heart_of_oak says...

Yes Kybone, they recently 'swapped' ranking with the boks. I was a little out of date. However, they're still above us.

Don't get me wrong - I want a resounding England win. But I am not nearly as confident of it as alot of the posters here seem to be. I suspect the game against France was just a seriously bad day for Australia and that they're capable of much better. I would expect Australia to be more determined than ever to ensure they don't get beaten by us.

Having said all this, I think we have the players, in form, with good players on the bench, if not to get a win, then to make a damn good go of it.

Posted 16:53 13th November 2012

APV1 says...

"The collision is one area that we want to dominate because the team that does gets the benefit of go forward ball."

He's absolutely right and everyone knows we're too slow at the breakdown.

But we should be able to dominate the set piece, regardless of that.

Posted 16:02 13th November 2012

OzinLondon says...

kybone

I don't think it's possible for the Wallas to drop out of the top 4 this weekend. Nor should they.

They have beaten the Grand Slam champions 3 times this year as well as SA and the Pumas away from home, and topped it off by drawing with a team that nobody else has beaten in 12 months.

They are up against it but one poor game does not an Autumn series make (and England are hardly NZ) ... but hopefully the England boys are as cocky as you.

Posted 15:09 13th November 2012

heart_of_oak says...

1132159, what I said was I think our scrum is better than theirs but that all the cockiness being shown could come back to haunt people.

I see that the Boks are now number 2 in the rankings with Australia dropping to 3rd. But the Aussies are still above us. I pray for an England win but if it doesn't happen, alot of people posting here are going to look pretty stupid. However, if England beat Australia convincingly then I will be happy to have people tell me "I told you so".

Posted 15:00 13th November 2012

kybone says...

heart_of_oak - No they're ranked no.3 and by close of play on Saturday they'll hopefully be ranked no.5.

Posted 13:34 13th November 2012

Trader2 says...

OzinLondon

Well said, the job is yours. Very unfortunate that he used (and it seemed to be a direct quote) the word "dominate". In the modern game you don't need to dominate, but you need to compete and then you are half a chance. I cannot remember a dominate performance by a Wannabie scrum for about 10 years or so (although I am sure there has been one or two)

Posted 13:12 13th November 2012

JamieTheProp says...

The problem is that the Aussies will have been working on neutralising the England scrum all week (rather than working on how to dominate it).

In modern rugby where the referee has no real clue what goes on in the scrum players know that if they take a scrum down it is often a 50/50 decision as to who will get the penalty. It would be naive of Australia to try and compete with England so they'll be looking at tactics to stop the scrum working at all - I am expecting a lot of reset scrums.

I don't know who is refereeing but I hope it is a French or NH ref who understands this and can referee a real scrum. We need to get back to the days when, if a scrum was going forward and it collapsed, the team going forward got the penalty (common sense really - no scrum going forward will pull it down!

Robshaw also needs to be constantly communicating with his front row and the ref.

The game can't be won at scrum time but it is a good platform and a great psychological boost.

The areas we need to perfrom to win are the breakdown and the contact/tackle area - if we can dominate those we have a great chance.

Beating Australia is never, ever going to be easy so we need to play a game that suits us and not them and take our chances when they come - dominate up front, win quick ball at the breakdown and get over the gain line - if we do that we'll have a good chance.

Although in my heart, as an old-school (and just plain old) tight head of course I want to see the superior England scrum smash the Australian excuse for a scrum - but in modern rugby there are too many ways an inferior scrum can gain parity by non-scrummaging!

Posted 12:27 13th November 2012

Trinats2 says...

Has Deans left already ?

Posted 11:14 13th November 2012

kybone says...

Apparently he also thinks that the Italian backs will have just too much pace and skill for the All Blacks to handle!

Posted 10:46 13th November 2012

sirtidychris says...

Wish andy sheridan and Dylan hartley were starting this game along with Louis deacon, perhaps not the best players for every sphere of the game but for utterly destroying an ozzie scrum you cant go wrong

Posted 10:30 13th November 2012