All Blacks Vs England, Twickenham
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I hope England are basically the same team that came down, or as close as possible to it. I'd like to judge where we're at and what improvements we've made.
There's been glimpses, but so much shit it's hard for me to tell if those good bits have been by design or good luck.
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@sparky said in All Blacks Vs England, Twickenham:
@LatsToTheMax We lost them both.
So that means we didn't get by the rush D?
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@Machpants said in All Blacks Vs England, Twickenham:
@reprobate said in All Blacks Vs England, Twickenham:
Getting walked over at the end of test 1 doesn't change how well we played for 60 minutes, and that we were up 4 tries to 1.
It's a shit result, and a terrible finish to a game we had in the bag - but we did unlock their defence.But they saw what we did an locked it back up for the second
We squandered numerous chances after getting through and around their rush D. Their D was better in Cape Town but we still broke it down only to f@ck up the end game. To say we didn't unlock it because we lost is simply untrue.
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Tubby Barnes firing some early shots. I don't see the ABs beating the rush defence with BB at 1st 5.
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Easily the most subdued build up to an AB test since I've lived here (both stints).
Barely any coverage, not much chat & little interest outside rugby circles.
Does this play in our favour? Not convinced. I think England are happy that it's this way so they can focus the build up with a potential surprise in the mix.
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@LatsToTheMax I prefer the games the All Blacks win, if I'm honest.
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@MajorRage said in All Blacks Vs England, Twickenham:
Easily the most subdued build up to an AB test since I've lived here (both stints).
Barely any coverage, not much chat & little interest outside rugby circles.
Does this play in our favour? Not convinced. I think England are happy that it's this way so they can focus the build up with a potential surprise in the mix.
Rugby is dying on its arse in terms of mainstream media interest in the UK. The big sport stories yesterday were the sacking of Ten Hag and the awarding of the Ballon D'Or. I doubt many of the current England Rugby team would be recognised by more than 5% of British teenagers. It's minority sport.
The first mention of Saturday's game is sport story number 28 on the BBC Sport website: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/articles/c93q8g904ndo
That said, I agree that all this plays into England's favour. Steve Borthwick's team have been preparing for this one for weeks. This will be a massive test for Scott Robertson's All Blacks.
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@sparky said in All Blacks Vs England, Twickenham:
@LatsToTheMax I prefer the games the All Blacks win, if I'm honest.
We all do. But it doesn't mean we can't look for positives in games we lost, same as negatives in games we won.
There were huge positives in Boks 1, which we lost, and huge negatives in Bled 1, which we won.
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@MajorRage said in All Blacks Vs England, Twickenham:
Easily the most subdued build up to an AB test since I've lived here (both stints).
Barely any coverage, not much chat & little interest outside rugby circles.
Does this play in our favour? Not convinced. I think England are happy that it's this way so they can focus the build up with a potential surprise in the mix.
I also think the lack of interest, outside Rugby circles, is in part the diminishing of the All Blacks brand.
Between 2005 and 2017, they were seen in the UK as the most successful team in any global sport. Now, not so much.
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If Scott Robinson's All Blacks were as good as some would believe, they would have won at least one game in South Africa earlier this year. Ireland did.
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@sparky said in All Blacks Vs England, Twickenham:
@MajorRage said in All Blacks Vs England, Twickenham:
Easily the most subdued build up to an AB test since I've lived here (both stints).
Barely any coverage, not much chat & little interest outside rugby circles.
Does this play in our favour? Not convinced. I think England are happy that it's this way so they can focus the build up with a potential surprise in the mix.
I also think the lack of interest, outside Rugby circles, is in part the diminishing of the All Blacks brand.
Between 2005 and 2017, they were seen in the UK as the most successful team in any global sport. Now, not so much.
This very much depends upon who you are talking to. If you're talking about the wider audience, you know the eyes that all the rugby administrators are chasing, then you might have a point. If you're talking to actual rugby people then I'd disagree very strongly. NZ are still looked at as world leaders in rugby terms and still huge draw.
The thing about those eyes that all the admins and marketing guys are chasing is that that have no brand loyalty - these are the people that no longer "support" Man United, don't wear their Brazil footy shirts anymore etc. So NZ aren't winning as much as before, so the fickle fuckers fuck off with their fickleness.
Growing the game my arse.
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@sparky said in All Blacks Vs England, Twickenham:
@MajorRage said in All Blacks Vs England, Twickenham:
Easily the most subdued build up to an AB test since I've lived here (both stints).
Barely any coverage, not much chat & little interest outside rugby circles.
Does this play in our favour? Not convinced. I think England are happy that it's this way so they can focus the build up with a potential surprise in the mix.
Rugby is dying on its arse in terms of mainstream media interest in the UK. The big sport stories yesterday were the sacking of Ten Hag and the awarding of the Ballon D'Or. I doubt many of the current England Rugby team would be recognised by more than 5% of British teenagers. It's minority sport.
The first mention of Saturday's game is sport story number 28 on the BBC Sport website: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/articles/c93q8g904ndo
That said, I agree that all this plays into England's favour. Steve Borthwick's team have been preparing for this one for weeks. This will be a massive test for Scott Robertson's All Blacks.
I rarely read MSM rugby coverage
It's bloody rubbish
Get far more insight from forums and YouTube
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@sparky said in All Blacks Vs England, Twickenham:
I don't think in this entire show the Breakdown team mentioned a single England player by name. Arrogance, ignorance or both?
The forced banter in the first couple of minutes was enough to make me switch off
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@sparky said in All Blacks Vs England, Twickenham:
I don't think in this entire show the Breakdown team mentioned a single England player by name. Arrogance, ignorance or both?
I know you have to pump your own car's tyres up but this show is beyond average
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@MiketheSnow Will Greenwood is good. Gavin Muirs at the Daily Telegraph is okay. But yeah, beyond that you're going to learn much more these days from specialist Rugby content providers
