Re: international match. : Sat Oct 22, 2011 8:16 am  

A lot of negatives from last night.

Right hand side defence was poor but tbf it's the first time that Reed and Hall have played together, but it was also the inside defenders.

Too many errors from established players, if we turn that much ball over against the Aussies & Kiwis we'll get 40 points stuck up us.

At least two changes for me, a halfback to start and a prop on the bench. Someone mentioned Carvell but I would go with Lee Mossop, as we can't afford Carvells error rate and penalty count which will kill us against our Antipodean opposition.

I thought Heightington did well and looked solid, we need players who can tackle (Brian Carney was spot on in his assessment)

To end on a positive, excellent attendance, if the French can do it why can't we?

Re: international match. : Sat Oct 22, 2011 10:01 am  

CORNISH wrote:

and next time we play in france can we make sure the band is refused admission!!!!!!!!!!

All the notes were there, but not necessarily in the right order

Re: international match. : Sat Oct 22, 2011 10:19 am  

saint at wire wrote:

2. Chase - MOM what a joke; he was mediorcre at best. What was the rabbit punch for with 12 seconds to go? What clown. Did you watch his interview - he came accross as deranged

I have to agree Chase was nothing special,

Roby deserved MOM for me, he was always there ready and great support play too,

And to be fair if Shenton wasnt injured i doubt Reed would be even playing,

Sinfield shouldnt even be on the pitch either,

I think there is a few players in the Knights squad that would perform better than most of the England team

Re: international match. : Sat Oct 22, 2011 1:02 pm  

saint at wire wrote:

Not sure I was watchging the same game:

I would agree because it was reasonably competitive, the try scored by Sinfield-Graham-Roby was superb as were the two scored by the French at the end. It was just a friendly, designed to get England working together as a team, which they haven't been able to do before. We can't expect a team to play as a team until they've had a chance to play as a team.

1. The aussie ref as per usual was useless and unduly penalised england - am I paranoid or do they all hate us.

You're paranoid.

1st French "try" or was it BENTham's fault? Robes alleged strip before the french 1st try in 2nd half?

That was a 50/50 call and to me the right one was made. It was Bentham who called it.

2. Chase - MOM what a joke; he was mediorcre at best.

A couple of his passes were beauties but in the second half a couple went astray. I don't know what McBanana said to them in the second half but England looked better in the first. I would suggest someone else does the halftime talk.

3. Reed and Heighington - who? were they actually playing? Reed scored a try but he looks like ben westwood on speed with about as much finesse and made several errors.

I thought both were good. They will both get better as they get used to playing the English game; neither has done so before and so they will need to adjust.

4. The only players who performed were Robes (as per usual) Jammer and much to my surprise Peacock and Jones-Buchanan.

Whereas I thought JJB was poor. He made three errors which will be costly against the Aussies and I don't think he brought anything special to the game. I agree though that the other three were good.

5. For some reason Wilkin seemed to always end up with the ball on the last and then kicked badly - just like when he plays for us.

He kicked a beauty. He didn't always end up with the ball but sometimes he did. Perhaps that was the plan or perhaps the team didn't stick to the plan and Wilkin had to make the best of it. Wilkin wasn't at his best though but he still worked hard in defence, and we deeply need players to defend as he did.

6. Sinfield is not and never has been an international SO - he should be LF where he doesn't need the pace he hasn't got.

Whereas I don't think he should be playing as I don't think he's international class. He only seems to up his game when he has his Leeds team mates around him.

7. Yeoman defends like Meli.

It's Yeaman, and I agree.

8. Hall was outpaced several times for being the musclebound person he is.

He's too big I think. He looks a bit unweildy.

Ah well; one more step to mcbanana going - perhaps we will get somebody better next time like goulding.

McBanana reflects the RFL: systems, systems, systems. But no flair. Now that we have systems in place, we need a coach. All McBanana has succeeded in doing so far is taking Bradford further down the league. Only in English RL could that be considered a qualification for the national coach.

Re: international match. : Sat Oct 22, 2011 1:14 pm  

I thought it was a good hit out for England. The French was rough and tough and that's what we needed. Nobody would have gained from a 50-0 walk in the park.

Re: international match. : Sat Oct 22, 2011 1:18 pm  

St pete wrote:

Nobody would have gained from a 50-0 walk in the park.

Exactly. Yet had we had that, some people would have been moaning about how rubbish the French were and how they made us look good, etc, etc. I think the French didn't do the best they could have done, after all the Dragons were pretty formidable for most of the season, but what they did do was fight back, which is exactly what the Aussies would do should England find themselves in the shocking position of being in the lead at any time during our match against them. England were found wanting in the last 20 mins, just as they are usually.

Re: international match. : Sat Oct 22, 2011 1:23 pm  

McNamara is a crap coach but I do think he's put some good things in place and it seems the RFL and the clubs have supported him.

Re: international match. : Sat Oct 22, 2011 1:31 pm  

St pete wrote:

McNamara is a crap coach but I do think he's put some good things in place and it seems the RFL and the clubs have supported him.

Well yes, like I said, he's a systems man, just as the RFL is a systems organisation (a bit like a local council). But we now need a proper, successful coach. One who has won stuff with his team. We need such a coach before the World Cup otherwise we are going to look like Bradford.

Re: international match. : Sat Oct 22, 2011 1:35 pm  

SaintsFan wrote:

Well yes, like I said, he's a systems man, just as the RFL is a systems organisation (a bit like a local council). But we now need a proper, successful coach. One who has won stuff with his team. We need such a coach before the World Cup otherwise we are going to look like Bradford.

I agree, we do need a good coach but I think McNamara needs to be kept involved in the set up as he has good ideas.

Re: international match. : Sat Oct 22, 2011 8:24 pm  

St pete wrote:

I thought it was a good hit out for England. The French was rough and tough and that's what we needed. Nobody would have gained from a 50-0 walk in the park.

I don't think if it had been aus vs france that they would have been happy with that score and performance. They wouldn't have said it was a good hit out.

If we don't improve a lot, wales will beat us.

Response to an earlier comment by Saints Fan:
I am not paranoid about aus refs; just stating facts - they wouldn't even let us have a neutral VR without an aus "overseer" last time we played them. Lets see who the officials are when we play them this time - they will certainly not be all UK/French.
The guy on friday night made a few mistakes which unfortuantely seemed to be against us for some odd reason. In addition, he allowed some really bad holding down and messing about at the PTB which doesn't bode well for the tournament esp if he is involved which looks likely.