by Lewis Husbands

As we enter the last week of International Tests, here is the roundup of the weekend’s matches and the fixtures for this weekend.

The first match of the day was the second encounter between England and New Zealand.

England made several changes to their line-up in regards to their match the previous week. The main change was that Toby Flood replaced Charlie Hodgson after Hodgson’s poor performance in the last game, but Tait also replaced Brown in the starting position whilst Noon started ahead of Barkley and Varndell ahead of Strettle, Care instead of Wigglesworth, whilst Narraway, Rees, Haskell, Palmer & Mears were all shifted about. But these shifts and changes did little to unsettle the Kiwi’s game and within minutes they had points on the board after Lee Mears was penalised for holding on and Carter easily put the ball between the posts. England did attempt to take the game to the Hosts and Varndrell & Haskell put them under pressure with pace to their game but the All Black defence managed to hold them off until they started on their own offensive. Whilst England’s energy seemed to seep from their play and despite switching their game trying an up and under, but it goes too far and New Zealand pick up and take it to the visitors. Carter fires up the flank and breaks off from a challenge by Noon and scissors with centre Richard Kahui who crosses for a try on his first International appearance- Carter converts.

Attacks follow from both sides but eventually England slip up as Borthwick gets caught on the wrong side of a maul following a line-out to which Carter takes the points.

A minute later and as Carter fails to misses an up and under Narraway releases to Varndell on the flank and the winger crosses in the very corner and the decision goes to the video ref, which rules that that Leon MacDonald had managed to push Varndell out of bounds.

The All Black come back and Carter on the offensive after a tap and go, is eventually denied by the Video Match Official who deemed it held up by Tait. New Zealand Captain Richie McCaw hobbles off injured but that doesn’t stop Carter who seconds later he takes a chance, spotting a gap and successfully crosses the line.

Flood, not fully recovered from a bad knock earlier in the match and is forced to retire from the pitch.

Minutes later Tait makes an awesome run going himself and then chipping over the defence to collect the bouncing ball, but at the last second the ball gets away from him. New Zealand get the scrum and Stevens gives away a penalty allowing the All Blacks to put the ball up field.

The score of 20 – 0 to New Zealand lingers ominously over the heads of the English players as they go back to their dressing room at half-time.

England come out with fighting spirit, but New Zealand come back with winning spirit. Haskell gives away a penalty for a stupid mistake and Carter needs no invitation to sink the ball even from over 40metres.

Then less than 10 minutes into the second half England win an advantage after a bad five-metres scrum from the Kiwis and scrumhalf Danny Care taps and goes, storming over the line before the All Blacks can sort themselves out, taking the score to 23 – 7 after Barkley knocks over the tough conversion.

Minutes later, however, New Zealand are back in business and they score an awesome try which Carter converts.

Five minutes later England bring on Joe Worsley and Tom Croft in an attempt to spice things up a bit.

England make an attack but lose possession and after Tindall gets sin-binned the Hosts make good from their five-metre scrum and Lauaki picks up and crashes over all too easily.

But minutes later England are back on the offensive and Ojo, last weeks try-scorer and Haskell both make dents in the New Zealand defence as the All Blacks hold on but the ball gets out to Tait who reaches Varndrell on the wing who makes it good in the 65^th minute to bring the scores 37 – 12.

As the game draws to an end both teams make substitutions, with Tindall coming back from the sinbin, but worst of all a collision between Tait and Kahui sends a messy Tait off on a cart.

New Zealand continue their pressure and for a while England hold them off until the 80^th minute when Jimmy Cowan goes over and is awarded the try by the VMO and Stephen Donald adds the two to leave the final score as New Zealand 44-12 England

Also this weekend Italy were in South Africa, to which the final score was 26- 0 to the home team.

 

Next weekend’s fixtures will be as follows (

 

Saturday, 28 June 2008

Argentina v Italy

Australia v France

-both matches kick off at 12.00 (GMT+1)

 

This will conclude the Summer International Tour matches.

But don’t worry it won’t be long now until the Tri-Nations kick off on 5th July.

Until then…

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