England v Australia - Match Thread

[hopwood]

Game has broken up.

Get the bench on.

[Bloke in North Dorset]

Smith back on. He needs to have a good last 15 to make up for the card. He's capable of turning it round.

[Rossm]

Jeez. The amount of injuries these days.
Back in the 80’s and 90’s players would see out a whole game…over and over.

Shows the power of the magic sponge

[JonnyD]

Ground it out but as mentioned above if our plan A doesn’t work we’re going to struggle against Wales/Ireland/NZ/SA - need more tries if we’re scoring 25 points

[hopwood]

Well done England.
Much better.

But I still think the whole team are torn between two styles of playing.
They were amazing in the first 20 minutes.

They were also very good in patches.

But, they reverted to a defensive style as the Aussies came back at them, when they could have gone for the jugular with a more attacking mindset.

I’m not sure they’ve got the game to beat all 3 Southern Hemisphere sides in the Autumn. Let alone at the World Cup.

But hats off to Jonny Hill. I thought he was superb.
Lawes too. 

It’s a win.
And now all eyes fall on to next week.
A true test of where we are. 

[mike909]

Well they did what was required. They did it by playing like vintage England - but apart from good forward pressure and some astute kicking - they showed very little that lit up the senses and they looked like the "new" attacking style - which looked a lot like Gleeson's approach in 2019/20.....was abandoned for the hope that they might retain enough ball to strangle the Aussies. The Aussies showed that with possession, they are a real hand full and will be kicking themselves for not getting touch off a penalty and a not straight call - when they had the momentum.

So a win, but facilitated by Aussie mistakes as much as anything positive or new. But a win....

[Shugs]

A much better performance. As others have said we played to our strength. And that’s the problem - we only really have one strength - stuff it up the jumper and kick. But it was much better. As a game it was more absorbing than entertaining. One that staunch rugby fans would enjoy but probably no one else. I’m not sure it’s taken us forward - probably just reiterates that we can win games if plan A comes off.

[Bloke in North Dorset]

It was good to see England getting themselves out of the hole they started digging in the second half, all too often they go in to their shells.

[hopwood]

For all the negative stuff, revert to type stuff, being written.
I actually think England are one win away from accelerating into a good side.

If things click next week…and they can continue that first half momentum, then they could do a real job on Aussie.

It’s there.
It’s purely down to whether Eddie twists (and let’s them run at them)….or he twists, and we see a game to be heavily controlled by the forwards and Farrell.

For me…England look like a side stuck between two styles of play
But not sure which avenue to go down.

[westwaleswasp]

You can play like that vs Australia and win.
You can't play like that and beat France, SA, Ireland and NZ. That simple really.
We are no further forward on the backs, and have a decent pack that can get front foot possession and look dangerous against Australia.
It builds confidence, which is good. It tells us nothing we already did not know, though.

[hopwood]

You can play like that vs Australia and win.
You can't play like that and beat France, SA, Ireland and NZ. That simple really.
We are no further forward on the backs, and have a decent pack that can get front foot possession and look dangerous against Australia.
It builds confidence, which is good. It tells us nothing we already did not know, though.

I hear you.
Next week’s match coupled with the Autumn internationals will expose everything.
Is Eddie Jones a complete charlatan, or is there some shift to a better way under Gleeson?

[Shugs]

Pretty much my thoughts exactly. Nice to win versus Aus but we’re not good enough playing that style to win consistently against I would say France, SA, NZ or Ireland. There aren’t many sides that have two ways of playing to peak quality so I don’t think we’re alone in that. At the moment I guess the bottom line is we’re just not quite good enough for the top table.

[wasps]

Some of this could be the players adapting to the new game plan.


It's being drilled into them in training camps
They start the game off well, however if a few things fail, or when they get a little tired, they revert to what they've known over the last few years




It's possible that time may evolve them so that the gleeson approach becomes their default, however it may take time to undo what's been drilled into them in recent years






Maybe

[Bloke in North Dorset]

I understand the point about tiredness, but last week and this they went in at half time playing the system reasonably well but fell apart as soon as they came out. This week they fixed the problem at about 60 mins, last week it was 70 mins.

Are the coaches giving them too much to think about at half time?

[mike909]

Looking at how Squidge (allowing for all his quirks) described and pointed out our performance last w/e, the "new" game plan seemed to have a lot of similarities in how Gleeson got Wasps to play. I re-watched some game time and it was clear that quite often - just like England - we ran two first receivers - one with ball and one "hidden" behind to allow for switches/heads up play. That was often with Jimmy at 12.

England seemed to be doing something similar last week and this was pointed out as the new shape - but they were failing to pull off the "putting players in to space" that we were able to do back then.

Today - that seemed to be abandoned. We played narrow and with "weight" and never looked to distribution. And we resourced the breakdown and kicked. It was like watching the 2020 6Ns again, too often.

So it worked - it was rather back to the future. But it clearly didn't tell us anything about how England really want to play - but it might tell us something about their abilities to play a more expansive style?

Even if you did pull a "Wasps-a-like" back structure off - that's not the end of it. We did well as we also had a backrow/pack that was able to play in the wider channels and win ball/turnovers etc. The England set up with that starting backrow today really weren't. They were excellent in the narrow channels And as we've found as recently as vs Scotland this 6Ns, a good tackling side isn't bothered by a narrow physical approach.

So - a win is something to build on...in terms of morale and team spirit - but if it needs us to go back to a style we know we're good at but a style that SA beat us up when trying in an important game, then where does that leave England?