England ring in the changes for All Blacks

Mate, I was just joshing. I haven't seen a great deal of him tbh, is he much cop?

Your (and my) fears were realised, 12trees had a shocker, and played a big part in the loss

"England were winning by 17 points at 57 minutes and, yes, took their foot off the gas." Oh, is that Birdy seizing upon the only part of my post he could reasonably argue about? The only bit that couldn't be categorically proven false, seeing as it's essentially a meaningless phrase which can never be proven or unproven? Yes, I think it is.

Expathack: Again, as I'm sure you know, I was referring to Kiwis attitude to Rugby not some general 'national character'.

"I wont be able to change your biases but try and remember not everything’s australias fault even if it can seem that way after the losses mount up across the sports." Love it soapit. The one area where I feel nothing but awe and jealousy for Aussies is their utterly unshakeable self-belief, even if it is often delusional. In particular this article of faith that they bestride the global sporting world like Olympian Gods. It was particularly great about a year ago when you'd come off the 3rd straight ashes loss hard on the heels of a humiliating drubbing in India; had just completed a laughable Olympics in which athletes from the English county of Yorkshire had won more Gold medals than the whole Australian team (and your men's team had won only one Gold medal that required any athletic ability at all); and the Wallabies seemed to be losing more games than they won. You had to fallback on Rugby league played by Aussies; Kiwis not good enough to be ABs; and a few dozen fat blokes in the north of England and 'Aussie Rules'; and still your hubris and certainty that you were number one in everything seemed absolute. God knows what it's like there now after a relatively good year.

I say good luck to Michael Paterson as well. Unfortunately, he's battling out for the 6th, 7th and 8th choice lock position, so it's unlikely that he'll get many England caps.

OK - I say ;"Good on Michael Paterson" if you'd read my posts over the years I'm a big fan of players seeing the world via sport and taking whatever opportunities are presented to them, wherever they may be; hope he makes the team for the Crusaders game - and makes it on the field too.

Jerry: England were winning by 17 points at 57 minutes and, yes, took their foot off the gas. Expathack: notice you conveniently left Canada off your list, but Georgia and Tonga are in the same ballpark. We can split hairs 12 years later if you want; but your basic implication that England's try to game ratio was padded out by games against easy beats compared to NZ is obvious nonsense, as even you must know.

Come on Atlas, don't be shy mate, just say what your thinking. :)

I've heard of the internet Expat, I've heard it's wonderful. Doesn't appear to work for you though does it old bean?

Well I apologise to All Australians. But the MAJORITY of English cricket fans were licking their wounds and frankly didn't care what happened in that series, but most thought it would be a cracking series. Chippy?! Mmmh.

But I'm happy to plead guilty on the 'sad' front. Unapologetic stats nerd that I am.

www.pickandgo.info or www.scrum.com (go to the stats guru tab) will give you that sort of information. Pickandgo is good for a breakdown of team results, points/tries scored for & against etc but doesn't give any stats about players or selections. It does have a nice feature that allows you go back and see what the IRB rankings would have been at any point in history. Scrum.com has a much more in depth database as it also contains player stats including tries/points scored, positions played, cards issued etc. Both of those are for internationals only.

Scrum.com has those stats for more recent games, NZ rugby museum has them for All Black games. It only took about a minute to find that information.

There's this thing called the internet, it's a wonderful and informative tool. A lot like your good self.

"Daniel Manning is definitely an Aussie" He's South African fella. I assume you've missed the derogatory things he says about Australian rugby. But hey, don't let that get in in the way of your insecurity chippy. As soapit says, we see NZ lose regularly, just not at rugby. Unlike the majority of English cricket supporters who were hoping to exact some sort of vengeance via the South African cricket team, we don't ride on the backs of others victories, especially the from the english rugby side.

More specifically, where do you go to find out when a team made their substitutions in a game that happened over a decade ago? Nice way to disprove an assertion, but dare I say a bit sad at the same time, sorry Jerry.

Believe it or not Soapit, I have nothing against Australia or it's citizens, I was simply stating what I thought and still think, it wasn't an attack on Australians. As I said, I'm happy to be proved wrong, but that hasn't happened. Daniel Manning is definitely an Aussie, you'll have to claim him as one of your own I'm afraid, no matter how hard that is to bear. You're the pedant Soapit, so I suggest that you look back through the thread, I'm not doing the work for you mate.

"The ABs played terribly and came within 3 minutes of losing last week." Drawing, not losing.

Pretty sure England would have had a couple of matches against Italy during that period as well. Or perhaps they sat out the 6 Nations in 02-03? But you're right about the other teams NZ played. Tonga, Fiji and Argentina are definitely in the same easy beat class as those traditional rugby powerhouses of Georgia and Uruguay. I'll just leave that bizarre little observation of yours on Kiwi national character to hang you all by itself...