The Jones Boy
First XV
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Well I wasn't far off, England scored over 30 points and Fiji struggled to get 11.
England missed a couple of kicks and Fiji missed a hatful.
The teams tried their best and England deserved the victory...
However, there were some very disturbing refereeing decisions in that game.
The worst of them being a Fiji try being disallowed just as the conversion was about to be taken.
It was the right decision but as Johnny Wilkinson pointed out when do you stop going back to reverse a decision, at half time, at the end of the game.
If the try is awarded then it has to stand. It's down to the referee to have a look first before awarding the try if there is any doubt.
That was a very ugly precedent.
Then there was the strange and indeed harsh decision by the referee to upgrade the legal try scored by England early in the first half from a try to a penalty try and then add a yellow card to a Fijian player for something that would rarely if ever receive any card. It left Fiji right on the back foot and while they were a man down England scored 12 unanswered points and there was the game.
Fiji were pretty ordinary, which is Kiwi euphemism for downright average.
At times England were excellent.
At times they looked like they were playing in molasses.
The best player of the night was Mike Brown a livewire performance from fullback. He was the standout.
After that Englands best players were the Samoan Vunipola brothers and the Aussie centre Burgess, those three looked excellent when they came on and England definitely went up a gear. Wigglesworth also looked much better than Ben Youngs at halfback on the night.
A very iffy bonus point try for England in extra time that did not look it had touched the line from the important angle from behind the line but it was awarded and there will be more than a few eyebrows raised in the camps of other teams about important refereeing decisions being swayed by the roaring of the crowd.
England missed a couple of kicks and Fiji missed a hatful.
The teams tried their best and England deserved the victory...
However, there were some very disturbing refereeing decisions in that game.
The worst of them being a Fiji try being disallowed just as the conversion was about to be taken.
It was the right decision but as Johnny Wilkinson pointed out when do you stop going back to reverse a decision, at half time, at the end of the game.
If the try is awarded then it has to stand. It's down to the referee to have a look first before awarding the try if there is any doubt.
That was a very ugly precedent.
Then there was the strange and indeed harsh decision by the referee to upgrade the legal try scored by England early in the first half from a try to a penalty try and then add a yellow card to a Fijian player for something that would rarely if ever receive any card. It left Fiji right on the back foot and while they were a man down England scored 12 unanswered points and there was the game.
Fiji were pretty ordinary, which is Kiwi euphemism for downright average.
At times England were excellent.
At times they looked like they were playing in molasses.
The best player of the night was Mike Brown a livewire performance from fullback. He was the standout.
After that Englands best players were the Samoan Vunipola brothers and the Aussie centre Burgess, those three looked excellent when they came on and England definitely went up a gear. Wigglesworth also looked much better than Ben Youngs at halfback on the night.
A very iffy bonus point try for England in extra time that did not look it had touched the line from the important angle from behind the line but it was awarded and there will be more than a few eyebrows raised in the camps of other teams about important refereeing decisions being swayed by the roaring of the crowd.
