Inexperience No Excuse For Naivety

by anotherworldofpain Sat 17 Nov 2012, 8:54 pm

I'm sorry but England should be ashamed of themselves.

Poor game management and rank naivety let them down today. A schoolboy like over eagerness to break their second half 6 point deficit via an ellusive decisive try saw them spurn 5 shots at goal and end up scoreless in a second half after leading a tight contest by 3 at half time.

Now the excuse of youth and inexperience holds if you are 13 and playing in a local league final for the first time and trying to impress your girlfriend, but this is international rugby and they should have known better.

Perhaps they were unsettled by the Australian dominance in the scrum, but England seemed to abandon structure altogether and played a disappointing, error strewn haphazard second half and resembled a barbarians side more than an international representative team.

And what of the coaching staff? With all the "water carriers" whizzing on and off the field, did nobody think to relay the message "kick the goals" ?

by Taylorman Sat 17 Nov 2012, 9:06 pm

Looks like Oz are definitely the new France- like a box of chocolates...you just never know what you're gonna get.

by anotherworldofpain Sat 17 Nov 2012, 11:03 pm

I think it's more a measure of how much better France are than England at the moment perhaps Taylorman?

by **LondonTiger** Sat 17 Nov 2012, 11:04 pm

Agreed, but this naivity is not new with England teams. Carling v Scotland in 1990 and Dayglo v Wales in 99 are further examples of Captains spurning numerous kicking opportunities.

by fa0019 Sun 18 Nov 2012, 1:16 am

France obviously better? Even though eng beat France at home earlier in the year?

You were always going to see an improvement with AUS today.... If they played ENG, FRA or whoever. You don't draw with the ABs at full strength unless you are a good side... But taylorman is right..... Deans has lost to Samoa, Scotland etc one week and then beaten the worlds best the next.

Yes ENG we're naive but I don't think they should be too down hearted, it's a learning curve... They weren't outplayed, they were out smarted... Flood is experienced enough though to tell robshaw to calm it down a little...

by kiakahaaotearoa Sun 18 Nov 2012, 9:45 am

Then drawn with the world's best fa0019. Very Happy

by doctor_grey Sun 18 Nov 2012, 9:55 am

This is quite an interesting thought. Clearly, England needed better on-field management. The decision making was poor, not just about kicking penalties, but also throughout the match. Australia won, and earned their victory. Their one area of clear dominance was playing smarter Rugby. And that is a severe indictment of England management, Captain Robshaw, and the rest of the team.

by ultra Sun 18 Nov 2012, 10:02 am

anotherworldofpain wrote:I think it's more a measure of how much better France are than England at the moment perhaps Taylorman?

Awww see? I was all agreeing with you and everything till you did that!!

by Portnoy's Complaint Sun 18 Nov 2012, 10:02 am

My opinion is that England were about the same as last week.
But Australia were much better. Alexander certainly queered Marler's pitch.

by AlastairW Sun 18 Nov 2012, 10:11 am

doctor_grey wrote: And that is a severe indictment of England management, Captain Robshaw, and the rest of the team.

Absolutley. Yet do we do what was done in the past and start sharpening the knives and polishing the pitchforks? I personally don't think so. A few bad calls were made no doubt, which is no excuse as we do need to start winning from here on in. But yet again the press talked up the England side, and now they're coming out with 'naive' and other such comments that do no good to anyone; just the same as they always have. One of the reasons i detest the hacks so completely.

A few guys had a complete shocker yesterday, from on field management to bad personal performances, penalties being given away stupidly, to Australia being a lot more savvy and shutting down players and opening up areas they saw. That is the difference between 2nd and 5th in the rankings. Good on them, they right side won after the second half performance.

Do we swap out Robshaw as captain? It was his first game in a year in charge where dodgy decision making was made, that's not a bad hit rate. We need to support and get behind England now and trust that all will learn from what happened. I've still more faith in this approach than the old boys club from 2011.

by kiakahaaotearoa Sun 18 Nov 2012, 10:25 am

ultra wrote:
anotherworldofpain wrote:I think it's more a measure of how much better France are than England at the moment perhaps Taylorman?

Awww see? I was all agreeing with you and everything till you did that!!

I don't see how that statement is controversial. France have had two big wins against genuine competition. England had a good win against Fiji in terms of the scoreboard but it was far from a complete performance. They were found out tactically yesterday and failed to gain advantage over the Australian pack. When you look at France's two performances against good opposition, they seem to have markedly improved from their poor showing in the 6N. I'd be very worried facing them in the 6N. They seem focused and hungry and frankly that's good to see. Too often they put in shoddy performances in the 6N.

by emack2 Sun 18 Nov 2012, 11:06 am

Deja vu AWOP,Australia 2009 won and lost a test versus England the second pure ly by poor Goal kicking..England lost to Maori on that tour to, BUT Charlie Hodegson put together for 40 minutes a sublime display in that match .
England V Australia at Twickenham,approaching half time England ahead.
Giteau in the Bin a minute to run Australia penalty in front of the posts take 3 and start again?
NO Genia trys a tap,ball lost quick pass to Ashton 80 yard dash try GAME OVER.
Australia did`nt become one of the best 3 sides in the World over night and at FULL STRENGTH they are a match for most teams and most dangerous when written of i.e.HongKong and Brisbane.There Scrum while not usually dominant with Alexander,Robinson And Moore starting is much underated.
They have always had the avbilty to move the ball around and with there missing
players to return.2013 looks promising in the 4Ns and will be the closest for years.
France?whoever knows how they will play but they have the basics right Scrum/Lineout/Breakdown/Goalkickers especially drop.Freddie Michelak is there best 10 has been foer years but no one knew it.

by Barney McGrew did it Sun 18 Nov 2012, 12:08 pm

Kinda new territory but pain is correct. A part of what made the 2003 England side so good was that they built pressure by allowing Wilko to keep the scoreboard ticking over. It often meant the opposition were chasing the game, and hey, it often won games. Here’s the thing Nobshaw – kick the effin points.

by anotherworldofpain Sun 18 Nov 2012, 1:22 pm

fa0019 wrote:France obviously better? Even though eng beat France at home earlier in the year?

You were always going to see an improvement with AUS today.... If they played ENG, FRA or whoever. You don't draw with the ABs at full strength unless you are a good side... But taylorman is right..... Deans has lost to Samoa, Scotland etc one week and then beaten the worlds best the next.

Yes ENG we're naive but I don't think they should be too down hearted, it's a learning curve... They weren't outplayed, they were out smarted... Flood is experienced enough though to tell robshaw to calm it down a little...

You watched all the rugby this weekend and don't conclude that France are head and shoulders the form team in the NH so far? Weird...

They destoryed Australia, they pumelled Argentina; Australia edged England in all departments and Argentina did the same to Wales.

Aside from abberations misindicated by comparison to the embarassment that is Fijian rugby at the moment, only France have put their hands up north of the equator.

by TJ1 Sun 18 Nov 2012, 3:12 pm

Just having watched the game I don't think all the kicks to the corner were poor decisions.

by thebluesmancometh Sun 18 Nov 2012, 3:47 pm

France are head and shoulders the form team in the NH so far?

In the last 10 days yes, outside of that however...

by Hood83 Sun 18 Nov 2012, 4:06 pm

anotherworldofpain wrote:
fa0019 wrote:France obviously better? Even though eng beat France at home earlier in the year?

You were always going to see an improvement with AUS today.... If they played ENG, FRA or whoever. You don't draw with the ABs at full strength unless you are a good side... But taylorman is right..... Deans has lost to Samoa, Scotland etc one week and then beaten the worlds best the next.

Yes ENG we're naive but I don't think they should be too down hearted, it's a learning curve... They weren't outplayed, they were out smarted... Flood is experienced enough though to tell robshaw to calm it down a little...

You watched all the rugby this weekend and don't conclude that France are head and shoulders the form team in the NH so far? Weird...

They destoryed Australia, they pumelled Argentina; Australia edged England in all departments and Argentina did the same to Wales.

Aside from abberations misindicated by comparison to the embarassment that is Fijian rugby at the moment, only France have put their hands up north of the equator.

Hate to have to agree but the evidence is pretty compelling. I think come the 6Ns you won't see such a big gap.

by Portnoy's Complaint Sun 18 Nov 2012, 4:51 pm

"Inexperience No Excuse For Naivety" may be true. However it may be the reason. Maybe only Flood and Cole in the whole party could be considered experienced in their rôles - from coaches down.

by GunsGerms Sun 18 Nov 2012, 6:29 pm

England really should have won. They were outsmarted and they really should be disapointed because they should be able to beat that Oz team in Twickers. Bad loss for England.

by Portnoy's Complaint Sun 18 Nov 2012, 7:05 pm

Agreed Guns.
It was very naïve not (or at least try) to take the points when they were offer.

Having said that, the coaches must take their fair share of the blame for the team's mental preparation.

by HongKongCherry Sun 18 Nov 2012, 7:26 pm

greytiger wrote:Agreed Guns.
It was very naïve not (or at least try) to take the points when they were offer.

Having said that, the coaches must take their fair share of the blame for the team's mental preparation.

I have to agree. SL said it was the best week of training he'd seen, yet that definitely wasn't reflected on the pitch. So he was either masking the truth or he was misguided...

by Peter Seabiscuit Wheeler Mon 19 Nov 2012, 8:06 am

AWOP in agreeing with SCW shocker!

The biggest thing is trying to be smart ahead of the game, If you sat down on a Thursday night and gave the players the situation - you are 20-14 down with 22 minutes to go, you have a penalty, the ball is slow, what do you do? - the right decision is to kick for goal and reduce the points to just three.

If you go for the line-out or go for the try you have to score and if you don't you give huge momentum to the defending team, in this case Australia. The key thing is not making decisions in the heat of battle, it is getting these things in players' heads before you go on the pitch, so you know what is going to happen in every single situation. That is the secret to coaching

As much as there is no excuse for being naive enough to respond to an AWOP article seriously he does have a good point. England lacked good sensible decision making, the kind they used to be famed for. Either they were underprepared in "what ifs" or theyd been given the wrong script. The rush for youth doesnt help in this regard, nor does having a captain with a low IQ (although notably higher than Moody). Some of the blame hs to lie with having a PE teacher for a head coach too.

Losing to Aus is no great disgrace. losing to a weakened Aus when there was every chance to get back in the game is annoying.

by AlastairW Mon 19 Nov 2012, 8:44 am

Peter Seabiscuit Wheeler wrote: Losing to a weakened Aus when there was every chance to get back in the game is annoying.

That weakened Oz team drew with the AB's a handful of weeks ago Wink

. Anyone writing off the Australians at any point has their head in the sand and has listened far too much to the hacks we call journalists, or the bookies - neither the most reliable sources. They're 2nd in the rankings for a reason - and this isn't just another England fan saying that after the fact, i've been saying it for a week now.

Most England fans from here agreed with most of the AI players choices from the build up threads. We lost; move on. Learn and do better. Not supporting the team & coaches now, with less than a year under their belt, and going for pure shortermism again will not do us any favours.

by GunsGerms Mon 19 Nov 2012, 9:12 am

Alistar, for a team that is second in the rankings they have lost to a lot of lower ranked teams recently. Ireland, Scotland, England, Samoa, France etc. Not sure how they are still second.

Im not English but I believe there is very good reason why the English were confident and to be brutally honest plenty of reasons why they should have won. Ultimately though Australia completly outsmarted England and that was the difference.

by AlastairW Mon 19 Nov 2012, 9:48 am

GunsGerms wrote:Alistar, for a team that is second in the rankings they have lost to a lot of lower ranked teams recently. Ireland, Scotland, England, Samoa, France etc. Not sure how they are still second.

Im not English but I believe there is very good reason why the English were confident and to be brutally honest plenty of reasons why they should have won. Ultimately though Australia completly outsmarted England and that was the difference.

That's a pretty fair assessment. They're second because when it matters they pull the good out the bag, and writing them off, as some posters and lot of hack journo's were doing before the game is just cringe worthy.

Argueably if you're not confident for every game then you shouldn't even get off the coach Wink

but point taken. And yes, they did out smart us, we weren't good enough. Moving on though, get them out next week against SA and do better, berating your team and picking out individuals to throw to the wolves is going straight back to the short termist attitude that England fans seemed happy to see the end of less than a year ago.

by GunsGerms Mon 19 Nov 2012, 10:05 am

I tend to be subconsciously suspicious of the English press because I'm Irish and consciously because it is an overstaturated market which I believe breeds some fairly nasty attributes. That said I also thought England would ease past Australia becuase I thought the sum of all Englands parts would amount to something stronger than Australia currently have at their disposal. Thats not to say Im unaware of the strengths of lesser known Wallabies such as Cummins and to a lesser extent Hooper but I just felt that home advantage should be enough for an England side that have good strength in depth, decent management and appeared to be gathering pace after a reasonably good six nations.

No point singling out players based on one disapointing game I would agree. Though I would also add that England really should be focusing on bouncing back with a win v SA and again this should by no means be out of their reach.

by Portnoy's Complaint Mon 19 Nov 2012, 10:34 am

Those little dink-chip grubbers.

I've read in the Oz press* that the tactic was headless.

What I saw was that we fortunately managed to scramble the ball back and klaxons were sounding in my head, Das Boot-style "Alarm! Alarm!".

To my mind the SL experiment - a knee-jerk reaction in the first place imo - is beginning to fail under repeated tests of a hypothesis under experimental conditions.

*the mighty and august Sudney and Melbourne Sun variants.

by GunsGerms Mon 19 Nov 2012, 10:42 am

SL was just a caretaker manager wasnt he? To be fair to him if you are a caretaker manager and you are seen to have introduced some good new ideas, to have reinvigorated the team, improved squad attitude and achieved a run of wins then you probably deserve a contract to prove yourself some more. In all fairness he has been a more effective manager than Johnson. Time will tell if he can progess England even futher.

I wish him well and hope England improve (but not too much Very Happy

).

by Portnoy's Complaint Mon 19 Nov 2012, 10:47 am

Maybe Guns, an SL v MJ debate is in order. I'll wait a bit - but I'll post one before the week-end if no-one else does.

by Peter Seabiscuit Wheeler Mon 19 Nov 2012, 1:43 pm

Interestingly following SCWs comments Lancaster has backed his teams decision making and appears to suggest it was the choices they had been instructed to make, and that he believes it was rather unfair of the Aussies to defend the rolling mauls.

by gregortree Mon 19 Nov 2012, 1:53 pm

Inexperience is a perfect reason for naivety.
England cap stat was v low by interrnational standards, hence some glaringly naive moments on Saturday.
(Although I concede that the half backs should have known better).

by RubyGuby Mon 19 Nov 2012, 1:56 pm

Do you really need experience to decide whether or not to take the 3 points? - Watch any under 18 international and in the same circumstances they would have taken the 3 points on offer. This isn't about experience or naivety it's about making the wrong decision - stop trying to dress it up as something else thumbsup

by gregortree Mon 19 Nov 2012, 1:59 pm

that too Ruby thumbsup

by RubyGuby Mon 19 Nov 2012, 2:00 pm

Good choice Greg Hug

by AlastairW Mon 19 Nov 2012, 2:04 pm

Peter Seabiscuit Wheeler wrote: Lancaster ... appears to suggest it was the choices they had been instructed to make, and that he believes it was rather unfair of the Aussies to defend the rolling mauls.

Link? That doesn't sound like him at all.

by Peter Seabiscuit Wheeler Mon 19 Nov 2012, 2:14 pm

AlastairW wrote:
Peter Seabiscuit Wheeler wrote: Lancaster ... appears to suggest it was the choices they had been instructed to make, and that he believes it was rather unfair of the Aussies to defend the rolling mauls.

Link? That doesn't sound like him at all.

"We have to back ourselves to score from those situations. Our driving maul put them under pressure but Australia played a smart game, they pulled us down a few times on the line.

by AlastairW Mon 19 Nov 2012, 2:18 pm

I guess interpretation is everything. I'd just see that as giving Aus props for a good defence, end of.

by Portnoy's Complaint Mon 19 Nov 2012, 2:48 pm

Peter Seabiscuit Wheeler wrote:Interestingly following SCWs comments Lancaster has backed his teams decision making and appears to suggest it was the choices they had been instructed to make, and that he believes it was rather unfair of the Aussies to defend the rolling mauls.

To be fair SCW was voicing his view that England should do enough to grind out a win if necessary before the KO.

by Wi11 Tue 20 Nov 2012, 6:41 pm

Peter Seabiscuit Wheeler wrote:Interestingly following SCWs comments Lancaster has backed his teams decision making and appears to suggest it was the choices they had been instructed to make, and that he believes it was rather unfair of the Aussies to defend the rolling mauls.

In fairness there were a few times I thought their defence of the rolling mauls was illegal and not pinged - I wondered if England might have got a sinbinning if not a try out of this approach.

You also have to bear in mind that scoring three penalties to win the game is not easy. You have to 1/ make all the kicks, 2/ give up field position and potentially possession between each penalty. I think given Australia are a good side who would have made that very hard work, it was worth gambling on a shortcut to victory.

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