England put away Scotland……Just!

I have to admit it, I felt very sorry for Scotland on Saturday. England beat them with a last gasp Chris Ashton try in a game that neither team really deserved to lose. For Scotland especially to leave the World Cup after performing so well was a I’m sure hard to swallow for Andy Robinson and his troops.

Scotland with meagre resources could with a bit of luck won the group unbeaten. As it is they will now fly home. International sport can be cruel, but Scotland can and should be proud of their efforts.

As for England, unbeaten but not yet firing on all cylinders. Not a bad position to be in my opinion. But the truth is the tournament is now knockout rugby, and England do need to perform better. I’ve no doubt the England staff will be very comfortable with how the team is going both defensively and in the set piece. The kicking game and general attacking play however do need to be worked on.

That said I am convinced they will beat what up to now has been a shambolic France. In doing that it sets up the prospect of Ireland or Wales in the semi-final. I can’t wait.

Haydn

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This entry was posted on Sunday, October 2nd, 2011 at 4:39 am and is filed under A, blogs, rugby development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Georgie-Cooper/507970168 Georgie Cooper

I agree Haydn. Scotland were unlucky not to go through however I think they have paid for a lack of any consistent threat through scoring tries. If they get that right they will rise back up the rankings and be threat to any team.

I would be wary of France. In the last World Cup France were pretty rubbish and the All Blacks sublime. However it was France who pulled out a great game, their only one of the tournament to proceed to the semi final.

I would also add that I am sick of our press digging for “controversy” when there blatantly isn’t any.
The latest article on the BBC website says:
Rugby World Cup 2011: Tuilagi fined for wearing sponsored gumshield

This headline tries insintuates that he has been paid to wear a branded gumshield and that he has deliberalty broken the rules. They continue this line of thought for the first paragraph. However read a little further and you discover that actually it was his U18 England gum shield and he has just been wearing that one since then. No mailice or fore thought given.

I think our journalists should be fined for making mountains out of mole hills and basically being d*cks on a continual basis.

Wales Ireland is going to be a cracking match. Anyone got a prediction? Come on Cozza call your semi final berths!

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