Five things we learnt from England v Australia

Agree Vic, having a strong, well respected leader on the field is worth gold, ala Richie or JdV. Doesn't have to be the best player, but must have the players' respect. Can't build a team with a merry go round of leaders.

If Pocock were playing, he'd be my choice, but Moore would be good too. Mowen has shown leadership in several other teams (Brumbies, U21 Australian and Qland), but I think is not experienced enough to lead a senior team. To swap Cooper for Genia is mind boggling, with Cooper's history in the team. But whoever of the seniors Link chooses, he has to stick with themand give them chance to grow in the job. You can't chop and change the leader just because he has a bad game.

OBVIOUSLY BOTH

SPOT ON GB

HJ, 3 out of 5 talk of mckenzie "the coach"????

What absolute unmiitigated drivel! Owens(not Owen, you ignorant rugby retard) did a good job, despite your half eye bias. The Springboks simply ran out of puff(being massive is not the key to modern rugby) according to a number of experts in South Africa. We were outplayed despite our massive effort, against a team which had to travel to the Argentine, then dash to Jozi, play in our favourite All Black killer stadium, at altitude, and despite a magnificent effort from the Boks, still won comfortably. No wonder our record against them since 1992 is so poor. We have the talent to be number one, not the perennial bridesmaid, but we have to face the fact that brawn and bulk is not he answer; pace,brains and supreme fitness, plus player management is what we need more than lumbering monsters who cant play 80 minutes.

At last! One other person who has spotted the permanent handicap against NZ teams. Down to insufferably consistent winning; low population; lack of financial power; jelly-fish administrators; dopey journalists; and the Kiwi cultural cringe which will not question authority. I was thinking of asking Tracey Nelson, or funding a post-grad student, to analyse penalty stats of tests and also Super games for last 25 years.

Ha! The rotating captaincy. Seriously, who should be captain? Moore?

Yeah continue it if you could Yousef, its far easier to read than a large chunk of text.

Have to agree with that Garth. I do think a number of the guys looked a bit embarrassed about it.

1. We like doing it the Australian way 2. We like the Australian way more than winning 3. We like Australian coaches more than RWC winning coaches 4. Australian coaches believe in being fair and giving every player on the field at least one chance to be the captain during the season 5.If you don't show faith in your leadership team and stick with them to build their confidence as well as the respect of their team mates you get a team of 15 men running around like chooks w out heads

1. Australia need a favourable ref like we had against Argentina to win 2. There is little game plan 3. BA and Slipper cant scrummage 4. Mowen should be axed 5. we need more than one person in the mauls to win the ball

RK, Mike Brown the new Stuart Broad. brilliant. :)

I have been saying for years they need to grid the field electronically and have a chip in the ball----there are plenty of chips running around spare at The Roar ;-) The pile-ups in goal wouldn't need to be endlessly replayed on tmo tv.........we would know immediately if the ball had been grounded.......

@ moaman : Though it sounds like seeking anunfair advantage, there is no LAW against such. I think (and maybe I am wrong) , CW was the guy who got these skin tight jerseys on an international team first. the arguement was that the loose jerseys were easy to grab hold of and slow/tackle a player. Not sure ifMIB feel the same way , they also played in some blue-boots , right? soon someone may comeup with a Cyclops kind of thing to note touch calls (like at Wimbledon net calls).

Ben has it absolutely right with his comments, especially about Cooper. The so called expert writing this article must be blind when bangs on about "Cooper recovering hsi electric form" his electrical what???? Ben's right! QC is still crabbing across the pitch. He's still offloading the ball so hurriedly he's matching Campese. The only tackles you see are the ones he makes when the ball carrier is trampling him underfoot and he has to hang on to something to avoid being ground in. In fact the only one of his habits missing on Sunday morning at Twackers was that he coulldn't scratch out McCaw' eyes because McCaw was probably up on the grandstand, The key oz players are either dying of boredom or trying not to cry. Horwill's looking for a hole to crawl into, the rest of the forwards are looking for a fine day, Willy 's enthusiasm has run out on the ground, QC is still going sidewayus and the only ones left with enthusiasm are Mat & Izzy, too young to be otherwise. Get a life Yousef and start writing about a subject you know.

Australia's only half decent ref is a Kiwi.

How cynical does that segment about the boots read?

They should never have been allowed to parade with the Cup. The 2003 England team are not the current holders. Parade the old team all you like, but without the cup they no longer have a claim on.

“” That was one of the worst 40 minutes I've seen at Twickenham... England must step on the gas if they are to set the world alight By Sir Clive Woodward: 23:00 GMT, 3 November 2013 The biggest lesson for England after a nervous afternoon at Twickenham is a simple one: stop worrying about the opposition and start focusing on yourself. It was one of the worst first halves I can remember watching at Twickenham, but an industrious second half brought a vital victory and when you are head coach or a player at this level that 'W' is everything. Yet to beat Argentina and New Zealand will require a big step up from Saturday. England’s most significant flaw was to allow themselves to get sucked down to the level of the Australian team — and the Wallabies in the second half were worthy of a one out of 10. I would love to sit down with both head coaches and ask a simple question: ‘What were you both trying to do?’ If you went to a rock concert, or to the West End, and saw a quality of performance as bad as that then you would feel disgruntled and there was certainly an odd, unsettled atmosphere in the ground. No matter who you are playing against, my focus as a coach was always on us as a team, with a minimum amount of time spent on the opposition. During the week you prepare to play the game you want to play. If the opposition is not as fast as you, irrelevant; you have to create that dynamism, you have to enforce that tempo by being precise and urgent in your decision-making and your execution. England were too concerned about how Australia were going to play and that comes from the coaches. When England attack, the ball should be at the base of the ruck for no more than one or two seconds, but even on front-foot ball it was there for four or five, giving the defence time to organise. The obsession with territory from both sides came at the cost of a proper contest. In the first half, almost every Australian scrum resulted in a penalty for England. How the Wallabies went in 13-6 ahead at half-time is astonishing. But England failed to use this advantage, instead descending into a pointless pattern of play — win a penalty at the scrum, kick to touch, lose the line-out. Three times in 30 minutes this happened. They lost momentum and impetus but nobody thought to change the system, to tap and go, to pre-call a quick line-out, to kick to open space — anything that would make Australia think. The 80,000 people in the ground and the millions watching on TV could see what was happening. It was so easy to defend against because it was so predictable. Even if you do decide to commit to the line-out, it does not have to be done at a plodding pace. You make the call instantly, the hooker grabs the ball, the pack run up in formation of the line-out and you get the ball back in play. But the players do not seem to be empowered to think for themselves. Every time England won a penalty you could tell the initial instinct is to look around or into the stands rather than taking an immediate decision. Mike Brown’s second-half run woke up the crowd and ultimately changed the game, but why not try that in the first minute rather than wait until you are chasing the scoreboard? Running through their drills this week, England must train at match tempo. You can do hours of practice until you are all technically proficient, but the question is: how fast can you do it in a game? When Quade Cooper was lining up those penalties, were England working out where to attack from the next restart or even getting everyone in position to counter from deep? International rugby is won or lost in that level of detail and quite simply having the courage to do something the opposition are not expecting. The reverse will happen against New Zealand, who inject the pace for you, and England will play much better as a result. But against Argentina, England must set the speed of the game. Forget about analysing them all week, focus on what makes you hard to beat. Let them worry about you and not the other way round. It’s not the personnel, it is the way England are playing, and speed of play comes down to the coaches. We are not throwing down the gauntlet at Twickenham like we used to when it was a fortress. If England have any aspirations to be the No 1 ranked team in the world, they have to play in a very different way — and speed of ball is top of the list. DO NOT RELY ON SCIENCE I was shown around the refurbished changing rooms before the match by RFU chief executive Ian Ritchie and it is a wonderful, state-of-the-art facility. All those involved deserve to be congratulated. As well as the high-tech equipment — the connected gym area has an indoor strip of artificial grass as well as power bikes and bench presses — there is history on the walls, past players like Martin Johnson, and photographs of iconic moments. There are motivational messages on the walls that underline key ideas like ‘intensity’, ‘responsibility’ and ‘hard work’ and the emphasis is on the players being mere custodians of the shirt. There is also an adjoining room with banks of laptops for video analysis, a lot of which is fed to coaches during the game and the players at half-time. That analysis is vital during the week — measuring everything from space to top speeds to fatigue — but there should not be any expectation that you will find a magic bit of data to change a game. For 80 minutes on a Saturday rugby is played by the 15 guys on the pitch, not on the computer screens in front of the coaches. Players must think for themselves and be encouraged and coached to do so, not rely on a spreadsheet or a mathematical formula. When sports science takes over from coaching it is a recipe for disaster. Coaching is still the most important ingredient in changing a good team, which England are, into a great team. DON’T BLAME THE MIDFIELD England are struggling for penetration in attack, and they missed Manu Tuilagli as a missile off slow ball, but it is unfair to turn on fly-half Owen Farrell and the new midfield combination. I would have hated to play centre for England on Saturday. You could put New Zealand’s holy trinity of Dan Carter, Ma’a Nonu and Conrad Smith — the best 10-12-13 axis in the game — in the England back line and at that speed they would look average or worse. The one change I would like to see is winger Christian Wade given a proper run in the side. As a back three, Brown at full back is one of the few players who can beat the first man, but Chris Ashton made his reputation as a support runner in the middle of the pitch and Marland Yarde always looked up for help rather than backing himself. Yarde must stay but he must be given the latitude to play his way and let the rest of the team react to what he does. Wade can bring a cutting edge to England’s attack — just give him, Brown and Yarde as much ball as possible. Argentina will kick to England and we must have players who can always beat the first man. DEFENCE Without the ball England were very good. The scrabbling defence and the pack’s ferocious counter-rucking were excellent and say everything about the energy and spirit in the team. Up front, England have the makings of a pack that will be a match for anyone by the World Cup in 2015 and they will be a handful for New Zealand in a fortnight, especially around the ruck. Led by Chris Robshaw and Tom Wood, who did a brilliant job of pressurising scrum-half Will Genia at the back of the breakdown, the pack is powerful but strength is not their only weapon. They are multi-skilled and capable of playing at pace with ball in hand. We just need to see more of it. KICK-OFFS Restarts are a crucial platform but England looked vulnerable from the first fumbled kick-off five seconds into the match. It sets the tone of a game — Australia knocked on from the kick-off in the third Lions Test and imploded from that moment. When receiving, the point is to react to what is coming. Forwards will be split into partnerships of jumpers and lifters and try to anticipate where the kicker will target. With communication and fast footwork, you get in place to secure the ball. Australia were predictable — they would always target Israel Folau as their chaser — but England were slow on the uptake. When England took the restarts, Farrell kicked too long without giving his team-mates a real chance of competing for possession. I picked my three best aerial athletes for kick-offs — Mike Tindall, Lewis Moody (if starting) and Ben Cohen — and spread them across the field to always compete for the ball. Will Greenwood would stand behind Jonny Wilkinson, scanning the opposition and telling him where to kick off, so all Wilkinson had to focus on was keeping the ball in the air for as long as possible to give us a chance of reclaiming possession. It is simple but it causes chaos. At its most effective, you try to take the kick before the defence has even been organised. Kick these awful boots into touch If I were England coach I would not allow my players to wear fluorescent boots. This is not an issue with players appearing ‘flashy’, which they do, but this is a rugby decision. I understand players have important sponsorship deals and the latest trend is high-visibility, multi-coloured boots. You can still have your logo but I want players in black boots for a simple reason. If you are the referee and you are looking up at a line of defenders who are creeping forward on the offside line by a matter of inches, then a luminous boot is far more likely to catch your eye. Most penalties in rugby are given for offside — why give the referee an excuse to penalise you? It comes down to those marginal gains, those one per centers as we called them, that make the difference. Compared with England’s dazzling white strip, New Zealand’s all-black kit can already offer a small advantage when a referee is peering into the darkness of the bottom of the ruck. So why give yourself a further disadvantage out in the line, too? The only exception to the black-boot rule is the back three — I want them in white boots. Mike Brown was wearing blue boots but, significantly, they had white detail across the toe caps and I wonder if that is why the touch judge did not spot he was in touch before his run? Wingers and full back might get an edge by wearing white boots as they frequently brush the touchline — but the rest should be in black. Parade was end of 2003 era The class of 2003 were treated to a wonderful reception at half-time. It was the first time we had all been back together and it was quite surreal to walk that trophy around. I would like to thank the RFU, especially the CEO Ian Ritchie, for looking after everyone so well. But for me that final lap of honour marks the end of that era. Everyone in the game needs to focus on getting England back to being the No 1 team in world rugby. To do that you need everyone — from the coach of the minis to captain Chris Robshaw — aiming in the same direction with a clear and unequivocal goal: No 1. “”