Australia V England

[Gnu]

Well, that was a surprise!

I had the Aussies down as WC winners for the last few years, provided they sorted out the front row, which I thought they had shored up but they plainly haven't.

Shame Wales couldn't have played Aus in the same overconfident mood they were in today.

England did two things today that have been missing for 4 years; they played as a team and they played as if they enjoyed being rugby players. Perhaps the underdog label helped, but well done to the team, especially Andy Gomersall who has beenworld-class and overlooked for years.

Joe Worsley - why? Please only pick him when England play Wales

Great game, great entertainment and proof that you don't need a try-fest

Cheers!

 

[Brodizzle]

C'mon Pete, this is a nation which thinks Matt Dunning is a good prop by being a lazy fat f***er alone.
[/b]

No one thinks that, you have to understand that the game over here is mostly run by the NSW old boys, who have had thier head up thier asses for many years...Dunning is a joke and everyone but the selectors think so...I mean, how can you explain something like a non performer such as Tuquiri getting in the squad game in, game out?

We know our problems yet it seems the ones in charge of the Wallabies don't, besides, Connolly was already losing his job after the World cup despite the result so why bother blooding some of our young talent.

PS. If they blood alot of the brilliant young talent around then 2011 should be immense for Australian rugby, even before this world cup many of your enlightened rugby fans looked more towards 2011 then this 2007....

 

[Klarkash-ton]

I think the way the Ref handled the scrums had a huge impact. In other games (TriNations for example, NZ v Scotland the other week is another) when one scrum has been totally dominant, the refs for some reason have been coming out with all sorts of free kicks and penalties for the weaker scrum. This may have given the Aussie scrum the thought they were improving more than they had.

 

[Brodizzle]

This may have given the Aussie scrum the thought they were improving more than they had.
[/b]

Nah, that woulda been the bs all the paper had been spinning about how great it was now and how Dunning was a world class player, well, the papers and the coaches...at least thier bubble have finally been burst...not really at the stage I would have liked however...

 

[AllezWasps]

It's been odd to watch Australia in the last 4 years, they were not expected to get into the final last time, so you were planning on from a upset. In actual fact your current side may even be better than the 2003 one.

 

[danny]

Well, that was a surprise!

I had the Aussies down as WC winners for the last few years, provided they sorted out the front row, which I thought they had shored up but they plainly haven't.

Shame Wales couldn't have played Aus in the same overconfident mood they were in today.

England did two things today that have been missing for 4 years; they played as a team and they played as if they enjoyed being rugby players. Perhaps the underdog label helped, but well done to the team, especially Andy Gomersall who has beenworld-class and overlooked for years.

Joe Worsley - why? Please only pick him when England play Wales

Great game, great entertainment and proof that you don't need a try-fest

Cheers!
[/b]

I must admit I agree with most of what u say Gnu. The underdog label certainly would help any team. In fact England had nothing to lose, they had already been wrote off by all the papers which must have galvanised them. This was the sort of game the inteligent,knowledgeable, purist fan loves.If u want scores every 2mins watch basketball, if u want pure grit , passion , drama and guys playing for the pride of their nation u just got it.
U are right about Worsley he plays with his head up his ass.Not a great thing for an openside.
Only thing u didnt have right was the fact that Wales could play Australia in any mood and they would still lose cos they havent got any half decent fowards. The only way to beat Aus is to destroy them up front and Wales simply dont do that to anyone.
Cheers Danny

 

[England hammer the Aussies again]

Are these whinging aussies still going on about it. :lol: ITS RATHER SAD AND PATHETIC....TRY AGAIN IN 4 YEARS TIME. :cryy: :cryy: :cryy: :cryy: :cryy:

 

[Fushitsusha]

I haven't read this thread so I don't know what's been stated before, but here's my rant -

The reason why Australia lost that game is because their forwards were nowhere to be seen.

Sure, the English scrum was ALWAYS going to dominate but Australia are a much superior team at the breakdown and they just dissapeared.

The only player in that pack that can hold their head up high was George Smith who seemed to be everywhere until Connolly had a brainsnap and replace him with Waugh in the 60th minute.

I thought Shepherdson did OK against Sheridan but Dunning was absolutely hopeless. And then our only prop replacement was Al Baxter. I knew we were screwed.

Sharpe and Vickerman were woeful. What were they doing that whole game? Just waiting around for lineouts?

Same with Elsom.

Palu had a couple of nice runs with the ball but was otherwise pretty insignificant.

The Australian backline were obviously a league above their English counterparts, but the work they did was ruined by slow NSW/QLD forwards who couldn't do the simple task of recyling the ball.

Gregan didn't play his best, but that was mostly due to the forwards not doing their job.

I felt Barnes stepped up pretty well and was better in attack than Wilkinson who only needed to do his job of kicking for field advantage.

Mortlock made some great breaks and I think he still showed why he's the best outside centre in the game.

Latham was also solid.

I was dissapointed with AAC and I have to admit I was happy when Mitchell came on.

Anyways, the Wallabies had lost this game around the 60th minute mark. Their forwards weren't doing their job and all the 50/50 calls had started to go against them.

What really hurts about this loss is the fact that England still aren't that good. I'm sure their fans can still admit that. But they had nothing to lose in this game and Australia just failed to show up.

Anyways, I expect France to do away with England pretty easily as they shouldn't have the same problems up front, and they'll meet either South Africa or Argentina in what should be an excellent semi-final.

Go the Pumas!

As for the Wallabies future - hopefully they'll get a coach that won't bow down to those old boys in the NSW and QLD unions.

Baxter and Dunning CAN NEVER play a test again. And as I've stated SEVERAL times before - a NSW dominated backrow is tooooo slow and useless.

 

[O'Rothlain]

You would have thought England Had Wond the World Cup by their immediate post match reactions!
Tough loss for you Aussies, I can't say that I like seeing England win, but credit to them they did it. They did it when absolutely everyone called them shite and washed up. Tough loss for Greegan, Mortlock and Latham who played like the allstars they are.

 

[Fushitsusha]

I really feel for Stephen Larkham who had to finish his career in a first game pool match against Japan.

I'm not sure what he could've done if he was on the field though. The forwards were just nowhere to be seen except for Smith.

 

[Brodizzle]

It's been odd to watch Australia in the last 4 years, they were not expected to get into the final last time, so you were planning on from a upset. In actual fact your current side may even be better than the 2003 one.
[/b]

That's where you're wrong, our 2003 side at least had some mongrel in it, our current one was really average, we all knew it yet we were hoping for some miracle matches like used to occur in the late 90's, but the Aussies haven't done that for a while now...our current side has alot of potential brilliance in it yet also has a whole lot of below par players, the talent was spread evenly in 2003 I would say...

Are these whinging aussies still going on about it. :lol: ITS RATHER SAD AND PATHETIC....TRY AGAIN IN 4 YEARS TIME. :cryy: :cryy: :cryy: :cryy: :cryy:
[/b]

It doesn't help with the constant badgering from you English, there is such a thing as a bad winner...plus talking about pathetic, look at your username....

 

[Fushitsusha]

In 2003 we still had the likes of Darwin, Harrisson, Giffin and Roff.

Eddie Jones' big mistake in that year was to retain Matt Cockbain instead of Owen Finegan, and Baxter instead of Noriega.

He was one of a few players still lingering around at the end of their career, but otherwise it was probably a better "all-round" side than what we've got now.

However, that year Eddie Jones did field one of the weakest Wallaby teams in recent history with Nathan Grey at flyhalf, Lyons as blindside flanker, Morgan Turinui at outside centre, and Steve Kefu at inside centre.

In fact, that was in the team that lost to England earlier in the year.

 

[Brodizzle]

Eddie Jones' big mistake in that year was to retain Matt Cockbain instead of Owen Finegan, and Baxter instead of Noriega.
[/b]

How old is Finegan now, probably my favourite player, loved the ****le, we need him to come in as a trainer or something and teach our forwards how to be rough ********...

 

[Fushitsusha]

<div class='quotemain'>
Eddie Jones' big mistake in that year was to retain Matt Cockbain instead of Owen Finegan, and Baxter instead of Noriega.
[/b]

How old is Finegan now, probably my favourite player, loved the ****le, we need him to come in as a trainer or something and teach our forwards how to be rough ********...
[/b][/quote]

Australia has missed that genuine toughness in its forwards since a lot of those players retired.

I think we can retain it through guys like Shepherdson, Elsom, McMeniman etc., but the new coach is going to have to look to some of the newer players like Maafu and Polata-Nau to improve the pack.

I'm still perplexed why Eddie Jones chose Cockbain over Finegan for that World Cup? Apparently it was due to Finegan's lack of form but he was still a far better player than Cockbain at that stage in their careers.

 

[Triniquint]

You would have thought England Had Wond the World Cup by their immediate post match reactions!
Tough loss for you Aussies, I can't say that I like seeing England win, but credit to them they did it. They did it when absolutely everyone called them shite and washed up. Tough loss for Greegan, Mortlock and Latham who played like the allstars they are.
[/b]

Even for a one-eyed bigot like yourself, it's not hard to work out why the reaction was delight. We all know how poor England have been and, despite getting a little better, this was still relative. The QF against Australia was a testing match for us, and one we were unanimously meant to lose. And England are still not playing well. But if not playing well, they have reached the semis, that'll do for me.



Many England fans would have applauded Ireland gettting through, regardless of how they did it. to do so could be seen as a test of character. I don't necessarily think this is so, but as a one-off effort it was monumental, and deserving of applause.



Sometimes, for you, the best thing you can say is absolutely nothing at all.

 

[Dddooommm123]

im still comming to terms. im not being a sore looser because england deserve to win and and the positive that came out was it highlighted the mistakes we made. first of all our fowards played with no intensity, passion and channeled aggresion, i think we need abit of agro in our pack which is lacking, people like mcmeniman.

the front row.... we need a makeover and i mean al baxter he couldnt even hold his own for half a second against an absoloutley TIRED out prop. the fowards were not at the breakdown except for smith who put his hand up and tried to get us out of that hole by himself. it was horrible to watch, peolpe making breaks and english fowards were the first ones there, the english guy had time asked the ref if he could pick it up!!!!

i feel so bad for mortlock and like a great captain tried to cover it up and blamed himself, he put his hand up during the game and also tried to save us but it just wasn't enough against a english team with that much passion.

most of all Larkham, Gregan and Latham thank you so much for everything you guys have done for rugby!!!!!! you guys deserved a fairytale ending

 

[Princess Obolensky]

I was quite impressed with the passion of the English side and with their desire to keep the ball in hand a lot. I know that they didn't score any tries, but the way the ball kept moving back and forth was good. Wilkinson seems to be a really composed player, and I think if he would continue to play with ball in hand a little more often, that could be good for the English side.



But the biggest disappointment was the scrum. My husband said before the game that he thought that Matt Dunning would probably chew grass... and look what happened. The disappointing part is that this has been a problem with Australian rugby for so many years and yet, nothing! The second disppointment was also the breakdown... I was counting the seconds between the ball going to ground and the arrival of the Wallaby backrow. I could have written a novel in the gap.



Sadly, the pre-game sledging really also brought down the experience for me... I disliked the negativity and the trash talking. Barnes and Wilkinson seemed to be the most respectful of each other, and I wish that there was more of that with this game.

 

[stormmaster1]

got to say well done Boys!!!! Shows what they can do with some fire in the belly. Loved our front 5 to a man. The Aussie scrum was a mess, their lineout wasn't too clean and the amount of times they made turnovers was immense. Aussies got the breakdown so wrong that they would look like Smith had secured the ball, then two big men in white would drive through and get a turnover from nowhere. Everytime the Aussie backs generated momentum a few phases later a big hit and some heavy duty rucking stopped all progress. If England had actually taken some of their many chances the scoreline would have been a lot less close. Such a fantastic result, i could hardly believe it. So happy for Robinson: he deserves to go out with some success, which we have (relatively) even if we lose the next 2 matches.

 

[John Bull]

There were two English players who made the difference, Sheridan and Shaw. In fact, no Sheridan = no English win. I suspect that 90% of the contributors to this thread have very little idea of the immensity of Sheridan's efforts.

It was a victory for trundlers everywhere. And anyone who wants to depower the scrum should wander off and play Rugby League.

 

[Prestwick]

Sadly, the pre-game sledging really also brought down the experience for me... I disliked the negativity and the trash talking. Barnes and Wilkinson seemed to be the most respectful of each other, and I wish that there was more of that with this game.[/b]

I have to give it to the Australian players, apart from a couple of snipes above the parapet, they were tight lipped about anything to do with the match in the build up. The idiot head of the ARU stirring things up only made things harder on his players with his "we all hate England" rubbish.

A testament to the Australian players that they did refuse to lower themselves to such depths of the gutter, sadly, nobody forwarded the memo to the Australian press who spent the entire week in the build up to the game nagging Australian players about how much they "hate" England. Obviously, no Australian player would be drawn over the issue but the Aussie media wouldn't let it lie. In the end, to placate the bloodthirsty mob of press about to turn violent, I think Latham said "well, I guess if I was throwing the dinner party the Engish wouldn't be at the top of the guest list."

A valiant attempt at calming down the mob, but in vain.