Date: Saturday, November 18
Venue: Twickenham
Kick-off: 3pm
England
Head Coach Eddie Jones called last week’s match against the Argentinians a “grindathon” and certainly I agree. This will be the hardest game of the Autumn internationals: Australia are in good form, undefeated in 7 matches and they soundly beat an experimental Welsh side last Saturday.
Jones has chosen to release Ellis Genge, Alex Lozowski and George Kruis. While the latter certainly was completely anonymous against the Pumas, I’m slightly confused at the decision to release England’s form loosehead and recall Marler who has been controversial at best so far this season. Is this a sign of weakness from Jones, that he’s going back to his trusted troop rather going for the in-form player? Also Lozowski wasn’t the problem on Saturday, it was Slade and once again he disappointed on the international stage.
Owen Farrell returns to inside centre and England’s best winger at the moment, Jonny May, has returned from a slight niggle to start at 14 with Daly on the other wing. Watson moves to fullback in Brown’s absence due to concussion which is where I think Watson’s future is after the World Cup in Japan. The only change to the pack is Joe Launchbury partnering Courtney Lawes, whilst World Rugby Player of the Year Nominee Maro Itoje is on the bench. Again Hartley is preferred to George, which will leave more than a few fans scratching their heads.
Overall, the English will be in contention to beat the Wallabies but they certainly weren’t at their best versus the pumas and they need to be to dispatch Australia. However, Australia haven’t beaten England since October 2015 in the World Cup, so that should give England some confidence.
Australia
The Wallabies are in great form at the moment, drawing twice with the Springboks, and finishing in 2nd place in the Rugby Championship before beating the All Blacks in the final Bledisloe encounter.
Their set-piece is working well for them at the moment, with captain Michael Hooper in great form along with his back-row partner Sean McMahon. They have got an outstanding back line at the moment, including Will Genia, Bernard Foley, Reece Hodge, and the Wallabies’ find of the season Marika Koroibete. Because of the star-studded backline and if the pack can keep up the pace then I expect Australia to score a few tries against England.
I suspect that the Wallabies will be very clinical like they were last week against the Welsh. I believe that they will look to the likes of Hooper, McMahon and Scott Sio to carry the ball hard and robust close to the ruck and then send the ball out-wide for their dangerous backs to exploit.
All eyes on
Again my eyes will be on Sam Underhill: he was so destructive for England last week and one of their few good performers on the day against the Pumas. He’s such an offensive tackler but I would like to see him make some turnovers this Saturday.
For Australia, players such as Hooper, McMahon and Beale are all ones to watch but for me Marika Koroibete is the key player – he’s a deadly finisher, very fast and powerful with ball in hand and England will have a testing time trying to defend him all day at Twickenham.
Head to head
Take a look at the detailed head to head article for comparisons of age, caps, height and weight for each player. Michael Hooper vs Sam Underhill is probably the biggest head to head, while the battles between Genia v Youngs and Foley vs Ford are also crucial. Also, I would like to see England’s under pressure Dylan Hartley take on the Leicester bound wrecking ball Tatafu Polota-Nau, as I can sense England fans are starting to get frustrated at the constant preference of Hartley over Jamie George.
By Jacob Bassford
Prediction (from Hutch)
Having expected a big England win last week and been thoroughly disappointed, I’m slightly more cautious this week. Looking at the head to head stats and team lineups, I’m concerned that somehow Australia have produced a dangerous looking team with plenty of experience and caps. England’s pack was totally underwhelming last weekend, and I can’t see one change at lock making the difference, so I think the Wallabies might sneak it. Australia by 2
What do you think? What is your prediction for the match?
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Photo by: Patrick Khachfe / Onside Images
I would hardly say that 8 points would constitute a sound beating? Especially as, as you pointed out, it was an experimental Welsh side.
I actually thought that Aus struggled with the pace when Wales were attacking and I’m sure Eddie will have a plan to utilise the speed of our back three (providing our forwards don’t let us down).
I fancy England to turn last weeks match into a blip and show how good we can be (at least I bloody hope so!!!!!).
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It’ll be interesting to see how the centres fair, Kuridrani and Kerevi are both fairly one dimension but have 20-30kg on Faz and Josephs. I imagine Underhill will be given the job of protecting them, but I can see them making numerous line breaks off the back of scrums and line outs when the forwards are tied up.
If Beale is brought up as a second playmaker, that could open lots of space up behind if England manage to kick effectively.
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This one is an oxymoron to me – ” The Wallabies are in great form at the moment, drawing twice with the Springboks”. A poor Springbok side that got resoundingly hammered by Ireland last week, hardly impressive results, particularly with one being at home.
Without Folau, and Beale not being in midfield, Australia look weaker. I’m not sure I’d pick anyone other than Hooper in the a mixed Aus/Eng team and that should bring us through.
Personally expect England to win by 5-10 points on Saturday.
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I’d pick McMahon at 6 in an England shirt, Polota-Nau over Hartley and Kuridrani over Joesph.
South Africa aren’t as poor as people credit them for they need a better coach than Coetzee. I’d have Erasmus or Ackermann as Head Coach. They have got really good players but they need a big number 8, Vermulean is returning for them this weekend I’d be interested as to how they do. Jantijies is a really good player and having Curwin Bosch at fullback kicking at the tee, we will probably see Jantijies as his best. What needs to happen is that someone like Altrad needs to invest in the Sharks or the Stormers get players like Vermulean and Le Roux back in the country and playing for the Springboks
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Win by 3 for me. Could go either way though! Home advantage will hopefully mean the difference.
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Would guess EJ sees enough in Slade to give him another chance – I hope it will come at 13 this week as JJ seemed fairly anonymous last week. At least he hasn’t done a Matt Tait -style dumping after one match
Think the England coaches must see a weaknesss in the Aussie scrum. Hence Marler on the bench rather than Genge.
Aussies look dangerous despite not having some of their best players. Our kicking needs to be absolutely spot on and I’d like to see them test Koroibete’s positioning.
Should be a good game. Fingers crossed but can see the Aussies sneaking it.
At least our bench looks stronger – we may need it!
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Have some faith Pablito!
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It wasn’t Mat Tait’s fault that he was hung to dry by England’s worst ever coach Andy Robinson. And if Johnson hadn’t dropped him he would still be in the squad’s today.
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Head-to-head comparisons are often irrelevant. 7s don’t go head-to-head. If Sam can cut down the Aussies halves, the two Ks in their centres will look as much use there as a pair of props!
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A good point Mr Taff. Would like to see not just Underhill but Lawes as well really go after Genia and Foley
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Naturally I’d like to see an England win, but more importantly a convincing performance. At the moment I am really sitting on the fence with the result. I don’t think this is an amazing Wallabies side. The overall quality of the Rugby Championship this year was not great (bar NZ) and both SA and Australia blew hot and cold. The Oz performance v Wales was decent, and certainly they can be dangerous, but I also feel Wales probably tried to play a little too much open rugby – entertaining to watch though!
England – hmmm. I am just struggling to really gauge where they are right now. As with many I start to feel confident that last week was a bit of a blip, but then I look back at the 6 nations and despite lifting the trophy we had average outings against Italy, France and were pretty bossed by Ireland. So how good are we in reality?
One thing I have observed – or maybe it is in my head – but it does seem more often than not individually different players turn up for games (mentally), and we then lack a collective strong performance ‘game to game’…..I hope that makes sense!!?? I think i may have confused myself!!
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Last Saturdays matches left me wondering whether in fact Ireland are a better team than England.The gap in performance was huge.I would have every confidence in the Irish comfortably beating Australia.The odds of England doing the same is 50-50 at best I feel.Can Eddie keep it up?Not 100% sure
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Key player to watch will be Faz. If the forwards give the Ford/Faz axis a platform to play off, the backs have the ability to get around the Aus backline.
However, I also expect to see a lot of “grindathon” forward based rugby from Eng tomorrow, especially as 1) Aus tend to give away a lot of infringements around the breakdown 2) it keeps the ball away from the aforementioned dangerous Aus backline – Beale is in deadly form at the moment.
Personally I see it being close, although if Aus start fast I wouldn’t fancy Eng chances. But if the scores are close at the beginning of the 2nd half, can see England edging by around 5 (based on home advantage and kicking).
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At least Beale is at fullback rather than 12. And also that a lot of the England players have played against or with him for their clubs and known just how good he can be
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Interesting to read the comments on Green and Gold. The Aussie fans are pretty negative about their chances
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This strikes me as a make or break for a number of England players. If we don’t step up from last week, I think that Eddie has one last chance to shuffle the pack before the World Cup. I think Hartley, Robshaw, Youngs and Joseph may all be having fairly sleepless nights tonight. If the backs fail to fire and struggle with the big Aussie centres then I think you’ll see Teo or Tui back in as soon as they’re fit. Whether they play at 12 or 13 depends on how the others go tomorrow. England by 3.
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I can’t help but feel it’s a bit arrogant to suggest that England, having not played a proper test together since March (I’m not counting the Argentina tour), should have dominated a side that has just finished a major tournament. No need for alarmism for me, especially with Farrell not present.
England by a minimum of 10.
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I think that expectation came as we were facing an Argentina who have regressed of recent years and who had been comfortably beaten in every game in the Rugby Championship, and England are ranked 2nd in the World! The fact we had not played a test match since March is no excuse….Ireland showed this ‘myth’ with their performance against SA. The undeniable truth is that most of our players didn’t turn up…..but I am confident they will this weekend. If they don’t then EJ will need to take a long hard look at this squad and start some rapid re thinking!!!
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It’s absolutely a factor- not playing with the men either side of you for a matter of months is always going to lead to rustiness. You get used to different players on either side of you.
Regardless of how badly Argentina played in the RC, by the time England came to play them they were much more used to the nuances of the players inside and outside of them.
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Robshaw will be feeling the pressure to perform but I think Armand is still behind in Jones’ mind. Robshaw is the glue player for England like Smith was for NZ. However Armand is a really good team player and is a more physical presence. I think if he plays Armand a bit more for England then we will start to see him mix into the England team a bit more, if that makes sense. The reason why there aren’t as many Chiefs players in the England team is because players like Slade excell with his teammates. Personally I don’t think Slade can cut it at international level, the only one good game he has had for England was against part-time Uruguay!
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Robshaw is at best the fourth best England qualified six in the premiership. Same applies to Hartley.
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Interesting point though was there any players in the England team of 03 that were second-best to someone else in the Premiership. Us Leicester fans will obviously say that Corry should have played over Dallagio.
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who are the other five Mark?
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