Northern Edition

Select Edition

Northern Northern
Southern Southern
Global Global
New Zealand New Zealand
France France

Everyone is saying the same thing after agonising England loss

A crestfallen George Ford - PA

England head coach Steve Borthwick faced intense scrutiny following a narrow 24-22 loss to New Zealand at Allianz Stadium, with many questioning his decision to replace fly-half Marcus Smith with George Ford late in the game.

ADVERTISEMENT

Ford’s introduction proved costly, as he missed a one-on-one tackle on Mark Telea as he scored a crucial try before failing to capitalize on two late opportunities to secure victory with two kicks at goal.

England had fought hard to keep pace with the All Blacks but Telea’s second try shifted the momentum in New Zealand’s favour.

Video Spacer

Immanuel Feyi-Waboso – the hype is real

Video Player is loading.
Current Time 0:00
Duration 0:54
Loaded: 0%
Stream Type LIVE
Remaining Time 0:54
 
1x
    • Chapters
    • descriptions off, selected
    • captions off, selected
    • en (Main), selected
    Video Spacer

    Immanuel Feyi-Waboso – the hype is real

    Sizzle reel for England and Exeter star, Immanuel Feyi-Waboso.

    However, Steve Borthwick’s side were given a lifeline in the closing moments after Anton Lienert-Brown’s dangerous tackle on Theo Dan awarded Ford a chance to edge his team ahead. With a 77th-minute penalty, Ford struck the right upright.

    A knock-on from the All Blacks saw England get a short-range scrum moments later but Ford’s attempted drop-goal sailed wide, dashing England’s hopes of a comeback in the Autumn Nations Series opener.

    The decision to bench Smith – who had been controlling the game well – drew criticism from fans and pundits alike. Former England fly-half Andy Goode voiced the sentiment of many, tweeting: “ I’m not sure about taking Marcus Smith off when he was on fire and one missed tackle ended up being the difference… When is Steve Borthwick just going to give Marcus Smith his backing for the whole 80? Back the man, he’s class and shouldn’t have been taken off.”

    Rugby podcaster Mike Cooper wrote: “Well, England have properly butchered that one. Borthwick needs a proper examination to figure out why you would take off your best performing player to try and cling on against the All Blacks. Earl brainless no-arms tackle pivotal too. Close losses no longer good enough.”

    ADVERTISEMENT

    Former All Blacks fly-half Lima Sopoaga wrote: “If I’m Marcus Smith I’m spewing,” while retired Fiji and Leicester Tigers winger Nemani Nadolo said: “Crazy old game.. crazy to bring Marcus Smith off.. I thought the energy changed when he went off?”

    Another rugby account wrote: “Changes for the sake of it cost England. Marcus Smith was having a good game and probably would have nailed the penalty/drop goal. Never understand why Borthwick decides to effectively park the bus with 10 mins to go.”

    Another account said: “Why on earth would you sub Marcus Smith when he was playing immaculately? A senseless choice of sub that cost us the game. Of all unusual substitutions England Rugby fans have ever seen made, that one truly takes the cake. Bizarre decision, with pressure heaped on Ford.”

    The match had been fuelled by pre-game controversy, with England prop Joe Marler dismissing the haka as “ridiculous” and calling for it to be “binned.” While the fireworks expected from the All Blacks were slow to materialize, they erupted in the dying minutes.

    ADVERTISEMENT

    Related

    ADVERTISEMENT

    Boks Office | Episode 39 | The Investec Champions Cup is back

    Argentina v France | HSBC SVNS Hong Kong 2025 | Men's Match Highlights

    New Zealand v Australia | HSBC SVNS Hong Kong 2025 | Women's Match Highlights

    Tokyo Sungoliath vs Shizuoka BlueRevs | Japan Rugby League One 2024/25 | Full Match Replay

    Reds vs Force | Super Rugby W 2025 | Full Match Replay

    The Rise of Kenya | The Report

    New Zealand in Hong Kong | Brady Rush | Sevens Wonders | Episode 4

    The Fixture: How This Rugby Rivalry Has Lasted 59 Years

    Trending on RugbyPass

    Comments

    66 Comments
    J
    JK 148 days ago

    I wish I was South African?....

    B
    Bull Shark 149 days ago

    I’d love to be a fly on the wall at the next England team meeting.


    Reckon Felix Jones will keep his camera off ”to save bandwidth”.

    S
    Saintsrugby 149 days ago

    Comments about England being offside are wide of the mark. NZ tackling players off the ball was only picked up 3 times. The ref was lenient. Plus the yellow should have been a red head on head contact. Let's not forget NZ have played a number of matches together prior to this fixture. So the poor ball handling wasn't down to rustiness but good England pressure

    T
    Tom 149 days ago

    The yellow incident was a farce. Ref claimed it wasn't fowl play cuz he'd just given someone a yellow and didn't want to send NZ down to 13. Then when the TMO said he could swap who he sent to the bin, suddenly he said it met the yellow card threshold and swapped the cards over haha.


    Not complaining about the result, NZ were much better than England but that was some dodgy AF reffing!

    D
    DarstedlyDan 149 days ago

    A rush D always lives on the border of being offside, and England's is no exception. Take a look at Jordan's try - the English 14 was a mile offside - he was barely behind NZ's last foot, let alone England's. Not a criticism of England - if you're allowed to get away with it, then do it. And pretty much every team these days goes offside when defending near their own line.


    Agree with you that the ABs tackled too much off the ball - a lack of concentration. Wonder also if the ALB yellow-card tackle was I think a result of him having head-contact moments before - not sure he was quite with it as the tackled player was quite a way from the ball.

    L
    Lickmyshitta 150 days ago

    The All Blacks didn’t win that game the english lost and I’m buggered if I know how.

    The All Blacks ball handling skills were abysmal, so many penalties and england failed to capitalise.

    If smith had stayed on I think it probably would’ve been a different result, the dude was on fire.

    J
    JWH 150 days ago

    England were offside the whole game, forcing errors, but yes, at times it was poor. I have to say it is mainly the backline, forwards were unbelievable in contact, getting arms free and drawing their man.


    Smith was okay this game, had his ups and downs. He shouldn't have attempted either of those drop goals, and should've had the balls to go to the corner when they had some of those penalties. He also didn't setup any tries for his team, the only one being a lucky-offside-ref-in-the-way-14-point-who-are-you-passing-to try

    L
    Lickmyshitta 150 days ago

    Have absolutely no idea how the All Blacks won that game, their ball handling skills were atrocious they were playing worse than a pack of schoolgirls playing scrag.

    I honestly don’t like england and hate losing to them more than losing to just about any other country…., but hahahahahahahaha serves you bloody well right for disrespecting the haka.

    England was by far the better team on the day and the ball handling skills of the All Blacks was absolutely pitiful and they should never have won.

    I think Razor was an awesome coach when coaching the crusaders but for some reason he just hasn’t quite got the knack of it anymore, at the moment anyway.

    The All Blacks should never let Leon MacDonald go they should have sat them both down and told them to sort their shit out as it would have been a far superior All Black team playing on the day compared to the one we saw.

    There were some bad decisions favouring the poms but the worst decision was by the english coach late in the game when he subbed out the halfback.

    In reality the All Blacks didn’t win it was england lost and I still can’t figure how.

    J
    JW 150 days ago

    Good game from England.


    It was funny listening to some of their comms how they thought they should have been better though, or had better results lol

    Ford’s introduction proved costly, as he missed a one-on-one tackle on Mark Telea

    That's the coachs fault for putting the other teams best attackers up against your worst defenders. He didn't even miss the tackle did he, just went over in it?

    The decision to bench Smith – who had been controlling the game well – drew criticism from fans and pundits alike

    They need to think about the big picture. It's for the better of the squad, Smith might go down with injury and not play the rest of the tour. Bringing Ford on turned out to be a tactically astute move, luck just wasn't on their side.


    Fans need to be more concerned about the lack of ability to construct any tries, that can't all be on the halfback?

    R
    RW 150 days ago

    Everyone is saying the same thing?

    I'm saying hahaha

    L
    Lickmyshitta 150 days ago

    I’m thinking the same thing

    F
    FW 151 days ago

    I watched the test and my humble view is that the ABs was poor England's defence pretty good but............In conclution a very average test. Nothing to shit yourself about. Boks will beat them both.

    C
    CO 151 days ago

    England have nothing to complain about, both teams were at times abysmal and far worse than their earlier tests this year.


    England also have no right to their outstanding blindside flanker, straight out poached from NZ professional rugby.


    Bizarre penalties against Jordan and Ratima to let England off the hook in the first half which lead to the ridiculous penalty count.


    Interested to see if the disallowed try to Beauden was once again the TMO going beyond the number of allowed phases and the puzzling decision not to check whether Marcus Smith was onside with his intercept.


    The Allblacks should've really won the game by 35-10 or similar so what's going wrong?


    Why did an uninspiring England look likely to win with fifteen minutes left?


    The answer is Sititi is carrying the other two Allblack loose forwards, Savea and especially Cane are yesterday's men.


    England were able to get away with a lot more slowing down of the ball than they should've surely due to the poorly balanced Allblack back row which also helped the lineout struggle.


    With England given knock on advantage why did the ref allow England to refuse to play the ball? That's not in the spirit of the game


    The repeat tackles by Allblacks of players without the ball was woeful, however England was running blockers slightly in front of the ball carrier at times,


    England also had hands all over the ball at the breakdown, one an obvious penalty that inexplicably the ref ignored in front of goal by the English number eight which would've made the score 22-20 to England.


    Finally. Rugby needs to drop the value of penalties from three to two, England didn't attack and should've never been in contention to win this test.


    Scott Barrett has to sort out the poor discipline but also ask more of the refereeing.

    J
    JW 150 days ago

    Yep, you could tell which jersey Chandler Cunningham-South wanted to be wearing.

    T
    Tom 150 days ago

    I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed that England were awful... The scoreboard was incredibly flattering. As an Englishman it's frustrating that these scorelines keep the coaches thinking they're on the right track. Hopefully we'll get a wake-up call against Aus or SA. England's attack was nonexistent and has been for years.

    A
    AA 150 days ago

    100%

    A
    AF 151 days ago

    Wow, the England hate is palpable lol

    L
    LW 151 days ago

    Savea yesterday's man lol jog on son dropped your credibility like an icecreamcone

    J
    Jmann 151 days ago

    To me it looked liked the ABs were mostly well in control despite not playing particularly well. If anything they were unlucky not to score another 2 or 3tries. Finishing and discipline remain NZ's work ons.

    B
    Bull Shark 150 days ago

    Agreed. England had lost three on the trot against a NZ team well off their best.

    R
    RW 151 days ago

    Smith butchers 2 drop goals, but some think he would have nailed the last one.

    S
    Stinger 150 days ago

    Yeah, some think rugby results has a future component. What if's and maybe's. Weird.

    G
    GP 151 days ago

    As a neutral, enjoyed wstching. Looking forward to next weekend in Dublin.

    C
    CC 151 days ago

    Well well It’s one of those mistakes, or misjudgment by replacing Smith, but Steve is still on it!

    C
    CC 151 days ago

    Well It’s one of those gross mistakes that occurred in these kind of matches, the England coach has got nothing wrong he has done, it’s just misjudgement in replacing Smith, really any coach could have done that, Steve is still on it!

    T
    Tom 150 days ago

    Changing the 10 is almost always a bad idea and should only be done if he's injured, playing badly or you're losing and there is a game changing 10 on the bench to provide impact. None of those things were true in this case, what was Borthwick trying to achieve? Smith should be capable of playing the full 80, 10 isn't a physically demanding position.

    F
    FL 151 days ago

    The ABs were gifting England so many opportunities to win this. Lucky to get away with that one.

    f
    fl 150 days ago

    hello name

    R
    RB 151 days ago

    The real difference was,one missed conversion,one successful one.

    B
    Bull Shark 151 days ago

    And the knives are out already.


    It’s weird watching the ABs. In the past, the passes always stuck. The offloads always stuck. There were a few times tonight they looked like scoring many more times. Maybe it’s confidence, but in time they’ll find their rhythm


    England never looked like winning. Even after they went ahead. They certainly weren’t the better side. NZ’s ill discipline (again) kept England in it.

    B
    Bruiser 150 days ago

    By the time they play your team at Eden Park next year, you will see more passes sticking

    A
    AF 151 days ago

    I'll discipline also comes from pressure though. I felt England weren't great until the 2nd half, but either the backroom disruptions and this being their first game against a more battle-hardened ABs, I felt they actually did alright. The scrum improved but not for 80 mins, so that actually represents progress.

    F
    FW 151 days ago

    Yeah that was in the past

    R
    RedWarrior 151 days ago

    The first half penalties against NZ were for speculative tackling because England were attacking so flat. If NZ didn't do this then it may have been tries and not penalties conceded earlier. I believe Felix Jones is still helping with the transition online. It was quite clear he wasn't helping in person with Earls in particular shooting up and leaving huge holes. NZ had a few that nearly stuck but the two tries by Telea were defensive errors. Furbank biting on Sititi leaving Genge to mark albeit great offload. Genge wont show Telea the outside again. Poor tacking on Telea for the second. That said he is a hard man to grab hold of.

    Isolating Genge was clever for Jordans try. NZ spotted he was turning up in the line too often and they could leave a gap with that switch play. 6 day turnaround for Ireland now.

    I imagine NZ will be better, but they will need to be a lot better.

    A
    AA 151 days ago

    Fl_ at u lance.


    Borethwick lost the game bringing ford on .

    Smith was on fire.

    You say Ford has magical control.

    Can shut out games .

    Has better tackle rate than Smith , ect etc

    Yet again UTTERLY NOTHING ON SHOW .

    How blind can one be .

    Finally, finally ford finished .

    It's the 2 Smiths ftom now on and you are one on your own backing ford anymore .

    BYEEEEE

    f
    fl 151 days ago

    I've never said any of those things.

    f
    fl 151 days ago

    Ford has been England's best 10 for years and deserves to be given the full 80, but he's never been an impact player.


    Give him the 80, or give him 0.

    J
    JK 150 days ago

    0 then

    Load More Comments

    Join free and tell us what you really think!

    Sign up for free
    ADVERTISEMENT

    Latest Features

    Comments on RugbyPass

    E
    Elizabeth M Joshua 8 minutes ago
    What Newcastle 'can’t legislate for' as they face fellow basement dwellers

    ## A Remarkable Recovery

    I'm Elizabeth Joshua from Mississippi, and my journey to recovering my stolen USDT coins was nothing short of miraculous. It began with a devastating loss of $267,400 to a cunning scammer. The feeling of helplessness was overwhelming, and I thought my money was gone forever. Website: Brunoequickhack.COM

    However, my luck changed when I stumbled upon Brunoe Quick Hack's services online. Their reputation for being reliable and efficient in recovering stolen cryptocurrency caught my attention. I decided to take a chance and reached out to them.

    To my surprise, Brunoe Quick Hack's team was professional, responsive, and transparent throughout the entire process. They worked tirelessly to track down the scammer and recover my stolen USDT coins. Their expertise and dedication were truly impressive.

    In a remarkable turn of events, Brunoe Quick Hack successfully recovered my stolen funds. I was overjoyed and relieved to see the money safely returned to my account. WhatsApp: +1705-784-(2635)

    My experience with Brunoe Quick Hack has been nothing short of exceptional. Their service is top-notch, and I highly recommend them to anyone who has fallen victim to cryptocurrency scams. If you're looking for a reliable and efficient solution to recover your stolen funds, look no further than Brunoe Quick Hack.

    ## A Testimonial to Excellence

    I'm thrilled to refer Brunoe Quick Hack's services to the globe. Their professionalism, expertise, and commitment to customer satisfaction are truly remarkable. If you need help recovering stolen cryptocurrency, don't hesitate to reach out to Brunoe Quick Hack. They are the real deal. Email: BrunoequickhackATgmail.com

    0 Go to comments
    d
    dimitrirassam299 36 minutes ago
    Don't get out over your skis on the Highlanders

    For months, I had been diving deep into the world of cryptocurrency, excited by the opportunities and promises of financial freedom. Like many others, I had heard of people making life changing gains overnight, and I wanted my share of the success. Unfortunately, in my eagerness, I fell victim to a well disguised scam that drained my Ethereum ETH holdings. It started when I stumbled upon an investment platform that seemed too good to be true but in my greed and hope, I ignored the warning signs. The website had polished testimonials, a smooth interface, and a community that appeared legitimate. I transferred a significant amount of Ethereum, expecting high returns in a matter of weeks. Days turned into weeks, then months, and soon  I realized I had been scammed,I was devastated. That money was not just a financial asset; it was my hard earned savings, my dreams of financial security. I reached out to the so-called support team of the platform, but my emails went unanswered, and the website eventually vanished. I was left with nothing but regret.Just when I was about to give up, a friend told me about Washington Recovery Pro a specialized asset recovery service that had helped victims like me retrieve lost funds from fraudulent schemes. Skeptical but desperate, I decided to reach out. Their response was swift and professional. They assured me that while many scams are sophisticated, their team had the expertise to trace and recover stolen digital asset one day, I woke up to an email notification that your funds had been successfully recovered. I logged into my crypto wallet, and there it was my ETH, safely returned. I could hardly believe it.For anyone who has lost money in crypto scams, I say that there is still hope. Washington Recovery Pro proved that with the right team, justice can prevail.their handles.

    WhatsApp-‪  +1 (903) 249‑8633‬

    4 Go to comments
    TRENDING
    TRENDING Worcester Warriors return to play statement imminent Worcester Warriors return to play statement imminent
    Search