[2015 RWC] Pool A: England vs. Australia (03/10/2015)

[Dav]

England did exactly what I said they shouldn't; run and fall at the feet of Pocock and Hooper... that was just meat and drink to them


I don't now whether Australia was very very good last night, or England were just bloody awful. England missed 15 tackles last night, and the Wallabies made them pay, but the Wallabies missed 22 tackes, and England didn't capitalise.

So, what was England missing in this campaign

1. A Genuine 7.
Instead, they had a 6 wearing a 7 jersey. If you want to go away from your usual 10 man rugby game plan and play the open, running style that the All Blacks and the Wallabies play you MUST have a genuine fetcher.

2. A settled midfield.
All they did leading up to RWC was chop, change, rearrage and experiment with God knows how many different 12/13 combinations. I read somewhere that they had 14 different starting midfield combinations in their last 15 tests (can anyone tell me if this is true?).

3. A decent scrum
I never thought I would ever say this about England, but their scrum today was absolute pants! They were utterly dominated by a vastly improved Australian pack, largely thanks to the Wallabies Argentinian scrum coach, ex Puma Mario Ledesma. Argies know how to scrum!!!

4. Leadership on the pitch
I had my suspicions about Robshaw when England toured hear last year. He seemed to carry the same attitude to captaincy on the field that Rocky Elsom did a few years ago; not interested in listening to what the referee tells him, more interested in having his say. Also, there appears not to be a "leadershiop group" on the pitch. In the All Blacks, that group is comprised of a few senior players who assist McCaw (Liam Messam, Conrad Smith, Ma'a Nonu, Dan Carter & Kieren Read). For the Wallabies its Genia, AAC, Hooper & Pocock. If England does have a leadership group, it wasn't apparent in this game.

I also have to wonder about the infrastructure of English rugby. They have the biggest player base and the biggest budget of any National Rugby Union in the world. What on earth are they doing wrong? Is Stuart Lancaster really the top rugby coach in England? They have 12 fully professional club rugby teams. Surely they must have systems in place to identify coaching talent. Its no accident that over a third of the teams at RWC have kiwi coaches.

New Zealand (Steve Hansen)
Wales (Warren Gatland),
Ireland (Joe Schmidt),
Scotland (Vern Cotter),
Canada (Kieran Crowley),
Fiji (John McKee)
Georgia (Milton Haig)

This is becasue we have a coaching talent identification system that works.

IMO, they should offer Dave Rennie a truckload of money to move to England. I hear he is keen to coach in UK

Would you consider taking over as manager? You seem to know exactly what went wrong.

 

[ncurd]

Campese's a tosser has been for years. Any time he oppionates on the English team it's a bunch of hate driven nonsense. One would think we stole his lunch money as a kid.

 

[LeinsterMan (NotTigsMan)]

He's honestly one of the best out there. If Hansen were to suddenly drop dead tomorrow, I would want Wayne as headmaster straight away. But to be straight with you, I think Wayne would reject the job.

Just saw this from David Campese, he has written in the Australian Financial Review on why, for Australians, it is always a great feeling beating "the Poms"


"A sense of entitlement. That attitude of "We gave the world this or this sport - we are its true guardians". The English also have a tendency to gloat in victory. Maybe it is just the media. England have the most resources, the largest pool of players, the biggest fan base. They should win. Only mostly they don't. You build them up like there is no tomorrow. It is the same with football. All that money and hype".

I think he would unless Hansen seemed to crash and burn here and NZ go out in the quarters.

Smith has said he looked at the offer 4 years ago, and he is now 4 years older nearly 60 he should be looking at being a head coach now IMO he is to good to be just a super rugby coach and a assistant coach.

He may well reject it but if he got power to reform stuff as he wants I can't see him turning it down now.

 

[Every Time Ref]

Having trawled through pages of despair, analysis and the occasional gloating Rugby World Cup Single-Issue Troll, there's not a lot to say about that performance which hasn't been said already, (and not that much that wasn't being said before the game, depressingly). So in a spirit of forced positivity, like the "Congratulations!" you push through gritted teeth when your mate tells you he's got engaged to his psycho girlfriend, these are my silver linings:

At the risk of jumping on the bandwagon, a reasonable chance that this debacle will see changes in the coaching staff. To what extent, and how, is a whole other discussion (I haven't even attempted that thread yet, I'm sure there are some forthright opinions…) but it's clear now that without overreacting there is a real need for change in the England set up and last night surely should precipitate the conversation. A tight loss to Wales and another to Australia could have allowed the RFU some wriggle room, but not after that.

Healthy competition for the flyhallf slot. While both Ford and Farrell have their weaknesses, and thus their detractors, I think Ford's performance last night showed that writing off his England future because of a bad performance behind a beaten pack against France was as premature as anointing him King following the 6 Nations, or writing off Farrell after a weak autumn series when he was never really match fit. Equally, Farrell has reiterated his worth with a very good performance against Wales. I see a promising battle for the shirt, where either one of them will rise to the occasion and become the undisputed England fly-half, or they will mix and match according to opposition / match situation. Both on form and both striving to improve can only be good for England.

Launchbury was back to something approaching his best (although not getting over the ball as much as I hoped, a man can't do everything. A lot of debate about his role in the second Aussie try - my instinct at the time was that he was not at fault and on reflection I still don't think so. Firstly, it was a lot more complicated than one player being out of position, defence is a structural thing and if Launchbury had stayed open and the Aussies had hit the gap the other side of the ruck we'd all have *****ed about how England hadn't guarded that side properly. Secondly, and most importantly, it was simply an excellent move, pulled off with precision at full pace which didn't give the defenders time to react - the essence of good attacking play. It's easy to want to find fault in the defence whenever a team concedes a try, especially when it's your team, but sometimes you just have to give the attackers credit and that try was a case of superb awareness to identify the opportunity and superb skill and timing to turn it into a score. Lastly (which goes for the second try as well), individual defenders and / or defensive systems can easily be made to look bad by having to defend quick ball. That's what all the tries came down to for me; Aus crossed the gainline easily, cleared the resultant ruck quickly and hit a transitional defence where there was always going to be mismatches and, doglegs and poor spacing. It was ruck defence, not the defensive line, which left us looking like amateurs last night.

Barritt - never again. Surely. Surely … ?

Finally, "abject" is one of my favourite words, I don't quite know why but there;s something very satisfying about how utterly unmerciful it is when used to describe someone's complete failure at a task. It's rare I have an opportunity to use it (the word's power comes from using it only for the very worst performances, it shouldn't be diluted like "legend" or "iconic" have been), and tonight England gave me one of those opportunities. So thanks for that, England.

 

[RoosTah]

As awesome as this win was for the Wallabies, it's sadly getting no where near cover story status for either the front or back pages in either NSW or Qld after tonight's insanely epic NRL Grand Final.

Try on the 80th minute to level it for the underdogs, who then seal it with an 81st minute field goal in a 3 try to 2 17-16 thriller. Just insane and it's guaranteed the NRL will dominate the news for at least the next few days.

I'd say it's a shame, because I want the Wallabies back in the national consciousness more, and their win over England is deserving of attention, but at the same time that NRL game was one of the best ever...

 

[Zed]

Campese's a tosser has been for years. Any time he oppionates on the English team it's a bunch of hate driven nonsense. One would think we stole his lunch money as a kid.

Don't worry we hate him too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOCN4dkyvp4

 

[merlinux]

Don't worry we hate him too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOCN4dkyvp4

bit harsh to hate him for that for all the great runs he has done

- - - Updated - - -

As awesome as this win was for the Wallabies, it's sadly getting no where near cover story status for either the front or back pages in either NSW or Qld after tonight's insanely epic NRL Grand Final.

Try on the 80th minute to level it for the underdogs, who then seal it with an 81st minute field goal in a 3 try to 2 17-16 thriller. Just insane and it's guaranteed the NRL will dominate the news for at least the next few days.

I'd say it's a shame, because I want the Wallabies back in the national consciousness more, and their win over England is deserving of attention, but at the same time that NRL game was one of the best ever...

The NRL game was a final so it deserves the spotlight. We need the wallabies to keep going in the knockout stages

 

[Kiwi_]

I think he would unless Hansen seemed to crash and burn here and NZ go out in the quarters.

Smith has said he looked at the offer 4 years ago, and he is now 4 years older nearly 60 he should be looking at being a head coach now IMO he is to good to be just a super rugby coach and a assistant coach.

He may well reject it but if he got power to reform stuff as he wants I can't see him turning it down now.

Yeah, it could hinge on how the All Blacks perform, Wayne might stick around to chase the job if we lose to France/Ireland. But I think I would like Hansen to stay on if we were to crash out early. It would be a learning curve like Henry experienced. To be fair Hansen is a lot more down to Earth and IMO a better coach than Ted. So I think he would deserve another shot and become a more complete coach.

 

[j'nuh]

Scrum analysis:

Sio starts behind Moore and Kepu and tempts Cole forward.

Sio keeps straight. The idea is to lock Cole into position. You see Moore and Kepu start to angle their backs to put pressure on Youngs. With Cole ahead of Youngs and Marler trying to scrummage sideways, Youngs is left alone. You can even see Moore has shifted his body position to put all of his weight into targeting the link between Youngs and Cole.

Fardy keeps straight to help Sio lock Cole, whereas the second row angle themselves to help Moore and Kepu. Moore and Kepu's angles on Youngs become even more pronounced, and Marler's helping them! Moore is driving at that link at this point and you can see him move ahead of his props.

End result and dominating position for Australia. Cole has to angle inwards to help Youngs which puts a stop to any pressure Marler could possibly give by sideways scrummaging, but the England front row is far too split at this point to do anything decent.

 

[RoosTah]

Wow... Imagine what they could have done if they were a "bright" team!

 

[The Jones Boy]

Well done to the Wallabies.
They went into the cauldron of expectation with the English media tearing strips off them, notably Woodward, and they dead headed the English rose in a stylish manner full of pace, grace and ingenuity.
So comprehensive and impressive was the Wallaby victory that many people are now looking at a Springbok and Wallaby meeting because both teams look unstoppable.
At the breakdown the Wallabies were imperious. Robshaw and co. were never in this race.
I'm sad for the English fans on here.
It's bloody hard going out in the pool stages with a game still to play.
I don't envy them that bitter pill.
Only a dead rubber against Uruguay for consolation.
Hard times.

 

[Ospervat]

Scrum analysis:

Sio starts behind Moore and Kepu and tempts Cole forward.

Sio keeps straight. The idea is to lock Cole into position. You see Moore and Kepu start to angle their backs to put pressure on Youngs. With Cole ahead of Youngs and Marler trying to scrummage sideways, Youngs is left alone. You can even see Moore has shifted his body position to put all of his weight into targeting the link between Youngs and Cole.

Fardy keeps straight to help Sio lock Cole, whereas the second row angle themselves to help Moore and Kepu. Moore and Kepu's angles on Youngs become even more pronounced, and Marler's helping them! Moore is driving at that link at this point and you can see him move ahead of his props.

End result and dominating position for Australia. Cole has to angle inwards to help Youngs which puts a stop to any pressure Marler could possibly give by sideways scrummaging, but the England front row is far too split at this point to do anything decent.

Great analysis.
I think there might be a job going for you at the RFU on Monday.
Please apply.

 

[msf]

ShonH, what does a Yank know about rugby?

Answer: even less than a Limey.

The people who are saying we don´t have any good players or know how to play rugby may like to reflect on the fact that we have been the most successful side at u-20 level for the last four years, and that many of those players are in, or close to, the senior side. The difference is that we actually have had good coaches who know the game at that level. The other factor is experience at the senior international level. If Lancaster is sacked, it is quite likely that we will have corrected both issues by the next World Cup.

 

[TheOvalBall]

Australia looked really good yesterday.

 

[LeinsterMan (NotTigsMan)]

England have the talent, would say on par with NZ.

But we like the structure that takes them to England level.

It's a bit like Leicester IMO we have always had decent academy players but getting them to senior level was difficult.

This preseason bring in a NZ coach (Mauger) and we have scored 14 tries in 3 preseason games compared to last preseason were we got 7 tries in 3 games. We have had more academy players play as well.

(Side note Jacob Umaga had a great game yesterday for Tigers @10 looked very calm and aware for 17 year old)

Honestly England RFU need a complete change in ideology and execution.

 

[msf]

Haha, you´ve got to love Stephen Jones´ opinions: today he called for Paul Burke to be given Catt´s job.

 

[wayevs]

Wayevs is just a WC Muppet that comes along to speuw his craps and will soon disappear after Wales get knocked out. Best just to ignore him

Why because I speak the truth, if you lot just accepted your **** instead of pretending your great then there wouldnt be a problem. For a country that has more money , more , teams and resources than any other team in world rugby and to not make it out the pool is just pathetic like you really your the Muppet , I don't care if Australia trouce us which is likely if they play like that because im a realist mate and your a fantasist.

 

[Brit50]

Agree

It starts at the top. The coaching team.
To look at the 31 players selected for WC there is a wealth of talent and skills available.
Where Lancaster and cohorts have failed is to plan, organise, lead and direct that talent into a cohesive unit.

I don't believe there was a lack of passion and belief on the part of the players but if the coaching team haven't given them the tools & skills to execute a plan on the field then the end result is inevitable.

For the likes of Hooper and Pocock (Who's strengths are well known) to have poached that much turnover ball from England without reply is a perfect example of how poor the coaching preparation was. England just didn't have an answer to this.

Quick ball at the breakdown is key in the modern game. England's try came from the only period in the entire game when they managed secure quick successive ball at the breakdown preventing Oz defence getting organised. To be able to achieve this only once in 80 minutes tells me that there was a coaching failure to focus on this aspect as a key component of the game. Why at the breakdown were England constantly out numbered 3:1 or 4:2 even 5:2 on occasions.

What the hell is up with the set pieces. I have never in 40 years known Oz to have been able to push England around quite so easily. What was Lancaster's plan for this. Has he watched Oz this year against Argentina, SA & AB's. Did he see what we all saw. Oz forwards have improved massively in this area in the last 3-4 years. How thorough was the training ground preparation given to this aspect? That cost England 5 penalties.

Selections has been done to death on TRF - the Burgess selection is the tip of the iceberg but it is a small window into the mindset of the coaches and the incongruous selections made. It would appear that Lancaster feels that he does not need to explain his selections despite his accountability and that is quite simply unacceptable.

The England public and faithful fans deserve better. The old saying " you can fool some of the people etc........Well some of the people may be wrong some of the time but not all of the people are wrong all of the time.

Fall on your sword Lancaster. It's game over!

Dead right. After Fiji game I was asking myself who was teaching them to play in this manner, It was a coaches game plan and it was terrible. It was just as bad vs wales. When we were 10pts up i thought we would breeze through rest of game. We went back to crap rugby. Nothing wrong with the players. With a half decent gameplan we could have got to semis probably. We lack the right skill sets at so many positions because of the pedantic style of rugby we play at league level. I'm glad we're out. Perhaps we can have a good discussion about how to play this modern game. Maybe we could look at thesuccessful sides and even hire a manager who can teach it..

 

[McTallshort]

No your a dick

 

[Brit50]

Spot on. We're still playing last century style rugby. It doesn't take a genius to realize we should be looking at maybe emulating the teams who are consistently successful. Amazing how it is the Kiwi/Antipodean coaches who are also bringing out the best in their players.