England v Fiji, 19 November

First topic message reminder :

 
ENGLAND v FIJI
19 November 2016
14:30 GMT (UTC+0)
Twickenham Stadium, London

Live on [Sky Sports 1]

Referee: Marius Mitrea (Italy)
Assistant referees: Paul Williams (New Zealand), Lloyd Linton (Scotland)
Television match official: Gareth Simmonds (Wales)
Assessor: Mark Lawrence (South Africa)

A. Head to Head

6 Played 6
6 Won 0
0 Drawn 0
0 Lost 6
245 Points 94

B. Recent Form

18 September 2015
England 35 - 11 Fiji
Twickenham

10 November 2012
England 54 - 12 Fiji
Twickenham

20 October 1999
England 45 - 24 Fiji
Twickenham

20 July 1991
Fiji 12 - 28 England
National Stadium, Suva

04 November 1989
England 58 - 23 Fiji
Twickenham

17 June 1988
Fiji 12 - 25 England
National Stadium, Suva

C. Teams

ENGLAND 

A Goode; S Rokoduguni, J Joseph, O Farrell, E Daly; G Ford, B Youngs; M Vunipola, D Hartley, D Cole, J Launchbury, C Lawes, C Robshaw , T Harrison, B Vunipola.

Replacements: J George, J Marler, K Sinckler, C Ewels, N Hughes, D Care, B Te'o, H Slade.

FIJI

M Talebula; B Masilevu, A Tikoirotuma, A Vulivuli, N Nadolo; J Matavesi, S Vularika; C Ma'afu, S Koto Vuli, M Saulo, A Ratuniyarawa, L Nakarawa, D Waqaniburotu, P Yato, A Qera.

Replacements: T Talemaitoga, P Ravai, L Atalifo, N Soqeta, N Dawai, E Radrodro, N Matawalu, K Murimurivalu.

At least we have two cracking outside centres in Daly and JJ as both have played well today

GeordieFalcon wrote:Wow Teo just smashed some one....but he still shouldn't be on the pitch! Likewise Hughes!

English mum though. But he's not a product of our system.

Big Kyle SInkler with a bruising carry!

lostinwales wrote:

GeordieFalcon wrote:Wow Teo just smashed some one....but he still shouldn't be on the pitch! Likewise Hughes!

English mum though. But he's not a product of our system.

But he's represented another nation in a form of rugby! I just don't think you should be able to swap

Roko Scores

Italy beat boks 20-18...

Guys can we not post scores from other matches please?

GeordieFalcon wrote:

lostinwales wrote:

GeordieFalcon wrote:Wow Teo just smashed some one....but he still shouldn't be on the pitch! Likewise Hughes!

English mum though. But he's not a product of our system.

But he's represented another nation in a form of rugby! I just don't think you should be able to swap

Roko Scores

Yep but that has been done to death. And although league does have 'rugby' in the full name and does involve some of the same rules, it is a different game.

I don't think Te'o is right for us but that is also because he's not going to be around for too long and we have had too many league centers (part NZ too) who have come into the team with big reputations and played at best average rugby.

Yes its done to death but its something I field VERY strongly about. League, 7's etc etc its all rugby at the end of the day.

Another nice try by England...Launchbury

Well final score 58-15

Not a bad run out.

So England fans, who where the stand out players and who were disappointing?

Roko with some very good stats according to epsn

163m in 11 carries - 5 clean breaks and 6 defenders beaten

To be honest its not really a game to say who stood out playing well etc.

Roko was very good indeed!

JJ and Daly excellent. Fords handling was very impressive.

Harrison didn't excel in my opinion. Launchbury played well. Mako did well as did Billy.

GeordieFalcon wrote:To be honest its not really a game to say who stood out playing well etc.

Roko was very good indeed!

JJ and Daly excellent. Fords handling was very impressive.

Harrison didn't excel in my opinion. Launchbury played well. Mako did well as did Billy.

Harrisons stats for the 50 minutes he was on were excellent, 50% more tackles than Lawes who was next in the list. That didn't take into account the 3 he made that didn't count as the ref blew up for an offence before the tackle; some where classics, driving the ball carrier backwards. This in a half where making tackles was difficult as Fiji hardly had the ball. He scored a try and was a general pest around the fringes.

Having said that, Wood had similar stats last week and look what happened.

He did ok WPI, but I'm just not sure he was as influential as he could have been. But i guess you cant argue against the stats.

Goode showed his main limitation in the last coupe of minutes, deep into his 22, with time to spare he decides to run wide, Daly is outside him....................................no pace, sees that he is going to get caught and steps back inside, gets caught (been there before, step shuffle etc.)and there is Daly in space wondering why the ball never came his way with half the field ahead of him.

Roko was good, but I though Ford was the best player on the pitch. The ref failed to protect him from frequent heavy late hits that should have been penalised and cards issued. His ability to just hold back the pass that 1/2 a second to fix the man is unparalleled by an English 10 in the last 30 years anyway

Yeah I thought Goode messed up there.

I agree Ford was class. He is becoming a very very good complete fly half. His defence is brave and rock solid aswell.

Interesting Sir Clive said he would pick Daly over JJ at 13 for next week's game (bit it would be very close)

Who is doing the commentary in the England highlights? She sounds dull as hell

Interestsing comments from Eddie saying he wants a look at Daley st 15

Think he sees him as the future there? Certainly a conundrum fitting him and jj in

Also: Eddie said when he took over we have no world class talent. If every Necis fit and on form, who of our first choice 15 gets in other teams first 15?

rozakthegoon wrote:Interestsing comments from Eddie saying he wants a look at Daley st 15

Think he sees him as the future there? Certainly a conundrum fitting him and jj in

We (well I anyway) have been saying that for some time.

If a certain Samoan wrecking ball ever gets back to full fitness its going to make the choice at 13 very difficult

GeordieFalcon wrote:He did ok WPI, but I'm just not sure he was as influential as he could have been. But i guess you cant argue against the stats.

We can always argue against statistics. They only paint a partial picture, at best. But, in the case of Harrison today, I thought he did well. I get the feeling his assignment was similar to the old Joe Worsley role: Tackle ruck, tackle, ruck. And in that role I thought his play was quite good. If he was more dynamic carrying the ball, I think the general impression would be very good indeed. But, I don't think that was the game plan. Unfortunately, I think it is a little harder to rate players when the disparity between the teams is as large as it was today.

Just watched the highlights and I know that is far from a complete picture but what it seemed to say was

Harrison was OK. I don't think he was outstanding but neither was he poor. I think he was pulled to allow Hughes on the pitch rather than because of what he was or was not doing. I don't think its going to help his cause but its not going to hinder it either

Roko was wonderful in attack - except the time when if he had seen (and passed to) Daly when he made that big break then we would have scored again. Defense was more suspect. I don't know what happened with Nadolo's try - and there is a fair chance it was irrelevant - but Roko wasn't where he should have been. This may be because someone else was absent but it doesn't reflect well. Overall very promising and he can develop more but he's not first choice.

Daly was really good. You can see why Jones may be trying to work out how to get both JJ and Daly on the pitch at the same time.

As suspected it wasn't the kind of game to be able to assess what Goode can bring. We didn't see the kicking (at least in the highlights) but then England didn't need him to. So we are left with some OK running, some nice passing and some ineffectual arm flapping instead of tackling.

And a last word for Mako. I know times have changed but you really don't expect a guy (a prop!) that big to have such good hands and to turn up where he does. He had a good game.

Solid win. Loads to work on, namely defence

lostinwales wrote:

rozakthegoon wrote:Interestsing comments from Eddie saying he wants a look at Daley st 15

Think he sees him as the future there? Certainly a conundrum fitting him and jj in

We (well I anyway) have been saying that for some time.

If a certain Samoan wrecking ball ever gets back to full fitness its going to make the choice at 13 very difficult

I hope Manu recovers. I would not want him near England team though. We do not need a superior version of Jamie Roberts.

Have to say...I could go along with Daly at 15. The guy has an atom bomb of a boot, he's rapid and is an intelligent player. He would be a superb counter attacking FB when required.

But he needs to be playing there for Wasps.

WPI - Agree with your views on Roko. Again I also noticed that move when he had Daly clear and a quick pass would have resulted in a try yet he was a bit greedy. However not a bad game all in all.

I also think with more playmakers in there...like Ford, JJ, Daly etc its becoming more difficult to replace Farrell at 12....as he just seems to be the solid one in there to keep it together. Yes there are better 12's "potentially" coming through but until any of them make a genuine consistent play for that 12 spot its Farrells.

If Mako was an AB the world would be gushing over him. The guy is just getting better and better.

Back to Harrison...Dr, yes I suspect he was given a basic role and in essence he did that fairly well. I'm not one that only looks for the razamataz players...I understand the need for those with the "dark arts" . I'm just not sure he was outstanding or hit the heights that maybe Jones would be looking for. He missed a couple of fairly straight forward tackles (though so did many of the side) so it will be interesting to see whether he makes the squad for the Argentina game.

I agree with the comments on Mako and I would advocate the promotion of George and Sinckler over the next 12 months. We need to build on their set piece work, but it would be easier to do that then to get Hartley and Cole offloading and carrying like the other two do. That would really help us improve our attacking game.

This will then give us Marler, Hartley and Cole on the bench who can come on, shore up the defence and the set piece and see games out.

I thought Harrison was good, better than Wood last week who I'd rate as okay. But then there might be something in the quality of opposition that distorts that. I don't think either of them should displace Haskell when he's fit on current showings, but maybe it's worth sticking with Harrison until the end of the series for consistency.

Last week Vunipola and Youngs ran the show, this week Ford was pulling the strings a lot more and I think it should be noted how many more tries we score with Ford on the pitch at 10.

For me, with Ford our best 10, Farrell is our best option at 12. Second playmaker, goalkickng and doesn't shirk tackling or rucking when needed. His attacking game is coming on too, running with ball in hand and running support lines. Slade and Mallinder are worth considerations in that they could come in without needing a change in game plan, but at the moment they'd be injury replacements only. Te'o looked strong when he came on, but our goalkickng suffered and in closer games we won't be able to afford that swap.

Joseph, Daly and Roko were all good and I would probably keep those 3 in those positions until the end of the series, possibly with May coming onto the bench? Brown should come back in at 15 as Goode didn't offer any more, but I think we are short a running full back like Hogg or Liam Williams - looking around locally. When Nowell and Watson come back from injury, we could look at Watson or Daly in at 15. There's also Haley who will be worth keeping an eye on, unless someone is going to wave a big contract to bring Abendanon back to England.

Yes Sinkler put in 1 bruising carry which is fast becoming his trademark for Quins.

Its funny - the thing we have been crying out for is for the pack and the backs to be able to run with and handle the ball - actually pass the bloody thing to the right guy at the right time. At times in the last few years it has seemed that even the backs - who have sod all else to do - were mostly incapable of delivering a pass.

And now finally we seem to have that. And it feels great

lostinwales wrote:Its funny - the thing we have been crying out for is for the pack and the backs to be able to run with and handle the ball - actually pass the bloody thing to the right guy at the right time. At times in the last few years it has seemed that even the backs - who have sod all else to do - were mostly incapable of delivering a pass.

And now finally we seem to have that. And it feels great

The England job must be the easiest one that Eddie has ever had. Everything was in place, it just required some minor tweaks and fresh ideas. It's perhaps something that should have happened in the Martin Johnson era - I think it was a mistake hiring him.

Launchbury cited for a 2nd min kick.

Kruis back just in time then

Who did he kick?

Yes good news on Kruis. Just rewatched 1st 5 min of the match and I can't see the incident, timg of 2 min is the bbc report, they may have it wrong.

GeordieFalcon wrote:Yes Sinkler put in 1 bruising carry which is fast becoming his trademark for Quins.

And also a neat little flick on when he received a pass behind him. He's a prop who thinks like a back, which makes him a frightening prospect for opponents. George has a lot of the same qualities.

Still not quite convinced by Mako's scrummaging. He's good when he has George alongside him but seems less comfortable with Hartley.

Heaf wrote:Who did he kick?

Report says 'for allegedly kicking Fiji centre Asaeli Tikoirotuma'

'The 25-year-old appeared to aim for the ball, but instead struck Tikoirotuma'

That'l get the Irish excited.....

Poorfour wrote:

GeordieFalcon wrote:Yes Sinkler put in 1 bruising carry which is fast becoming his trademark for Quins.

And also a neat little flick on when he received a pass behind him. He's a prop who thinks like a back, which makes him a frightening prospect for opponents. George has a lot of the same qualities.

Still not quite convinced by Mako's scrummaging. He's good when he has George alongside him but seems less comfortable with Hartley.

George seems to spend a fair amount of time hanging around on the wing....

On Daly, I see where the calls for him to play 15 are coming from. Watching him in the last two games (I don't watch a huge amount of club rugby...) he strikes me as a player who thrives on space. At club level, you can find some at OC, but at international level there's less of it, and you might have more chance on the wing. At full-back of course, you do get plenty of it, hence the idea. Add in his good kicking game and it makes sense. Joseph by contrast I think has the sharper footwork to make use of the tighter space in mid-field, while also being a defensive rock.

GF says he'd rather Daly were playing 15 at club level, fair enough. Must be remembered though that Farrell doesn't play 12 for Sarries, while Watson spends plenty of time at FB for Bath rather than on the wing. In the recent past, Australia used to be keen to get their best backs on the field rather than worry too much about who played where for their clubs. Obviously you have the counter points where it hasn't worked so well (Tuilagi, Brown on the wings, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named in the centre), but that may be more a question of skillset, and for me Daly has the skillset for FB. Would be interesting to see certainly.

robbo277 wrote:I agree with the comments on Mako and I would advocate the promotion of George and Sinckler over the next 12 months. We need to build on their set piece work, but it would be easier to do that then to get Hartley and Cole offloading and carrying like the other two do. That would really help us improve our attacking game.

This will then give us Marler, Hartley and Cole on the bench who can come on, shore up the defence and the set piece and see games out.

I thought Harrison was good, better than Wood last week who I'd rate as okay. But then there might be something in the quality of opposition that distorts that. I don't think either of them should displace Haskell when he's fit on current showings, but maybe it's worth sticking with Harrison until the end of the series for consistency.

Last week Vunipola and Youngs ran the show, this week Ford was pulling the strings a lot more and I think it should be noted how many more tries we score with Ford on the pitch at 10.

For me, with Ford our best 10, Farrell is our best option at 12. Second playmaker, goalkickng and doesn't shirk tackling or rucking when needed. His attacking game is coming on too, running with ball in hand and running support lines. Slade and Mallinder are worth considerations in that they could come in without needing a change in game plan, but at the moment they'd be injury replacements only. Te'o looked strong when he came on, but our goalkickng suffered and in closer games we won't be able to afford that swap.

Joseph, Daly and Roko were all good and I would probably keep those 3 in those positions until the end of the series, possibly with May coming onto the bench? Brown should come back in at 15 as Goode didn't offer any more, but I think we are short a running full back like Hogg or Liam Williams - looking around locally. When Nowell and Watson come back from injury, we could look at Watson or Daly in at 15. There's also Haley who will be worth keeping an eye on, unless someone is going to wave a big contract to bring Abendanon back to England.

I actually think these days, George is a stronger scrummager than Hartley, he's also a reliable lineout thrower (perhaps not as much as Hartley but then again Hartley has been throwing more at international level.

Whenever George is on the pitch for Saracens or England he seems to strengthen the scrum, I don't think it's him alone of course I think he has a positive impact, he seems to lift his side whenever he's on the pitch.

I am of course biased but I believe George is a more complete player than Hartley now. Hartley's strength is his experience and reliability for England and I understand why Jones will continue to stick with Hartley but I believe George is the superior all round rugby player.

The Fiji game did nothing to change my mind.

I agree robbo England should look to develop George and Sinckler though I think Sinckler needs more work.

Sinckler in contrast to Cole is a more raw prospect though his carrying was promising.


Whilst I don't think Goode shone like Daly and Roko did for example, I thought he put in a fine understated performance. I would agree he didn't do enough to usurp Brown's position at 15 but he wasn't really involved as much as he could have been. He was there to take passes if needed and he did finish one England move for a try.

Sometimes not every player will shine in a team.


Overall England performance was fine, dominant but not outstanding.

Doesnt this just harkl back to what was said befor eth game though...thats its not really going to tell us anything about the fringe players we didnt already know.

George couldve walked on water and invented a new way of cutting bread better than slicing and still it wouldve just been against a cruddy Fiji side who were blown away in the first quarter. Hes not going to press teh case for dispclaicng the long term first choice hooker whos also captain and who is rated amongst the best hookers in the world.

It was a very one sided game and had England not took their foot off the pedal and let Fiji have a bit of a play the scoreline wouldve been even more ridiculous.

yes its good to see them now capable of strolling through games they sometimes made heavy weather of in the past and yes Fiji are a bit better than a scratch PISlands team but how often do England not win these "2nd tier" AIs by a big margin?

Roko, Goode and George and the rest will play tougher matches in the Jeff and Europe this year. To really know if they are the real deal as first choice test caps they need to be doing it in competitive matches against top 6 teams.

All in its a pretty meaningless game aside form extending Englands streak and confidence. This weekend is the big one, a very different propect. This is when we see who can stand up.

Gooseberry well I think we learnt some things.

Roko should start vs Argentina as I would have vs SA. He played very well though as already mentioned, I think by Geordiefalcon he got greedy when he made a nice break, could have set up Daly.

He backed up his good club form.

Daly looked good. Backed up his good club form. Could well have earned a start vs Argentina.

Yes it wasn't a great Fiji side but I don't think Hartley was outstanding, he was his normal solid self. You might say it's enough. Don't you think England should look for an extra dimension?

I just think George would add something extra to England because I now think he's a more well rounded player.

58 points is still a lot against a side ranked 10th in the world when you take into account other lower ranked sides causing real problems for other teams. Plus of course England missed players and tried out others.

To be honest going by form England could well crush Argentina by 20+. England are on a roll, Argentina are not.

Argentina are now 9th in the world.

Surely the big one is Australia? I am not saying we should dismiss Argentina as a threat but going by all the factors.

Form, squad, home advantage, world rankings England should win well.

So hard to judge anyone in a game like that/ For me the 2 interesting things were Rokoduguni did very well up against Nadolo so didn't rule himself out in any way, probably pushed ahead of Yarde. The second how do we get Daly on the pitch with Joseph. Is it going to be at full back, bench as cover across or a striaght shoot out at 13?

George probably did have a chance to really push hard at Hartley but he wasn't great himself when he came on, both did ok.

Yeah sorry for some reason I thought it was Aus this weekend. Argentina should be a bit more competitive, and certainly not a "chanegs for the sake of it" game which was kind of my point.

With Roko ..we already know from harder games against better opposition that hes a good try scoring winger. We also know that about the guys hes got in ahead of who through injury.
I have no issue with him continuing to get selected if/when others come back but what Im saying is its proper Test matches that would tell us if he really is the best winger England have when all are fit. And if theres guys that have already shown they can cut it at that level available then they will get in ahead of him.

Ditto george, I know youre obsessed with him but its really not going to happen whilst Hartley is Captain...and whilst hes not suspended and England are winning then thats not goign to change is it. Even had he started this game just to " give him a go" it wouldnt have changed anything on that. Nor would any level of performance from him.
If for some reason he got to start against Argentina and Aus and delivered world class performaces there would actually be a case for him being first choice ahead of Hartley. But theres still the captiancy thing. And I know youll go back to bleating about this putting players on pedastals etc but this is hardly a Borthwick situation where he was a losing capatin playing badly in a bad side (Also see Tindall)...but happened to be a Saracen so I bet if we went back we'd fine plenty of examples of you backing him.

George is pretty firmly established as second choice. Id say his last 4 caps told us that, not this one...and even as a starter doing 60 minutes Id say the time he spent in tough games against strong ( well south africa ...) opposition was far more revealing about his ability to comepet at the level England are aspiring to.

The Launchbury incident is in the 2nd half https://youtu.be/qeJcQfEd8kQ?t=54m56s

You can't see anything, but the Fijian is holding his head after the ruck. There must be a better angle for him to have been cited.

No 7 & 1/2 disagree. I thought George was strong and outperformed Hartley. Strong in the set piece but also strong around the field, won all his lineouts too.

Daly could play on the left wing. He's no specialist but he's a better player than May and Yarde IMO.

Could just bench Daly as a utility back.

Gooseberry I do think George is in better form than Hartley so it becomes - do you play the player in superior form or stick with the one in worse form who happens to be captain. Also I think he's now a more complete player.

Are you happy with 6/10 performances every game? I am not saying Hartley is playing badly, he's just not really adding much outside the set piece. Now you might say to me - that's fine because England are winning, he's important for his captaincy. He's reliable. There will be times when England need more than that. George even showed that vs Australia.

Roko should take over from Yarde because he's outperforming him.

Hartley has been stuck on a pedestal, regardless of form, Jones will pick him.

For the same reason I wouldn't start Goode because he did not show form better than Brown, to get ahead he needed to maybe put in a 8/10 performance instead of 6/10.

Re George vs Hartley. We had a similar situation a few years back when we had one of England's greatest leading the side from lock. Martin Johnson. But you could argue this left an even better lock on the sidelines in the substantial form of Simon Shaw. Nobody is arguing Shaw should have played because Johnson's leadership was so important - but in a straight shootout based on ability to play lock alone - that is a very hard one to call.

But was that George or Marler improving the scrum? Hartley isn't known as a weak scrummager afterall. Hartley messed up one tackle bar that was very good. The overall point being George needs to come on and really put down a marker, he didn't do that for me. Did you manage to watch the match or just the highlights?

lostinwales I wouldn't say that it's the same because Johnson was playing well.

Hartley's missed tackle led to a Fiji try didn't it?

I watched almost all the game bar the first 10.

Hard to say but George generally does improve the scrum on his arrival.

Not saying Hartley is known as a weak scrummager just that George seems to be matching him in the set piece if not a slightly superior scrummager but is much superior around the field.

George wasn't outstanding but I thought he was better.

Im not even sure what your point is anymore BS. Sack Hartely as captain? It was a bad decision to make Hartely captain?

Its just pointless noise.