What a difference a penalty (or 2) makes

So, England have been beaten against the 2 SH teams they played so far, and to be honest, I'm not expecting the result to be any different next week.

I know we can all write 'what if' posts on message boards etc, but what if we had actually scored the extra couple of points required to beat both Australia and South Africa?


Leading up to the Australia game, I honestly felt like we had a chance of winning it...
To be honest, I thought we had good chance of winning.
However, even though the scoreline suggests that we were in touching distance, and obviously if we'd kicked a few extra penalties that would have been even close, I never actually felt like we were the better team.
If you weren't keeping score in that game, at the final whistle you'd have felt that Australia had won it relatively comfortably.

As for the S.A. game, I felt that we were a lot closer at times, without really causing them too many difficulties.
However, there weren't many times when I thought they were going to slice us apart either.
Given how they physically dominated us in the Summer, I was quite impressed at the way we competed with them, particularly early on.
The problem is that it was all in vain and counts for nothing.


So, come the 6nations, we'll most likely be heading into another tournament having been beaten by the top3 SH teams, and not a lot to show for it.
Both of the games in the last 2 weeks have been winnable with 10 minutes to go, which would have made a huge amount of difference to team confidence heading into a game against NZ, and also into the next 6nations.
(I'm aware that if we'd beaten Australia, the events against S.A. could have been completely different as both teams may have approached the game differently)


It just goes to show how important a couple of penalties can be.
In isolation they mean 3 points, in a slightly bigger picture they can mean a win or a loss, in an even bigger picture they can carry your team into the next tournament full of confidence.
Having said all that, The important thing is to learn from mistakes.



(I should also add that I don't necessarily think that England made the wrong decisions.
Winning teams make decisions right... There's a good chance we'd have failed to score a try if we'd taken a lineout against S.A.
There's also a good chance that kicking a few penalties against Australia still wouldn't have enabled us to win.
However, if we were a good enough team, we'd have scored enough points regardless of the decisions we'd made)

Wasps, most games could have a different result was it not for one decision, one kick or one try.

It is the nature of the game, the important thing is to turn those opportunties into wins.

Biltong wrote:Wasps, most games could have a different result was it not for one decision, one kick or one try.

...........s.

Biltong, you forgot to add: 'except when Tonga or NZ come visiting.'