England have still got the best fan.
England have still got the best fan.
Lol. Just look at the current political situation.
Re Kolisi lifting the cup - it is vital for South Africa that a black Saffer lifts the cup as it represents a watershed moment in their sporting history. You might want to research said South African history and decide if you want to retract that comment.
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Last edited by ryanb741; 2nd November 2019 at 16:01.
The current political situation doesn't have any bearing on my views regarding colour, never has.
I have an inkling of SA history, and I hope they want to put that kind of thing behind them.
Anyway perhaps a little too political for the G&D so I'll leave it there. You may wish to carry on elsewhere.
Started out with nothing. Still have most of it left.
For any neutral it was a very entertaining match and, let's be honest, v close up until the last 15 mins. Frustrating for England, esp. given their previous match, but they can take some comfort knowing they were beaten by a superb performance.
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Hopefully sidestepping any political issues..
Well done SA, the better team on the day. Commiserations to England and their fans. They didn't really get into their stride today. Really feel for Sinkler who's KO meant he didn't get a chance to show what he can do.
Despite the obvious disappointment at the moment I think England can take a great deal away from the tournament, and any team that can dismantle the ABs the way they did are most definitely doing something right.
What a great tournament we've all been treated to.
Looking forward to the Six Nations, it's shaping up to be a cracker.
The England team are getting a fair bit of flak on social media due to some of their players taking their medals straight off and some refusing to wear them at all.
Pretty poor sportsmanship.
Agree big difference between being frustrated and petulant. Comes across as latter.
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Without doubt the current England team are physically strong, fast and powerful. Their fragility is in being one dimensional once they cross the white line and lacking any sense of real mental toughness of champions. They simply flatter to deceive and despite all the hype and build up from an expectant country, they’ve failed, again.
Look at how they completely crumbled against the scots last year in the 6N? Would the top countries that are really good with a seasoned, winner mentality and sound tactically have crumbled like that? No.
Eddie J as a manager instils a belief but the players don’t seem convinced. Farrell can’t/doesn’t lead it seems as he’s simply not tactically savvy. Dark arts, late and illegal tackles take up too much of his brain power than leading his team to success and being able to turn a game.
No surprise at yesterday’s result. SA believed they’d win. England simply expected to. Huge difference.
Jim
Last edited by Jimmcb; 3rd November 2019 at 21:00.
For me it is a shame they lost like that.
It would be tough losing a well contested game that was close, but England really never fired a shot. It was not close, really. And not a very entertaining match, to be honest.
From the very start they were nervy and innaccurate, from Courtney Lawes giving a kickable penalty in minute 2 to Vunipola's pass to ground in the middle of our own 22, Ben Youngs throwing a pass that landed 4m away from the nearest England player and so on. The confidence, pace and accuracy demonstrated in spades when beating the All Blacks was gone from the England game yesterday. It was rushed, forced and frail.
Congratulations to SA, they won well, and were the better team on the day by a distance.
But as mentioned above, England demonstrated that despite the additional time and confidence, they are a team that are collectively fragile, mentally. When it goes well, it can go really well. When it goes badly, they can rescue it, but they can also fall apart. Yesterday, it was the latter.
The root of so much of the problem was a disappointingly poor scrum from England. The RSA pack was no heavier than ours, and we have some much vaunted front row players, but only after Marler came on did we stop bleeding penalties. 5 against us, was it? Too many to be able to keep pressure on.
Dave
i agreed with everything you said.
I was talking to my dad today and we agreed that England simply might have been mentally burnt out. Remember that they had to play Australia, then a week later NZ, and then a week later SA. This compares with SA playing Japan and the Wales. A much more difficult "run in".
In a game where small percentages can make huge difference, it might explain some of the performances.
The silver lining is that the average age of the squad and that we have so many youngsters playing. Hopefully in 4 years these guys will have matured in to true world beaters. Fingers crossed.
Whoever does not know how to hit the nail on the head should be asked not to hit it at all.
Friedrich Nietzsche
You make interesting points Andy.
I tend not to agree with run in points though. Playing the home nation in any ‘world’ tournament is never easy and weren’t Wales No1 in the world at that point. Australia on the other hand are doing an Ireland - spiralling downwards and NZ were on fire. They were the toughest team England faced and they considerably kicked their ass! But did they therefore peak too early!!
And mental fragility is not about one game. There is an inconsistency in their game that makes spectators wonder which England is going to turn up. They seem to fail at big moments. And Farrell is no leader in the shape of others. He doesn’t seem to have the ability to dig them out of tactics obviously going wrong like the bigger captains do. Does he have fulsome respect??
The desire and inner belief was stronger from SA, perhaps throughout their tournament and they had a reasoned X factor. Belting out a national anthem is laudable but you must believe and trust your training - all the time - to take it into the 80 minutes.
Was there perhaps a belief of the hard work done by beating the ABs would give them the WC??
Jim
My recollections watching England the last few years are that they’re a very talented team, but consistency isn’t there.
If England get 10 to 14 points ahead early in a game, and it’s all working, look out as you’ll likely get hammered.
If they go behind, and the tactics appear to be under scrutiny, they do seem to struggle mentally with chasing a game and changing approaches on the fly.
I’m no Clive Woodward, so whether that’s right and how you fix it if it is I have no idea. Woodward’s World Cup side did have a lot of mental prep thrown at them if his book and after dinner speeches are correct.
You could see the worry, then the frustration and then the pain on the England players faces as the game went on, it’s hard not to feel for them after the effort that went in to the campaign.
I’m still not sure if the pool game they had scrubbed helped or not. You’d say the performance against Australia meant it was a good thing, but it was a game lost where things could have been tried in a competitive environment.
The RFU will no doubt be forensically going over the campaign in due course anyway.
Does anybody think Jones might not stay on as coach?
Eddie has said all along that they had spotted the NZ game from 2 1/2 years out as a crunch point. It is certainly possible that England were raised to a fever pitch for that, and that the preparation and mental capacity to stay on high alert for another game was lacking.
Regardless of the cause, I do think that performance is the very definition of mental fragility. Like the Scotland game in the 6 Nations, England allowed one or two errors to propagate into a dozen or more, they were unable to reset, calm it down and go again with precision.
There were loads of examples. I mention a few above, but others include trying to run it back from behind their lines. Players not jumping for the high ball catch and losing the competition for it. Watson's shoulder barge to "protect" the catcher in the last minutes. There was panic in the way they were playing. Poor decisions.
If anything, I believe Farrell's problem is that his solution in times of stress is to ask for more of the same. He asks them to have faith, keep the plan. And all that happens is that the same mistakes keep happening. The hole gets deeper because they are still digging. A calmer head might just suggest that it isn't going well, so let's play for territory, take a breather and go again.
An example. Did you clock the approach speeds at kick-offs? England raised a stalwart wall towards SA, at a fast jog. SA sent missiles in to get the England catcher at our 22. They gained 10m more every kick-off than we did. We had to play from the edge of our 22, they got to the 10m line. That is just intelligent territorial play.
At the end we started chasing the game and abandoned the plan, choosing to try and contest at 10m, always more risky.
I think Eddie has done a remarkable job, and that the England team can be the very best, they have the talent, speed and physicality in their game to beat anyone.
But I still think it is the mental fragility undoes them. One setback can make them tighten up and make mistakes for 10 minutes.
In 4 years, this team will have the core of it still intact, and should be that much more experienced, giving them the sangfroid required to keep calm in the cauldron. It'll be great to see how it turns out.
South Africa didn't have a fortnight off like England, France, New Zealand etc. The fortnight off obviously wasn't the choice of the teams that had it, they'd have loved to play without a shadow of a doubt. But it was still a fortnight off, and one games potential injuries and inevitable tiredness and wear and tear avoided at a key moment. Easier run in than England? Don't think so.
True, a weekend off 3 weeks ago! However a Argentina/France (not played)Australia/NZ run in was much tougher than Italy/Canada/Japan/Wales.
Dont get me wrong England were poor and SA deserved to win, but it doesn't change the fact that England had a difficult set a fixtures. Had England completed all their games and won the Final they would have had to beat every team who had ever won the World Cup.
A bit like having to beat Argentina, France, West Germany and Brazil to the win the football World Cup. A tough ask.
Whoever does not know how to hit the nail on the head should be asked not to hit it at all.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Whoever does not know how to hit the nail on the head should be asked not to hit it at all.
Friedrich Nietzsche
So the question now is who will Eddie look to replace for the 6 Nations.
My money is on
Young
Cole
Mako
Marler
And possibly Slade and Joseph.
Whoever does not know how to hit the nail on the head should be asked not to hit it at all.
Friedrich Nietzsche
You are right again, I cannot blame England for that, and did not do so. Try reading my post again. I wrote: "The fortnight off obviously wasn't the choice of the teams that had it, they'd have loved to play without a shadow of a doubt."
'Would have' is not a fact, a fact is something that has actually occurred.
Whoever does not know how to hit the nail on the head should be asked not to hit it at all.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Yes, agree. SA are now the most successful World Cup side. Three wins the same as NZ, but have played in two World Cups less. Also they are the only team to have won without winning all of their pool games, which traditionally gives a harder run to the final. On the way they did all that was required to snuff out Japan, all that was required to stifle Wales, and they had what was Englands excellent (but evidently only) game plan completely sussed. Very impressed.
The locals of The Cooper's Arms were right ......
Read an intersting stat earlier. Every team that has knocked NZ out of the world cup before the final (5 occassions including this weekend) have never gone on to lift the cup that tournament.
I thought South Africa was very impressive at the weekend expecially given how poorly they played against Wales. South Africa did a good job deploying the same tactics against NZ in the group stages. Dfference is SA made a couple of mistakes and NZ were able to capitalise and score converted tries which won them the game.
Encouragingly for England the squad is very young so most will still be playing next world cup. Just a shame its 4 years away.
Another amazing fact is that when NZ score converted tries they win games. Well who'd have thunk it?
haha was more making the point that NZ are able to capitalise and convert in to points mistakes far more consistently than other teams. So when playing against a very structural solid team like SA you need that creative spark. I think Englad lack that same level of free playing counter attacking rugby as NZ which hindered them on Saturday. What England can be very good at is ruthlessly executing a game plan, this wasn't the case on Saturday due to being outplayed by SA and they didnt know how to react.
But yes strip the sentence back if you score more points than the other team and you win.
This is the magic of sport. It often defies rationality. If it didn't, I doubt I'd watch it. Predictability is the death of any entertainment event. Nevertheless, your statistic really surprised me.
I'm generally finding much more interesting than football of late because of this. The Scotland team ain't great but we gave England a real fright not that long ago.
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A very good Australian side and deserved winners on the day. Funny to think that, in some respects, they were fortunate to even be in the semifinal as Ireland nearly did them in the quarters. I suppose it is a sign of a good side to be able to come back and win when the stakes were so high.That amazing Gordon Hamilton try was good enough to win any game, but Australia were mentally strong enough to go up the park and score again (Lynagh?) in the few seconds remaining.