Reading various newspaper match reports, it was interesting to see who pundits rated in the England win against Samoa. For me Gomarsall was man-of-the-match by miles and it's good to see that the BBC blog thought the same! I also read an article by Jeremy Guscott that said much the same thing...but there were many that didn't seem to rate his performance as highly as I did. England's tactics seemed a little awry which is why it's difficult to say Wilkinson or Lewsey had particularly good games. They routinely kicked the ball down the middle to allow counter-attacks when we know that loose ball is what Samoa thrive off. We also know that Samoa's lineout is weak, so why not kick for touch? We didn't seem to be interested in kicking for touch until the final 3 minutes - just when we should have been opening things up to get the 4th try and a bonus point!
That said, at least it was a win. My team for Friday against Tonga would be identical but for three changes - Vickery in for Stevens (although Stevens played well I thought), Hipkiss in for Tait and Rees in for Worsley. We seemed to lack dynamism so I would be seriously tempted to bring Moody in for Corry at 6, but Corry's lineout work just settled it....Moody can come on and energise things in the 2nd half.
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