2/5 of our team were injured!!!!

Not really a topic. More of a statement for all the England fans who are unhappy with yesterday's performance and picking faults with everything about England at the minute.

Yesterday we were missing

1.Corbs/Mako
11.Yarde
12.Barrett
13.Tuilagi
14.Wade

We nearly came back from an abysmal start to take the world champions with some of the best rugby seen for 10 years!

We've finally developed a pack with leadership athleticism and bite.

For once be happy that we're moving in the right direction!

Not happy and why should I be as we lost at home. The match was there for the taking and then we lost rather than they won it. A good performance from the pack but I would be happy if we had won. A missed opportunity.

Ah. The sweet sound of excuses. England never beaten are they?

Wade and Yarde are both recent debutants, greener than the pitch.
If they'd played you would be calling it a scratch England B second string side! Besides which they would've been cut up on all evidence.

Barrett? I hear nothing on these forums except how useless he is and how he needs be replaced by the guys you actually played yesterday? Hilarious. Just hilarious.

Are you referring to my post? England most certainly were beaten by the better team, New Zealand thoroughly deserved there win! I salute them!!!

However all I am saying is England fans should not be too despondent this morning! Against Wales we got destroyed by the welsh intensity and yesterday we saw a England pack who produced the intensity required to compete with the best!

Sick and tired of doom and gloom merchants!

England just about matched the ABs in the forwards for most of the game. But they were clearly the second best team out there and had no answer at all to the AB backs.

As for injuries - the ABs lost the best player in the world and their playmaker early on in the game. It was not as close as the score suggests

TJ it was three tries to one...

Indeed it was - thats my point.

Are you referring to Dan Carter? Weird cos I thought Aaron Cruden has been the starting fly half in the most dominant team in the history of the world for the past 2 years!

It's true England were missing key players in corbisiero and tuilagi. Additionally barritt is out and potentially wade and yarde look like they are soon to be first choice options.

But.

World cups are won by squads not fifteen players. NZ won with their fourth choice flyhalf dictating play. Who is England's fourth choice flyhalf.... Danny cipriani????

Corbs will be done for quite a while. If I were managing his recovery, we wouldn't see him in white until JUne.

You may find that tuilagi is not quite the player he was when he returns from surgery. Not to cast any stereotypes but from a country with more experience of fire cracker players of Polynesian heritage, there is a tendency for that X factor to fade rapidly after injury. For example do you remember Isaia Toeava?

Hasn't the noise for literally months been about whether maybe Cruden is currently better than Carter?

GloriousEmpire wrote:You may find that tuilagi is not quite the player he was when he returns from surgery. Not to cast any stereotypes but from a country with more experience of fire cracker players of Polynesian heritage, there is a tendency for that X factor to fade rapidly after injury. For example do you remember Isaia Toeava?

From a profession that has more experience with fire cracker players from every feckin part of the world, pec injuries vary significantly from person to person.

I have not seen his file, but from what I can piece together I have a pretty good idea what it is. It is a tough one and his recovery must be managed carefully. If my theory is right, no reason he is not doing his cardio right now.

A drunken Kiwi tried to tell me yesterday that Carter was the reason New Zealand won the match. Actually, some of the kiwis I encountered yesterday were being particularly awful winners, but I know that many drunken English people would have been terrible winners if we'd have won.

fa0019 wrote:It's true England were missing key players in corbisiero and tuilagi. Additionally barritt is out and potentially wade and yarde look like they are soon to be first choice options.

But.

World cups are won by squads not fifteen players.  NZ won with their fourth choice flyhalf dictating play. Who is England's fourth choice flyhalf.... Danny cipriani????

Probably Wilkinson

He had a good start to the match. Maybe might've proven a point if he carried on. But he's done the other achillies now, I think this might be it.

Shame as Cruden is no DC from his prime years. But on current form Cruden is more consistent. Long term probably Barrett will take the starting role.

Cruden forms a lethal partnership with SBW so depending on what he decides to do next year may influence the 2015 squad.

Fa0019- the all blacks were lucky having such a senior pro with as many caps as Stephen Donald able to step in. In a simulator situation where Farrell Flood and Burns are all injured I'm guessing the call would have gone to Wilkinson

If a experienced pro isn't around in the same situation I'd make a guess at someone who's been in and around the squad ie Twelvetrees would step in at 10