JWC

[Banquo]

that was a great try...Earle has genuine pace and hits great lines.

[Scrumhead]

Although, that was a fine try. Great break by Earl, lovely vision and execution with the kick from Grayson and well taken by Bayliss.

[Banquo]

fair play, they've kept trying to play.

[Digby]

oh dear, that sums it up

[Banquo]

shame, game was already well lost but so many handling mistakes

[bitts]

They're a big bunch of lads ain't they?

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Maori and Polynesians develop much earlier in life, they are huge by the time they are in their teens. The skinny white guys catch up though, once they can do proper gym work - look at the South Africans, and English, for that matter.

New Zealand smashing through us on the way to a JWC title.

Chat about Polynesians developing earlier.

Welcome back 2008...

[Banquo]

oh dear, that sums it up

I think a missed tackle would have been a better summary

[Timbo]

Most of these England players will be back next year. Our team younger across the board than this NZ team. Given that the main difference has been physicality that's no small detail.

Obviously also missing up to 15 of our best players.

[16th man]

They're a big bunch of lads ain't they?

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

Maori and Polynesians develop much earlier in life, they are huge by the time they are in their teens. The skinny white guys catch up though, once they can do proper gym work - look at the South Africans, and English, for that matter.

New Zealand smashing through us on the way to a JWC title.

Chat about Polynesians developing earlier.

Welcome back 2008...

In 2008 we were fielding as close as possible to strongest side (obviously with some injuries).

[Timbo]

that was a great try...Earle has genuine pace and hits great lines.

Our most impressive player over the tournament imo. Looks every bit a Sarries kind of player.

[Tigersman]

I think that developing a winning mentality at this age is better than 3 weeks with a mixed senior team.

[Timbo]

They're a big bunch of lads ain't they?

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

Maori and Polynesians develop much earlier in life, they are huge by the time they are in their teens. The skinny white guys catch up though, once they can do proper gym work - look at the South Africans, and English, for that matter.

New Zealand smashing through us on the way to a JWC title.

Chat about Polynesians developing earlier.

Welcome back 2008...

A lot of these kiwi's were at last years JWC and finished 5th. They lost to Ireland, the team we smashed in the final. Just the nature of these cycles if you have a lot of players playing in their first year of eligibility.

[fivepointer]

Game too far for our lads who were seriously overpowered by an extremely strong NZ side. Disappointing to give up some very easy yards and soft tries but pressure tells and we struggled to cope.
Still, this is a very young side, most of whom will be available next year. To get to the final given who wasn't there to begin with along with the injuries during the tournament, is really a tremendous achievement.
Thought our back rowers Earl, Bayliss and Mercer manned up.

[jared_7]

Jesus, getting back to 2006 Commonwealth Games-level for haka exposure.

[kk67]

Jesus, getting back to 2006 Commonwealth Games-level for haka exposure.

I love watching all of the war dances. It's a critical part of rugby and an important cultural statement that should be admired, loved and encouraged.
That said,....I think these nations have to decide if they're doing the dance or they're singing the national anthem. Having both is a bit much.

[kk67]

ooh....Flats invented a new word. Accelerative.

The gulf between Sky's rugby coverage and ITV4's rugby coverage...was similar to the gulf between these two teams.

[jared_7]

Jesus, getting back to 2006 Commonwealth Games-level for haka exposure.

I love watching all of the war dances. It's a critical part of rugby and an important cultural statement that should be admired, loved and encouraged.
That said,....I think these nations have to decide if they're doing the dance or they're singing the national anthem. Having both is a bit much.

If I had to pick one I, like most Kiwis, would absolutely choose the haka as that side of our culture is much more unique and defines NZ than boring British stuff. However having both wasn't a big deal until the corporates got their hands on it...

Like I have mentioned before, the haka took 32 seconds when I watched a replay of the ABs playing the English in 2003, it now takes over a minute complete with fireworks and close up microphones. Every year it gets longer because I assume the overseas audiences love it and its now its more a commercial tool.

I have no doubt the Hakas being done by every Super Rugby side in the Lions tour, which has never happened before as far as I'm aware, will be commercial driven for the British TV audience. Thats not culture, its tat.

[kk67]

I have no doubt the Hakas being done by every Super Rugby side in the Lions tour, which has never happened before as far as I'm aware, will be commercial driven for the British TV audience. Thats not culture, its tat.

I hadn't noticed that. Good point.
I still love it though,......it's the epitome of how rugby should begin.

[twitchy]

Having followed the tourney closely and seeing all our injuries/players with the senior squad we did incredibly well to even make it to the final. If you haven't been following that wasn't even close to the best team we could put out.

Our set piece was getting destroyed all through the tourney (the aussies were dominating our scrum). We just managed to get out of jail in both the aus/Sa games by chucking it about. We lost players all through as well so that team would have been the weakest we put out so far.

Any way saying that I watched NZ and they were clearly the best team and deserved the win in case that sounded like a load of excuses.

[kk67]

Any way saying that I watched NZ and they were clearly the best team and deserved the win in case that sounded like a load of excuses.

They were the better team but still far too many errors....... The standard of rugby this weekend has been disappointing. (I didn't see the Scotland game).

[Banquo]

think they were shagged out. What's the temperature been out there?

[WaspInWales]

I refuse to accept the result until I've seen the birth certificates of the NZ team. Some of them were clearly in their 30s.

They were bloody impressive. Very strong and bags of skill. The scoreline could've been a lot worse had they put away those gilt edged chances in the first half.

It was painful to watch, so I decided to go out on the bike...that was almost as painful due to the heat.

Congrats NZ. I have a feeling we'll be seeing quite a bit more of some of their lads.

Credit to England too, all things considered, they did extremely well to make it as far as they did. There's certainly no shame in losing to such a great team.

[Scrumhead]

Even without the absentees, I don't think this group was as strong as some of our other U20 sides in recent years.

Mercer (obviously) along with Earl and Bayliss look very good, so I'm keen to see more of them. Mercer is a force of nature, Earl's running lines and support play are first-rate while Bayliss looks like a classic, big abrasive 6 in the Rodber/Clark mould which we haven't had in a while (maybe James Chisholm is the closest). Caulfield also looks good in the second row and I was pleasantly surprised by Seville at tighthead.

In the backs, Malins is an obvious star, but we definitely missed Brophy-Clews and Aspland-Robinson's guile. Ibitoye clearly has talent, but I'll be curious to see how we develop him at Quins. He's very different to Visser who's currently first choice on the left wing and IMO, Mikalcius looks the more likely of the two to break through from our academy in that spot.

Morris looked very good when he came on - probably better than Randall, but I can't deny that I'm a bit concerned about his development potential at Saints. Mallinder aside, they're hardly the standard-bearer for promoting young talent right now,

[Puja]

I think that developing a winning mentality at this age is better than 3 weeks with a mixed senior team.

While I've no doubt that having Isiekwe, Maunder, BCurry, TCurry, and Cokanasiga would've helped, they wouldn't've made the difference between winning and losing today. I think we were as much hampered by the loss of Aspland-Robinson, TBC, Wright, Morris, Crossdale, Blamire, Street, Mullis, Evans, and probably a few others that I can't even remember, plus some duff selection decisions which meant that we ground players like Mercer, Caulfield, Malins, Ibitoye and Parton into the ground by playing them every single game in the scorching sun for as many minutes as we could. In fact, I've just been looking at some teamsheets and I don't think Mercer, Malins, Ibitoye or Parton have missed a minute, with Caulfield and Randall only avoiding one start. In this weather, with the games packed together so tightly, that's madness.

New Zealand were a very good side and deserved winners, but we definitely didn't put our best out today, which is a shame.

Puja

[Banquo]

Even without the absentees, I don't think this group was as strong as some of our other U20 sides in recent years.

Mercer (obviously) along with Earl and Bayliss look very good, so I'm keen to see more of them. Mercer is a force of nature, Earl's running lines and support play are first-rate while Bayliss looks like a classic, big abrasive 6 in the Rodber/Clark mould which we haven't had in a while (maybe James Chisholm is the closest). Caulfield also looks good in the second row and I was pleasantly surprised by Seville at tighthead.

In the backs, Malins is an obvious star, but we definitely missed Brophy-Clews and Aspland-Robinson's guile. Ibitoye clearly has talent, but I'll be curious to see how we develop him at Quins. He's very different to Visser who's currently first choice on the left wing and IMO, Mikalcius looks the more likely of the two to break through from our academy in that spot.

Morris looked very good when he came on - probably better than Randall, but I can't deny that I'm a bit concerned about his development potential at Saints. Mallinder aside, they're hardly the standard-bearer for promoting young talent right now,

I assume Mitchell? I was actually kind of disappointed in Malins, and to some extent Mercer in the final....albeit they had a difficult environment around them obviously. They both were kind of doing their own thing, rather than leading....very harsh, maybe. Maybe they were just shot, as per Puja's post.