England will find out just how far they have to go to win a
World Cup when they take on the holders of the prestigious trophy and Rugby’s
best team, New Zealand, today. What was very much expected to be a fact finding
mission for Lancaster’s men has been just that, albeit that they’ve had two
rather demoralising defeats against the two Tri-Nations.
That makes it no wins against a Tri-Nations side since
November 2010 and their 35-18 win against Australia, although they’ve gone as
close as ever in defeat to Australia (six points) and South Africa (one point)
in the last fortnight. There have been some positives; Lancaster’s side ended
the game much the stronger against both of those sides and arguably should have
won both, but the flaws of Lancaster have also been blown wide open. A lack of
cohesion between the back 5 is still a massive problem (as is an inability to
provide quick ball), the classical examples being the four opportunities that
went begging in the last 20 against Australia while Ashton’s poor pass to Mike
Brown (second full back playing on the wing to combat the kicking of Kirchener)
wasted the best opportunity of the game for either side.
There are positives though. A pack which was rightly
maligned for coming off second best against Australia got their act together
big time against South Africa, and for all that they’ve lacked any creativity
with the ball, they’ve only let in two tries against Australia and South Africa
so far, which reflects well on the team ethic as a whole. New Zealand are a cut
above those two and possess the personnel to rip any team to shreds, as we’ve
been shown throughought their remarkable unbeaten, streak, and while they’ll be
a whole new test for the defence, their breakdown work is miles above any other
team at the moment and England’s forwards must be ready for the contest
tomorrow.
The All Blacks have failed to win just once in their last 20
Tests (an 18-18 draw with Australia) and haven't triumphed by fewer than 23
points on their autumn tour, and over that 20 match period, they average a
winning margin of 25 points. That goes down to 19 if you take out their matches
against Tonga and Japan, but it’s still a pretty damn impressive statistic and
they look a long way short of standard. A handicap line of 15 points has
divided opinion – some are suggesting England are good value to say within the
margin, which has come down by 2 points from earlier in the week – but England
have lost by an average of 19 points to New Zealand in their last 9 tests and
the winning margin of 11-20 points looks good value at 5/2 with Paddy Power,
while the 21-30 is also worth considering although with a little less appeal
given England’s strong defensive showing so far this Autumn.
Advice
2 pts New Zealand to win by 11-20 (5/2 Paddy Power)
No comments:
Post a Comment