Quote: ThePrinter "It was a number of factors for that try.
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Agreed.
England were short defenders on the right for much of the game, Watkins spent a lot of the game defending one in from touch, only later in the second half did Smith consistently move out that wide between him and he winger. I lost count of the number of times we had 2-3 defenders only between the post and the touchline on the right, at one point in the first half Watkins was 2-3 yards from the line of the post and he was our widest defender, McGillvery was diretly behind him - and this was inside our 20. Not sure which back row was supposed to be defending right side but they were non existant for much of the match. The way the centre and winger scrambled was tremendous. I got the impression that most of the forwards we used in the back row are much more comfortable defending in the middle here they have to move less and make fewer decisions.
I'm suprised NZ didn't exploit it more, on a better weather day with their first choice halves they could have done some major damage.
But once again we are debating, at length, with trolls from Wigan this time (why reply to these bell ends who are obviously trying to paper over the mental scars left by a potless season and a Leeds treble) who exactly was to blame for tries conceded in a game where "our" team won. It's simply not good enough that England win the test and the series, it has to be because of one teams players and despite the underperforming, over hyped players from another. Fact is everyone played pretty well and did some good things, and most people made mistakes but it was enough to post a good win over NZ and win a series for the first time in 8 years.