Haven't seen much of the match yet but from what I've heard and Osem Jnr's match report, England appeared to have run out of 'get out of jail' cards and not learned anything very much from last week's game. By all accounts another very sloppy first half against what they expected (i.e. a highly motivated French side with nothing to lose and a lot to prove) followed by a better second half, a couple of tries and a some good chances missed. The fact that England have tended to play badly in the first 40 mins. then get better says something worrying about the on field leadership IMHO, which is where I believe the major problem must lie. Johnson has clearly managed to motivate his troops and kick arses where needed during the various half times, but the senior players clearly haven't been able to do this on the park. Possibly a narrow loss against Scotland (as with France v Tonga) would've served the team's overall purpose better but England's players can only look to themselves and feel they've come up short for no good reason, missing a golden opportunity to progress in what's the easier side of the draw. They've shown they can defend, create chances and score tries but for some reason that hasn't been enough to translate into success when it really matters. That's probably what'll hurt them the most.
With what should be a tough but safe victory tomorrow, on paper NZ must be favourites to go all the way to the final now. The SA v. Australia quarter final could go either way in what would've made a very creditable climax to the tournament but winning that match may take too much out of the victors for them to be able repeat the heroics in a semi against the All Blacks. For me, the All Blacks will progress to and start the final as massive favourites but that may just be their undoing....
Interesting times ahead for rugby lovers.
