Nick Wright previews this weekend's clash between York City Knights and Hull FC
Alex Reid looks at whether the once ever-present appearance of English clubs in the later stages of the Champions League is set to become a thing of the past
Craig Dobson looks at QPR's decision to sack Neil Warnock and replace him with Mark Hughes
James Tompkinson reviews an excellent pre-season victory for the York City Knights against Yorkshire rivals Leeds Rhinos
The first of Saturday’s games was England’s clash against New Zealand. Both countries fielded the best teams that they possibly could and what resulted was an enjoyable and exciting contest. Very soon, though, it became all too apparent that the New Zealand team were just a more cohesive unit than the English. As much as England tried, there was little they could do to stop themselves from being outclassed by the superior Kiwis. Despite the uninspiring scoreline (England lost 26-16), there’s much to feel positive about if you’re an England fan. Compared to this time last year, the performance was a huge improvement, and with the inclusion of fast and fearless backs like Ben Foden, Chris Ashton and Ben Youngs, there’s loads more ambition in attack. What England need to do now is convert those missed opportunities into points and sharpen up around the outer channels defensively.
The match between Australia and Wales was actually surprisingly similar to the game simultaneously being played over at Twickenham. Yes, Wales did put up a good challenge, but in many ways the Aussies were just a more together team (I suppose that’s what comes from a couple of months playing in the Tri-Nations). Wales, who were missing multiple key players (Ryan Jones, Lee Byrne and Jamie Roberts), ended up losing 16-25 against an impressively ferocious attacking display from Australia.
Something that’s always confused me is the odd tendency to forgive a poor performance if it comes with a last gasp effort. In truth, Ireland’s showing against South Africa was incredibly disappointing - they were sloppy and frantic in both attack and defence. The thing is, the only thing people will be talking about are those last 20 minutes...when Ronan O’Gara was brought on and provided the leadership and example necessary for an attempted comeback. The final score did see the Irish narrowly losing 21-23, but that really doesn’t reflect the quality of rugby that was played (with some selection-tweaking and confidence, Ireland can do so much better). The Springboks, on the other hand, were exciting to watch and performed at the high standard that has become expected of them.
All-in-all, this was a decent weekend of rugby to open the series, proving that both Wales and England have really improved since they played the southern hemisphere teams last year. Ireland might’ve not performed to the best of their ability, but they still got a fair few points on the board, which will hopefully keep them positive going into next week’s game against Samoa. Cohesion and discipline will come naturally as these teams get used to playing together so next weekend should see even more improvement.
Next weekend England play Australia (Saturday, 2.30pm), Ireland face off against Samoa (Saturday, 2.30pm), South Africa meet Wales in Cardiff (Saturday, 2.30pm) and Scotland enter the series to play a match against New Zealand (Saturday, 5.15pm).
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