Thompson, Lees and Walmsley rotating next year anyone?
Thompson, Lees and Walmsley rotating next year anyone?
And as for Hodgson, he is absolute cack. Really don’t understand the love in for him in the NRL. He stands behind the play the ball dancing from foot to foot rather than passing the ball from the floor and giving his runners or halves more time with the ball. By the time he’s decided which way to go, the defensive line has moved 5m.
He also can’t pass right. He had a shocker IMO
Hicks penalised England for being offside thrice while ignoring Kiwis dozens of high tackles and never saw half their forward passes or their being offside when he was a few feet away. A neutral ref would have been preferable to one who clearly overcompensates for the opposing team. Penalty try for knees but nothing said about the arm around Connor's neck, a different rule for them?
Still yet to see it, what's worse is he thinks he's an absolute world beater in the way he plays, and the less said about his kicking game the better, just don't see whatsoever the hype, as mentioned there's still three hookers better than him.
Thought Makinson, Whitehead and Thompson played very well, Connor and Gildart didn't do much, but both took their chances very very well, and both scored good tries.
Not a great deal from 1/6/7, but Bennett will be happy with that performance, it's not going to entertain, but it gets results, and I expect to see the same team next week barring injuries
In NZ the post match comments team including Justin Morgan and Bluey McClennan were ripping into refereeing and basically said a 14 man England got an undeserved victory.
For perspective my Kiwi partner had no qualms with any decisions but she was well annoyed with JWH for resorting back to his old head high style of play compared to the controlled game he played against the Aussies.
Thats pretty petty from that lot. Hicks ignored numerous high shots, facials, and offsides. In that first 20 minutes he could have penalised the Kiwis way more than he did.
They’re probably stinging because they lost to an England team with so many Super League based players in it.
screaming in the family corner, scaring the kiddies
First 25 minutes or so was very good, the forwards were on the front foot and had NZ going backwards. Good line speed defensively and were able to slow them down, I don’t think Johnson had any front foot ball at all and England were always set. Had we kicked the ball a bit better in that period, I think we’d had had more to show for it. 25 minutes in, the game became loose and the intensity dropped, from both teams. Couple of soft penalties, couple of loose passes and lapses in concentration, thinking about the Josh Hodgson sliced kick and the incident with him at the ruck. We switched off twice defensively and they scored two tries
Second half followed a similar pattern. We kept inviting them back into the game, particularly through our kicking and obviously it was the Gildart try that broke it. Brilliant finish. I’d like to see us go wide a little bit earlier, we troubled them when we did. Whitehead made a break down the left in the second half, we had a 2 v 1 where the NZ had to knock it down, the Gildart try came from a bit of ball movement, Bateman made a couple of half breaks when we got him in front of their half back. I think that might be something to follow up on.
I do, however, think we need to kick the ball an awful lot better and I think the score would have been a lot more favourable had we done so. We let them off the hook constantly through poor kicks and too often we gave them easy out’s when we had them on the back foot. Tomkins isn’t a 7 so it’s understandable but Williams and Hodgson are in that as well and it’s an area that needs a lot of improvement next week IMO. Another area for me would be organisation in around their line, we had a couple of sets in good ball where we didn’t throw anything at them, didn’t get to the right points on the field and the forwards needed more direction. There was a lack of structure to a couple of those attacks and ultimately they ended up being a couple of drives and a poor kick when we needed to challenge them more. I can’t remember Lomax getting a pass in space all game and I’d be wanting an explanation from the halves as to why that was.
But... some good stuff in there as well and if we can keep that intensity going for longer and fix a couple of areas up, I think we’ll do well in the next two tests.
Steve Prescott MBE (1973-2013)
V
good game, cant wait for Anfield next Sunday.
Thought Hodgson wasn't that good not as switched on as Roby ,rat boys kicking was rubbish as well thought the Kiwis were slowing the PTB down but Hicks had a shocker IMO
Should be a good game next week. Bit of a concern how easy they opened us up for their two scores. The tryscorers never had a hand laid on them. We gave their halves too much time and space with the ball.
screaming in the family corner, scaring the kiddies
Will be interesting to see how Shaun Johnson reacts to the news NZ Warriors are basically asking him to test the market out- he could respond with devistating effect ( or might not!). Thought that was one area the Kiwis didnt managed to exploit, England allowed him so much space to run on the last - seemed to be always expecting the kick.