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England, what happened? After their stunning second-half performance in Hull, England have produced a fizzer in attack despite an intense defensive effort in the second Test in London to go down to New Zealand 9-2.
Nervousness? Tentativeness? Whatever the reason, the result was that the English never found their offensive feet.
Their only real chance came towards the end of the match with a little grubber into the in-goal area. James Graham only had to fall on the ball and the English would have at least drawn the match and secured the series. Alas, he did fall on it, but his hands missed and so too the opportunity.
Kallum ‘Nightcrawler’ Watkins, a man who has mastered the knack of materialising behind opposition lines, needs the ball to do so. He never got it. And Ryan ‘Thundercat’ Hall was forced to play pussycat for much of the match, his only real touches of the ball coming through hit ups after kicks.
I’m not sure why the English chose not to use such crowd pleasing talents but the Kiwis didn’t mind.
After dealing with a glut of possession in the first half and only two points to show for it, one could be forgiven for expecting New Zealand to be frustrated into playing the razzle dazzle everyone knows they are capable of playing.
But they didn’t. Instead, New Zealand showed matched England tackle for tackle and ultimately wore down the home side to earn their victory.
There were elements of great maturity and signs of improvement in both teams.
England’s defensive effort was top notch. They didn’t back off one little bit and kept their presence up for the entire match, chasing down the Kiwi offloads as well defending their line with aplomb.
As for New Zealand, they showed great maturity to keep their discipline despite only being able to score once. Their kicking game got better and better as the match wore on and their new halves pairing slowly began to find their feet.
After two games of both teams finding their feet, here’s to both teams producing an extravaganza at a confirmed sold out DW Stadium in Wigan next week.
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