let me just quote my "poor post"
if you notice i said "dominated" not beaten.. that is very different.. we have not been dominated by another team.. you can get beaten without being trampled upon.. plus we were beaten for 20 minutes not for the whole game.. for the other 60 we were are least on a par in the pack, we were not dominated.
bar that which is open to debate which other bits of it are poor??
in games where we have been equal with the other forwards our problem has always laid in the backs as i point out in other posts.. in the one you believe is a "poor post" i have pointed out how this is changing and how i can see that we are getting stronger in the positions.
The aussies' backs are so dominant (and i use that term again deliberatly)
that they destroy us when their forwards get on the front foot.. even if only for 1/4 of the game
when our forwards are on the front foot we cannot do this and we struggle to score even with a dominant pack or just a good pack.
our forwards not being dominated means that we are on an even keel, the game ebs and flows but to be winningt he arm wrestle for 60 minutes you should win the game, the reason we dont is the backs not completling the sets of 6 in the same fashion as the forwards start it.
The point being we have the forwards and have done for a while, we are now starting to get the backs.
OK I take your point on the question of dominance V beaten as you have explained your definition well, but!
I do believe that you are going around the facts in order to suit your own argument.
As the game of Rugby League is played for
80 minutes, the fact that one pack loses it's equability with the other pack consistently (almost continuously since 1982) results in a loss. Sometimes that loss can be heavy and seemingly lop-sided a prime example being the 4Nations final last year.
I do not argue with the explanation of how, our often inferior backs fare, when as you say " our forwards are on the front foot ", but I will contest the fact that you seem to be of the opinion that often it is our pack that has the upper hand and that their exhaustion is so often the cause of our downfall, because the backs are not good enough to exploit this early superiority that we almost certainly attain, in most games V the Aussies?
That is not the case always and some pretty gruesome results only too clearly display that fact.
I have had this discussion so often and over so many years and to be honest I cannot totally agree with the argument that G/Bs or now Englands pack is so often as good as the oppositions and as some alway's claim, often better!
That they often compete for much of a game is not in question but still, the fact that eventually over the 80 minutes they prove not good enough, points to the fact that over a full match time we lose as a team and also in the
pack, otherwise we would share the honours of wins far more equally than past records show.
In last seasons final it was the departure of one of our 'inferior' backs from the field that proved the catlyst for the eventual defeat: Shenton! Who had manfully stopped all thrown his way and more, in defence.
Some seasons ago when Morley was sent off after 12! Seconds, we only lost in the final few minutes when our
'poor' backs had to defend for 79 minutes without one of our much vaunted pack .
I argue that they must have done equally as well as those in pack to have played that game to such a conclusion?
I want our team to win but that does not alter the fact that being realistic about the past, present and future performances is to be seen as denigrating our players whether in the pack or the backs, we field a team not a pack and the latter are as culpable when we are defeated as the former, if we had dominance then we would come out with more wins, that is just my own opinion.
