Not sure how many of them are above 1/4 Maori these days, though!) When (if!) they get round to playing in the Pacific Islands, are they still going to demand their special treatment, when their hosts should have the honour of performing the Sivi Tau or the Cibi?
The IRB pander to the brand. Hell, even the Raging Potato agreed with me on this one on R5 the other day!
Their assault on BOD was a shameful incident in rugby. Yes, it's a tough game, and contact is expected, but that act was up there with Calum Clarke's thuggery for me.
Agree on the IRB but not on the Clarke thing, I heard that on 5live and the tater was pretty strong on it.
@aa the first AB try wasn't even close and Owens decided no TMO required in awarding it. The "dive through" he pushed the ball forward along the ground with no semblance of downward pressure. Was never going to be a try. As I said that doesn't matter as we should have put a poor NZ team away.
Missed the Wales game as was travelling to and enjoying hospitality at Twickenham. Shame as I felt the Aussies were there for the taking, in spite of their recent improvements in the Bledisloe Cup. Frustratingly for Wales, the current crop just aren't as good as they need to be and are evidently populated by too many big egos. Hope they can turn this round as the anguish of watching them lose is hard to take.
England had 10 good minutes but only got one of the two tries they should have. It was a super try though. But then they descended into the standard disarray - forwards far better than the backs. Farrell wasn't great, but I suspect he had little confidence in indecisive three quarters.
At the game ghr crowd's feeling was that Owens was poor. i usually hate it when people complain about the officials but I did have sympathy with the England fans.
Agree with flashy et al about the ABs being culturally untouchable. Because no-one's allowed to challenge the Haka as the Irish did, the fans seemed to take it on themselves to do it. Can't see anything wrong with challenging it either.
Congratulations to both Scotland and Ireland. Esp the latter!
And for completeness, another frutratinhly narrow loss for England against NZ on the Four Nations. I can't see them making the final. I get the "we're a young side" line, but isn't that what the FA always say about Englsnd football?
aa the first AB try wasn't even close
It was close enough for one of the best regarded refs in the world to give when he was positioned in the perfect spot. It looked like a try to me on telly.
are evidently populated by too many big egos.
Who are these big ego's who are holding Wales back? How do you come to such an opinion?
Can't see the ego thing. The team put a shift in yesterday, they don't have strength in depth so when key players get injured they're screwed.
Jake Ball and Samson Lee were very impressive and Biggar was solid. Webb is a liability, chose the wrong pass too often and telegraphs long miss passes making him easy to intercept.
the first try wasn't close? What was wrong with it? I missed that completly.
The biggest ego in the Welsh camp is the WRU, with what goes on behind the scenes I'm amazed that Wales perform as well as they do.
Fair play Scotland, but a real test next week and well done Ireland. Bloody excellent.
The biggest ego is Phillips and if more had his attitude Wales might beat Aus every once in a while. Warburton was outstanding yesterday really world class but he shouldnt be captain AW Jones should. If Samson Lee can improve his play around the park to Dan Cole levels he could be very very special. Just need to find a replacement for Gethin because whoever that bloke is who came on for Wales yesterday he aint Gethin. Hibbard is still mad, Roberts did well, North and Cuthbert OK. Liam Williams is great but just not quite goid enough at that level, Priestland and Webb were poor.
Biggar and 1/2p injured. Cometh the hour cometh the man god.
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