Give over. The games in the southern hemisphere, all atmospheres are crap. All England players have played in super league, a Leeds Wakefield game had a more intimidating atmosphere than anything down under.

Z

Have you watched any of the Tongan games in New Zealand? I don’t think you have, as you wouldn’t be describing it as crap. The same goes for the games in PNG.

Don't be so detached from reality. The games in which Tonga has played have been intense and rich with thousands of Tonga fans singing and chanting. Samoa had its supporters but they were out-enthused by the Tongan fans. The same thing applied when New Zealand played Tonga. The NZ resident on this forum is an expert on the ethnic demography of New Zealand and is calling it like it is.

The odds there are probably more to do with the likely betting pattern than what the bookies think the most likely result is. So much money will be put on England that they don't need to be generous with odds. I'll bet the odds in Oz/NZ are quite different.

Says you

My irony meter has broken - what cloth head you are.

Must be the same thin air you concoct your theories from.

A bit of disparity with the English books, prices ranging from 4/6 - 1/2 for an England win in 80 mins (60% - 66.67% in terms of implied probability, 2 points - 4 points in terms of point spread).

Centrebet in aus are 4/6.

I personally think England have been underrated in the finals, opening up at -14 v PNG and the 2 points seems a low start for Tonga, I was expecting at least -8.

Give over, most of the England team has played in GF's both in the UK and Aus, CC finals and WCC's as well as test matches vs Aus and NZ both in the Northern and Southern Hemisphere.

It won't be the least bit intimidating to England. There will be plenty of red, but there won't be the chanting in sync with venim and hatred that England players are used to from English crowds. It's like comparing a Leeds man United game to Wimbledon. It'll be powderpuff.

Because England nearly always play below par against australia, the ocker fans always underrate England when playing SH opposition to the point any team with but a smattering of nrl players is highly favoured. Anything pommy is bad. They are morons.

Despite conditions that heavily favoured PNG England swatted them aside whilst turning in their most error strewn performance of the comp. Providing England play anything like, Tonga should be disposed of.

Lebanon gave a blueprint of how to beat Tonga. NZ for 50 minutes and now Lebanon showed that if you move the ball around the Tongans are hugely vulnerable. They were physically spent 15 minutes from the end vs a very brave but limited Lebanon team who England beat easily. In fact if we had Farah and Moses I'd genuinely give us a chance in the competition - they played with far greater control than England's halfbacks have so far shown.

England need to hold onto the ball but also move it around a bit - if we try to go set for set in the forwards we'll lose IMO.

As suspected, PNG were pretty rubbish really, having only beaten Championship standard teams clearly made some people ridiculously overestimate them. Fiji OTOH would probably have beaten England yesterday. Again, NZ showed how not to play them by going up the middle. Australia will move the ball around and wipe them out by a fair margin IMO.

Agree with all of that. PNG were pretty poor; well, they must have been, to lose by such a score-line to a side that barely completed over 50%. Moses was great for Lebanon. And yes, England don't want to make it the Sam Burgess v Jason Taumalolo Show.

If Tonga lift & play smart & put everything into this game then they may just win, especially if England make as many errors as they did against PNG

England really need to play smart, compete their sets & out endure Tonga because they will fade, a whole team full of Polynesians will invite fatigue, they arent built for endurance, but excellent in power & short sharp aggressive plays, so England have to weather the storm

I think you may be disappointed.
Despite the worst completion rate in living memory, England look to have plenty of points in them.
If they complete at anything around 80%, they will beat Tonga and they may just push The Aussies.
However, we all know that Australia have yet to break into a sweat and they look nailed on Champions, again.