Anything less than a 50-point win for England would be a major surprise - Andy Goode
Eddie Jones has gone full noise with his selection for England’s opening game and I fully expect them to win by 50 against Tonga.
I might be called an arrogant Englishman for saying that but England’s attack has really started to click back into gear in recent weeks and Tonga had 92 points put on them against New Zealand a couple of weeks ago, so I think it’s a fair assessment.
The likes of Siale Piutau, Cooper Vuna, Tane Takulua, Sione Kalamafoni and even David Halaifonua do have genuine individual ability, as we’ve seen in the Premiership, but I don’t think they have what it takes as a collective to worry England.
There will be linebreaks and try-scoring opportunities as some of the individuality comes to the fore but there isn’t the structure that’s necessary to really hurt the men in white over the course of 80 minutes with fitness also coming into it later on in the game.
They will be competitive and have their moments during the game, of course, but things will have to go drastically wrong for England for them to have any chance of winning.
With England having their two easiest pool games first, it’s important to notch up two bonus point victories and get that feel-good factor going.
I really like the fact that Eddie’s gone so strong from the start but I don’t think it’s a completely first choice side as some have suggested. I still think Owen Farrell will return to fly half for the big games and we’ll see the likes of George Kruis and Mark Wilson in there as well.
We know Tonga are going to fly up in defence and try to make some big hits and I think the selection of George Ford and Farrell together is aimed at picking off that rush defence.
It’s a formula worked spectacularly well against Ireland and I expect it to fire again but it’s interesting to see them paired together when they are the only two boina fide fly halves in the squad and one of them will surely have to start against USA as well.
Of course, Tonga will be targeting that 10/12 channel in defence. Every team does but especially with Ford and Farrell offering less in terms of physicality than Farrell and Tuilagi, for example.
There’s no doubt that defence is the weaker part of Ford’s game and he’ll need his back row and others to give him some protection against some of the massive units he’ll be coming up against but he’s a quality player and I think we’ll see a big performance from him.
It’s great to see Tom Curry and Sam Underhill starting together again in the back row and there is a chance that they might get the nod as a combination at six and seven in the tougher tests to come.
The selection of two opensides has proven successful for Australia with Michael Hooper and David Pocock and the All Blacks to an extent as well with Ardie Savea and Sam Cane. I still think England’s number six shirt belongs to Mark Wilson at the moment though.
He was player of the series in the autumn, shone again in the Six Nations and had seven carries, 49 metres made, five defenders beaten and 27 tackles to his name against Italy in Newcastle in the final warm-up game, so he’s a man in form.
Billy Vunipola has started all four warm-up games and starts again in this one and, with no other out-and-out number eight in the squad, Wilson might just be pencilled in to fill in at the base of the scrum against the USA.
Billy will be glad he’s got the start in this one as well. He got married in Tonga in the summer and is hugely proud of his Tongan heritage. His dad Fe’ao played for Tonga at the 1995 and 1999 World Cups and it’ll be a special day for the family but he’ll only have eyes on an England win.
This might be the second youngest starting XV England have ever named at a World Cup and some people have made a bit of a meal out of that but when you look at the names in there and the experience some of them have in terms of caps as well, it really isn’t a concern at all.
Tom Curry has taken to international rugby like a duck to water and the rest have plenty of nous and experience to go around. Quite a few have been on a British & Irish Lions tour.
You’d expect 13 or 14 changes to the starting XV for the game against the USA four days after this one but momentum is big in World Cups and it’s great to see such a strong team put out first up to get the campaign off to the best possible start.
England will be desperate to make a statement. Realistically, Tonga have got no chance of beating England and anything less than a 50-point margin of victory would be a surprise for me.
Comments on RugbyPass
Bulls by 5. Plus another 50.
3 Go to commentsJohan Goosen avatar. Cute. Surely someone at RP knows how to do a google image search?
3 Go to commentsCan’t these games play a little earlier? Asking for a friend.
3 Go to commentsIt’s impressive that we can see huge stadiums with attendance in the 40 000 to 50 000 region. It shows how popular this competition is becoming. What is even more impressive is the massive growth in broadcast viewership. The URC is one of the two best leagues in the World, the other being the Top14.
7 Go to commentsChristie is not Sottish, like the majority of the Scotland team.
2 Go to commentsHold the phone, decline over-rated. Is it a one game, dead cat bounce or the real thing? Has the Penney dropped? Stay tuned.
45 Go to commentsTotally deserved win for the Crusaders Far smarter than the Chiefs who seem to be avoiding the basics when it matters Hotham showed them what was missing and Hannah seems a real find - a tad light but that can be fixed over time
8 Go to commentsGreat insight into the performance culture with Sarries and I predict Christie will be a fixture in the Scotland team now for some time to come. However, he is slightly missing his own point around Scotland “being soft” when he cites physicality examples in defence of that slight. The issue is much closer to the example he referenced around feeling off before a game but being told “it doesn’t matter, you can still play well” by Farrell. Until Scotland can get their psyche in that square, they will carry on folding under extreme pressure…
2 Go to comments> We are having to adapt, evolve and innovate more than when we were in Super Rugby where there was only really one style that everybody had to play to gain the most success. Have = able to? Interesting what that one style might be? I thought SA sides still had bad tours now, or at least bad schedule, months away? Those extra few hours flights have to be a killer though, no surprise to see their sides doing so badly at the start of the season each year. I wouldn’t enjoy that unfairness as a supporter.
7 Go to commentsThe problem for NZ, and Aus, is they ripped up the SR model and lost a massive chunk of revenue that hasn’t been replaced. Don’t forget SA clubs went North because they were left with no choice, Argy unceremoniously binned and Japan cast adrift. Now SR wasn’t perfect, far from it, but they’ve jumped into something without an effective plan, so far, to replace what they’ve lost. The biggest revenue potential now lies in Japan but it won’t be easy or quick to unlock, they are incredibly insular in culture as a nation. In the meantime, there is a serious time bomb sitting under SH rugby and if it happens then the current financial challenges will look like a picnic. IF the Boks follow their provincial teams and head north then it’s revenue meltdown. Not guaranteed to happen but the status quo is a very odd hybrid, with the Boks pointing one way and the clubs pointing the other way. And for as long as that remains then the threat is real.
45 Go to commentsI think Etene has had some good tuition, likely while at the Warriors to be a professional that helped his rugby jump, but he was certainly thrown in the deep end way too early. Should have arguably 20 less SR caps, and therefor a way better record that he does at his age, but his development would have been fast tracked by the need to satiate his signing away from league. Again, credit to him and others that he has done it so well. Easy to fall over under that pressure in the big leagues like that but he kept at it when I myself wasn’t sure he was good enough.
1 Go to commentsAwesome story. I wonder what a bigger American (SA) scene might have mean for Brex.
1 Go to comments“Johnny McNicholl and the Crusaders” save a Penney. Who has been in camp this week and showed them how to play?
8 Go to commentsSo, reports of the Crusaders’ demise / terminal decline are perhaps just - slightly - premature/exaggerated…? 🤔 Will we see a deep-dive into that by the estimable Rugbypass scribes, and maybe one or two mea culpas? Thought not.
8 Go to comments1. The Chiefs are rudderless without DMac, which enhances his AB chances 2. Chiefs pack are powderpuffs. The hard men arent there anymore 3. They had their golden title chance last yr and wont threaten this yr. Gone in second round of playoffs.
8 Go to commentsHonestly, why did you have to publish such a foolish article the day they play us? 😂
45 Go to comments> They are not standalone entities. They are linked to an amateur association which holds the FFR licence that allows the professional side to compete in the league. That’s a great rule. This looks like the chicken or egg professional scenario. How long is it going to be before the club can break even (if that is even a thing in French rugby)? If the locals aren’t into well it would be good to se them drop to amateur level (is it that far?). Hope they can reset from this level and be more practical, there will be a time when they can rebuild (if France has there setup right).
1 Go to commentsWhat about changing the ball? To something heavier and more pointed that bounces unpredictably. Not this almost round football used these days.
35 Go to commentsThis is the problem with conservative mindsets and phycology, and homogenous sports, everybody wants to be the same, use the i-win template. Athlete wise everyone has to have muscles and work at the gym to make themselves more likely to hold on that one tackle. Do those players even wonder if they are now more likely to be tackled by that player as a result of there “work”? Really though, too many questions, Jake. Is it better Jake? Yes, because you still have that rugby of ole that you talk about. Is it at the highest International level anymore? No, but you go to your club or checkout your representative side and still engage with that ‘beautiful game’. Could you also have a bit of that at the top if coaches encouraged there team to play and incentivized players like Damian McKenzie and Ange Capuozzo? Of course we could. Sadly Rugby doesn’t, or didn’t, really know what direction to go when professionalism came. Things like the state of northern pitches didn’t help. Over the last two or three decades I feel like I’ve been fortunate to have all that Jake wants. There was International quality Super Rugby to adore, then the next level below I could watch club mates, pulling 9 to 5s, take on the countries best in representative rugby. Rugby played with flair and not too much riding on the consequences. It was beautiful. That largely still exists today, but with the world of rugby not quite getting things right, the picture is now being painted in NZ that that level of rugby is not required in the “pathway” to Super Rugby or All Black rugby. You might wonder if NZR is right and the pathway shouldn’t include the ‘amateur’, but let me tell you, even though the NPC might be made up of people still having to pull 9-5s, we know these people still have dreams to get out of that, and aren’t likely to give them. They will be lost. That will put a real strain on the concept of whether “visceral thrill, derring-do and joyful abandon” type rugby will remain under the professional level here in NZ. I think at some point that can be eroded as well. If only wanting the best athlete’s at the top level wasn’t enough to lose that, shutting off the next group, or level, or rugby players from easy access to express and showcase themselves certainly will. That all comes back around to the same question of professionalism in rugby and whether it got things right, and rugby is better now. Maybe the answer is turning into a “no”?
35 Go to commentsWow, didn’t realise there was such apathy to URC in SA, or by Champions Cup teams. Just read Nick’s article on Crusaders, are Sharks a similar circumstance? I think SA rugby has been far more balanced than NZs, no?
4 Go to comments