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My prediction was right - it was just a week early
Phil Gould
November 13, 2006

ANALYSIS

NEW Zealand's thumping of Great Britain has restored some sanity to the Tri-Nations.

After Great Britain defeated Australia last weekend I thought I was going mad.

But the Kiwis dominated Saturday's match to expose the gap between the standards of league played in the northern and southern hemispheres.

When I watched New Zealand graft out a solid victory against the Lions two weeks ago in Christchurch, I said in this column that the 18-14 scoreline was no indication of New Zealand's superiority and that the Kiwis played very conservative football to ensure they secured their first win of the series. Had New Zealand kept their foot on the accelerator, they could have won very comfortably.

I said Great Britain were way off the pace and wouldn't win a game in this three-team competition. I criticised the English Super League and said anyone suggesting their standard was improving to anywhere near that of our own NRL competition was insane.

I predicted Australia would run up a big score the following week. You can imagine my surprise when Great Britain stepped out seven days later and defeated the Kangaroos on Australian soil. Ouch!

People then quite cynically suggested my stinging criticism of the British was designed to motivate them into a better performance against the Aussies. What an absurd suggestion.

I watched the Great Britain-Australia game closely. Despite their emotion-charged victory, Great Britain looked vulnerable in defence; and their attack was predictable, slow and amateurish.

I put the shock result down to Australia's poor form and ridiculous selection process rather than any brilliant play on behalf of the tourists.

Surely everyone could see that? But then everyone started praising the Pommies.

They pushed it to extremes by talking up Great Britain's tremendous ability, how they completely outplayed Australia and that this could be the year they finally capture a Tri-Nations series trophy.

It had me walking around in a daze. The voices in my head were screaming at me. Like you, I've tolerated the promotional propaganda surrounding these international matches for years, but I never really thought people believed this stuff.

It started me thinking. Were these people right? Am I the crazy one? After watching the Kiwis demolish Great Britain in Wellington on Saturday, I now know they were just playing with my head.

There's a saying in formula one motor racing: "When the flag drops, the bullshit stops."

Well, the flag dropped for Great Britain on Saturday.

After having competition points deducted over the Nathan Fien "grannygate" affair, the Kiwis got serious and left nothing to chance.

They had to win by more than 14 points to put the pressure back on Great Britain and keep alive the hope of defending their Tri-Nations title.

They tore the visitors apart with physical intimidation and breath-taking skill.

Led by inspirational captain Ruben Wiki, Kiwi forwards Roy Asotasi, David Kidwell, David Fa'alogo, Nathan Cayless, Adam Blair and Frank Pritchard ran roughshod.

Even the outside backs came into the middle of the field and joined the "bash up".

Shontayne Hape, Iosia Soliola, Steve Matai and Manu Vatuvei charged fearlessly at the forwards, bending them backwards with every run.

Half Stacey Jones and fullback Brent Webb provided the finesse in the Kiwis' attack and created some brilliant tries.

You get a similar level of heightened excitement watching the Kiwis' style of play as you experience watching high-performance cars speed around a tight-turning race track. Their raw power and unique skill-set is hypnotic; but the enjoyment is tempered by this fearful anticipation in your guts they could easily crash on the next turn.

New Zealand showed that if you come at Great Britain with serious power and a simple game plan, you will win.

In Test football, everyone is committed and everyone plays tough. But that's a given.

You still have to plan your game and play smart. Great Britain can't do that. New Zealand have proved they're capable. It's up to Australia to show them how it's really done.

If sanity prevails, that is.

I've always thought it the embodiment of churlishness to watch your team get hammered and then refuse to give any credit to the opposition, merely to say that your own guys were having an off-day. You hear this a lot in Rugby League, so it's no surprise to hear Australia's own heavyweight champion of churlishness spout something similar; after all, hasn't he said something like this every time one of our top club sides has slaughtered one of theirs in the WCC?

Despite that, it's pretty difficult to defend GB's last performance. They were comprehensively outmuscled and outplayed by the Kiwis. It was a huge let-down after the previous weekend, and nobody can pretend it didn't happen.

But there perhaps is the difference between us and Australians like Phil Gould.

In due course, he WILL be pretending it didn't happen - the destruction of Australia in Sydney, that is.

Of course, if we don't march on and give Aus a game in Brisbane, we'll only make it easier for him to do just that.

Phil Gould is never wrong

Perhaps somebody should remind him of the mess he created at Penrith.

Apart from the OTT rhetoric, I think he's spot on in everything he says. We're nowhere near either Australia or NZ in terms of quality.

Any team can pull off one shock win...but we've had ours already.

Looking at the long-term prospects, I hope we get annihilated against the Aussies next week; maybe then the RFL will wake up and realise just how much damage is being done to our international side by all the imports.

I said before the competition started that there was only one GB player that would get into a combined OZ/NZ/GB "dream team".

I was wrong. I thought Fielden would have got in.

In (almost) retrospect, none of them would.

Well Peacock has been the stand out forward of the series so far and the damage he could inflict if he were playing in a dominant side would be frightening.

The Kiwis seem to have the best pack overall, but I feel that more of the GB team forwards can make the Aus squad than vice-versa.

The backs, apart from Pryce are lamentable.

Everyone knows - or should know - the score here. I predicted we would finish "a distant and badly beaten third". NZ's docking of points has helped us look as if we are in the fight but none of this is relevant when considering Phil Gould. What a graceless prat he is.

I have never thought our comp was near their standards but that is not to say that we couldn't scour our league to find 17 decent players. Also, he uses the scoreline to back his claims in the first NZ defeat but conventiently forgets that we had 2 good tries denied us in the second game, whereas they scored from 2 penalties which should have been overturned for Kiwis throwing the ball, another from a ridiculous bounce and yet another from a kick that landed on the crossbar!

No doubt if we win next week that donkey Gould would claim the Aussies let us through to give themselves an easier final. Mmmm, now there's a thought....

GeoffN posted:
Looking at the long-term prospects, I hope we get annihilated against the Aussies next week; maybe then the RFL will wake up and realise just how much damage is being done to our international side by all the imports.

Well if we do get stuffed that will hopefully be the silver lining in the cloud.

It is catch 22 for me. I really do want the RFL to wake up to the overseas player problem and if we win they could adopt a head in the sand approach. On the other hand I always want us to win!

I think the RFL may have their excuses lined up anyway. Long going home, Fielden's poor form and of course having to play one game a week against opposition that is playing once every two weeks.

The latter is a genuine disadvantage to GB but I hope they don't use it to cover up the lack of any depth in GB RL due to the number of overseas players we have.

Dave

jinkin jimmy posted:
Everyone knows - or should know - the score here. I predicted we would finish "a distant and badly beaten third". NZ's docking of points has helped us look as if we are in the fight but none of this is relevant when considering Phil Gould. What a graceless prat he is.

I have never thought our comp was near their standards but that is not to say that we couldn't scour our league to find 17 decent players. Also, he uses the scoreline to back his claims in the first NZ defeat but conventiently forgets that we had 2 good tries denied us in the second game, whereas they scored from 2 penalties which should have been overturned for Kiwis throwing the ball, another from a ridiculous bounce and yet another from a kick that landed on the crossbar!

No doubt if we win next week that donkey Gould would claim the Aussies let us through to give themselves an easier final. Mmmm, now there's a thought....

thinking that myself but i cant see us winning anyway

Firstly, a better coach than Phil Gould once said RL is a simple game and it is. So teams matched physically and athletically can compete v each other. Gould and co are bull.... as much as anybody when pretending the game is so technical. If you tackle well and win the ruck both with/without ball and kick smart then you will win most of your games. Even playing very poorly, GB managed to compete with NZ to the extent we lost 12 pts and had 12 score v us from luck via kicks.

IMO, NZ have improved in the last 5 years due to the numbers of players playing in the NRL. Remember no Benji or Sonny bill. Australia have not improved. In fact, they are currently short of iconic stars. We continue to be unable to put together 50+ international players to choose from. Get past 13 and we are started to struggle.

If we were as bad as Gould says then we would have never won against the Australians - because their skill level would have been superior enough for them to score against our weak defence from anywhere on the field.

He's talking rubbish - as usual