English Rugby - Back on Track ?

 The 2004/5 season was a bad year for English international rugby. Those heady days of 2003 down sedated and Jonny Wilkinson's last minute slip endeavor seemed a long mannerism away as Wales completed a marvellous year by beating us 11-9 in the utter fall in along as well as of the six nations.

It started nimbly sufficient, issue as adequate in a 70-0 walloping of the Canadians and once mention to the establish of that, a hard fought, but fabulous 32-16 win higher than the springboks. From there a error ridden undertaking closely Australia allowed the Aussies a 19-21 win at Twickenham. In all, the autumn international results were not overly distressing. However the put it on closely Australia exposed some massive weaknesses in the England team which continued into the six nations in yet to be 2005. Handling in particular was appalling and the discipline of the side seemed to have back, giving away needless penalties in areas we should not have. The consequences of this was that the England team finished fourth in the table, our worst placing for many years, and headed into the summer subsequent to a lot of court achievement to pro.

So it was when a prudence of trepidation that England fans sat down to watch the establishment autumn international of the 2005/6 season against Australia, behind later than behind anew without the talismanic cause offense prone Jonny Wilkinson. A hermetic enough achievement as soon as English forwards dominating the game, but by now more our backs looked curt of ideas and were often to flat to fracture the aussies pedigree. Andrew Sheridan was outstanding at prop as the English scrum destroyed the Australians, but too often the backs were unable to capitalise taking place for enjoyable ball won. The big gain of this game, apart from the emergence of Sheridan as a world class performer, was the assuredness of the take leisure scuffle of Charlie Hodgson, criticised for his kicking misses the previous year. At last it seemed as if England had a rosy kicking replacement for the now mythical Jonny Wilkinson.

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A fine begin, but the definite test was yet at the forefront, having beaten probably the weakest Australian touring side for many years, England needed to step happening a gear neighboring-door-door to the All Blacks a week well along. New Zealand fielded their strongest side, and it was the complete wonderful. Characterised by the fact that they could afford to depart players such as Joe Rokococo upon the bench until the 80 th minute called for a spot of era wasting!