The Rugby League World Cup 2013 Thread

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Bruce Wayne said:
Can those who only want to troll stay out of this thread. Consider that a polite request. Quite happy to infract folks for off topic stuff.

As for yesterday, I thought England did ok. Hard to know how well Australia really played. Haven't seen Inglis that quiet for a very long time. Slater was a big threat for them though, and the penalties gave them good enough field position to capitalise.

England will be stronger with Graham and McLorum back in the side. We dropped intensity a bit when Hill and Burgess went off, both of whom were excellent. Mossop is a decent Super League prop but I'm not really sure why the NRL want him. Hill is a better player imo.

Chase was anonymous largely, and hopefully Widdup was only on the bench due to his relative lack of match practice recently. He needs to play from the start.

It does look inevitable that it will be England, Australia, New Zealand and one other in the semi-final, but that shouldn't detract from the competition as Union is hardly any more competitive. It would be nice if both codes could learn to co-exist without the bickering as they each have things they can offer the other.
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Said a few times in this thread, on paper England have a really good team. They can be really dangerous and have a lot of big forwards who can knock holes in anyone. I would liked to have seen Mickey Hyham playing though at hooker. Dictates the pace so well for Warrington. Maybe try more dummy running of Wigan as well. Excellent back three, maybe not enough in the centres, which is where we lost out to Australia I felt yesterday. Sinfields inability to kick, which is the reason you play him, didn't help us convert (literally) periods of dominance.
 
You take Sinfield out, replace him with Widdop, get Graham back in the side and let him get the second man plays going, all of a sudden you have the burgess boys on either side and holes will open up everywhere.

Buuuut....your coach is Mcnamara and he is just as bad as Moyes persisting with Neville
 
Saliba said:
You take Sinfield out, replace him with Widdop, get Graham back in the side and let him get the second man plays going, all of a sudden you have the burgess boys on either side and holes will open up everywhere.

Buuuut....your coach is Mcnamara and he is just as bad as Moyes persisting with Neville
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BENCH EM SAL.
 
Saliba said:
You take Sinfield out, replace him with Widdop, get Graham back in the side and let him get the second man plays going, all of a sudden you have the burgess boys on either side and holes will open up everywhere.

Buuuut....your coach is Mcnamara and he is just as bad as Moyes persisting with Neville
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McNamara is a pretty ordinary coach sadly. If you add O'Loughlin, Graham, Widdop and McLlorum to the side then it does look pretty strong. The props are an obvious area of strength, whilst Roby had a good game at hooker. With Burgess and O'Loughlin in the back row that's another strong area, whilst the back three is also decent. Do we have enough in the halves and centres is the question.
 
Bruce Wayne said:
McNamara is a pretty ordinary coach sadly. If you add O'Loughlin, Graham, Widdop and McLlorum to the side then it does look pretty strong. The props are an obvious area of strength, whilst Roby had a good game at hooker. With Burgess and O'Loughlin in the back row that's another strong area, whilst the back three is also decent. Do we have enough in the halves and centres is the question.
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At this point in time, no. Get more players into the NRL, and yeah, you'll improve immensely. The difference Widdop made when he came on was huge, playing alongside Cronk, Smith and Slater week in week out has made him class, he should be starting. Absolutely shattered to see Graham benched, coming from a Canterbury supporter, his work rate is massive and honestly would have made the biggest difference in defence. Ah well, will be interesting to see, find it hard to support Australia when we have Sam Thaiday in the team.
 
England did ok against the Aussies but they hadn't played together for a while and I felt as the game went on it was looking more and more likely that the Aussies would win. But then again it always does. England can match the Aussies in the forwards and back three but our centres and half backs aren't up to it unfortunately. And our coach is the Mike Walker of rugby league.

Actually gutted to be away while this world cup is on in England as I would have deffo got to a few games.
 
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