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RWC: AUS v ENG (Twickenham): POOL A; 6am (AEDT) Sunday 4 October

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KOB1987

John Eales (66)
1 Slipper
2 Moore (c)
3 Holmes
4 Simmons
5 Mumm
6 Fardy
7 Hooper
8 Pocock
9 Genia
10 Foley
11 Horne
12 Giteau
13 Kuridrani
14 AAC (Adam Ashley-Cooper)
15 Folau

16 TPN
17 Sio
18 Kepu
19 Douglas
20 McCalman
21 Phipps
22 To'omua
23 Beale
 

Chunderstruck

Alex Ross (28)
I'm starting to get a bad feeling about this game- I reckon England will revert to type and slow everything down to a brawling shitfest. They will be absolutely desperate. Problem is, the WBs have a bad habit of being dragged down to their opponents level. Our penchant for dropped ball, "Right-Angle" Marler, Poite and Farrell's goal kicking will make it rain 3-pointers for the trolls. I can already hear a certain negro spiritual chorus in the distance. Will our boys really be good enough to score points the way god intended, in multiples of 5?
 

drewprint

Dick Tooth (41)
Marler's scrummaging is getting a bit of media attention currently which can only be a good thing for us. And the 'will he play, won't he play' question for a number of their players is good news too. I'm cautiously optimistic.
 

dru

David Wilson (68)
I'm starting to get a bad feeling about this game- I reckon England will revert to type and slow everything down to a brawling shitfest. They will be absolutely desperate. Problem is, the WBs have a bad habit of being dragged down to their opponents level. Our penchant for dropped ball, "Right-Angle" Marler, Poite and Farrell's goal kicking will make it rain 3-pointers for the trolls. I can already hear a certain negro spiritual chorus in the distance. Will our boys really be good enough to score points the way god intended, in multiples of 5?

Nah. This is what it's all about. Big games at the RWC. It doesn't get any better than this.
 

jollyswagman

Ron Walden (29)
Interesting to look back at the stats for the England V Australia game from last November. I was lucky enough to be at the game and was scratching my head afterward as to how we let that one slip. On the back of almost double the possession and phase play, but way too many handling errors, we ended up 9 points down. When we are talking about our ability to turn possession and pressure into points it is concerning to see the similarities in the probable backline for this week weeks game compared to last years team - very little change in actual fact.

Stats from the match if anyone is interested: http://www.foxsports.com.au/rugby/wallabies/match-centre/match-stats?matchid=IRB20140133
 

Sword of Justice

Arch Winning (36)
A few thoughts:

IMO McCalman should be the backrower on the bench. He's a more rounded player (rucks, hits, tackles, lineouts) than Sean. He's also a lot bigger and having three short backrowers is a liability. I see Sean as a like for like replacement for Hooper, so if Hooper were to go down Sean might come into the starting team.

Quade's kicking was dreadful against the Uruguayan's. However Cheika is a smart man and knows that one game shouldn't paint the whole picture. Quade has kicked with incredible accuracy before so all the noise about him being unable to be picked is an overreaction from punters. In statistics you remove outliers.

Quade showed his value on the weekend. No other flyhalf in the world is so good at getting his line running on to the ball and no other flyhalf has is passing skills. His card was piss weak as well.
 

mxyzptlk

Colin Windon (37)
Marler's scrummaging is getting a bit of media attention currently which can only be a good thing for us. And the 'will he play, won't he play' question for a number of their players is good news too. I'm cautiously optimistic.

Where?
 

dru

David Wilson (68)
A few thoughts:

IMO McCalman should be the backrower on the bench. He's a more rounded player (rucks, hits, tackles, lineouts) than Sean. He's also a lot bigger and having three short backrowers is a liability. I see Sean as a like for like replacement for Hooper, so if Hooper were to go down Sean might come into the starting team.

Quade's kicking was dreadful against the Uruguayan's. However Cheika is a smart man and knows that one game shouldn't paint the whole picture. Quade has kicked with incredible accuracy before so all the noise about him being unable to be picked is an overreaction from punters. In statistics you remove outliers.

Quade showed his value on the weekend. No other flyhalf in the world is so good at getting his line running on to the ball and no other flyhalf has is passing skills. His card was piss weak as well.

We only get to judge from the games, without understanding the detail strategy and how well it was implemented. While the game is the primary judge of form the coaching team are seeing more.

As a fan-group we are STILL obsessed with the concept of a first 15/23.

Cheika has told us how many times this is not how he views it? Nor are his bench reserves but finishers.

Observably they have worked on two different flavours of game plan. One which is solid, domineering and focussed on the rucks and the collisions. The other with a focus on flare. One of these "flavours" will start each game depending on how the coaching staff feel the opposition need to be treated. Then flip to the other once they are tired out.

It's possible that Cheika may start the "flair" team against England. But I don't think it likely. (More possible against Wales IMO.) I also imagine that his determination around the gear change will be seen in whether he selects a 6/2 or 5/3.

I might add, that while I do see two different approaches, what Cheika has pushed underlie I g it all is the set piece and the collisions.

I like it. If my guesses are right though, Quade doesn't start this game. (I'll be happy to be wrong!)

EDIT: But Phipps, Cooper, Beale on the pine might be possible. :)
 

Braveheart81

Will Genia (78)
Staff member
Interesting that no news has come out yet regarding Skelton and Palu's injuries. I'd have thought there'd have been official news yesterday particularly if someone was going to be brought into the squad.

Is the 48 hour rule only applicable to playing an actual game or is it 48 hours after the announcement before you can join the squad as well (i.e. start training with the team etc.).
 

Slim 293

Stirling Mortlock (74)
I guess with neither player likely to be considered for this weekend anyways, they're probably not going to rush into a decision to send them home..........
 

KOB1987

John Eales (66)
Interesting that no news has come out yet regarding Skelton and Palu's injuries. I'd have thought there'd have been official news yesterday particularly if someone was going to be brought into the squad.

Is the 48 hour rule only applicable to playing an actual game or is it 48 hours after the announcement before you can join the squad as well (i.e. start training with the team etc.).
my guess - Skelton is fine and Palu will exit the squad later today when the sun is up England time. Hanson to take his spot.
 

TahDan

Cyril Towers (30)
This is going to be a very interesting game... I'm already super nervous about it given England's record against us lately has been pretty strong and they're tough at home.

That said, it'll be hard to pick until we see the teams and the Wallabies have made some pretty massive strides in their set piece this year, which should nullify England's traditional advantage there somewhat.

Moreover, I don't see the loss to Wales as a bad thing for us because what it ultimately means is that the pressure is all on England, and the ramifications of a loss will be bearing very heavily on all their minds. If England lose, their media will be brutal and unforgiving and that's bound to play on the nerves of a few in their set up.

The stakes are obviously high for the Wallabies, but if they lose it'll still struggle to make headlines here with the AFL and NRL GFs sucking all the media oxygen this weekend.

With that in mind I think that Australia will go into this match with an understanding of what they're up against, but nothing like the burden England carry. I also think that the Wales game showed us that this England side don't handle pressure particularly well, and the loss will add to their doubts.

On the sides more generally, I think we'll hold our own at the set piece, but dominate the breakdown and depending on who we have in the halves, play with more creativity. My only major concern is goal kicking - we have a couple guys in Cooper and Foley who have struggle to hit 50 and 60% in tests lately, and those are efforts that lose tests... we need a bloke who can do the job reliably or England can and will kick their way to victory if the game gets tight and tries are hard to come by.
 

Tangawizi

Peter Fenwicke (45)
Skelton was signing autographs at a promo they did in a London Asics store yesterday with no sign of any sling.

Surely if he was injured he wouldn't have been sent along to that.

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Braveheart81

Will Genia (78)
Staff member
The initial talk was that they didn't think Skelton's injury was that serious.

That was certainly before any scans however.

If he's fit I tend to think we'll stick with the same forward reserves we had against Fiji.
 

Groucho

Greg Davis (50)
I'm starting to get a bad feeling about this game- I reckon England will revert to type and slow everything down to a brawling shitfest. They will be absolutely desperate. Problem is, the WBs have a bad habit of being dragged down to their opponents level. Our penchant for dropped ball, "Right-Angle" Marler, Poite and Farrell's goal kicking will make it rain 3-pointers for the trolls. I can already hear a certain negro spiritual chorus in the distance. Will our boys really be good enough to score points the way god intended, in multiples of 5?

If we can't beat England then we can't win the world cup. If we can't beat England in their current form, then we're probably also behind New Zealand, the Boks, Ireland, Wales and France. I'm going to assume we can until we don't.
 

Cardiffblue

Jim Lenehan (48)
Marler's scrummaging is getting a bit of media attention currently which can only be a good thing for us. And the 'will he play, won't he play' question for a number of their players is good news too. I'm cautiously optimistic.

Needs to be talked about in higher circles than the roar.com.au. He's been doing it for so long and no one seems prepared to do anything
 
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