Sun 27th Oct: Men's International: England v Samoa KO 2.30pm (BBC Two)

[StandOffHalf]

A word from Moore to Luai after the Leilua flop at the start of the second half and the rucks cleaned up. 

A pity that Moore couldn't have done that in the first half if there were a few ruck interferences. 10 6 agains were the story of the game.

The willy-nilly 6 agains in the first half gave England 10 extra sets.

I like a ref who works with players. Some said that Moore was trying to let the game flow and didn't want to bin a Samoan. I think it is incumbent on a referee - especially a home referee - to let the visitors know what standards are expected and to maintain a dialogue. There wasn't communication.

Edited October 27, 2024 by StandOffHalf

[EagleEyePie]

To be fair to Bateman I thought he was pretty strong defensively today and that's almost certainly the reason he's so highly thought of by Wane. Newman can be a bit shaky at times and sometimes you need the experience on the edge to fight fires and mitigate any weaknesses.

Having said that, Pearce-Paul was a decent right edge defender at Wigan so I see no reason why we can't try KPP on the right and Nsemba on the left for the next game, or at least have Nsemba on the bench. I think you learn more from defeat than from victory so it would be good to have something different to throw at Samoa.

[WN83]

7 minutes ago, EagleEyePie said:

To be fair to Bateman I thought he was pretty strong defensively today and that's almost certainly the reason he's so highly thought of by Wane. Newman can be a bit shaky at times and sometimes you need the experience on the edge to fight fires and mitigate any weaknesses.

Having said that, Pearce-Paul was a decent right edge defender at Wigan so I see no reason why we can't try KPP on the right and Nsemba on the left for the next game, or at least have Nsemba on the bench. I think you learn more from defeat than from victory so it would be good to have something different to throw at Samoa.

If Nsemba plays next week, be it from the start or off the bench, it would need to be on that left hand side for me. He was good on the right early in the season but his game kicked on massively when he moved to the left hand side and he was unplayable at times. He looked so much more comfortable on the left defensively as well. 

Thompson and Nsemba to come in next week for me. Who to leave out isn't as straightforward though. 

[Futtocks]

15 minutes ago, StandOffHalf said:

A word from Moore to Luai after the Leilua flop at the start of the second half and the rucks cleaned up. 

A pity that Moore couldn't have done that in the first half if there were a few ruck interferences. 10 6 agains were the story of the game.

The willy-nilly 6 agains in the first half gave England 10 extra sets.

I like a ref who works with players. Some said that Moore was trying to let the game flow and didn't want to bin a Samoan. I think it is incumbent on a referee - especially a home referee - to let the visitors know what standards are expected and to maintain a dialogue. There wasn't communication.

Maybe he was giving Samoa the chance to do the obvious thing and reduce the number of set restarts by their own initiative, i.e. cleaning up their play.

They chose not to act like the highly-paid professionals they are, so he had to lay down the law to avoid carding players.

[graveyard johnny]

the only reasons I dont fawn over Dom Young 

never breaks a tackle

never makes a try for himself 

never makes a try for anyone else 

a turnstile in defence - will be dropped by the roosters mid season next year in favour of the wallabie guy 

[StandOffHalf]

2 minutes ago, Futtocks said:

Maybe he was giving Samoa the chance to do the obvious thing and reduce the number of set restarts by their own initiative, i.e. cleaning up their play.

They chose not to act like the highly-paid professionals they are, so he had to lay down the law to avoid carding players.

It would have been better officiating to have a word early - after the first two or three - and convey his standards for the game, rather than hiding behind the whistle. The second half was better.

[Chronicler of Chiswick]

Although we never looked like losing, Samoa kept plugging away and made us sweat for the win. Just what we needed- next week might be interesting. 

[EagleEyePie]

2 minutes ago, WN83 said:

If Nsemba plays next week, be it from the start or off the bench, it would need to be on that left hand side for me. He was good on the right early in the season but his game kicked on massively when he moved to the left hand side and he was unplayable at times. He looked so much more comfortable on the left defensively as well. 

Thompson and Nsemba to come in next week for me. Who to leave out isn't as straightforward though. 

I'd probably say McMeeken and Knowles were the least effective forwards today, though Wane does clearly rate Knowles very highly and I think having 3 middles is more his style. Maybe he just rotates the back row and one of Bateman or KPP miss out.

[Gav Wilson]

3 minutes ago, graveyard johnny said:

the only reasons I dont fawn over Dom Young 

never breaks a tackle

never makes a try for himself 

never makes a try for anyone else 

a turnstile in defence - will be dropped by the roosters mid season next year in favour of the wallabie guy 

[Fevrover]

42 minutes ago, Dave T said:

 

It's the match thread. Pining for games against Australia has nowt to do with this match.

I never mentioned Australia. 

[Worzel]

32 minutes ago, StandOffHalf said:

A word from Moore to Luai after the Leilua flop at the start of the second half and the rucks cleaned up. 

A pity that Moore couldn't have done that in the first half if there were a few ruck interferences. 10 6 agains were the story of the game.

The willy-nilly 6 agains in the first half gave England 10 extra sets.

I like a ref who works with players. Some said that Moore was trying to let the game flow and didn't want to bin a Samoan. I think it is incumbent on a referee - especially a home referee - to let the visitors know what standards are expected and to maintain a dialogue. There wasn't communication.

He did it in the 1st half, after a few repeat sets. The fact he had to tell them again is on them, not him. 

[Futtocks]

 

[Click]

38 minutes ago, StandOffHalf said:

A word from Moore to Luai after the Leilua flop at the start of the second half and the rucks cleaned up. 

A pity that Moore couldn't have done that in the first half if there were a few ruck interferences. 10 6 agains were the story of the game.

The willy-nilly 6 agains in the first half gave England 10 extra sets.

I like a ref who works with players. Some said that Moore was trying to let the game flow and didn't want to bin a Samoan. I think it is incumbent on a referee - especially a home referee - to let the visitors know what standards are expected and to maintain a dialogue. There wasn't communication.

There was lots of communication - It is one of the benefits of our sport that we can constantly hear what the referee is saying to players. 

I am pretty sure the first penalty I remember hearing the referee say "You did that on the last tackle and I warned you not to". 

He had a further talk at HT about it - and then Moore referred to that further talk at HT when he AGAIN had to talk to Luai about discipline early in the second half - how many times does a referee have to do it?

[StandOffHalf]

Looking at the highlights, it's pretty evident that there were a few forward pass tries today, heehee.

Luai and Welsby...

[StandOffHalf]

2 minutes ago, Click said:

There was lots of communication - It is one of the benefits of our sport that we can constantly hear what the referee is saying to players. 

I am pretty sure the first penalty I remember hearing the referee say "You did that on the last tackle and I warned you not to". 

He had a further talk at HT about it - and then Moore referred to that further talk at HT when he AGAIN had to talk to Luai about discipline early in the second half - how many times does a referee have to do it?

That's not how I saw the opening 40 minutes as a whole, but cheers for your perspective.

[StandOffHalf]

Gordon Chan Kum Tong is a pretty spiky little fella, isn't he...

[wilsontown]

1 minute ago, StandOffHalf said:

Looking at the highlights, it's pretty evident that there were a few forward pass tries today, heehee.

Luai and Welsby...

The Luai one I thought was forward at the time, hence me bellowing 'forward!' in the pub. Unfortunately everyone else was watching Chelsea vs Newcastle and had no idea what I was going on about.

[THE RED ROOSTER]

On the train back so got a few hours to post. Decent crowd certainly in the East Stand where I was.

Only spotted two Samosns on the train going up but on the platform at Wigan North Western there were a few London Broncos fans so presumably they got a later train up.

I was disappointed outside the ground there were no badge sellers, a lot of unofficial scarf sellers and plastic horn sellers for apprentice "Captain Hornblowers" fortunately none of whom were near me.....

The official Elite Pro Sports ubiquitous white van was selling a lot of NRL gear in addition to the very limited England range.

Do not know if it came out on the TV but the interruptions during the Samoan version of the Haka were hilarious.

The game, it was chilly at the Bric and Samoa did not appear to warm up conceding three tries before Mariner sat sail for under the sticks with an interception try. England were very fluent in attack. The IMO man of the match Herbie Farnworth. Whose offload for the Victor Radley try was class.

Samoa much better in the second half but England defence was solid conceding the two interception tries and Mariners second try which was an example of unstructured islander rugby at its best keeping the ball in hand.

Most of you were watching on TV and in the second try by Matty Ashton I thought the referee impeded one of the Samoan defenders from where I was in the East Stand. This was not shown at the ground which only showed the last stages if the try and not the build up so am I right?.

Long journey but worth it roll on Saturday 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Just Browny]

I enjoyed that. England were pretty much flawless until that calamity of a pass by Clark, and got a bit loose in the second half as Samoa started chancing their arm a bit with the ball.

Both half backs were outstanding and Farnworth and Ashton down that left side were a cut above. The forwards all did their jobs pretty effectively, I was impressed by Havard and Lees.

[Wigan Riversider]

First game I've watched at this level since WC SF 2022.

Enjoyed it immensely.

[bobbruce]

55 minutes ago, StandOffHalf said:

A word from Moore to Luai after the Leilua flop at the start of the second half and the rucks cleaned up. 

A pity that Moore couldn't have done that in the first half if there were a few ruck interferences. 10 6 agains were the story of the game.

The willy-nilly 6 agains in the first half gave England 10 extra sets.

I like a ref who works with players. Some said that Moore was trying to let the game flow and didn't want to bin a Samoan. I think it is incumbent on a referee - especially a home referee - to let the visitors know what standards are expected and to maintain a dialogue. There wasn't communication.

They knew what the standards were they just couldn’t go with it. I expect them to be much better next week for this run out. I also expect England to improve though with Thompson and hopefully Nsemba back/in. 

[wilsontown]

If you couldn't get some enjoyment out of that then possibly rugby league is not the sport for you.

[northamptoncougar]

Obviously my own fault but I’ve just tried to get 2 tickets but needed seating due to my little girl and the RL.com website say none are available. 
 

I'm actually surprised by this.

[M j M]

8 minutes ago, northamptoncougar said:

Obviously my own fault but I’ve just tried to get 2 tickets but needed seating due to my little girl and the RL.com website say none are available. 
 

I'm actually surprised by this.

Headingley seating usually sells out relatively early for international games. 

[JohnM]

3 hours ago, JonM said:

There was a pretty good atmosphere for the first 10-15 minutes until it became obviously a training game. Might wake up a bit now.

Nonsense.

Edited October 27, 2024 by JohnM