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England’s tour to Australia thread

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I think this sums up the feelings - from both sets of fans, somehow.

R.fe4bdade3adb242a4dfe816d22f462f7
 
Haha - same here. Thankfully still under 40 inch waist though.

Safe to say, I’m no longer in my prime.
 
Possible wallabies 23 for first test

Bell
Porecki
Alaalatoa
Swain
Philip
Valetini
Hooper
Leota
White
Cooper
Koroibete
Kerevi
Ikitau
Vunivalu
Banks

Slipper
Lonergan
Tupou
Frost
Wilson
Mcdermott
Oconnor
Perese
 
Reiser99 said:
Go Go Nowell!
Click to expand...
He got a go at centre off the bench in the Barbarians debacle last week. Is this the shape of things to come, with the absence of strong centres? More importantly, is debacle the shape of things to come for England? It seems to be an ongoing theme...

I think we can have parity with Oz up front, but England's backline has all the punch of a wet bogroll.
 
What’s the definition of success for this tour?

Results, cohesion, a couple of newer players standing up to take their chance?

To be honest I’d settle for seeing some organisation, fight and the emergence of a couple of players. Not sure how much game time everyone will get, but I’ll be particularly interested in Chessum, Marchant, Heyes, Stuart, Freeman and Willis.
 
For me it's us looking like we are a cohesive team and that our attack actually looks threatening and we convert breaks into tries.
 
Performances > Results for this tour

Obviously winning is nice but scraping by while playing sh*t only gets you so far and we'll get found out sooner rather than later (as we were all saying when people were celebrating our winning-but-playing-poorly period, which was rapidly followed by our losing-while-playing-poorly period)

Like you: I want to see some of the younger guys get meaningful game time - Heyes being the main one, as we've no depth at tighthead at all
 
If we win playing completely boring but solid, low error, low penalty rugby then I'll be ok with that. That at least gives a base to build on. I'd like to see the team look cohesive, no glaring gaps in defence, minimal stupid penalties, no trying to force the game in attack. If we just grind the Aussies down and don't let them in the game, that will be fine. I'd like to see certain deadwood in the team replaced and for their replacements to really stick their hands up for selection.

Beyond that, I'd be happy if, in addition to the above, we had a well function 9-10-12 axis with some good decision making. Smith has shown he can create something from nothing and I think our 9 and 12 should help enable that by ensuring he has the time and space to best make use of it. I'd also like to see more variety in play beyond trucking it up 1 out passes, kicking or just shovelling the ball on with no dummy runners etc. This obviously after the players have already established a low error rate game.

Lastly, I just want to see some damn fight in the side. They have looked completely disinterested in every game since the semi final against NZ and not putting in effort. Watching how little effort many players put in to closing a break is frankly embarrassing for professionals. More than 1 try we have conceded could have been prevented if players had actually moved at more than a slow jog to react to situations on the field. Our team will too often leave the wingers high and dry with no support and, if the winger is beaten, no attempt to cover in behind. It's like as soon as a break is made, we simply accept it, like the players think it's all or nothing stopping the opposition on the gain line. The energy Jones brought to our defence when he first appeared on the scene and heavily criticised this laziness is long gone.
 
TRF_Olyy said:
Performances > Results for this tour

Obviously winning is nice but scraping by while playing sh*t only gets you so far and we'll get found out sooner rather than later (as we were all saying when people were celebrating our winning-but-playing-poorly period, which was rapidly followed by our losing-while-playing-poorly period)

Like you: I want to see some of the younger guys get meaningful game time - Heyes being the main one, as we've no depth at tighthead at all
Click to expand...
I agree and building on point point i want to see shape building in attack and making breaks they might mess up the final pass a few times but i hope the shape and structure is there to build on. What we've seen so far is a mess in attack is hoping Smith will pull some magic.

A good performance and a clear vision of what we are trying to do matters as attack cant be fixed overnight but also should be causing Aus all kinds of problems.

If our attack looks toothless this tournement we need to make a change somewhere now.
 
6 years ago Cheika didnt have a single decent Australian franchise to work with. This year Rennie has 3 decent ones to pick from (i.e. teams capable of winning on kiwi soil). I've no idea how that change has come about but if England play as badly as they have in recent 6Ns they could end up getting comprehensively spanked. Something really weird and positive happened to Australian rugby this year that made Michael Hooper look like he was spending half the year pinching himself.

If England play near their abilities, with motivation and in their preferred positions I'd only make the Wallabies 55/45 favourites.
 
I can’t see this going well for us sadly. I’ve seen a couple of comments that the lads just don’t look up for it, and haven’t since that NZ semi, and I tend to agree. There just seems to be a spark missing. Our pack are solid, with some decent individuals, but our back line, aside from Smith, lacks any real fizz or danger. Steward, Nowell, Faz, are all solid, Marchants ok, big Joe I feel may be just another false dawn, Malins seems very average to me for an international and so on. But maybe that’s the point. We haven’t got super fast and exciting backs, so let’s stop trying to play like we do. Maybe it’s time to play percentage rugby, solid kicks lots of territory, focus on set piece and just start winning again. When we had 18 wins in a row teams feared England. The team that couldn’t be beaten. And it didn’t matter if those wins were by 1 point or 50. And frankly it never does. Win first, then worry about looking good while you do it.

Either way I feel that this World Cup cycle will turn out to be a missed opportunity for England. We don’t look ready or settled and there isn’t enough time left to turn that around now. All I hope for is some entertaining rugby over the next three weeks
 
Old Hooker said:
What’s the definition of success for this tour?

Results, cohesion, a couple of newer players standing up to take their chance?

To be honest I’d settle for seeing some organisation, fight and the emergence of a couple of players. Not sure how much game time everyone will get, but I’ll be particularly interested in Chessum, Marchant, Heyes, Stuart, Freeman and Willis.
Click to expand...
Fraser Dingwall is going to be a one to watch for me.

Just read an interesting article in Rugby World Magazine, and for centres in the prem, he is pretty much top 1 or 2 for every facet in both attack and defence.
So passing leading to tries or breaks etc etc...even hard carrying into traffic despite his "slighter" frame.
His defence also ranks right up there...even in impact tackles (tackles driving the attacker backwards) he was only behind Tompkins of Saracens.

You never know...a decent showing and suddenly he could put himself in that 12 spot v Farrell.
 
So who do we want to see? Who as Captain? We need to choose now and stick with it

For me it would be

Genge(C) LCD, Stuart
Itoje Hill
Willis Billy(8) Curry
Care Smith
Faz Marchant
Freeman Starward(15), May

George
Rodd
Hayes
Lawes
Underhill
Randall
Dingwall..maybe?
Big Joe?

Not sold on 3 14 23, they dont bother me

LCD Hill need gametime and have strong replacements on the bench so not a risk even though they have less gametime.

Randall is a better bench option

What do we think?
 

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