WELCOME TO MY WORLD

Yesterday I was at the DW Stadium in Wigan for the rugby league 4 Nations international clash between England and Australia, it was my first big international rugby league match and I was really looking forward to it, I was hoping for a great game of rugby and hopefully a decent result from England.

The weather was pretty good and as the game started I very soon began to fear the worst, England looked outclassed, outpaced and outplayed right from the kick off. Australia started fast and were running rings around England, there wasn’t an England player who looked particularly good in the first half, it was painful to watch and by half time Australia were winning 0 – 26 and England looked dead and buried, I feared at this point that we weren’t even going to get on the scoreboard, we certainly didn’t show any signs of doing so during the opening half (the photo shows the England team resting between Australian tries).

If I was to pick any player out for individual comment during the first half it would have to be Danny McGuire, his performance was poor in all departments, he was often out of position in the defensive line, his tackling was ineffectual and his kicking game was well off. I’m afraid that although the whole team didn’t perform during the first half I do truly believe that many of the points scored by Australia during the first half were at least in part due to McGuire’s lack of performance.

While I’m on the subject, McGuire’s partner in crime on his side of the field during the first half was Lee Smith who also had a poor first half although he did redeem himself a bit in the second half. My gripe here is that I personally don’t believe Lee Smith should be in the England side now at all, coach Tony Smith has said he has picked a side mainly looking forward to the World Cup, well if this is the case why are we fielding a player who will, immediately after this tournament, be switching codes and moving to rugby union, he wont even be involved in our game for the World Cup, shouldn’t we be looking for his replacement ?

As the second half kicked off with England trailing 0 – 26 I was expecting more of the same and hoping the final result wouldn’t be too horrendous, the England camp though had other idea’s, Kyle Eastmond was bought on in the second half for young Tom Briscoe, who I felt was perhaps made a bit of a scapegoat for another’s poor performance. Eastmond made an immediate difference and he and Sam Tomkins were superb during the second half, both involved in many of the good things England managed. Sam Burgess had a superb second half as well but I thought England’s player of the game was big Eorl Crabtree, he was immense in the forwards and I think was probably the lift England needed.

England’s second half performance was the absolute opposite to the first half, if there was ever a “game of two halves” then this was it, after looking like being slaughtered in the first half they were great in the second, they had most of the possession and most of the second half was played in the Australian half of the field. Tries by Burgess, Ellis and Smith gave England 16 unanswered points during the second half but they ran out of time and in the end were killed off by the very poor first half performance, Australia had won the first half easily without a score from England but England won the second half without allowing Australia to break their line.

So after a game that could have been demoralising but in the end showed good signs for the future, some of the best players in the second half were also the youngest, it ended England 16 – 26 Australia.