leicsmac

Yeah, the choices were either do what England did and take our chances, or play a more expansive game, throw the ball about some and get slaughtered, guaranteed.

Can't help but think this is a dress rehearsal for the final. Good game so far too.

As an aside, I honestly don't see the point of third-place playoffs in any competition outside, say, the Olympics where there's a specific reward for winning them. No one on either team really wants to play them and they seem to just be a money-spinner.

Who scored one try against the "bigger" teams in the whole tournament - in the final. In fact the team as a whole only scored a total of three tries against the Tier 1 teams in the whole tournament. Where the power to win the Cup for England that year undoubtedly rested was on the boot of Jonny Wilkinson, and on the discipline to win enough penalties and territory to make him effective. I would certainly agree with the sentiment, but at the same time, IMO the best teams are adaptable based on opposition and conditions and should be prepared to win games either with the ball in hand or the boot if necessary.

The 2003 winners did pretty much exactly that. Perhaps the game has moved on a bit since then though.

Don't think there was that much of a difference at the lineout tbh, though I've not seen the stats. I can't fault the game plan for the first three quarters of the game, but then they simply got outmuscled.

If I'm being proper critical then the game management from England wasn't up to spec in the last quarter, but then every scrum they were getting utterly beasted. Saffers too powerful in that one element and it turned out to be crucial.

That was closer than I thought it would be. Ah well.

Scrums starting to look rather lopsided.

Great defending so far, but still a way to go.

Well, that could have gone a lot worse.

Yup. Slotted kicks and all.

The NZers were masterful at that too, weren't they... Good start, but a long way to go against the toughest opposition.

RIP Sir Bobby. The Munich Air Disaster, the World Cup win, the 1968 European Cup final (scoring two goals)...the man experienced so much. Now only Hurst remains of the class of '66.

Wood and Atkinson at least making this somewhat funny/interesting.

Evidently it's some kind of universal law that England can't have a good Test team and one day team at the same time.

Well, this is all pretty catastrophic.

Yeah, can afford a loss today and perhaps one more, but nothing more than that.

I'm not sure that's ever happened to anyone in any sport. It certainly would be one for the pub quizzes.

3 or 4 years ago I would have said England have the will and skill to chase this down a few times out of 10. Now? Not so much.

Well, this is flat out miracle territory.

It is damn good, saw it at the cinema when it was first released there. Korea is throwing out some damn good horror movies - among others - of later. A lot of them have made their way to the popular streaming platforms too, especially Netflix.

That's fair, thanks for the explanation. Personally I think it'll take freak events, like red cards, to give a chance for Argentina or England in both of their matches.

Not sure I see the logic behind that one tbh.

https://phys.org/news/2023-10-combination-oxygen-methane-reveal-presence.html In searching for life in the universe, a field known as astrobiology, scientists rely on Earth as a template for biological and evolutionary processes... ..."to date, we know of about 35 rocky exoplanets circling in the habitable zones of their stars. While at the edge of technical capability for NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, analyzing the atmosphere of some of these exoplanets is now a possibility. But scientists need to know what to look for. Our models identify planets like a Phanerozoic Earth as really promising targets to find life in the cosmos, of course, that life by no means would have to be dinosaurs." Very interesting look at current exobiology.