Sat 12th Nov: RLWC SF: England v Samoa KO 14:30

[Guest]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_league/7703734.stm

Another high point. 

[Tippytoe]

3 minutes ago, Leonard said:

Yup. We are missing Luke Gale and Kevin Brown. 

If it makes you happy  

[MatthewWoody]

2 minutes ago, Leonard said:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_league/7703734.stm

Another high point. 

And that team was full of players who made the difference in SL.

[MatthewWoody]

51 minutes ago, Damien said:

Yes, first time it has happened so it's far from the same results. England losing to Samoa, as NZ did in the last World Cup against Tonga and Fiji, is far from what we have ever known in RL. Its unprecedented. Saying that there are some also moaning on this thread because we haven't lost to NZ or Australia, and have instead lost to a tier 2 nation, so we are damned if we do, damned if we dont.

What you call "moaning" is maybe just having an idea different than yours. 

Is it possible to think that losing to Samoa at home means underachieving? 

[Father Ted]

It was 2006 when we last beat the Aussies, it was at the Sydney Football Stadium. Since then we've had some good wins and some dreadful losses.

This (IMO) was the best squad we've had for some time. One problem was that there wasn't an English International calibre right centre anywhere be it SL or NRL. Rowley knows Watkins can't hack it at centre so has played him second row where he had a very good season. Waney went for Watkins.

Come the semi he got found out big time and by his Salford team mate. Watkins was getting beaten at will and then to compound things he dropped the ball over the line. From then on the squad lost all organisation and composure. 

England scored some spectacular tries especially by Farnworth. 

Golden Point time summarised the game for England. One mistake after another cost the game. 

 

 

[SUPERSTUD]

4 hours ago, Tommygilf said:

He isn't our best, but he is Shaun Wane's most trusted, and therein lies the problem

Got to agree with this comment. MM, Sam and Georgie W Shaun loves them all. Players in camp will know this also and be snipping behind Waney’s back. Add Jonny B to the equation also! It’s all ok until the brown stuff it’s the fan. Nepotism you will never defeat it.

[SUPERSTUD]

4 hours ago, The Masked Poster said:

So, after yet *another* defeat when it matters, the general consensus is "shut up and stop moaning, it's no big deal, we'll improve next time". 

Maybe this acceptance of failure is embedded in the England camp too? It wouldn't be so bad if we'd even won the occasional final, like the odd 4N or.....anything. But we haven't, yet the view is "nothing to see here, not the end of the world". 

What do you suggest as an alternative?

[SUPERSTUD]

4 hours ago, Damien said:

Yes that's valid mitigation but it doesn't get away from Williams deficiencies either. Based on club form he was lucky to even be selected. It is for these reasons I wanted Welsby at full back and someone like Sneyd playing in the halfs. There were always issues with the Tomkins, Welsby and Williams combo and they were laid bare yesterday. I think everyone agrees with the flaws with the McIlorum selection.

IMHO it is quite clear that Sneyd is not trusted to do the business in crucial international games despite being a brilliant long open and excellent goal kicker. Also some posters have harped on about Wayne Bennett saying we only lost a World Cup final by six points. Who was our designated field position kicker Luke Gale. His kicking was diabolical that day and we would not have scored a point if we were still playing that game now. Yes and I do still recall the ankle tap on a younger Kallum Watkins. We need a right good rethink. Yesterday have Ackers on the bench speed it up. Radley is a tough nugget but not a great distributor. Little things bring the gold. The staff need to nail these things.

[Tippytoe]

1 hour ago, Leonard said:

I'm not sure that progress is defined by an intercept try, golden point or a dropped ball over the line. 

Compared to the GB tour, we have progressed massively. 

Ok we have had the best preparation with lots of time to get it right the best squad the best facilities and the best camaraderie and progressed massively in all areas great!  And Samoa come up with cunning plan doh!

[Oxford]

I think this is a brilliant time to hold an inquest. When you can't see any good wood for all those awful trees!

 

[Josef K]

Halfway through Saints season in 2022 and near the end of the season i had a few heated arguments with some of my mates at the games when i said “i don’t understand all the hype over Knowles”. He has become more of a liability than anything, with his discipline. If (and it would be a massive if) a NRL club came in and offered Saints £150,000 id bit their hand off. 

[Dave T]

5 minutes ago, Josef K said:

Halfway through Saints season in 2022 and near the end of the season i had a few heated arguments with some of my mates at the games when i said “i don’t understand all the hype over Knowles”. He has become more of a liability than anything, with his discipline. If (and it would be a massive if) a NRL club came in and offered Saints £150,000 id bit their hand off. 

Agreed. See he has a ban again. The penalty he gave, which could have been a binning was stupid and arrogant. Which I think sums him up. 

[17 stone giant]

Gutted England lost but loved being at the game. Fantastic stadium, great atmosphere especially when England were chasing, and incredible tension and drama at the end. What a game that was!

[frank]

Not that it has affected any of the results but think the Aussies are running this show once again. We had a neutral ref for the England Samoa game. But not for Aussie v the Kiwis. The same guy will be officiating next  Sat .It's not a good look.

[jacobus]

In the interest of not feeding the trolls, I wanted to just add that the atmosphere that last 20 minutes was something quite remarkable with the stands rocking as the crowd got behind England and got us to golden point, something that looked unlikely at that time in the game. 

If we can play matches as England more often and engage people more in that way then we will grow and be even better next tournament. 

The best team on the day won. That's why we play the matches, to see who does the best between the whistles. 

What did please me was the non "regular" RL fans talking on the train home about what a sport it was and what a game it was. 

So if a few angry posters on here leave the game as a result of this defeat, let's do our best to welcome the new fans who loved it and celebrated the occasion, not just the outcome. 

[Damien]

21 minutes ago, jacobus said:

In the interest of not feeding the trolls, I wanted to just add that the atmosphere that last 20 minutes was something quite remarkable with the stands rocking as the crowd got behind England and got us to golden point, something that looked unlikely at that time in the game. 

If we can play matches as England more often and engage people more in that way then we will grow and be even better next tournament. 

The best team on the day won. That's why we play the matches, to see who does the best between the whistles. 

What did please me was the non "regular" RL fans talking on the train home about what a sport it was and what a game it was. 

So if a few angry posters on here leave the game as a result of this defeat, let's do our best to welcome the new fans who loved it and celebrated the occasion, not just the outcome. 

It was fantastic towards the end when the crowd really got behind the team and the England chants went around.

[Dave T]

27 minutes ago, jacobus said:

In the interest of not feeding the trolls, I wanted to just add that the atmosphere that last 20 minutes was something quite remarkable with the stands rocking as the crowd got behind England and got us to golden point, something that looked unlikely at that time in the game. 

If we can play matches as England more often and engage people more in that way then we will grow and be even better next tournament. 

The best team on the day won. That's why we play the matches, to see who does the best between the whistles. 

What did please me was the non "regular" RL fans talking on the train home about what a sport it was and what a game it was. 

So if a few angry posters on here leave the game as a result of this defeat, let's do our best to welcome the new fans who loved it and celebrated the occasion, not just the outcome. 

If people want to leave the game because we lost a game of Rugby league, that is their right. And they should go, life is too short to stress about doing stuff you don't enjoy. If you've had enough, it's perfect reasonable to go and do other things. 

But there can be no moral high ground by these people against those who are sticking around and continuing to support the game. 

[Hammerless Nail]

16 hours ago, Dunbar said:

I will need to find the will to watch the game back again but from the first viewing I thought a lot England's problems stemmed from distribution - either the dummy half or the middle forwards looking to link.  There was no accuracy and no urgency at all.

Williams was reaching over his head to catch a ball or always having to adjust his body position to collect.  This led to him having to change the play as the edge defence had come in.  Not every single time but enough for it not to have been just Williams looking lost.

When he did run the ball he was dangerous, as he proved in setting up both the Whitehead and Farnworth tries.

I thought he was one of a few who could come off with his head up.

I don't think Mickey Mac's distribution out of dummy half was that bad. It's just that he didn't do anything different. I don't recall seeing him run or kick out of dummy half. He just shovelled the ball out pretty much every time. Andy Ackers has a much more varied game, which it makes his exclusion difficult to understand. I think he should have been in from the start, with Mickey moved to the back row. The back row of the stands, that is.

I agree that the criticism of George Williams is a bit harsh. He was pretty much the only functioning vertebra in a disappointing spine. I think he would have benefitted from having a controlling half back alongside him: someone who could do the organising, kicking and general grunt work which would allow George the freedom to play his running game. Someone like Marc Sneyd, who performs that role at Salford, giving Brodie Croft the freedom to do what he does.

Still, in spite of the result not being what the sport over here needed, it was great entertainment.

 

[Archie Gordon]

Let's give the really upset folk saying it's the last straw for them a tiny bit of a break.

I think most don't have a club they follow. I'm in the same boat. This is effectively our only team. The rest of you guys know your teams are up-and-running again in February. 

England may or may not be playing FRA, CNAS (eugh) mid-season and may or may not be playing [someone] in Autumn 2023. When that's the state of play for your only team, it feels depressing.

[Saint Toppy]

On 13/11/2022 at 00:58, Loiner said:

Yeah true but nobody mentions Welsby, has he got off the bus yet ?

You could say the same about 14 of that 17 England players on Saturday. Aside from Williams, Makinson & Whitehead the rest were utter garbage. Some were even more garbage than others with McIlorum nothing more than a tiny speed bump who got run over all afternoon & Watkins playing at being the best statue ever seen on a rugby field

[Saint Toppy]

On 13/11/2022 at 08:13, Archie Gordon said:

I still haven't re-watched the game on TV but for the Ligi Sao try, did our markers really not split or was I deceived?

Welsby was left on the floor from the tackle and never got back into marker properly. In hindsight maybe he should have attempted the tackle and given away the penalty for being offside, but he didn't. This coupled with Watkins making a wrong decision in deciding to go early and run infield left a huge gap on the outside for Sao to stroll through.

Both players made the wrong decision, but they weren't the only ones who did that all match. Some they got punished for by conceding points like the Sao try and others they managed to get away with. It was an all round poor team performance with some poor individual dislays

[Roy Haggerty]

33 minutes ago, Saint Toppy said:

You could say the same about 14 of that 17 England players on Saturday. Aside from Williams, Makinson & Whitehead the rest were utter garbage. Some were even more garbage than others with McIlorum nothing more than a tiny speed bump who got run over all afternoon & Watkins playing at being the best statue ever seen on a rugby field

Even there, Whitehead blew the chance to win the game in the final seconds with a no-hope pass rather than a cool-headed playtheball. Makinson bombed a clear opportunity in the 2nd minute which could have set the scene for a very different game. Williams did a couple of eye-catching good breaks, but as halfback plays a very significant role in the lack of structure and threat for most of the game, and what was at times a woeful 5th tackle kicking game.

Nobody out there had their best game. Possibly Farnworth was the only one I can pinpoint as having an all-round good game.

[Man of Kent]

3 hours ago, jacobus said:

In the interest of not feeding the trolls, I wanted to just add that the atmosphere that last 20 minutes was something quite remarkable with the stands rocking as the crowd got behind England and got us to golden point, something that looked unlikely at that time in the game. 

If we can play matches as England more often and engage people more in that way then we will grow and be even better next tournament. 

The best team on the day won. That's why we play the matches, to see who does the best between the whistles. 

What did please me was the non "regular" RL fans talking on the train home about what a sport it was and what a game it was. 

So if a few angry posters on here leave the game as a result of this defeat, let's do our best to welcome the new fans who loved it and celebrated the occasion, not just the outcome. 

Well said. The atmosphere was tremendous in the latter stages. It's a rare thing for me to be hoarse after an England game.

We'll have made many new fans from the attendees and those watching on TV.

That's what this tournament is about for me - getting new eyeballs on rugby league from the men's, women's and wheelchair games, which should ultimately translate into more kids playing the game and more people through the gates.

[Saint Toppy]

17 minutes ago, Roy Haggerty said:

Even there, Whitehead blew the chance to win the game in the final seconds with a no-hope pass rather than a cool-headed playtheball. Makinson bombed a clear opportunity in the 2nd minute which could have set the scene for a very different game. Williams did a couple of eye-catching good breaks, but as halfback plays a very significant role in the lack of structure and threat for most of the game, and what was at times a woeful 5th tackle kicking game.

Nobody out there had their best game. Possibly Farnworth was the only one I can pinpoint as having an all-round good game.

Not sure you could class Farnworth as having a good game, he got swatted off a few times in the tackle, particularly in the 1st half and never really troubled his opposition centre for most of the game

Edited November 14, 2022 by Saint Toppy

[17 stone giant]

4 hours ago, Damien said:

It was fantastic towards the end when the crowd really got behind the team and the England chants went around.

The slow "England, England..." chant is very suited to rugby because it works well both when you're attacking and defending. It just fits nicely with the pressure building up as you try to keep them out or find a way through, and it's flexible so that you can have things like one end or side shouting "England" and the opposite end or side shouting it back. One time it was started by a group in the corner near me by the big screen (the winning drop goal end) and it spread nicely to other parts of the stadium. I'm pretty sure it was the 62nd minute from watching bits of the match again on iPlayer.