Australia vs England : Fri Oct 29, 2010 2:14 pm  

O'Loughlin at 6, Robinson at 7.

I know Robinson used to play scrum half but he's now a hooker at Huddersfield so effectively we've an 8 man pack.

Not sure what to think about it. Is McNamara playing to our strengths (the pack) and going to try and relentlessly smash the Aussies down the middle?

Is it a defensive ploy to stop their big centres by having more size out wide? Has he given up and put a team out to keep the score down?

How are we going to bring Sam Tomkins in to the game with only one pivot for him to feed off?

Re: Australia vs England : Fri Oct 29, 2010 2:30 pm  

Wont be pretty Mick but our best chance is to out muscle them down the middle.
We aint got a prayer down the flanks.


Ah well we may just sneak it

Re: Australia vs England : Fri Oct 29, 2010 2:45 pm  

obeone wrote:

Wont be pretty Mick but our best chance is to out muscle them down the middle.
We aint got a prayer down the flanks.


Ah well we may just sneak it

To be honest the handicap is 18 points Steve so i'm sticking a few quid on the Australians to cover that.

Re: Australia vs England : Sat Oct 30, 2010 7:43 am  

I think you could give England twice as many points lead and they would struggle to keep it.

Re: Australia vs England : Sat Oct 30, 2010 12:41 pm  

I think the best way to stop the aussies is this:

1. Tackle around the legs, how many times do players need to be told, "you can't run without legs". Our players always insist on either going high, or shoulder charging the opposition, it doesn't work, if you tackle the legs, wrap the arms of the opposition, and then a 3rd comes in just to knock him down, then that is a good tackle. Just remember Dan Belcher at home to toulouse, He tried the shoulder charge, and ended up on his booty, with the Toulouse player scoring a try.

2. Take referee out of the equation. Get onside, or atleast make the effort, stop the backchat, stop trying to rip the ball out, cause as soon as they put their hand on the ball they are going in with the intent to rip the ball out, if a player is tackled right then he can't pass anyway.

3. I know there are a lot of big names out of the team, which everyone is used to seeing, but if this team can stick together, and learn to work together then we could win the world cup in 2013, but they need to gel as a team.

I know This is going to get some stick, like what makes you so sure? or let's see you coach the team better, I am not saying i can do that, but these are things to be looked at.

Re: Australia vs England : Sat Oct 30, 2010 4:20 pm  

All good points.

I'd also add.

Don't kick to Slater. Either kick the ball dead for a 20 tap or stick it in to touch.

Disrupt their rhythm, the games when we've done really well against them usually have involved a bit of biff.

Nail their scrum half early. Nearly every time we lose to the Australians the scrum half gets man of the match. See if we can get Burgess to put a big hit on him and will he want to know?

Innovate, for donkey's years we've been trying to copy the Australians let's show them something they've never seen before, a different look, trick plays, maybe stick one of those many forwards we've got out wide and tire their strike players out by making them defend a lot.

Re: Australia vs England : Sun Oct 31, 2010 10:54 am  

Oh and one last thing,







PLAY WITH NEUTRAL REFS FFS!!!

The VR decision with the clear knock-on where he gave benefit of a doubt. Compounded by Lunt's disallowed effort when he sent it back to the referee, why wasn't that benefit of the doubt?

A forward pass for Tuquiri's (I think) try that Peyton Manning would have been proud of. Yet he blows for a forward pass when Cudjoe was sent through when at the very most it was flat.

We lost the game by 20 points but to be honest with fair officials it should have been 3 tries closer than that.

That said we weren't great, dropped too much ball in key areas, edge defence again was rubbish.. Suprisingly though we didn't give up many line breaks and at times our pack looked dominent and put some huge hits in. Kicking game was a little better but still rubbish.

Re: Australia vs England : Sun Oct 31, 2010 2:00 pm  

Having a different ref, would have made no difference to the final outcome.

We are not good enough.

Re: Australia vs England : Sun Oct 31, 2010 2:57 pm  

guess who wrote:

Having a different ref, would have made no difference to the final outcome.

We are not good enough.

We probably would still have lost the game, but for the sake of the game worldwide we at least deserve to be given a fair shot at it.

In no way was that fair refereeing this morning it was embarrassing for the sport.

What would have been wrong with Thierry Allibert taking charge?

Re: Australia vs England : Sun Oct 31, 2010 5:32 pm  

Stealth Comic wrote:

We probably would still have lost the game, but for the sake of the game worldwide we at least deserve to be given a fair shot at it.

In no way was that fair refereeing this morning it was embarrassing for the sport.

What would have been wrong with Thierry Allibert taking charge?

There is no probably about it. it wont matter who the ref is. We are just not good enough.