Now I've had some sleep here are my thoughts on the rugby played:
Overall I thought it was a reasonable game of rugby, though the weather conditions made it more difficult to play open rugby in the 2nd half. I agree with the suggestion that England had the better of the 1st half. I thought they dominated the 1st 20 or so minutes, but the AB's did fight back in the later part of the half. Despite not being rewarded with a huge amount of points (thorough a combination of poor goal-kicking, poor execution close to the line, and desperate England defense) I felt the AB's were quite dominant in the 2nd half. There was a clear change in tactical approach by England in the 2nd half. It may have had something to do with the weather conditions, but where-as in the 1st half they were happy to play with pace, in the 2nd they went out of their way to slow the game down (even when they were chasing the game in those last 5 minutes).
A few England players really stood out for me:
- Hartley's work-rate impressed, while the reserve props obviously did a strong job at scrum time.
- Attwood was brilliant at lock, and I was really impressed with Kruis too. England certainly have no shortage of quality locks!
- I felt the England were largely outplayed in the loose-forwards. Robshaw and Wood worked hard but weren't as effective as their counter-parts, and we managed to contain Vunipola for a change (he has done some damage against us in the past).
- The midfield was very strong defensively, though didn't offer a lot on attack.
- Johnny May. Wow he's got some speed! I thought he looked very sharp. Mike Brown was pretty average IMO - he hasn't really performed up to his capabilities against the AB's in recent tests.
For the AB's:
- The starting front-row did a pretty good job overall, though as Nickdnz mentioned they didn't seem to be rewarded despite dominating a few scrums (indeed on one occasions were penalized for bringing the scrum down despite driving the England scrum backwards!). Franks tackling was much better than in recent weeks, but he still looks lost when he gets the ball in space. Despite my protesting at the time Coles probably did deserve his yellow. Other refs may have let it go, but the intent to kick an opponent was clearly there. If you do stupid things you shouldn't complain about being yellow carded. Coles used to have a big discipline issue in the past but he has improved in this area - hopefully this was just a one-off incident.
- Retallick was very quiet in the 1st half - not sure what his injury was? Whitelock was good throughout, and was perhaps unlucky not to be awarded a try, while I thought Tuipolotu really impressed from the bench with his physicality.
- The loose-forward trio as a whole was superb IMO. Read was everywhere with ball in hand, and was accurate both at lineout time and on defense. McCaw continued his strong season. As usual he pushed the boundaries at the breakdown (I actually felt he was a bit more conservative than usual in this regard!), and he did make a couple of brilliant (legal) breakdown steals. Kaino was man of the match for me. His physicality - both in attack and defense was one of the real keys for the AB's.
- Aaron Smith was pretty good overall, though I felt he was over-doing the box-kicking early in the match (and was kicking them a bit too far). Perenara made an encouraging cameo. He didn't do anything spectacular, but he seemed to make good (quick) decisions at the back of the breakdown.
- Cruden's general play was actually pretty good IMO. He distributed well, made a nice break, made few mistakes, and made his tackles. His tactic kicking game wasn't quite as accurate as it could have been, and his goal-kicking was not acceptable (2/5). Barrett's goal-kicking wasn't any improvement though (1/3).
- SBW had a bit of a mixed game. He made some good breaks, but forced offloads that weren't on a couple of times, and did blow a couple of tries by passing the wrong way after making said breaks. His defense was solid though. Conrad Smith was very solid barring the early missed tackle on May, as was Crotty when he came on.
- Savea was very well contained by England (for a change). Ben Smith was pretty well contained too, but did cause England some issues in the air. Dagg...... was actually ok. It was no surprise to see him miss the tackle on May, but apart from that (and one wonky clearing kick) he didn't do that bad. He still offers next to nothing with ball in hand against top class opposition - he apparently had
19 runs with the ball this match but failed to break a single tackle. He has a phenomenal ability to put himself off balance as he approaches the defensive line, so opposition players only need to get a hand on him and his tips over. Dammit, that turned into another Israel Dagg rant didn't it.....
