« Rugby Video: Jamie Roberts as a teenage bulldozer | Main | Rugby Video: England 14 - 28 Australia, highlights »
England 14 - 28 Australia: The SHIT/GOOD™ Ratings
It was the first real test of the Martin Johnson's New England, which of the players goes away with a Blue Peter Badge and which ones with a Peter Sutcliffe Badge?
Delon Armitage: GOOD - England's (bizarrely) fifth choice full-back grew in stature once again a further cemented his place. Added a drop-goal to his already impressive display of skills at international level. Due to his outshining of everyone who is meant to be better than him, this blog has now officially adopted him as our mascot and inspiration.
Ugo Monye: SHIT - the computer is ruthless in its judgements, but to be fair he didn't get the ball much and when he did it was swung wide on first phase. Thus he only had the options of kicking, being tackled by four Wallabies, or running into touch weeping in frustration most of the time.
Jamie Noon: SHIT - What is Jamie Noon for? His passing is garbage, his angles aren't the best, we've only seen him sidestep about 3 times in his career and his jaw is a very strange shape. However he can tackle quite hard, which is apparently enough to earn an international start. Sure after this performance that will not be the case anymore; if Mathew Tait doesn't get a start in the next match I am going to punch a cat in the face.
Riki Flutey: SHIT - Tried his best to manufacture something, unfortunately all he could come up with some some missed tackles, lateral runs and ponderous passes. Defensively forming an Axis of Feebleness with Cipriani.
Paul Sackey: SHIT - See Ugo Monye, and add on the fact that Sackey gave away a stupid penalty in his own 22.
Danny Cipriani: SHIT - A couple of little breaks aside this was a mediocre performance from THE GREATEST PLAYER IN THE HISTORY OF RUGBY (© The British Media). Kicking was fitful, and there is little to suggest that his much vaunted partnership with Flutey is offering anything at the minute.
Danny Care: GOOD - Busy as ever, and his passing is a revelation after the soporific service of Shaun Perry and the like. First scrum-half since Matt Dawson to offer a genuine threat around the fringes, did enough to gloss over his missed tackle and dodgy fielding of a kick in his own 22.
The Entire Front Row: SHIT, SHIT, SHIT - Right up there with being out-run by a morbidly obese dwarf is being out-scrummaged by the current Australia pack. After retirement, this lot will weep quietly in the night about this game and Andy Sheridan should be doubly ashamed for being owned by Al sodding Baxter.
Steve Borthwick: SHIT - Pretty average around the park, but mostly SHIT for the inability to reign in the penalty count against his team. The number of penalties was bad enough, but the fact they were all so kickable smears shit all over the injury already insulted.
Tom Palmer: SHIT - Did nothing to suggest that any of us should change the opinion formed after all his other international appearances: that he looks like he is the solution to the second row problem, but somehow isn't.
Tom Croft: GOOD - Young player who did enough to ensure that he will keep his place, and Haskell certainly didn't show much coming off the bench to suggest he should replace the Leicester man
Tom Rees: Insufficient Data - Was he doing a Richard Hill; doing load of amazing stuff that is not obviously apparent? Or, was he more like Magnus Lund and just not achieving much? We suspect the latter.
Nick Easter: GOOD - The Quins man scored a try, off-loaded to good effect and showed some character all around the pitch. Could it be Jonno has the wrong man as captain?
Why not subscribe to Blood and Mud? You can get all our updates fresh in your inbox, or add us to your favourite feedreader
November 16, 2008 in Australia, Autumn Internationals, England, SHIT, GOOD™ Ratings | Permalink| Del.icio.us this!|Digg this! | Punditit this!
Comments
you missed the utter shiteness of the ref out of the mix. At least steve walsh knows how a scrum should be reffed
Posted by: andyinbrum | Nov 17, 2008 11:02:54 AM
Andy, the ref knew exactly what he was doing. He could see Sheridan off balance on the hit, not binding, pushing down, crying like a baby - take your pick. England had 2/3 of the possession and 2/3 of the territory so some dodgy assertions that it was the ref's fault are patently tripe. England played to type - one try from the forwards, the rest of the game utterly clueless outside the first 9, with props at first receiver, wings chucking the ball away like it was on fire, etc. Cipriani did what the rest of the world knew he would do, everyone except the desperate English media - individual skill, but he's not a world class 10.
Posted by: brighty | Nov 18, 2008 9:25:53 PM
brighty, what about their loosehead failing to bind for the first half?
Still, it does remove complacency from the team. I just didn't think the ref was fair in his policing of the scrum or breakdown. However compared to the ireland new zealand game he was damn near perfect
Posted by: andyinbrum | Nov 19, 2008 2:37:37 PM
I just can't see that the ref's scrum interpretation had a big enough bearing on the game to explain England's loss. Sure, he called a few things the wrong way, but not all of them and there were some clear times when the Aus scrum legally mullered the English scrum, especially the one where Sheridan looked mystified when the penalty was awarded.
But even if the ref had given all of the scrums to Aus England still had 2/3 of both possession and territory, they just failed, as they have done for years, to do anything creative with it at all. All of this Cipriani/New-Wonder-Back-3/Johnson-Is-God tripe the press churn out I think filters through in some way to the sqaud and also explains the fans utter amazement that Aus are any good.
The fact is that for years England have relied too much on their bulk, but now we've all been professional for long enough, we've all got big lads. So that edge has been reduced, now you need some skillful lads and England are woefully under resourced in this department, probably because most of the backlines in the top GP teams are full of overseas players...
Posted by: brighty | Nov 20, 2008 11:49:27 AM
Brighty,
The ref had a shocker with the scrum. It in no way affected the outcome of the game, and to be fair to Andy at no point did he say that it did, but that does not alter the fact that an international ref should be able to ref a set-piece much better than that.
Posted by: lee_editor | Nov 20, 2008 3:50:30 PM
Fair enough, looks like I was arguing when we actually agreed!
As with most things I think it's open to interpretation i.e. yes, I did see some bad calls, but nowhere near as many as I see moaned about in the press.
Posted by: brighty | Nov 20, 2008 5:56:34 PM
Which parts of Sheridan's and Vickery's arses getting handed to them on a plate did the ref miss?
What Jonkers picked up relatively early on was England pulling back from the engagement after the hit. Seems their gameplan was to milk the (deserved) pre-conception that the Wallabies couldn't scrum. When that didn't work they had nothing.
Even Scott Quinnell spotted it on the video analysis with Sky. I don't know how you guys are still deluding yourselves.
If anything, you guys got away with plenty at the breakdown where Smith and co were all over you, but got almost zero despite the lack of release.
Posted by: gagger | Nov 22, 2008 10:00:10 AM
