Stuart Lancaster
England coach Stuart Lancaster faced a selection headache Sunday as he rued the missed opportunity of a rare Test win over the All Blacks in New Zealand.
Lancaster said he was mulling whether to give his combative second-stringers another crack after they were eclipsed 20-15 in the first Test, or to unleash many of England’s “quality players” who only arrived in New Zealand last week.
While Conrad Smith’s try in the dying minutes gave the All Blacks victory in Auckland on Saturday, the match statistics were heavily tilted in England’s favour.
Sport24
Despite having at least 12 senior players unavailable, the tourists finished ahead in the territory and possession stakes as well as the number of line breaks and tackles broken. They also took the only clean lineout steal and only tighthead of the match.
But England were unable to score a try, with their points coming from five penalties.
The All Blacks also kicked five before snatching victory with a last-gasp rush at the line.
“We were desperately disappointed having fought so hard to be in the game for so long,” Lancaster said.
“But from our point of view I’m tremendously proud of the effort the players put in while some quality players sat in the stands.”
He said the dilemma now was whether to build on the cohesion established in the first Test or face “the challenge of creating, if there are going to be changes, some cohesion in the new group of players.”
“It’s a massive game for us now,” Lancaster said as he pondered his options ahead of the move to Dunedin for next weekend’s second match in the three-Test series.”
“We’ve always come into this series believing we can (win) but you’ve got to deliver, and the game next week is huge for us because we want a tight series. We want to go into a decider in Hamilton.”
As he deliberated on the need to improve on England’s dismal record of only two wins from 13 Tests in New Zealand, Lancaster also hinted that not all the late-arriving senior players will get a run as he eyes the long-term target of next year’s World Cup.
“For me it’s about the bigger picture.”
“Building towards the World Cup in 2015 and making sure people get experience and opportunities out here.”
Will the All Blacks be below par again? Think they got a huge wake up call and kudos to England for really taking the game to them, but it’s the age old problem that we also encounter against them so often, give it your all and still somehow manage to come up short.
We saw when England toured SA that they managed to draw the 3rd test after being outplayed in the first two, so if this England side keep getting better then they might just get a win out of the 3 tests.
Whatever England decide, Hanson is sitting with some questions of his own, very similar to Heyneke in a manner, about older players and are they really contributing to the team.
Nonu has learned no lessons at all, and is very lucky and seems to sidestep yellow cards more often that opposition players, their scrum looked vulnerable, same as ours, and they struggled to play open running rugby as the English defense were all over them.
I have always liked NZ and the way the AB’s play the game, much to the chargrin of many bloggers, hello Bakkies 😉 , but I still believe where they are vulnerable is when they think it’s their Devine right to run the ball willy nilly without the forwards having done the hard yards first, as we saw with their junior side against the Junior Boks.
Gosh this writer must read our site : comment no. 127 on the live All Blacks England match thread regarding England’s pack :
“…One thing it seems is they are giving Stuart Lancaster a nice headache for next week when more of his bigger players will be available – likes of Courney Lawes and Dylan Hartley…”
@2
Lol, and you couldn’t even see the match at that stage
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