RWC: England v Tonga (Pool C)
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@MiketheSnow said in RWC: England v Tonga (Pool C):
MOTM
Paul Williams for me.
More matches for him please.
Thought he was excellent. He was even policing the off-side law.
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Good thing for England that they have their big Samoan or else Tonga might have been in with a chance of an enormous upset.
I found England very unconvincing indeed. Terrible handling and struggling to adapt to the conditions. I think one of Argentina or France might roll them over.
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@NTA said in RWC: England v Tonga (Pool C):
Willie fucking Heinz is their second choice 9? Jeez...
Big step up from being the Crusaders 3rd choice 9 though...
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@Victor-Meldrew said in RWC: England v Tonga (Pool C):
@NTA said in RWC: England v Tonga (Pool C):
Willie fucking Heinz is their second choice 9? Jeez...
Big step up from being the Crusaders 3rd choice 9 though...
An element of lack of choice. This is Eddie's unfathomable reluctance to blood any 9s coming back to bite him in the arse.
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@African-Monkey said in RWC: England v Tonga (Pool C):
@Bones Yes people get caught up too much on how these teams look in fixtures like this, trying to use triangle theories as a marker when they mean shit.
Now is NOT the time to be peaking in this tournament.
Please explain?
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That draw for England,
Argies and the frogs in their last 2 pool games ,
Before a quarter against Wales or aus, then a potential semi against Nz ,
That’s a tough month long block of rugby in consecutive weeks, be interesting to see how they go . All before a possible final if they are good enough
Will it make them or break them?
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@kiwiinmelb alternatively is a great way to build into quarters. No chance of complacency
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@NTA yeah there are 2 ways of looking at it...but i guess the bigger one is can they maintain that high intensity for 4 weeks on the go, while absorbing probable injuries too.
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@taniwharugby said in RWC: England v Tonga (Pool C):
@NTA yeah there are 2 ways of looking at it...but i guess the bigger one is can they maintain that high intensity for 4 weeks on the go, while absorbing probable injuries too.
I'm still pretty convinced that Eddy Jones will be grating on players after too long in camp. A bunch of players could go stale...
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@taniwharugby said in RWC: England v Tonga (Pool C):
@NTA yeah there are 2 ways of looking at it...but i guess the bigger one is can they maintain that high intensity for 4 weeks on the go, while absorbing probable injuries too.
They are one dimensional and play an attrition style of rugby. I can see them getting progressively worn down by the time they could reach us. No sitting back in their lounge chairs at Twickers waiting for us to arrive!!!
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@canefan and the way they use Tuilagi as thier main battering ram, given he is injury prone...
Not sure why they dont use Watson more to hit it up.
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@taniwharugby said in RWC: England v Tonga (Pool C):
@NTA yeah there are 2 ways of looking at it...but i guess the bigger one is can they maintain that high intensity for 4 weeks on the go, while absorbing probable injuries too.
I think a lot depends on how much the argies and frogs serve it up to them , and I’m not talking just physically, if they are close tense games, that can wear you down mentally week after week with no break.
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@taniwharugby said in RWC: England v Tonga (Pool C):
@canefan and the way they use Tuilagi as thier main battering ram, given he is injury prone...
Not sure why they dont use Watson more to hit it up.
Eddie totally overworks the Vunipolas and, now that he has him, Manu - it's not clever player welfare in a long grinding tournament I think
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@Frank said in RWC: England v Tonga (Pool C):
What is fantastic for us is that England have Argentina then France then either Wales or Australia on consecutive weekends before they play us. (assuming we make the semis)
Bloody hard to play well in that many games in a row on consecutive weeks
Consider that in 2011 we played 3 tough matches in a row to win the cup (QF vs Arg, SF vs Aus, F vs France), and that was really hard to keep up the intensity in the final after playing almost the perfect game in the SF
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@Frank said in RWC: England v Tonga (Pool C):
What is fantastic for us is that England have Argentina then France then either Wales or Australia on consecutive weekends before they play us. (assuming we make the semis)
Bloody hard to play well in that many games in a row on consecutive weeks
So in reality an easy game (Argentina), an unpredictable game (France) and a hard game (Wales/OZ)
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@Chris-B said in RWC: England v Tonga (Pool C):
One of Sir Ted's mantras (and a bit of an unconvincing one) was that you can't play well in all of three hard tests across consecutive weekends.
Wayne Smith used to talk about that the most, they had data that showed the drop off if I remember correctly.
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@Chris-B I wouldn't take PNC results too seriously. Yes Fiji and Japan were a lot stronger than the others, but Samoa and Tonga are never usually at full strength at those tournaments as it's an effort to get a lot of players there in the first place. They get a lot better the more time they spend with each other as well as they finally get their best available squads for a tournament like this.
