By Charlatan 4/11/03
November 4 2003

Charlatan a regular poster on the Unofficial England Rugby site has sent through an England Fan’s analysis of the England v Uruguay match – some good observations and comments.

 

England v Uruguay 

Bit of a difficult one to report on this due to the, (no disrespect intended but) quality of the opposition.  How much can you really learn from a 100-point plus thrashing?    

Well – just looking at the Key Areas of the game there were definitive positives:

Restarts – much better, though aided by Uruguay kicking them long.  A number of different players gathered up the ball and launched excellent counter-attacking moves, obviously due to this it tended to be a back rather than a forward but all looked secure.

Line Out – the rhythm was excellent and West’s throwing reliable.  Grewcock was the main receiver and handled well.

Scrum – was definitely under some pressure though as the Uruguayans tired we had it pretty much all our own way.  Julian White did well when he came on in this area.

Attacking – obviously this was much more effective!  All the Backs looked sharp and in control.  Lewsey fully deserved his 5-try haul with excellent running from deep, good turn of pace, strength and finishing.  Balshaw was also impressive and made full use of his speed.  However questions over his defence weren’t really answered.  They did look a good partnership thought, kept the ball in hand and used good passing interplay to create space.

Catt and Grayson both looked very good.  They used vision and creative handling to great effect.  This was particularly nice to see from Grayson, as he didn’t fall victim to standing too deep as he can at Saints. It will have surprised no-one to see Catty flinging out the long missed pass regularly but it worked well, especially in the second half against tired Uruguayan defending.  However I do question how well this would work against a better defence.

 I though Andy Gomarsall was outstanding.  His passing was top drawer and he and Grayson really seemed to have a good rapport going.  He had good vision, creating for others as well as himself – good score under the posts in the second half.

Abbott was solid in the centre and did all that was asked of him.  He worked hard and made good use of the initial space before passing to a runner from deep.  Luger was also solid but didn’t seem to have the creativity of some of the others – he runs to the try line till he gets tackled and then sets up.  And that’s pretty much it.  Does do it well though.  JR was as elusive as ever!

The Backs didn’t do it all though!  The forwards also looked more organised – there was none of that disorganised mid field we saw against Samoa.  Grewcock particularly was often used in the centre to make some hard yards and set the move up again when it seemed to be breaking down. BUT – too many penalties!! Dallaglio and Moody both gave away too many stupid, obvious penalties and were both lucky not to get binned.  Obviously we’re missing Hill and it may be as simple as neither can be as subtle as Hilda but that’s good enough, esp. from Dallaglio.  He did not have a great game; yes he carried the ball but seemed to be more interested in running at the nearest Uruguayan and trying to go through him than anything else.  However, I think he’s a big game player and I’m quite happy to see him play against Wales – but he needs to perform.

Apart from his ill-timed crowd appreciation Worsley was very impressive and seemed to be the biggest ball carrier, he also displayed some deft passing touches out of the tackle.  Again though questions remain about how well he does under pressure.

Defence – what we had to do was as solid as you’d expect.  All the Front Row in particular seemed to be defending well and Martin Corry put in tackle after tackle when the Uruguayans were pressing our line.

All in all the most impressive thing was that we were so much more cohesive and put in a full team effort – which could not have been the case against opposition where glory hunting was easy.  We tried to force it just after Moody’s try and the errors crept in but considering this was the first time many of these players had played / played with each other these can be forgiven esp. as they were quickly eliminated.

What was nice to see was that the players seemed to really be enjoying themselves?  I think the relaxing week and easier game may have been the perfect way to set us up for the quarters.  I really do hope so because we will need to be very good to beat Wales.  I would never have expected this Quarter Final to be easy – what Welsh team couldn’t get themselves up for a match where they could knock England out the World Cup?  But what with the excellent play against NZ they will have had a real confidence boost.

 Bring It On!