RWC: England v New Zealand (SF1)
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.....on the plus side, the England-supporting electrician who's been meaning to finish off the wiring in the annexe bedrooms for weeks, has just rung me to ask if I watched the game.
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@ACT-Crusader He scored against Australia in Perth and was good. Hansen made him a scapegoat to bring in an NPC level player. You're not getting away with that Crusaders bullshit tonight.
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Well shit, that all went extremely pear shaped.
England did to us what we did to Ireland last week, only when we get that dominance up front we score a lot more points. They came out firing and put us on the back foot from the get go then never let up. Massive credit there, that was a huge performance. Have they played their final though?
For us, after the initial onslaught we did somewhat get ourselves back into the game, but just pushed too many 50/50 plays and kept coughing it up at crucial times.
Cane was huge for us last week to nullify the Irish pack in the first 40. He's always been someone that thrives in the tight exchanges early on, so benching him was a pretty baffling deicison TBH. SB was OK but Cane provides a point of difference.
I love me some Jordie but he was only meant to be a squaddie. BFA on the bench would have been smart, especially given how early it is in Mo'unga's career. I would have subbed Richie early in the 2nd 40 and put Beauden back to 10. Experience matters in knock out matches and we needed calm heads after going behind early.
I was also surprised we didn't try and play Rieko into some form given how much of a game breaker he is.
But all of that is really just details when the forwards get smacked around like that. The English pack was amazing and Itoje showed just how good he is on the biggest possible stage.
It's been 12 years since we got knocked out of a RWC. I wasn't super confident we could get up a 3rd time, though the Irish game did give me some hope, but at the end of the day England were too good on the night. If you think back to 2015 we struggled to get up for the semi final against an SA team that had just lost to Japan. This time around we hit a far superior side.
So all in all I blame Ireland for losing to Japan and putting us on the wrong side of the bloody draw.
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@ACT-Crusader said in RWC: England v New Zealand (SF1):
@Kirwan said in RWC: England v New Zealand (SF1):
Where’s Stargazer to explain how great Bridge is and how Richie wasn’t a defensive liability?
When Ioane has played a game like tonight, we’ve often heard the “forwards didn’t front, so no space for the wingers” line trotted out. Just sayin 😁
At least when Ioane “plays bad” he still try’s to beat a man on the outside. Bridge is the king of submission.
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@ACT-Crusader said in RWC: England v New Zealand (SF1):
@Kirwan said in RWC: England v New Zealand (SF1):
Where’s Stargazer to explain how great Bridge is and how Richie wasn’t a defensive liability?
When Ioane has played a game like tonight, we’ve often heard the “forwards didn’t front, so no space for the wingers” line trotted out. Just sayin 😁
Perhaps it was just me, but there seemed to be a lack of support when we pushed the ball out wide.
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@MrDenmore said in RWC: England v New Zealand (SF1):
Wind back 24 hours, start Cane instead of SB; Coles starting instead of Taylor; Bender on the bench instead of Jordie. Would it have made a difference?
Might have kept it closer.
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@Tim said in RWC: England v New Zealand (SF1):
@ACT-Crusader He scored against Australia in Perth and was good. Hansen made him a scapegoat to bring in an NPC level player. You're not getting away with that Crusaders bullshit tonight.
Good? No he wasn’t. He scored when we had front foot ball and we were getting a roll on.
And so much for Paddy T providing impact. Wet lettuce more like it.
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@Victor-Meldrew said in RWC: England v New Zealand (SF1):
@Machpants said in RWC: England v New Zealand (SF1):
Pissed, got in CoD MW, took it out on the bad guys and top scored by miles. BBBR got nothing on my killing rage
That just went way over my head...
Best you watch some Poldark 😜
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@ACT-Crusader LOL, they brought him on with 10 to go. Maybe they should've played two Scott Barretts?
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@No-Quarter said in RWC: England v New Zealand (SF1):
I was also surprised we didn't try and play Rieko into some form given how much of a game breaker he is.
Was he due to play in the cancelled Italy game?
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@Tim said in RWC: England v New Zealand (SF1):
@ACT-Crusader He scored against Australia in Perth and was good. Hansen made him a scapegoat to bring in an NPC level player. You're not getting away with that Crusaders bullshit tonight.
Would have been a great game to have a player make something out of nothing, with the forwards getting owned. Like Savea and Ioane have done for us in the past.
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@Victor-Meldrew said in RWC: England v New Zealand (SF1):
@No-Quarter said in RWC: England v New Zealand (SF1):
I was also surprised we didn't try and play Rieko into some form given how much of a game breaker he is.
Was he due to play in the cancelled Italy game?
Geniuses would have probably played him at centre, like for large parts of the previous game. They made their minds up before the WC.
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@Kirwan the key word being the past. The very distant past. He hasn’t done any Houdini play for a while. Certainly not this year.
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@MrDenmore Nope that is a magnificent forward pack. We cant even look forward to their imminent retirement. Most are still young. They even did brilliant pop passes
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@ACT-Crusader said in RWC: England v New Zealand (SF1):
@Kirwan the key word being the past. The very distant past. He hasn’t done any Houdini play for a while. Certainly not this year.
And Bridge never has.
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@ACT-Crusader LOL, I guess you only watched the Crusaders this year.
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Looks like we spent most of our energy last week and were flat asf this week. That and a couple of baffling selections. This is why some of us were hoping for an easy QF so that we could peak for this game. Oh well, no excuses. England were just better but what hurts the most is that we offered nothing.
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@Machpants said in RWC: England v New Zealand (SF1):
Best you watch some Poldark
God no.
Like bloody East Enders with wrong accents and worse plot lines
