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- May 21, 2013
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Some pretty lofty opinions around here, beat a fading Australian outfit and our best team is invincible is it?
Call me a minority, but even though it was half a B team, the A team would have struggled to win the series too, the forwards on tour should have been good enough to get a roll on, only happened in fits and starts, the weather, the slow ruck speed, physical English pack… Taumalolo is great, but he wouldn’t have been skittling them. And Proctor and Harris are basically Mannering clones, so wouldn’t point to the captain being a big out either.
The halves… they definitely would have helped on attack, but it was a short ten, defence coming up fast, in the wet, would not have been easy for Johnson and Foran at all, would have been better options taken, might have swung the balance but would still have been tight. That goes for Benji as well, they would have pressured him, the other half would have had to done a lot of good work too.
Agree that in a world cup game on a neutral field in Australia, dry track, neutral ref, faster game, the kiwis are the better team, but with all the other factors in play over there, a full strength team still would have found it tough, credit to England, shame about the rain, the ref and the commentators, but hey, that’s what overseas tours are about, or they are for some teams, I strongly doubt the Kangaroos would be playing with a super league ref 2 out of 3 times.
Call me a minority, but even though it was half a B team, the A team would have struggled to win the series too, the forwards on tour should have been good enough to get a roll on, only happened in fits and starts, the weather, the slow ruck speed, physical English pack… Taumalolo is great, but he wouldn’t have been skittling them. And Proctor and Harris are basically Mannering clones, so wouldn’t point to the captain being a big out either.
The halves… they definitely would have helped on attack, but it was a short ten, defence coming up fast, in the wet, would not have been easy for Johnson and Foran at all, would have been better options taken, might have swung the balance but would still have been tight. That goes for Benji as well, they would have pressured him, the other half would have had to done a lot of good work too.
Agree that in a world cup game on a neutral field in Australia, dry track, neutral ref, faster game, the kiwis are the better team, but with all the other factors in play over there, a full strength team still would have found it tough, credit to England, shame about the rain, the ref and the commentators, but hey, that’s what overseas tours are about, or they are for some teams, I strongly doubt the Kangaroos would be playing with a super league ref 2 out of 3 times.
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