England v All Blacks

I watched the England v New Zealand rugby match this afternoon and it was a classic example of a skilled team in whatever sport coming out on top of a team that just depends on brawn.

New Zealand won 23-19 and the score makes it sound close but they had three guys sin-binned for ten minutes each in the second half and even playing against fourteen for most of that period England never looked like scoring a try or even breaking through the All Blacks line.
You look at the England line up and they’re all big, muscular players who must spend half their life lifting weights, but when they try and run with the ball it all seems to be one paced and straight ahead, especially the backs and the passing is terrible, either static along the line or if the backline’s moving the ball gets thrown two feet above the receiving players head, so the move slows right down.

New Zealand’s player’s are all quick, their backs absolute lightning, able change direction without slowing and hit the gaps just at the right time and speed. And their ball handling is the best in the world.

England seem to be hoping that a power game with a big set of forwards will be good enough to retain the World Cup in 2007, it won’t. They need to spend a lot of time working on their ball handling, passing and have an alternative to bashing it up the middle or New Zealand will be World Champions in France.

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