Wales v England RBS 6N 2009 Match Review
Man of the Match Joe
By Poyntonshark 16/2/09
February 16 2009
News just in from Wigan, Humble Pie is sold out. A mystery buyer in the North East of England placed a huge order on Saturday evening. I and many of my fellow UnofficialEnglandRugby pnpopular selection of Joe osters will be logging on to request our share. Wales ran out deserved victors, but the unpopular selection of Joe Worsley at open side flanker proved to be a masterstroke that .........
RBS Six Nations Match Review 2009
Wales 23 v 15 England
News just in from Wigan , Humble Pie is sold out. A mystery buyer in the North East of England placed a huge order on Saturday evening. I and many of my fellow UnofficialEnglandRugby posters will be logging on to request our share. Wales ran out deserved victors, but the unpopular selection of Joe Worsley at open side flanker proved to be a masterstroke that almost inspired England to a most unlikely victory.
Disappointingly the foremost reaction for many England fans, appears to be that Jonathan Kaplan is the sole reason England lost the game. Whilst I agree that he didn’t have a good game, and I will cover a couple of the bigger decisions in due course, to single him out as the prime reason for defeat shows neither the individual whingers, nor England rugby in good light. Yes he made some bad calls, but suck it up, take it on the chin and move on, it happens to practically every team in almost every game. Wales are better than us at the moment, accept it. I personally would rather focus on how much closer we are to them than we were at this time last week.
Right, now that’s off my chest lets get on with the review!
England started as though they had learned nothing from the previous week’s debacle, giving away needless penalties. 15 minutes in and we had given away a raft penalties, received 1 yellow card and were 6 points down. Tindall seemed surprised to be carded for his first offence, but Kaplan had already warned Borthwick twice about England killing the ball, surely Borthwick passed on that warning to the team. Tindall wouldn’t just ignore his inspirational captain would he? Well why not; everyone else appears to, especially referees.
There were also one or two alarming gaps in England ’s midfield defence early on, but the cover defence was at least sound, with Worsley already crashing about all over the place. Could Wales already be missing Shane Williams to provide their cutting edge? As the half wore on England seemed to gain confidence, perhaps due to their work in defence. They even began to turn over Welsh possession and, now are you all sitting down, hitting rucks and securing quick ball. One such quick ball saw Riki Flutey show of his sidestep, several times, and get over the gain line into Wales ’ half. More quick ball, a pass to Mark Cueto on the blindside, an inside pass to Goode who kicked ahead for Sackey to chase, Sackey beat Jones in the foot race, collected a favourable bounce and touched down, 5 points for England.
Were England really ‘mixing it up’ in attack? The Millennium Stadium crowd had gone quiet, and England continued their good work, they did still manage to show off one of my pet peeves though. Well into the welsh half, Kaplan signals advantage to England for a Welsh infringement, instead of taking a risk and going for the jugular, England choose the drop goal. It was well struck and earned 3 points (that we would in all likelihood have had anyway from the penalty), but it really does just smack of a wasted opportunity to me. Still, it brought England to within 1 point of Wales , a position maintained at half time, bet the bookies didn’t pay out too much on that prediction. Just before half time was one of the incidents I referred to above. Lee Byrne following up a high kick took out Delon Armitage’s legs in the air, Byrne made no attempt to play the ball, but simply ran through the airborne Armitage. I’m not convinced there was any malice in the challenge, but how it was not deemed a yellow card offence is beyond me, particularly after the two yellow cards in last weeks games for exactly the same offence.
Englands Delon Armitage tackled by Adam Jones
The second half began with a major alarm for England, Wales appeared to have worked out what Worsley was up to, and manoeuvred Jamie Roberts out of his reach, Roberts got on the outside of Tindall, to be honest it was like watching a speed boat run rings around an oil tanker, Roberts went past untouched. When you consider that Tindall , we are constantly told, is in the team to be our defensive rock, then this was a deeply worrying sight. The move ended with Andy Goode making the last ditch tackle on Lee Byrne, then being penalised for playing the ball on the ground and received another yellow card.
This, for me, was one of those major incidents that Kaplan got wrong. As I saw it, Goode made the tackle, got to his feet and tried to take the ball, Byrne did not release, as reinforcements arrived Goode fell/was knocked off his feet, but continued to play the ball and was penalised. I believe Byrne should have been penalised in the first instance for not releasing as Goode regained his feet immediately after the tackle. Things went from bad to worse for England as aggressive rucking turned ball over for Wales, England’s defence was not organised and Wales exploited the fact that England had forwards defending in midfield and moved the ball wide at pace giving Halfpenny a fairly easy run in. Possibilities of a forward pass to Halfpenny, certainly looked like it to me, but a marginal decision at that pace.For 15 minutes or so at the beginning of the second half England seemed to have reverted to type, aimless kicking, nothing from the backs, turning over ball and giving away penalties. All allowing Wales to notch up a 20 -8 lead. Goode did not reappear as his sin bin came to an end and was replaced by Toby Flood, who had a immediate effect, he chose to run and managed an offload to Nick Easter as he was tackled, the ball ended up with Sackey via Flutey, but with no room to work he was forced to kick, giving Wales a lineout in their own 22.
Wales never cleared properly and England remained on the attack and appeared to regain the confidence to run. Some of the old problems were still there as there was no real purpose to the running and passes bounced along the ground. At one stage we appeared to have butchered a 5 on 3 overlap when Ellis retrieved a wayward pass, got his own pass away to Armitage, who ignored the players outside him and cut inside, beat a pretty weak tackle and accelerated to the line.
Flood added the simple conversion. Despite the less than ordinary beginning to the half England were now within 5 points, we were beginning to dare to hope. Both sides went into cautious mode, plenty of scrappy midfield stuff, dominated by kicking for territory, until the almost inevitable happens and England give away another penalty in their own half the sixth of the game. Jones gave Wales the points that put them beyond a converted try. Almost immediately England were attacking again, this time with their forwards, the move is stopped by Ryan Jones on the wrong side. Cries for a yellow card, but unlike England Wales had not been serial offenders (should that be Wales had not been penalised for being serial offenders) so a card was never really likely (or warranted IMHO).
Flood missed the kick, effectively ending England ’s chances of the surprise win. They tried manfully for the remainder of the game, but Wales showed that they are not backward when it comes to defence either and held out. In a game where they were never behind, had the majority of possession and a clear territorial advantage, mainly by dint of a far superior kicking game allied with a bit more nous in their running game, Wales were well worthy of their victory. Wales were below par, but let’s take some of the credit for that, despite all their assertions that they knew this game would be tough, I think England surprised them.
What did we learn about England ? Well, we can have varied game plan; we can attack with ball in hand. In a post on this board earlier in the week I suggested that we were not seeing the influence of Johnson and Smith on this side, well perhaps now that influence is coming through. I reserve judgement for now, as I have seen one other game where this regime tried a different game plan, the first of the AI’s, in isolation it is useless, but if this game becomes the beginning of a new attitude then it’s importance will become obvious.
We are nowhere near where we need to be yet, plenty of the problems are still there:-
The Captain simply isn’t leading
The Spine – 8,9,10 isn’t right yet 13 remains a problem, however, I have a radical solution – MATHEW TAIT
Scrum isn’t solid enough (though does appear to be improving) Oh and did anyone mention we might have a problem with discipline When questioned on the discipline issue after the game Martin Johnson seemed irritated and suggested it was a perception problem. I hope he doesn’t really believe that. Whatever anyone thinks of Kaplan’s handling of the game, and I believe one of the two yellows was plain wrong, he didn’t fabricate the vast majority of the England offences, 6 penalties in our own half yielded 15 points IIRC to Wales, comfortably more than the difference between the sides, well the POINTS difference anyway.
My ratings
Sheridan - 6 still not back to form, but better (note no penalties for not binding this week), actually got opportunities to carry the ball and did so with some effect.
Mears - 6 lineout not quite so solid this week. Industrious in loose but to little effect, defensively sound.
Vickery - 5 stalled after recent improvements, tried to get involved in loose, but in the wrong areas
Borthwick - 3 I’ve tried to give him every opportunity to show what Johnson sees, but I’m just not seeing it, doesn’t seem to inspire the team with words, inspires no-one with deeds.
Kennedy - 5 great lineout isn’t enough, probably suffering in the ‘partnership’ but needs to take more on. Is an athlete, needs to run with ball
Haskell - 6 lots of hard work, often the supporting runner, none of the mindless penalties Having the shackles on re penalties may have subdued him a little
Worsley - 8 carried out his instruction effectively and efficiently. Found time to make tackles for others too.
Easter - 6 plenty of strength and ball retention at contact, but not enough dynamism, especially in a backrow already lacking pace
Ellis - 6 actually think he was better than last week, not so much delay. But didn’t make Welsh backrow think enough
Goode - 5 varied the attack, but kick for Sackey try apart, his kicking game (the main eason he was selected) was poor.
Cueto - 7 possibly a bit generous given he had so little ball, but every time he did have ball he beat at least one defender, defensively solid.
Flutey - 7 best game so far for England by some distance . Defense solid, took on some runs, beat defenders, offloaded well
Tindall - 4 some strong runs, but always looking for contact not space, no pace, no longer a defensive linchpin.
Sackey - 7 as with Cueto, not so much ball, but was looking for work in midfield, defended well, made the most of his opportunity
Armitage – 7 return to form, defence sound, confident under high ball, joined the line, finished Well.
Not going to score replacements, not really enough to judge on, will comment that Flood upped the pace of the whole back line and made us look more dangerous 
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Maybe had saturday's match been refereed by someone else,Goode wouldn't have even been penalised,let alone dismissed, for trying to retrieve the ball whilst still on his feet before he was floored and maybe Byrne would have been rightly pinged for holding-on.Maybe then England might have been in a position to kick-start their revival instead of having to operate without a 10,concede a try from a blatant forward pass and watch as Wales were allowed to play the rest of the match with their defence repeatedly offside.