Having just watched it again, I still think people are underestimating how good a coaching masterclass this was by Eddie Jones.

I’m sure Eddie would have been a very happy man when the All Black team was announced on Thursday. The All Blacks went for size, indicating they expected England to play tight. The old story being that the English can only play 10 man rugby and hence that is what we expected them to do.

Then the early stages of the game, the All Blacks went for a defensive alignment that suggested they expected England to box kick. There are two standard defensive formations the All Blacks have played with this year. One with Mo’unga as a 2nd fullback / blind wing and one with him defending at 13. When he defends at 13, Bridge or Barrett is typically back for the box kick. It’s a defensive scheme that the Crusaders use a lot. It means if the kick does come, Mo’unga can drop back into the wider channels.

Eddie having planned for the above then decides to play a wide gameplan. This catches the All Blacks off guard. Jon Preston used this play below to say they were targeting Mo’unga. This is a little while after he got beaten by Daly on the outside. Mo’unga and Bridge are caught in a 4 on 2 so go into a drift defense. Savea comes across the English make ground on the inside with Aaron Smith well out of position for his sweeper. The key for the English was quick ruck ball. Look at the 8 All Blacks on the other side of the ruck marking three Englishman.

A few minutes later they find space on the other side of the field. Again a 4 on 2, in this instance Reece makes a gamble rushes at and stops it. They did this routinely in the first half. Preston at half time said their formation was set at targeting Mo’unga. Whilst they did try to stand him up one on one a few times, their structure seemed in my view designed to move around our slow forward pack. When you watch the breakdowns prior to these overlaps, the English 6 and 7 were dominating. Putting Cane on the bench was a big error.

The English could have scored a lot more points in the first half but finishing let them down. Also numbers 11-14 for the All Blacks scrambled really well in difficult situations.

The other thing that stood out in the first half was the interplay of the English forwards, from 1 to 8 the offloading and the skills were superb. It created go forward and kept the play alive. Read and Retallick topped the missed tackle count and the All Blacks pack couldn’t match the pace or the intensity.

When the All Blacks got the ball the English defence was incredibly well prepared. They knew the All Blacks patterns well. Mo’unga and Barrett both played terribly mainly because the English knew what they were going to do. Take the Barrett intercept for example. There is only one place the ball is going. Tuilagi rushes up and takes the option away (also, he was well onside). Tuilagi was huge on defence.

There were multiple situations in the first half where the outside rush took away the support play and Barrett or Mo’unga had to hold it. This was usually followed by a poor kick.

In the 2nd half the All Blacks looked to play with more depth but the English targeted the established forward pods. Here’s Tuilagi again rushing up on Retallick and killing a large overlap.

Here, Underhill lines up Read. They knew exactly who to target. Underhill was superb, possibly the best performance I’ve ever seen from an English 7.

The All Blacks could not get into the game at all. Eddie had a plan for everything, right down to when Jordie Barrett came on for Bridge. The very first play he was on, they put up a high ball, he didn’t attack it and Itoje recovered. The kick came from an odd position after a kickoff too so you could tell it was a set plan.

Overall, the All Blacks were out-thought and out-played. The biggest difference was the skills and the pace of the English pack. Itoje was my man of the match but Lawes was great, Sinckler has matured into a allround player, and the Kamikaze kids are fast, strong and smart. Eddie Jones has done a phenomenal job. Also, so has John Mitchell.

Which brings me to the next All Black coach, whoever gets the job is in for a tough task. We can argue about back selections as much as we want but forward depth in New Zealand is poor. When was the last time we got truly excited about a tight forward prospect coming through? The reality is Franks hung on for a few years because no-one was sticking up their hand and if Angus Ta’avao is the answer I’m not sure what the question is. There have a been a few age group stars that have faded (Akira Ioane, Aumua) but no-one is really challenging for a spot. No 6 or 8 has been consistent and that led to playing 2 sevens. We lack good ball runners and the interplay and the offloading we saw from the English pack was non-existent from the All Blacks.

Well done England and well done Eddie Jones.

Edit: Sorry for the crap photos

For the record: I'm supporting you guys.

just threw up in my mouth a little

Not starting Cane would be precisely the lynching rope i am looking for if it goes tits up

Sitting in a bar in Balian, Bali, it was great listening to comments after we killed the Paddies.

Mainly along the lines of "geez they'll be bloody hard to beat", and mainly from Aussies. It's funny I was sitting there thinking the same about the Poms after they'd dismantled the wreck that is Aussie rugby.

I'm still slightly kaking my Saks for this weekend's game, but then I was worried as fuck about the Irish, so go figure!

But if our fatties can play as well as that again, we should be fine, being it on I say.

Sam Cane, a defensive rock to come on at half or just after, Barrett to bench or replace one of the locks...?

I'm happy with team.

This is the most nervous/excited I've been for a game in around 6 days.

Don’t be too hard on your blokes. They tried as hard as they could. The difficulty with being consistently the best team in the world is that it feels doubly crap when you lose...although, how would I know.

PS good to see you fellas

Well, I watched the game at home and was amazed at the England performance. I thought we had a chance but... Even though we were pretty dominant more or less throughout the game and it was ours to lose almost, there was always in the back of my mind that you just cannot trust a Kiwi to know when to say enough is enough. Having said that I felt reasonably comfortable with four minutes to go and two scores needed but even then... hmmm.

I didn't watch it at the pub as a 9.00 am kick off would have meant ruining the rest of the day but at around 11.40 I got a call from a mate. "I'm down at the Royal Oak and I need someone to talk rugby to. I can't go home and talk to her". So the rest of the day has been washout really. No complaints though.

Thanks to all who have posted congratulations and compliments on our performance. That takes a bit of doing, especially after the success you've had.

No where's that bottle of red?

@DMX Interesting your view on the Barret v Mo'unga discussion. I've never felt that Barrett was a fantastic fly half - and I realise that this may lead to me being virtual lynched on here, but to me he does not seem to fit too well for some of the key duties of a 10. His kicking game is a bit off, his game management is not up there with the likes of say Carter, BUT he is without doubt a fantastic, almost freakish, rugby player and has to play. I can see the argument for having him at 10 as he is so good that you want to get the ball to him as often and as quickly as possible, but I think I agree with you that the extra space he gets at 15 is perhaps more suited and allied to that, you have a bloody good 10 in Mo'unga to bring a little more control to the game.

A very nice problem to have.

Off to dig a trench and search for my tin hat...

@KiwiMurph said in RWC: England v New Zealand (SF1):

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/rugby/news/article.cfm?c_id=80&objectid=12279196

These huas read the fern!

three times in the past week, about a couple of hours after a conversation on these threads, suddenly an article would appear.

I'm pretty calm actually. Team is settled, and has good form.

If we lose, we are losing to a good team who will play well. This isn't some choke job in the making (like Ta$man), this is a genuine line-ball world cup semi final.

@BartMan said in RWC: England v New Zealand (SF1):

I think the only real beating up of the ABs the last few years is Paddies in Chicago and Convicts in Perth. The rest of the losses are just the ABs running out of time to win 😉

The arrogance of new posters never ceases to amaze.

😎

I had a think about it and put my comments on Twitter. Here they are redrafted for the Fern:

England don't rely on bounce of the ball. They may never be the most creative set of individuals but roles and responsibilities are understood and executed using the talents they have - an Eddie Jones hallmark.

The ABs historically have a hard-nosed approach to the basics, but in recent years they've become a little tinny with some of their "miracle" plays like Barrett magic. They didn't have that, and tried too hard to find it last night.

The "we will out-Kiwi them eventually" doesn't always stick

You got a couple of rough calls from Nigel, which also historically hasn't happened (with Owens or any other ref). At that point the contrasts between leadership of McCaw and Read were highlighted.

The NZRFU systems will ensure that kind of loss remains a rarity, but it's time for a refresh in the coaching ranks.

In a way I'm disappointed (ABE) but would a threepeat with another tinny win be good for the game as a whole?

No.

Also interested to see ex-Fern stalwart Red Beard on Twitter, speculating about absences:

@canefan I will answer

Not one of Owen's best, missed a fair bit, but still an average Owens is better than Garces and his mate on a good day.

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.

• Our tight five couldn't get front foot ball or make enough dominant tackles.
• Our loose forwards couldn't get to the breakdown quick enough.
• Our lineout got dominated despite having more genuine options.
• Our backline with that sort of ball, couldn't penetrate and we too often passed too deep meaning we couldn't get over the advantage line.
• Then we made stupid errors, throwing the ball away when we weren't getting bundled into touch.

And yet for all that, England still couldn't score another try. It puts their quarter final into some perspective.

I think that's two quarter finals in a row we've expended tremendous energy fighting a boogeyman in our own minds. A terrible, disinterested France in 2015 and then Ireland four years later. If there's a flat track bully in world rugby, it's got to be the All Blacks. Once we have dominance, no team puts the boot on the throat like we do.