melman wrote:
Being honest they were generally ( better in all aspects) of the game.
We did not have a game plan, that became evident from quite early in the game. I know that the team did not have anything like the Aussies preparation, but whose fault is that?
Our scrum half was out of his depth and really was a very weak link for us, He ought to have opened the scoring for England but tried a short pass with the line at most ten yards away and a pretty clear run to it. He did not have the confidence to take the opportunity and that reflected throughout his game.
Another player that disappointed entirely was Gildarts wing partner who had nightmares with any high ball coming his way, terrible positioning sense and a pretty weak game overall, he was as someone else has said given a couple of awful balls from his centre for which he should be exonerated from the outcome of, but really he did seem the poorest player on the field, bar none.
Our F/B looked good and the centre's were as good as if not better than their aussie counterparts. WE looked better when Ward was off and the wigan lad was in at hooker,. Generally the forwards tried hard but were clearly second best throughout for the greater part the game.
I thought that we were definitely short changed by the coaching set-up, if there was any and did not really get going until it was too late, and that did not arise purely because penalties were awarded.
1) I thought the scrum half did o.k. and opened up the Aussies a few times, but was let down by Turgut dropping the ball twice, one of which resulted in Mitchell (what a player that lad is) going 80 metres to score
2) I've been mentioning Luke Waterworth for about three years now. He has the best passing game I have seen from an English hooker since Martin Dermott, I just don't know if he will ever be big enough. As you say it was no coincidence that the England backs appeared to get more space when he came onto the field. However that's not to decry Robbie Ward who pulled off a fantastic try saving tackle to deny the Aussies a try in the left hand corner.
