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Summer Nations Series (World Cup warm-ups) - Final weekend discussion thread
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Hah! Was about to post a thread since it hadn’t appeared.
I imagine England will have too much for Fiji, but in a sign of how bad England have been this year im genuinely interested in this one.
Italy - Japan looks the pick of the Saturday games. Reckon Japan will take it, but could go either way I reckon.
Portugal play Australia B according to flash scores, and I’m honestly curious about that one.
Scotland will turn Georgia over. If there’s less than twenty in it, then expect the “ is it time to introduce relegation onto the 6 nations?” articles to appear six months early.
France - Australia tomorrow is the sort of match I’d normally be relishing, but all I hope for this time is no more injuries. Especially since N’tamack is already out.
Yup, agree on England and Fiji. It's a stronger England side than you'd usually see starting against Fiji, hopefully both sides put up a fight.
Any thoughts post match?
Don't sack your coach 9 months out from a World Cup I reckon.
As a kiwi, with the benefit of that hindsight I reckon most of the country will be pretty relieved - even with that tough result yesterday.
Congrats to Fiji, they deserved the win.
Started OK but the sudden bout of weather seemed to put the brakes on any attack we had. And then it all fell apart. Asleep defensively and we seem to have forgotten how to deal with a wet ball, which is odd given the summer we've had. Fiji played well but we gave them the game. Can't even blame the ref, Peyper was fair.
Smith injected a bit of energy when he came on. Will give him that much.
I just don't know what's going wrong. Players that have been playing together for years suddenly have no chemistry, and look clueless. When we did have possession, the attack was completely one dimensional (after the weather) with Smith being the only person to attempt anything beyond passing it down the line.
Argentina and Japan are rubbing their hands together.
I haven't watched the game or even the highlights so this is more of a question... But when the ABs struggle at the moment its because we are losing the gainline battle (on attack and defense). On attack it means we get poor service to the halfback, and on defense it means we struggle to set our D and then end up giving away silly penalties.
Is a similar thing happening for England - because if so then the ABs are evidence its fixable. But if they're winning the gainline and still losing, then that might suggest a deeper malaise that is harder to fix.