England v All Blacks
That was the stupidest All Black performance I've ever seen. It reminded me of the Ron Cribb team.
Look, I'll take the win & on balance I think we deserved it. We cut them open so many times but then stupid decisions, being one of giving away a penalty, passing un necessarily or just stone cold dropping the ball cost us so many times. I was furious at Gardner as I thought he was pandering to the crowd, but in truth, we were our own worst enemy here. Has any team in the history of rugby ever given away 4 penalties for off the ball tackles? Just chatting to my neighbour who went with Adidas and sat with a lot of ex AB's, they were all wondering why we kept doing it and said that we got away with a few. Insane that we could get away with a few when being pinged 4 times. It was just idiot decision after idiot decision, culminating with Ratima passing to Marcus Smith. If it wasn't for George Ford, we would have lost that game.
England had some jolly good players out there on show. None more so than Feyi-Waboso who looked truly electric ball in hand. Marcus Smith, terrible drop goals aside, played very well and I thought the support play of their back row was handy too. Cunningham South was fun to watch, although the NFL antics are not for me. Their starting props also had the measure of us too, I thought. Pleasantly surprised to see that the Walrus hasn't lost his touch calling is pet, Itoje, other worldly post match. He didn't play bad, but many were better. Itoje's biggest moment was screaming like a 3 year old girl at the ref for a supposed high shot. Enjoyed Gardner telling him where to go.
As for us, well, where to start. Telea's best in a while back to his eel slippery best, and 2 superb tries, one rather Jonah esque. Sititi is a real find, like a REAL find, potential AB superstar here. Aumua made a couple of noticeable errors (not the only one though) with the lineouts, but around the field was superb.
Patty T an absolutely inspired sub with some wrecking ball runs. His position at test level has been found & hopefully he will be subbed on against worn down defence again. Shocking drop at the end, but dropsies was an AB problem today.
Additionally, I thought Savea played well, which seem to not be the consensus. Cane a bit anonymous, but did make a couple of big plays at crucial times.
On the flip side, I thought our backline was pretty fucked, on the whole. They looked like a bunch of blokes standing around, not a backline. Cannot remember one crisp structured passing play & the ball often went to somebody standing still. I'm not sold on our centres at all, although ALB (two YC in one play, go son) didn't cover himself in glory. Jordy runs like a prop and I think Ioane needs space. Back 3 looked pretty good when they got the ball, but given what it had to get through for them to get it, that was a bloody miracle.
I take heart in that there really is real talent in this team. It's just a matter of harnessing it, and then controlling it. Thats supposed to be the coaches job, and Scotty, I'm just not seeing it. You've got a busy week ahead of you.
Roll on next week, we needed a tight win to launch into Ireland and we got it. Can we build off this? I hope so, but on the evidence witnessed, it's going to take a large step up in rugby intellect.