大象传媒

What a world cup! The tournament saw the growth of many nations who in my view will prove a challenge to the power house nations in the next world cup.

To South Africa, a team of professionals who showed class right throughout the tournament. The final doesn't have to be pretty and the Brits should stop complaining about the 'controversial' try (...sorry since when do you call that a try when it was clear the foot was out on touch...) and the referee who was remarkably professional. England did not deserve to win....well done SA, thanks for bringing it home..

Guys

Well the end of a great run. Pity the idiots on both sides are trying to stir things up still. Anyway onto the game. Intensely competitive and tense and a lot closer than the scoreline suggested. Where did things go wrong, in no particular order.

a) Bad discipline, especially with Moody鈥檚 idiotic trip. He seems to be getting a reputation for such sort of actions. Kudos to the ref 鈥� or other official 鈥� who spotted it as nearly missed it on the replay given how subtly it was done so magnificent performance to spot it in real time. Totally stupid through and he could have been sin-binned as well as costing us the 3 points.

b) Bad decision making by Tait for the 1st SA score. Why the help try running from virtually under your own posts so early in the game. Might have gotten far enough up field to have gotten away from it if he hadn鈥檛 slipped at the wrong time.

c) Otherwise a couple of penalty decisions by the ref were a bit dodgy. The one against Vickery, which SA didn鈥檛 score from, was possibly OK technically as he did go over the top but that was because he was hit by one of our own men while trying to get to his feet. The one against Kay for alleged obstruction was farcical as given that the SA player was directly behind him I doubt he even knew he was there let alone had any chance to get out of the way. In fact if he had to move to one side he would have been more likely to have been looking like he was deliberately obstructing someone. Given that a number of blatant obstructions by the SA鈥檚 were unpunished that really stung.

d) We had a poor day kicking, with the balls being too long generally for the chasers to reach them and Johnny missing both drop goal attempts, the 1st of which he should have gotten. Possibly that explains why no attempts were made in the last few minutes when we needed two scores.

e) Injures. Don鈥檛 know whether it was an older team after a very tough campaign and/or the tackling of the boks but I think most of the English substitutions were forced by injures. Vickery and Catt might well have gone anyway, but it would have been better doing it when the manager wanted, especially since Catt was kicking for position better. Worsely and Jason were definitely big losses.

f) The [non-]try. Informed option seemed to be that it wasn鈥檛 but bloody close and the sheer time taken meant it was disheartening. One thing that surprised me was that it wasn鈥檛 given after the ref had asked 鈥榓ny reason why I couldn鈥檛 give it鈥�. Have heard a while back that generally means that unless there鈥檚 serious doubt a try in generally given so with something as close as that I was expecting the decision to go the other way last night.

g) We lost the forward battle in that we didn鈥檛 get the degree of dominance we have had against virtually everybody else. Don鈥檛 know enough about the technical details to know why but the scrum was pretty even.

h) Most of all we lost the line-out overwhelmingly. That caused us a lot of problems both in itself and in that the boks could kick the ball out regularly to relieve the pressure while kicks for the corner were less useful for the English team. This was the big difference between the two sides.

All in all any of the above, let along some combination of them could easily have changed the game, simply by making it close enough for a single score gap which would have put a lot of psychological pressure on the SA鈥檚 in the final stages, which might have made the difference. Not saying England had the better performance as they didn鈥檛. Just simply stating that the match was damned close and hence the losing side [and supporters] can understandably be feeling frustrated under the circumstances. As long as we don鈥檛 do like some sets of supporters have and harp on about it. [In that respect Tom is right to say we shouldn鈥檛 torture ourselves about the might have been鈥檚 but unrealistic to ignore human nature]

On the Montgomery incident I suspect we were lucky there. Flood was right to bring his arms up to cushion the impact as he was coming in at high speed and Montgomery had virtually stopped. However judging by the replay and way Percy flew into the camera it looked suspicious like there was a shove rather than trying to break the impact. Congratulations to Percy for overcoming both that impact and his earlier injury and continuing to the end.

I was amongst the England fans who would have accepted a narrow 鈥榰gly鈥� victory so we have to acknowledge when the Boks won by the same route. Its only to be expected in a final that it will be tense and close so neither side are likely to take risks 鈥� Tait鈥檚 error aside. Given their line-out superiority they only needed to play a safe, cautious game and the percentages and that鈥檚 pretty much what they did, picking away at us with penalties. As such they won on the day, no matter how much we would wish it was otherwise and for the next 4 years hold the crown. [Looking forward to the team getting the jug back in 2011 thought! 飦奭

To do that we must start getting things sorted out now. Most especially the workload on players and the club-country row that cost us Woodward must be resolved and we start bringing in new players to replace those who are retiring. Maintain a strong and powerful forward line and work on better backs and kickers to expand on it. Use the 6 nations [or possibly 7 if Argentina is included 飦奭 to keep a good level of action and activity.

One last point. A few people compared the complaints about the try with those about the Russian penalty last week. I think they showed their motives there because there is one all important difference. The try, although very close, seems to have been the right decision. The penalty was spectacularly a wrong one.

Stevep

Guys

Well the end of a great run. Pity the idiots on both sides are trying to stir things up still. Anyway onto the game. Intensely competitive and tense and a lot closer than the scoreline suggested. Where did things go wrong, in no particular order.

a) Bad discipline, especially with Moody鈥檚 idiotic trip. He seems to be getting a reputation for such sort of actions. Kudos to the ref 鈥� or other official 鈥� who spotted it as nearly missed it on the replay given how subtly it was done so magnificent performance to spot it in real time. Totally stupid through and he could have been sin-binned as well as costing us the 3 points.

b) Bad decision making by Tait for the 1st SA score. Why the help try running from virtually under your own posts so early in the game. Might have gotten far enough up field to have gotten away from it if he hadn鈥檛 slipped at the wrong time.

c) Otherwise a couple of penalty decisions by the ref were a bit dodgy. The one against Vickery, which SA didn鈥檛 score from, was possibly OK technically as he did go over the top but that was because he was hit by one of our own men while trying to get to his feet. The one against Kay for alleged obstruction was farcical as given that the SA player was directly behind him I doubt he even knew he was there let alone had any chance to get out of the way. In fact if he had to move to one side he would have been more likely to have been looking like he was deliberately obstructing someone. Given that a number of blatant obstructions by the SA鈥檚 were unpunished that really stung.

d) We had a poor day kicking, with the balls being too long generally for the chasers to reach them and Johnny missing both drop goal attempts, the 1st of which he should have gotten. Possibly that explains why no attempts were made in the last few minutes when we needed two scores.

e) Injures. Don鈥檛 know whether it was an older team after a very tough campaign and/or the tackling of the boks but I think most of the English substitutions were forced by injures. Vickery and Catt might well have gone anyway, but it would have been better doing it when the manager wanted, especially since Catt was kicking for position better. Worsely and Jason were definitely big losses.

f) The [non-]try. Informed option seemed to be that it wasn鈥檛 but bloody close and the sheer time taken meant it was disheartening. One thing that surprised me was that it wasn鈥檛 given after the ref had asked 鈥榓ny reason why I couldn鈥檛 give it鈥�. Have heard a while back that generally means that unless there鈥檚 serious doubt a try in generally given so with something as close as that I was expecting the decision to go the other way last night.

g) We lost the forward battle in that we didn鈥檛 get the degree of dominance we have had against virtually everybody else. Don鈥檛 know enough about the technical details to know why but the scrum was pretty even.

h) Most of all we lost the line-out overwhelmingly. That caused us a lot of problems both in itself and in that the boks could kick the ball out regularly to relieve the pressure while kicks for the corner were less useful for the English team. This was the big difference between the two sides.

All in all any of the above, let along some combination of them could easily have changed the game, simply by making it close enough for a single score gap which would have put a lot of psychological pressure on the SA鈥檚 in the final stages, which might have made the difference. Not saying England had the better performance as they didn鈥檛. Just simply stating that the match was damned close and hence the losing side [and supporters] can understandably be feeling frustrated under the circumstances. As long as we don鈥檛 do like some sets of supporters have and harp on about it. [In that respect Tom is right to say we shouldn鈥檛 torture ourselves about the might have been鈥檚 but unrealistic to ignore human nature]

On the Montgomery incident I suspect we were lucky there. Flood was right to bring his arms up to cushion the impact as he was coming in at high speed and Montgomery had virtually stopped. However judging by the replay and way Percy flew into the camera it looked suspicious like there was a shove rather than trying to break the impact. Congratulations to Percy for overcoming both that impact and his earlier injury and continuing to the end.

I was amongst the England fans who would have accepted a narrow 鈥榰gly鈥� victory so we have to acknowledge when the Boks won by the same route. Its only to be expected in a final that it will be tense and close so neither side are likely to take risks 鈥� Tait鈥檚 error aside. Given their line-out superiority they only needed to play a safe, cautious game and the percentages and that鈥檚 pretty much what they did, picking away at us with penalties. As such they won on the day, no matter how much we would wish it was otherwise and for the next 4 years hold the crown. [Looking forward to the team getting the pot back in 2011 thought! :)]

To do that we must start getting things sorted out now. Most especially the workload on players and the club-country row that cost us Woodward must be resolved and we start bringing in new players to replace those who are retiring. Maintain a strong and powerful forward line and work on better backs and kickers to expand on it. Use the 6 nations [or possibly 7 if Argentina is included :)] to keep a good level of action and activity.

One last point. A few people compared the complaints about the try with those about the Russian penalty last week. I think they showed their motives there because there is one all important difference. The try, although very close, seems to have been the right decision. The penalty was spectacularly a wrong one.

Stevep