Summer internationals week 2: match thread

England gonna give NZ a really hard game unless their kicking for goal improves here

Nika Amashukeli just isn't up to standard; both teams have a lot to be frustrated about due to his rulings. Thankfully he was equally bad so overall it balanced out, but it made for an absolute shambles at ruck time (similar to the game vs Argentina a couple years ago). I think you could make an argument that the mess he allowed to happen at the rucks is what led to TJ Perenara's unfortunate injury.
- I thought him not too bad actually, I liked his breakdowns. Felt flowing to to me. Nothing I actively disagreed with on the whistle either

Samoa - Italy from yesterday too which is yet another example to why the new Nations Championship protecting the bottom of the 6 nations at the expense of the next tier that they're not consistently better than is a total joke.

Oh wow, just checked the score, got to watch the highlights of that match!
- Oh another game we missed was Georgia - Fiji; weirdly for compared to all the other games that one was played away for Fiji.

That run from Mark Telea in the first half. Magic.

It was a great match, far more than I expected today. England are learning game by game again, if they keep that going they're going to do very well. Next week to be really fun to watch!
- ABs classic wobbly first test hopefully, and next week with more training sessions to bed in systems will be better. Perofeta was really good, but Beauden's kicking game was a marked difference maker in terms of ensuring the ABs spent more time with ball in hand in the right part of the pitch.
  
  DMac's passing was exceptional but other than that he did struggle against the rush D (every body does, even Mounga) and some of the missed kicks & the time out would have been frustrating. Definitely deserves another shot at 10 and I think keeping BB on the bench to sub in as a change of plan as needed is a good balance.
  
  For mine, England's best player was their halfback Mitchell - he was possibly the best player on the pitch. Really great service from the base, great pass, managed to keep the defence guessing, a scary good performance. In a way a similar player to Roigaard so its a shame he is out injured to have a battle against a similar player. Perenara was great, but is definitely more of an old school style where Mitchell looks to me to be perhaps a change in style that will become more common in coming years.

Aus v Wales has been a good watch so far; I'd say the Wallabies are looking the better team but struggling with a bit of dropped ball so haven't been able to take full advantage of the half-breaks they're generating.

I enjoyed the full game, even though both teams got the dropsies at times. Lolesio trying for a cross field kick instead of just passing into a 2-2 out wide 10m out from the line got him yanked by Schmidt but I think for the most part he was pretty good and is still building into a combination with Gordon. The latter box kicked well but it was a good call to sub when the game started to become a lot looser.

For the most part the Wallabies many rookies stood up & got the job done so they can rightly be proud of getting the win. Wales aren't a tip top team by any means and are rebuilding themselves - but have had more time in camp and more games played than Schmidt who basically prepped the team with 4 sessions so with more time the Wallabies should improve for game 2.

Thought Brousset was really good too, clear in his instructions throughout, not afraid to follow up on warnings and be decisive.

I want sky sports...

Now TV day pass is available. Given more next week, and the week after - might be worth a month pass. Scotland on TNT for some damned reason means I might go to the pub to watch the SA v Ire match
- That's a shout.

NZ by 25

OZ by 25

SA by 10

FRA by 25

SCO by 50

So the Ireland match the one to tune in for imo!

I'll bite...

NZ by 12 OZ by 15 SA by 1 ARG by 3 SCO by 65

If SA revert to type I know folks love those really brutal tackle all day games but for me they get decided by the whistle too much so i'm kinda expecting the Wales v Aus game to be the more fun watch. NZ-ENG has Amushkavili in charge so it'll be an absolute crapshoot at rucks.
- Yeah, in knock out rugby SA's game comes into its own, with these no jeopardy windows I hope we see all teams throw the ball around more!
  
  Argentina by 3 is interesting too, any reason for the tightness? Frances form hasn't been amazing, but they are still 4th in the world and the guly between the top 4 and rest has been there for some time
@Olap @Olap it’s supposed to feel like 35C in Ottawa tomorrow, so Scotland may struggle a bit in the heat. I can’t see them losing though.
- Oh fuck, a Scotsman in 35C is not a pretty sight. Unless they have a cold beer in their hand and lots of shade they evaporate. The good news is that Toonie picked all the youngsters, and Scots are also used to playing with a bar of soap, but I do have to revise down to a 25 pt win