Rugby - Hands Off White!

[Havak]

I really hoped I was wrong. Sadly I wasn't.

England squad to face Australia on 12 November:
Backs: O Barkley (Bath), B Cohen (Northampton), M Cueto (Sale), M Dawson (Wasps), H Ellis (Leicester), C Hodgson (Sale), J Lewsey (Wasps), J Noon (Newcastle), M Tindall (Gloucester), M Van Gisbergen (Wasps).
Forwards: S Borthwick (Bath), M Corry (Leicester, capt), L Deacon (Leicester), D Grewcock (Bath), C Jones (Sale), L Mears (Bath), L Moody (Leicester), P Sanderson (Worcester), A Sheridan (Sale), M Stevens (Bath), S Thompson (Northampton), P Vickery (Gloucester).


Robinson has to go NOW. No Ollie Smith but Jamie Noon and Barkley selected as centres? wtf???

Lightweights like Mears, Jones and Borthwick - christ they might sneak it against Australia but both the sides with the big Samoan flankers will murder those lads in the contact area.

The only positive move is Deacon - but the moron will put him on the bench no doubt.

Right now I'd take Sir Clive back - anything to be rid of this chump of a Turnip!

*edit* Sanderson instead of Hazell is fine by me too. thats a whole two positives then.

[child of Thor]

Still, always look on the bright side I suspect England will do much better against Australia than Wales will against the AB's.

Now the one that is wetting my appitite is the Ireland vs Kiwi clash in Ireland - i hope O'Driscol will be there to....well remind the irish what they need to do

I dont feel much sympathy for the AB's in that fixture, i hope the irish get typicaly irish about it and make it a very uncomfortable day for the kiwis. If they cant rely on the ref's+review board to see what clearly was a deliberate foul, then i'm happy for them to take it out on the rugby field, and screw the rugby go micks!

I forgot about the Orange-ones injury - groin isn't it? ah well, thats what you get going out with Miss Church i guess Still i like the fact that wales have lots of injuries, its a chance for some other(nearly half the team!) guys to have a go at arguably the best side in the world at the momment. No shame in giving it a good go and coming short, as long as they do give it a go and dont just roll over......which is a worry

Good luck to all teams and their supporters - i just hope the Irish vs AB fixture gets the irish some (rough) justice.

Zinzani always like what he has to say) http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugb...al/4388652.stm

[Havak]

Zinzan always strikes me as having limited processing power - but he is a nice enough chap. Great player - loved seeing him at Welford Road when he played for Quins. And unlike most of the current AB loosies he is genuinely a Kiwi I believe.

O'Driscoll will not be fit until December so will miss the AB fixture. He will certainly be in the ground however.

I can't condone deliberate violent foul play but I certainly wouldn't cry much if Umaga and Mealamu were targetted for a pasting by the irish forwards - they got away with a very dangerous piece of play (though beware - the kiwis all had their eyes closed and saw nothing at all wrong so to them Tana remains an anointed saintly figure).

Double spear tackles (on the opposition) are legal in NZ. Double spear tackles on ABs by the opposition would carry the death penalty (probably!).

Henry is not an idiot though - Umaga will not feature in Dublin. It's safe to say the ABs will not get a rapturous welcome in Ireland - nor should they be naeive enough to expect one.

It's probably for the best BOD misses the game - if he got hurt again (by accident of course) I dread to think what would happen!

Henson - has any player ever got so much publicity and made so much money from one 40m kick and a tackle on a teenager? When tried in the second Lions test he looked defensively useless. Give me Shanklin any day - a far better player!

[finbar]

Originally posted by Havak
I hope you find it in time for the following weekend.

The England match will be available to me online via Five Live. Our Brit friends with the olive farm won't have their plasma screen installed in time to watch it! I'm still looking for the France match.

[Havak]

The France-Australia game is being carried live by Sky Sports which should be available in Italy. But I guess this also relies on your friends Plasma screen being in place?

[finbar]

Originally posted by Havak
The France-Australia game is being carried live by Sky Sports which should be available in Italy. But I guess this also relies on your friends Plasma screen being in place?

Yes, and it won't be! I think I'll trawl the French media sites.

[Caligastia]

Originally posted by child of Thor
not even the SH tour of the NH? thats poor.

Tell me about it...aside from sevens they don't show any games that are played in the NH.

[finbar]

Mmmmm. Leicester stumbled over a Queenslander's kicking boot.

[LDiCesare]

I'm more concerned with trying to find online coverage of the Wallabies-France match!

Drive north with a tv set until you get France2. You've got 5 hours left to reach Nice.

[LDiCesare]

So France beat Australia.
The French performance was mitigated. Some good defense, particularly by the wingers and full back, awful lineouts in the first half, strong scrums, and 2 tries.
The Wallabies were, ummm. How do you call it when many players release the ball and make knock-ons when they aren't even held? Call them that then. Oh, and they also managed to shoulder charge Michalak after he had kicked, the lad went out. Hopefully, he's not badly hurt, but his shoulder had already been injured. I suppose that this (and the kick he received earlier by Smith) is why Pelous elbowed Cannon in the face a few minutes later. Apart of that, a nice and clean match.

[finbar]

Originally posted by LDiCesare

Drive north with a tv set until you get France2. You've got 5 hours left to reach Nice.

I had to settle for checking score updates on one of the websites!

[finbar]

Originally posted by LDiCesare
So France beat Australia.
The French performance was mitigated. Some good defense, particularly by the wingers and full back, awful lineouts in the first half, strong scrums, and 2 tries.
The Wallabies were, ummm. How do you call it when many players release the ball and make knock-ons when they aren't even held?

It's called clumsy and inept handling. It has haunted them for more than a year.

From what I've read, the Wallabies struggled - yet again - in the set pieces, the front row in particular. So what's new? I gather that the fumbling cost them a try. This was pretty much a traditional Wallabies line up - a lot of the old faces. I think the time has come to try the youngsters.

OTOH, they turned up to play and made some sort of game of it for at least a half. Unlike, um, the Taffys.

Oh, and they also managed to shoulder charge Michalak after he had kicked, the lad went out. Hopefully, he's not badly hurt, but his shoulder had already been injured. I suppose that this (and the kick he received earlier by Smith) is why Pelous elbowed Cannon in the face a few minutes later. Apart of that, a nice and clean match.

Boys will be boys.

[ravagon]

Hmmm. Welsh were, how to put it politely, a little disappointing?
I did read somewhere though that they 'expected' to bounce back against the Fijiians next week?
Seemed a bit strongly worded IMO. Fiji aren't exactly bunnies when it comes to rugby ...

Sounds like the Bok-Puma game might've been good to watch though. Play sounded a bit scrappy and although the Boks won it fairly narrowly neither side came away too upset about it.

[ravagon]

Originally posted by finbar

Well, that's two more than I've ever finished. I keep telling Mrs finbar I have the opening sentence done. Polished and perfected. She says - "Well, you've only got about 249,990 words left to write". At which point I visit this forum for some sensible conversation.

Don't know what the plot of this yet-to-be-written novel might be but I'm guessing from the last sentence that, were I seeking it in a library, I might find it next to something from somebody named Grimm?

[Havak]

Mmmmm. Leicester stumbled over a Queenslander's kicking boot.

Tigers got what they deserved from the game – despite the fact Worcester never looked like scoring a try. Nice to see young Will Skinner fit again and scoring a classic poachers try a-la Backy.

I disliked Shane Drahm at Saints – I thoroughly dislike him now he is at Worcester.

So France beat Australia.

Six losses in a row – it’s all being set up nicely for them to beat England this Saturday? And with the team turnip has picked they probably will.

I suppose that this (and the kick he received earlier by Smith) is why Pelous elbowed Cannon in the face a few minutes later

That’s an interesting defence of foul play.

Smithy is not a malicious player – I suspect he was thrown by being asked to play number 8 (whatever else he is – he is not a number 8!).

From what I've read, the Wallabies struggled - yet again - in the set pieces, the front row in particular.

One thing turnip has done Finbar is name a hugely powerful front row. Sherdian-Thompson-Vickery is some unit. They are banking on Sherdian to counter Hayman the following week. The ABs are catching everyone out at the moment by having a truly world class front rower.

Hmmm. Welsh were, how to put it politely, a little disappointing?

Where does one start? They were hugely handicapped by their absentees but still fielded a powerful pack – and it struggled to win them any set piece ball at all. The scrum only stabilised a little when the Englishman Horsman was brought on late on.

Hayman easily murdered the hair bear up against him

Chris Jack had an imperious game and the youngster alongside him looked pretty handy too.

Carter at the moment is really something else – what a player.

I don’t think any team can live with the ABs right now – the way they offload from contact is sublime.

I always thought that only England have a chance of stopping them – because we can disrupt their new found forward platform. I will admit it’s a slim chance however.

Certainly Ireland are in for a stuffing – and Scotland too. I just hope England can keep the score respectable at least.

I think Tana is delusional in saying that Wales can defend the 6N too – a lot depends on the likes of Jenkins, R. Jones and especially Shanklin being fit but even then a full strength England pack is going to make it hard for them at HQ.

I can’t wait for the inevitable Henson quote along the line of “If I had played we would have won”?

Have you seen the England side for next weekend Finbar? Turnip played it conservative and named his beloved bath second rows so the Wallabies have a great chance of disrupting our line out. Our scrummaging should be too much for you though (on paper). Look out for young Deacon coming on – spent his formative years learning under Jonno and I rate him higher than both starting locks (by a country mile!). Outside of deacon the forward son the bench lack physicality – they are all of the mobile ilk. I’m amazed that the light weight Chris Jones is wearing the rose again – that’s almost as bizarre as Lee Mears getting the replacement hookers shirt!

Tindall and Noon at centre is also mainly muscle and not much flair.

Anyway here is the side:

England team to face Australia on 12 November:
J Lewsey (Wasps); M Cueto (Sale), J Noon (Newcastle), M Tindall (Gloucester), B Cohen (Northampton); C Hodgson (Sale), M Dawson (Wasps); A Sheridan (Sale), S Thompson (Northampton), P Vickery (Gloucester), S Borthwick (Bath), D Grewcock (Bath), P Sanderson (Worcester), L Moody (Leicester), M Corry (Leicester, capt).

Replacements: L Mears (Bath), M Stevens (Bath), L Deacon (Leicester), C Jones (Sale), H Ellis (Leicester), O Barkley (Bath), M Van Gisbergen (Wasps).

There is a Kiwi on our bench!!!