Following the boys down South in New Zealand

England Tour in New Zealand - pictures, stories and comment....

We keep you up to date with what is going on as England meet the All Blacks in a physical, brutal, 2 test series. There have been mixed stories coming across the water, the saddest being that 4 players are having allegations thrown their way from a woman, who as yet has not made a formal complaint, about an incident on the night following their first match. As of the 21st June, the players are free to go home following the end of the tour. Rob Andrew is being very non-committal about who the boys are and we all hope that the team can now move on and get on with the rugby!

Test 2 - The story continues.... RFTG Reporter Lucy Smith

England's tour to New Zealand ended in another heavy defeat.  The All Blacks went in at half time 20 - 0 up through tries from Richard Kahui and Dan Carter.  Dan also added 2 penalties and 2 conversions in the first half.  England's first score came from England debutant, Danny Care, who crossed for a converted try after a quick tap penalty.

However, Ma'a Nonu, Sione Lauaki and Jimmy Cowan added further converted tries for the All Blacks whilst Tom Varndell's score was only a consolation for England.  England's stand - in manager Rob Andrew axed most of the backline following the first test defeat.  Although there were some bright moments for the youthful side, however, they were outgunned and outclassed by the All Blacks and then conceded England's third highest total against the All Blacks.

Any chance of keeping the All Blacks quiet was majorly undone by a series of errors.  When England tried to work their way out of their 22 through the forwards, hooker Lee Mears was penalised for holding on and Dan Carter slotted the simple penalty.  The hosts' defence held firm despite attacks from England through Tom Varndell and James Haskell.  England lost that impetus as they tried some laboured attacks around the fringes.  The first try was scored by All Blacks debutant Kahui after receiving a pass from Carter.  England nearly hit back through Luke Narraway who set up Tom Varndell who in turn just slid into touch.

New Zealand suffered a major blow as captain Richie McCaw limped off after 27 minutes.  This was put back to the minds of the All Black team as Carter cut through the England midfield from a five - metre scrum and then added the extras to make it 20 - 0.  England lost a player themselves as Toby Flood injured his shoulder after making a try-saving tackle on Kahui.

England nearly got on the scoreboard just before the break as Tait, after regathering his own chip, spilled the ball in the try area.  England should have broken their duck just a minute into the second half but Barkley, on for Toby Flood, missed an easy penalty.  Care went over from a quick tap and go and Barkley added the extras.  However, New Zealand scored through Nonu and then Lauaki stormed over from 5 metres.  Varndell made up for his early miss when he crossed over on the right hand side from a Matthew Tait pass as England made a rare threatening attack. 

Our Matthew Tait left the field towards the end of the match on the stretcher buggy wrapped in a blanket following a nasty clash with All Blacks new superstar, Richard Kahui (right).

New Zealand ended the game on the front foot as they added a fifth converted try through replacement scrum- half Cowan on the final hooter.

The build up to the second test was overshadowed by the allegations of sexual abuse made against 4 England players although no formal complaint has been made as of yet and the players, who have not been named, deny the allegations. 

It does seem strange that the players in question have not made statements to the Auckland police with regards this.  If I was them, I would have made my statement as soon as possible.  Also, according to sources, the 18 year old woman who is at the centre of these allegations had phoned the hotel where the players were staying and asked where the players were drinking.  This information was not given to her so she turned up to the hotel with her friends asking for the same information and again was not given the information.  So she followed some of the players who were leaving the hotel to the bar and proceeded to have some booze and start flirting with the players. There is a good deal of speculation about what happened after that but it is clear that the England Management just want to put it behind them - a real tour from hell in all ways.

I feel angered by stories like this as I thought that rugby players were above that sort of behaviour of their footballing counterparts. I for one hope that this doesn't happen again and that everyone concerned can learn from it.




TEAM FOR THIS WEEKEND
New Zealand: MacDonald; Sivivatu, Kahui, Nonu, Wulf; Carter, Ellis; Tialata, Hore, Somerville, Thorn, Williams, Thomson, McCaw (capt), So'oialo.
Replacements: Mealamu, Woodcock, Boric, Lauaki, Cowan, Donald, Muliaina.

England: Tait; Ojo, Tindall, Noon, Varndell; Flood, Care; Payne, Mears, Stevens, Palmer, Borthwick (capt), Haskell, Rees, Narraway.
Replacements: Hobson, Paice, Kay, Worsley, Richards, Barkley, Strettle.

RFTG Reporter Lucy Smith gives us her view of the first test match:-

Not exactly the way people wanted the Johnson era to start.  It has to be said that there were some positives which came from the match - notably that Tom Rees lived with Ritchie McCaw and RFTG fave James Haskell also played well in the circumstances.  Also Topsy Ojo managed to get a brace, not bad for you debut against the All Blacks.  Apart from that, not much was in favour for the England team.

Before the match started, the right things were said by the team about how they were going to take the All Blacks on at their own game and that they respected their opponents and all that.  The start to the game was quite good with England taking an early lead thanks to the boot of Olly Barkley which started to give the England fans early confidence and there were whispers that there may will be an upset on the cards.  However, when the English surge from the start of the game petered out, the All Blacks assumed control.  England nearly scored the first try of the match with David Strettle nearly going over in the corner, only to be stopped by Jerome Kaino and then he lost control off the ball. 

The turning point in the match came when England lost possession from the restart after the second penalty and the All Blacks hit the English with a 20 point blitz with converted tries from Conrad Smith and Dan Carter and 3 Dan Carter penalties.  Topsy Ojo (right) then scored his first try for England which brought the scores back to 23 - 13.  Then Mils Muliaina and Sitiveni Sivivatu added further scores with Topsy's second try being nothing more than a consolation score. 

In the lead up to the Sivivatu try, Ma'a Nonu burst through what can only be described as a terrible tackle from Charlie Hodgson.  This led to Hodgson being hauled off around the 50 minute mark and being replaced by Jamie Noon to strengthen the midfield.  England then managed to score the last try of the game but it was nothing more than a consolation score with the result at full time being 37- 20

So all in all, it was a chastening experience for the players and the management who had talked a good game but didn't manage to "walk the walk" as it were.  There is also talk that last Saturday's game may well have been Charlie Hodgson's last match in an England shirt due to the non existent tackle on Nonu and that the kicking duties were given to Olly Barkley.  At the end of the game we ended up with a player at fly - half which hadn't played there at all last season.

It remains to be seen whether England may recover from this in time for the second test in Christchurch.  It won't be helped by the fact that Andrew Sheridan had to be withdrawn from selection due to a cut under his eye. 

I can't help but agree that the summer tours after a World Cup should be scrapped, purely for the fact that if you send players on a summer tour who were playing in the World Cup and were doing all the warm up games etc.  then they would have been playing for nearly a year.  A prime example of this was after England won the RWC in 2003, a team went on the summer tour to Australia and New Zealand which included Ben Cohen and Lawrence Dallaglio.  The 2 players mentioned had taken part in the summer boot camp in the summer of 2003 beginning after a 2 week break in June after the summer tour in 2003.  After this break through to the end of the world cup they were either training or playing virtually every day and then went practically straight back to the clubs after the world cup with no real break and then played in the 6 Nations then went on the summer tour in 2004. So that was nearly 12 months of rugby non - stop, no wonder they were knackered.  However, that is for another time and another place.