You know it hasn’t been a great performance when you can’t find more than three players who deserve a rating higher than 5 out of 10. Let me know if you think these observations are fair.
Mediocre scores
Tim Payne – 5/10
Did reasonably well in the scrums against Scelzo, despite giving away a penalty or two. Anonymous in the loose once again.
Dylan Hartley – 6/10
So desperate to make an impact that he seemed a little too frantic at times, but lineouts were good and if everyone else appeared to care as much as Hartley, we might get somewhere.
Duncan Bell – 5/10
Probably as surprised as anyone to last the full game, but gave it a good crack and did his job in the scrum.
Louis Deacon – 4/10
Second week in a row where he’s hardly contributed. He was hardly used in the lineout and was nowhere to be seen in the loose.
Steve Borthwick – 5/10
Made a couple of carries and even offloaded the ball once, but nothing much else to report from another England match that desperately lacked leadership and someone to make a decision about how to play the game.
Tom Croft – 5/10
Croft was an effective lineout option, but that should be a bonus aspect of his game, rather than all of it. He could offer so much more, but hasn’t over the last fortnight.
Lewis Moody – 8/10
Another heart-warming performance, although appeared a little desperate at times that his endeavour was not enough to lift those around him.
James Haskell – 5/10
Exposed a little at the base of the scrum, handing over possession with some basic errors that an international number 8 should not make, but probably still our best option.
Paul Hodgson – 5/10
Selected to up the tempo apparently, but it didn’t seem to work. Kept kicking the ball away, and looked like Danny Care last week trying the dig the ball from every heap of bodies.
Jonny Wilkinson – 4/10
Painful to watch at times, given that he’s such a hero. Kicking from hand was dire and far too frequent, and even missed a few shots at goal. The wind was blowing, but that shouldn’t affect decision-making as much as it seemed to.
Matt Banahan – 4/10
Scored the winning try to save England’s blushes, but another ineffective game. Argentina regularly kicked behind him proving that even their inexperienced backline could spot him as a weak link.
Shane Geraghty – 5/10
Yet another long afternoon without the quick ball he needs to thrive. More ineffective kicking and just didn’t seem to threaten at all.
Dan Hipkiss – 5/10
England’s midfield battering ram spent the first half chasing the kicks by those inside him, but the kicks were so poor he couldn’t get anywhere near them. Got into the game more in the second half when he was actually given the ball, but found it difficult to contribute.
Mark Cueto – 7/10
England’s best back by some distance, even if he didn’t have the gas to score with the tryline begging. Switched to full-back about an hour too late and shored things up at the back.
Ugo Monye – 2/10
Another disaster at full-back, and one I hope Johnno learns from. Head dropped along with all the kicks and almost looked uninterested towards the end. Had a chance to counter-attack with men outside, but chose to kick, which sums England up.
Payne – 4/10
Hartley – 6/10
Bell – 5/10
Deacon – 2/10
Borthwick – 2/10
Croft – 5/10
Moody – 9/10
Haskell – 7/10
Hodgson – 4/10
Wilkinson – 5/10
Banahan – 5/10
Geraghty – 3/10
Hipkiss – 4/10
Cueto – 7/10
Monye – 1/10
Well
England was awful but they won which is more than nothing, Argentina is not a weak team.
England’s pack is solid but that is it, Hartley and Haskell did seem to offer potential, they wanted to go forward, they made lots of mistakes but the two have talent and should be given a sustained run to up their confidence and hopefully eradicate the errors.
Moody was a gallant warrior but needs some help. The good news is that I think that this pack has potential of being more dynamic than the one that played against Aus, the better news is that Shaw is back for the All Blacks so moody will have company. He can give a lot of confidence to Hartley, Croft and Haskell.
This pack has potential but the back line is a tragedy, without ideas, without the ball, without hope. This is worrying as there doesn’t seem to be a hell of a lot of options for Johnno. However he has to change things, but he won’t.
Let’s forget about building for the world cup, I’m talking about building for the six nations, Fluety’s return will help as will Armitage but why Johnno has not taken a chance to blood another fullback I have no idea, Foden has to play against the All Blacks although it is a hell of an ask to come in when Dan Carter is kicking the ball at you, just to see if he can do it, Monye clearly can’t.
Banahan, well I have to admit I was keen on him but it hasn’t worked. Foden at 15 and Monye back on the wing where he was really successful last year. The problem is the decision making, Wilkinson has been shit, sorry but he has, I don’t care if he kicks his goals and tackles like a man possessed (his defense is great), he was brought into the team to manage the game, that and not tackling is number 10’s role. We need someone who can play off the cuff rugby read it like it is, Wilkinson will never do that. Geraghty should be given a shot, yes he hasn’t played well and he might not be good enough but we have to try we know what Wilkinson will do and so do the rest of the other teams. Move Clark into centre until the Flute is back. Yes it could go terribly wrong and the All Blacks will give us a trouncing but it can’t get worse than this backline, it seriously can’t. Nothing this kids could do wrong could possibly make us look any worse than we do right now.
1- Payne
2- Hartley
3- Barnes
4- Shaw
5- Borthwick
6- Croft
7- Moody
8- Haskell
9- Hodgson
10- Geraghty
11- Cueto
12- Clark
13- Hipkiss
14- Monye
15- Foden
This will naturally never happen.
Think you’re forgetting that Wilkinson spent most of the time covering fullback and so didn’t have time to control the game, resulting in Geraghty taking that responsibility (and we all know how that played out). Wilkinson also made more breaks and broke the game line more than most of the backs. Not saying Wilkinson has been great (see my performance score), but he is one man, covering nearly all the positions in the backline and everyone automatically thinks because we have him back we will automatically win. It doesn’t work like that. Also doesn’t help that he hasn’t had the support from a strong pack, good scrum half, decent centres, game plan etc etc
don’t get me wrong, It is not wilkinson’s fault but he is not what we need atthe moment.
Ronbraz, did it occur to you that Wilkinson is playing crap because he has no options available to him?
Where are his strike runners from deep? Where are his pods to carry the ball up? Absoloutely nothing is there, no one is carrying the ball to the gain line – hipkiss twice the week before but geraghty needs to probe in the same way Greenwood used to, other wise just moving the ball wide is just allowing defences to drift on the ball. Fluety would stop this but he’s not here, and Geraghty is too light to carry the ball effectivly, which means he has to use Hipkiss, and that means no distributor wide which agian allows the defence to stay tight and drift.
I’ve hardly seen england fix a defender once, and no one follows the runner in, they hit fight and then support gets there. Watch NZ, France or SA they always attack in twos and threes for the offload.
The kicking down the tram lines is fine if the chase is good but it hasn’t been. The quality of the ball means he’s not really got many choices other then to launch the ball down the middle and try and get the oppo to make a mistake, it’s a similar tactic to NZ except their chases are good.
Essentially if Wilko dosne’t have options outside him then he can’t do anything. watch him at Toloun and he always has two or three options and thats in the unstructured French style, england he has no options of 2nd phase ball.
Again the problem comes back to game plan.