RWC: England v Tonga (Pool C)
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@Frank said in RWC: England v Tonga (Pool C):
What is fantastic for us is that England have Argentina then France then either Wales or Australia on consecutive weekends before they play us. (assuming we make the semis)
Bloody hard to play well in that many games in a row on consecutive weeks
Consider that in 2011 we played 3 tough matches in a row to win the cup (QF vs Arg, SF vs Aus, F vs France), and that was really hard to keep up the intensity in the final after playing almost the perfect game in the SF
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@Frank said in RWC: England v Tonga (Pool C):
What is fantastic for us is that England have Argentina then France then either Wales or Australia on consecutive weekends before they play us. (assuming we make the semis)
Bloody hard to play well in that many games in a row on consecutive weeks
So in reality an easy game (Argentina), an unpredictable game (France) and a hard game (Wales/OZ)
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@Chris-B said in RWC: England v Tonga (Pool C):
One of Sir Ted's mantras (and a bit of an unconvincing one) was that you can't play well in all of three hard tests across consecutive weekends.
Wayne Smith used to talk about that the most, they had data that showed the drop off if I remember correctly.
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@Chris-B I wouldn't take PNC results too seriously. Yes Fiji and Japan were a lot stronger than the others, but Samoa and Tonga are never usually at full strength at those tournaments as it's an effort to get a lot of players there in the first place. They get a lot better the more time they spend with each other as well as they finally get their best available squads for a tournament like this.
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@African-Monkey Yeah - it's only somewhat indicative that the US might be a bit better.
US thumped Canada and beat Samoa and was competitive vs Japan. In fact, the US had a very similar set of scorelines to Fiji - e.g. Fiji lost 21-34 to Japan; US lost 20-34.
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@cgrant said in RWC: England v Tonga (Pool C):
And a pretty good right foot.
Eddie certainly keeping the Farrell powder dry.
He can cut up defences when given the opportunity.