CLOSE BUT NOT ENOUGH

 

(Image taken from Sky Sports)

As a rugby fan, my recent attention has been more on the Exeter Chiefs, my local side since moving to Exeter and the newest team in the rugby Premiership(I also did a report on one of their matches for the Chiefs tribe forum). Now though, the giant teams of the southern hemisphere are coming over the equator and that means England have to be ready to rumble. First up are New Zealand - people often claim that they are the best team in the world yet they haven't won the RWC in my memory. What they do have is a very good record against England, given that we tend to play them at least once a year, having our last win over them being a 15-13 win at the Westpac Stadium under Clive Woodward's management.

Martin Johnson would have been the captain of that '03 side. Now he's the well established coach of the men in white and the biggest unanswered question has always been - is he anywhere near as good a coach as he was a player? The Johnson-as-gaffer era hasn't exactly been a vintage one for English rugby fans. And so, here come the All Blacks, complete with haka to Twickenham. In response, England have had to make to without an injured(again!) Johnny which leaves us with Toby Flood as kicker. The big curiousity though was that we had a former Kiwi rugby league international in our ranks - Bath's Shontayne Hape. Of course the England fans were always going to drown out the haka with "Swing Low Sweet Chariot". Question was, would that be our only victory?

Things were certainly looking nice early on for the home side, but the All Blacks were always going to give us a rough ride and we wound up dodging a variety of bullets untill Sonny Bill Williams found Hosea Gear who put the ball down...surely the wrong side of the touchline. The video ref thought otherwise though and Dan Carter converted the try. Seemingly straight afterwards the visitors rucked their way over the England line, Kieron Reed taking the credit, Carter converting. Flood got us off the mark with a pen but Carter replied with another before half time. 17-3 New Zealand at half time left me with a very bad sense of deja vu - did we have anything in reserve?

Well England did start the second half off solidly enough with Fllood kicking over another three points except that Carter matched him soon after. Then the comeback was on, with the ball nudged forward by England and the men in white surged after it. Northampton's Dylan Hartley, another Kiwi defector, got the ball over the Kiwi try line and that was good enough for the video ref. Flood converting. The visitors weren't going to let us take over though and Carter won a penalty duel two kick to one. It was still close enough though for England to have another charge at the Kiwi line. This time around though, we were held off but even though we lost 26-16 we put on a much better performance than we have done for a while against the All Blacks.

Elsewhere, Wales faced Australia at the Millenium Stadium. Well it was Stephen Jones that opened the scoring for Wales but the Aussies soon turned the game roundwith James O'Connor converting a David Pocock try only for Jones to reply with another pen before half time. In the second half, O'Connor then converted a second Irish try, this time from Kurtley Beale. Jones replied with another pen only for Ben Alexander to join the Aussie try party. O'Connor grabbed another pen before Wales attempted a comeback with Daniel Biggar converting a Richie Rees try. However O'Connor has the last word with another pen and the Aussies won 25-16.

Ireland faced South Africa at the Aviva Stadium. The vistors opened the scoring with a Morne Steyn penalty and then the Springboks kicker converted a Juan Smith try. Dave Sexton then opened the scoring for the Irish with a pen, Steyn replied likewise but a second Sexton pen meant that the Irish had the last word of the first half. After half time, Steyn and Sexton grabbed another pen each before the Sprinboks tried to finish the game off with Patrick Lamble converting a Gio Aplon try. The Irish weren't done though and Tommy Bowe and Rob Kearney grabbed late tries for the men in green but Ronan O'Gara could only convert the first of those and the world champions were left as 23-21 winners.

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