England Vs New Zealand

Not bad. Limited, but not bad, certainly from the pack. NZ with that constant mix of cynical and classy play good value for the win. But perhaps it could have gone better for them had Carter not gone off so early.

The England locks have emerged as a serious pair, would still like to see Attwood at least on the bench, and they'll need to show good form Vs the likes of Wales and SA. Vunipola had his best game at 8, but in fairness Morgan looked very sharp off the bench too. Front row looked okay, and Hartley would now seem clear first choice at hooker. Back row, well flankers, work very hard, I've no idea if they can support us playing rugby as we never actually play any rugby.

Halfbacks, well given the mess of the game today Dickson went okay, and I'm not perhaps a fan. Farrell was awful, again, though no doubt out coaches will be happy with him. Centres, Twelvetrees might have done enough to keep his shirt, I'd say no chance has Tomkins done enough but they're still picking Farrell. Back three, well we've two wings with very little strike running threat, and the fullback is playing well but doesn't really link with anyone.

So in the main I'd want a big change in the backs, and that's mainly a 10 who can pass. And then we can revisit if the pack are still good enough.

the pack is canny good

backs we need a more talented 10 and then we can evaluate the situation

big manu coming back would help and getting our wings and fullback hitting lines

Parling is on his way out now I believe. Lawes impressed me over this series, not so much on our lineout (which wobbled even whilst we were with Hartlet) but that he seems to get us competing well on the opponents lineout. Parlings greatest asset is his lineout, and without that, and with Attwood also being a caller, I suspect Attwood will get that bench spot.

It'll also help avoid repeats of Launch going off injured and us not having a tighthead lock to replace him.

Can't fault the starting pack to be honest. Even struggle to blame T Youngs for our lineout going to pot, NZ were pushing us hard on Hartleys throw, it didn't come as a surprise that it just crossed the line of "close but winning" to "losing" considering.

Corbs and Mako would have helped a bit I suspect, but Marler did well, and considering he's 3rd choice (maybe made it to 2nd now?) we're looking good at LH.

Dickson did well enough with what he was given. Tomkins should no longer be an issue in the future. Foden looked well enough considering he was out of position, but again, shouldn't remain an issue in the future. The only long term stopping point I can see in the backline is Farrell. And unfortunately, that's a pretty big one .

How far off is Ford? and why does Lanc's not like Burns?

Heres my 2 pennies worth:

The pack were brilliant, especially the second row, as everyone has said. But seriously Lawes was a monster, played his heart out.

The back line was the problem, obviously, and in my opinion started with the 9-10 pair. I didn't think Dickson was any good, mediocre at best. Farrel was lively when running, but flat and couldn't seem to pass, gotta try someone else, his kicking and defence isn't worth covering all the other issues.

36 has earned his spot next game and Tomkins was shocking, couldn't receive a pass, catch a ball or run it without giving away a turnover.

Foden did his job, but aint a wing really, though its good to have his security when ashton is about, which should not happen again for a while. Ashton was pants, drop him.

Fullback was pretty handy, would prefer him to be able to link up but our best back by a mile in that game.

well thats my thoughts. I wish we had a fit and firing Manu.

Can't really fault the pack, and when corbs and mako come back they will be world beaters, or at least world drawers. As for the backs, i believe burns had had a drop in club form prior to the internationals? causing lancaster to leave him out. but if burns can come back to form then him vs farrell in my opinion for the starting shirt, only choosing farrell if its gonna be a physical game like SA, otherwise he'd come off the bench to steady the ship and close a game out maybe, after burns has done his thing.
As for Manu, we all want him back but face it he's been injured and missed several games every year so far, he may not even make it through an entire world cup. i think its time we start using him as an impact player around the 50/60 minute mark and create some now centre partnerships for when he isn't around. 36 and eastmond i'd like to see, especially outside burns. i struggle to see why lancaster tried him and JJ out in argentina, they went well and then he doesn't give them a chance with meaningful opposition. as for dickson, i dont dislike him but in care and youngs i thing we have 2 better scrum halves.
as a full strength and bearing in mind impact players coming off the bench now as important as the starting lineup, i think we should field:
1. corbs
2. hartley
3. cole
4. launch
5. parling
6. wood
7. robshaw
8. vunipola
9. youngs
10. burns
11. yarde
12. 36
13. eastmond
14. wade
15. brown

16. youngs
17. mako
18. wilson
19. lawes
20. care
21. farrell
22. manu
23. foden
with foden being an impact player coming on for brown or covering wings if needed, manu impact, farrell as i said before. lawes as an impact player and i chose to leave out morgan cus if needed lawes can cover the backrow and wood can move to number 8. just leaves slightly more options and i wanted to work manu in. but if not bring morgan in for farrell and 36 comes in to 10, but its risky

I think we can likely discount picking Eastmond. Bath need to give him fair hearing, and perhaps pass him the ball too.

But with Burt so big on culture it'd be a real long shot to include a player who drives himself home at half-time. Even if there's a good reason it's not likely to appeal to a test squad.

Ps. don't possibly see how Lawes was other than our form player of the AI, and now one of the first names on the team sheet.

Really don't see how you can pick Parling over Lawes now. And Manu can go 80 mins punching holes, so why not let him, have Eastmond come on from the 23 shirt to run circles round tired legs (I disagree there btw, Eastmond hasn't shown anything this season (not his fault)).

Here's something I posted on another forum, feel free to disagree (Tangy).

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Just rewatching now. Momentum change to England didn't come from Carter going off, the ABs weren't ever in a position for Carter to have had any effect until it switched back.

The yellow card was fine, they can Dog of the Female Persuasion about Messam being in, but Launchbury had released the ball, Messam had it and dropped it when he was cleared out, so it's either the same ruck, or turned over and Messam was tackled, so a new ruck in which Read comes from the side.

There was no obstruction for 36 by Marler in the penalty miss, 36 takes the ball alongside Marler, they bind on to each other, in what is basically a maul, 36 moves behind Marler whilst also never losing his bind, and then breaks off at the side.

Momentum began to turn just after Launch and Hartley went off, we got a pen from the ashton block to take us to 19-20, after momentum began to switch. However it didn't really have anything to do with Launch/Hartley coming off to begin with.

36 has been a little greedy with the ball at times, but to be honest he's been so much more effective than Tomkins I can't blame him

Tomkins attacking ability was severely limited by Farrell though, the forward pass was completely unnecessary, Tomkins actually had to reach to get to it, which is why it was knocked on, if Farrell had put it straight into Tomkins (who was 2 foot away no need to pass in front of him) it would have been fine. He did similar to Tomkins earlier in the match too (when he juggled it and lost it forwards).

At least 3 of Hartleys throws were heavily contested, and caused poor ball to come back, I don't know why we don't use Launchbury more in lineouts as he arguably dealt with the interference the best of all of them, sending the ball back to Dickson quite well with one hand reaching forwards to get in front of the AB jumper. Youngs first throw was a clean steal by the ABs, ball was fast and perfectly placed, they'd broken our lineout codes or something. 2nd one was heavily competed, maybe slightly too high, tough to tell from the angles. 3rd one went fine, but the resulting maul was somehow stripped by the ABs, not Youngs fault. Then some ABs magic for the try.

When it went to 22-20 we were beginning to come under the cosh, nothing like the dominance we'd had beforehand, but still working OK.

Could be argued that the biggest change and influence was actually Billy V coming off. Instead of kicking to Billy, they do the more regular short challenged restart get the ball back, and then it spends most it's time in our 22, 36 is charged down etc etc.

Not going to watch the rest now, but that's my view upto the ABs 3rd try.

Carter's kicking game was fantastic for me. He ran some wide plays but also with the short kicks over the top put the ball where our defence wasn't. After Carter went off they didn't handle the rush so well and ended up kicking much longer which gave us the ball back, a lot. For me Carter going off had a huge impact on the shape of the game.

When 36 binds onto Marler is there a NZ player making it a maul?

And yes when Cruden eventually shortens their kicking game that in addition to our lineout going to pot changes the game again. Also by that we might have been running out of puff, and bar Morgan our bench wasn't adding to our game

Until the 50 minute mark Cruden didn't touch the ball but for restarts. They passed back to Dagg to clear one big ball, the rest of their possession were kick returns generally not lasting more than a phase. Or A Smith was box kicking.

After that Carter may have made a bigger impact, but they didn't exactly look poor with Cruden.

There's an NZ player making it a maul.

They begin to get a bit of leeway with a penalty etc, and once the magic of us constantly hounding them wears off it all begins to start crushing back down on us. Quite possibly fitness levels too.

Cruden sent them wide but little else. And really Cruden should be taking control from Smith who didn't have a good kicking game. Losing Carter was for me a massive thing, but then one would expect losing him to be such.

Losing Carter was crucial, in a team that kicks as much as the kiwis it has to be intelligent or its going to be wasted and Cruden doesn't have the Cater magic for that (then again who does?). The difference in intent between the two took the ABs time to deal with.

(I know all the papers have been mentioning the quantity of kicking, but most don't point out that a good portion of it is very attacking, not just punting for territory as happened briefly when Carter went off.)

It wasn't briefly kicking for territory, Carter went off after momentum had started to come our way, it was just after the try.

From there the only opportunity they got was a penalty kick just in range that Cruden kicked. At the 50 min mark was when Cruden got his hands on the ball in the English half, and maybe only the 2nd or 3rd time since Carter went off.

For a very long time we simply didn't let them have any possession or territory apart from Farrells aimless overlength kicks, which were always returned and eventually possession came back to us without the ABs playing many phases.

Even though we scored twice in 50-60 min on the clock, we were really losing momentum fast here, and maybe Carter would have done more for them in this time frame than Cruden.

I'm happy to think Carter would do far more for them every minute he'd be on a pitch

Perhaps, but then I'm happy to think Manu and Corbs would have done more, as would Yarde and potentially Wade (Ashton didn't have a terrible game, so it's tough to say for sure).

We were definitely targeting Carter to see if we could break him, turns out we could.

EDIT - What I'm saying is injuries happen, it's upto who's left to make the difference, and NZ did that better than us.

I agree injuries happen. What I started noting in essence is Cruden didn't have anything like the impact Carter was having, and that was a big part of England coming back into the game. Whilst Carter was on the pitch he was the best player out there for me, okay at 10 he's there to make decision, but he just makes so many good ones, and then executes with accuracy.

I suppose some people would claim Read was the best player on the pitch in the first quarter, but such people are delusional lunatics, Carter was in a class of his own.

What I'm saying is NZ simply didn't have the ball to do anything with for 30 minutes though. And that started whilst Carter was still on. At the 50 min mark the turnaround would have been great probably, and perhaps we'd have never taken the lead, and NZ would have hammered us further.

But once we start with the ifs and buts we can if and but our way with manu corbs etc etc

Overall, it was encouraging for our pack, and just another example of our backs not being good. 36 had a much better game than before though, there was one moment where perhaps he should have passed instead of run, but for the most part his runs were positive and gave us front foot ball.

They did have the ball, they kicked it high or long or both.

Take all the pressure we had at the end of the first half, which in the end didn't come to anything, but typified the middle 40 minutes. From the restart Cruden kicked long to Billy, I'm fairly sure that was a management call but it took a long while to correct such on the pitch. Doesn't matter too much as we kick the ball back to them when Dickson clears from the 22. Dagg then takes the ball into contact, and the ball is passed back to Cruden who is stood outside the 22. What happens next is exactly what England want, we work hard to close space in the middle and the opposition half is encouraged to kick, now that happened to Carter too but he mixed up the kicks to include some superbly weighted dink kicks, instead Cruden sends a high(ish) U&U and England win the ball back. And from then it's all England pressure until Hartley seals off to end the half.

It's not good enough for Cruden to say he didn't have the chance to do otherwise when we've seen that Carter had the same problems and managed a far better set of outcomes. It would be fair enough to say that Cruden along with every other 10 isn't a as good as Carter

Lol, fair enough.

As to kicking to Billy it was definitely management, it only stopped when Billy was subbed off. They either expected Billy to drop it (more chance with Cruden to be fair, since Carter was too accurate and wasn't forcing Billy to move), or to charge in as he did often, but I don't think they even turned him, so no real gain. Once Morgan was on, they did the short restart and collected the ball from it.

Possibly hoping Billy would drop it, possibly hoping he'd get tired. Either way given the impact Billy had, and the impact of Big Ben coming off the bench I can't see them running that play again.

Which means we shouldn't expect quite so many dominant collisions, as they now charmingly call them, to set up our exit plays next summer

Billy had severe positional issues in 2012/13 for Wasps, his hands were rarely bad, he just didn't get into the right place. Carter was putting them right down his throat, so it was pretty simple. I really can't see them running that again though. I'd hate the thought of having to repeatedly stop him.

I wasn't saying Parling is better than lawes, but Parling can run lineouts well and perhaps could have prevented it going to pot. I think lawes is the better player but would be more useful as an impact player.
And yes manu has proved he can last 80 minutes, but he hasnt proved he can last several games. he gets injured and then we have situations like this autumn trying to force a new partnership. so i'm saying get another partnership sorted that doesn't involve manu such as 36 and eastmond running around as i think they can win the gainline (if eastmonds defence is ok? i dont know), or even 36 and 50-cal (barritt) and manu comes on at 50 or 60 to just run through those tired legs and run up the score board at the end of games.
yes ashton was ok, but only ok, and still you have to believe yarde would have performed better were he not injured.

we can analyze that game all we want, the end result will be we played well in areas but were ultimately beaten by a better team - the best in the world. However what i believe when we are a full strength side and still improving at quite a pace, by the time the world cup comes around i can honestly see us bridging that gap between us and them. I'm not saying favourites, but not far off

Parling was on whilst the lineout was going to pot. No guarantees he was running it, but he's enough of a leadership figure that if he could see what was going wrong he would have sorted it if he could I suspect.

Manu is by far the English back who carries the most threat, and he's quite capable of running through fresh legs as well as tired ones. For me he'd start if he's fit, still think he'd do well to lose a little weight though.

Also the backs lacked shape, passed badly, kicked badly, took wrong options, and were wholly unable of taking the good work by the pack and scoring a try. You might care to label the backs work in progress, I'd give a few of them a quite different label, but I don't think they can possibly be said to fall under the comment 'we played well in areas'

By played well in areas, i was more or less referring to the pack lol. may be wrong about parling, last year he was starter i think primarily to run lineouts.
And i agree about manu just think like you said if he's fit, i just think if he started all games he'd injure himself again and again, can prevent that by making him an impact sub. but this is just my opinion