Quote: Bullseye "I was bewildered that Millward chose Hock as Man of the Match. Sure, he's a handful and has got a good offload but his discipline with the ball is poor and he gives a lot of penalties away. That may not matter in a game you're dominating but in a tight game as England may have versus NZ or Oz in the world cup that sort of ill discipline is a killer.
I thought Watkins looked a class player. Myler and Sinfield did alright too. In the pack it was pretty dominant stuff from England. I like Chris Hill, he's got to be in the the first choice 17 even with Graham and Sam Burgess back.
France were a bit disappointing. Everyone was going on about their pack beforehand but it never happened for them. It reminded me of England versus Australia int he past when the pack gets talked of in glowing terms and is then totally out muscled. The injuries certainly didn't help though and they got some very tough calls from the ref.
Bit of a scrappy spectacle. Hope it's a bit better from both teams next week.'"
Sums it up well, especially Hock, you simply can't give away penalties like the ones he gives up. They do nothing (some penalties are worth it), just plain stupid.
Agree with the positives - the defence was exceptional and a few of the forwards were brilliant - Hill did look the part and Mossop has a lot of raw potential.
I'd add a few things.
Only major thing I'd disagree with would be Myler, I thought he was poor. He made some bad passing choices and looked really slow at making decisions. With that pack performance he should have run riot but every time he received the ball he seemed to have to decide what he wanted to do rather than already knowing. Killed our attacking momentum many times.
Thought we drove the ball in too many times - against Wales we were not as obvious with the hit ups - the little pop passes were used more often and we tried to work a few things to keep the defence guessing - yesterday it was one up repeatedly. We missed a lot of chances to attack wide from deep as well. There were many times when the French defence were woefully short on one side or another defending in our half but we insisted on driving it up the middle - many times all the way up to the 5th tackle.
The French left side defence was poor and they didn't number up - we opened them up down that side in the first half pretty much every time yet didn't learn from that and consistently went left.
A lot of players seemed to forget they were actually in a team. Charnley has obviously put the wind up Briscoe as he tried to score himself every time he got the ball, and he wasn't the only one. Run until all otions have gone then chuck it anywhere.
Tomkins was a mistake - he wasn't fit. Should have left Hardaker at FB.
