Only one team in it in the second half and England look deserved winners.

Had the incident with the knees happened in the proper world cup final with only a yellow then it would be very controversial.

Great result for England!

First time a northern hemisphere side lift the trophy!

The futures bright.

.........always the real test to overcome the southern hemisphere sides. Once you beat NZ you almost deserve a trophy! Well done England - and to Wales for overcoming SA in the semi.

In the last two Lions series we've seen
- two kiwis get away with spear tackling Brian O'Driscoll
- the referee giving a South African player a yellow card for gouging

When are the South going to discipline these issues properly, with due consideration for player safety.

In mitigation of Horwill's actions, he was obviously auditioning for for the Aussie version of 'Strictly Come Stamping'.

B. Moore was less than judicious in his assessment of the QC who exonerated Horwill. "You are a f***ing idiot" .

For once I disagree with Mr. Moore. The QC is a "f***ing c***t".
Please note that the last noun is not a four letter one.

Gatland ? Why is Parling playing on Tuesday when O'Connell might not even be fit to start next Saturday ?


Only when their players are at risk. Didn't anyone explain the rules for Lions' Tours to you ?

O'Connell officially ruled out then

I see Parling has been withdrawn from Tuesday's match now.

With respect to the citings... they'll be asking to cite players for running into theirs looking at Saturday... they must be made of chocolate.

The Junior World Championship made great viewing, I wish they'd put more games on.

England always looked the better side but Wales took their first half chances well. I don't understand why England changed the pack from the one that took it to the kiwis; they looked impressive in the second half when they changed the loosehead.

The England Hooker has terrible hair but fair play to him, one of the best players on the park; made so many gains, always around the ball and the contact area. A big future ahead I hope (and a hair cut).

The England 8 looked awesome, as did the Welsh 6 and 7 (how different from the early 2000's when the entirety of Wales gasped everytime Martyn Williams went down); you've flankers coming out all over the place.

Jordan Williams has potential, maybe looks a little like a 7s player at the minute.

7's world cup this weekend in Moscow.

I do like that in 7's the results are a bit less predictable, New Zealand, Fiji and South Africa dominate with sides like Kenya really becoming good but depsite this dominance the final four years ago was between Wales and Argentia with Wales winning.

Womens world cup is running in parallell as well. I live with one of the girls from the England squad so have a bit of a vested interest in it.

They have been training 3 days a week for 6 months and putting in a savage amount of work. Canada, US I think are two sides that have been in full time training. Again its not a predictable tournement, when you get to the knock out stages anything can happen in 14 minutes.

It didn't effect the outcome of the match, but how could he award the try as it was "scored" after he had blown his whistle? It should have been a 5m scrum to SA.

A very, very, poor piece of refereeing.

I don't think it was deliberate at all, careless maybe but a debatable penalty let alone a yellow.

Yeah, I thought that was harsh too. Also the try disallowed in the second half for crawling when he hadn't been held in the tackle.

England V Australia RWC 2007 QF on ESPN Classics at the moment.

Largely forgotten about game and underrated win.

Fantastic game, I still have a mental image of Andy Gomersall at the end of the game, face almost on the ground, and he seemed to be laughing his head off.

I remember watching that on the day after I returned from Iraq... so good to be home and then we were beating the aussies in a World Cup where everyone just talked about how terrible we were... finalists isn't a bad effort for a terrible team

listening to an Aussie commentary on the radio for the lions game. Not saying they dont know a lot about the players but toniight they are being captained by Brian Lydiate and with the scrum half Coner Murphy is looking to make a chance for himself.

haha, genius... mind you, as TS are the official "radio station" of the Lions tour listening to the majority of these idiots isn't too much better.

Not very often you get a "clean sheet" in rugby - what was the performance like?

I haven't even managed to listen to talksport yet. I cannot get the app to play.

Wow... who had Youngs coming in at 9... I think he'll do a better job, simpler player, doesn't try and take too much on, better box kicker and should release the backs more (whether Howley has actually given them any backline moves is another matter).

Bowe in for Cuthbert makes sense, as does Lydiate for Croft, much better balance in the back row and Lydiate's tackling will allow Warbs to get over the ball more. SOB and Croft coming on against a tiring team is probably a scary thought for the Aussies.

Phillips not even making the bench shocked me but makes sense the Aussies played him like a puppet, left a gap around the rucks enough to intice him into taking it then shut the door a soon as he took it and slowing the subsequant ball up.

Its going to be another tough game, more fo the Welsh style with this selection. Force the opposition to play and defend well, then counter.

Interestingly, of the 7 back rowers, if you take the three I would start with and the one on the bench, the three that are left out of the 23, are the three which start on Saturday.

I read somewhere he had a "slight" injury...might be a cover up though.

Is it a bit risky to make so many changes or just shows the confidence the management have in the whole squad?

Youngs should be getting better ball from a more balanced back row this week. For all the media hype, Croft and Heaslip tend to lean on the side of the breakdown and hang around on the wings a bit too much. Trouble is, a lot of the media and supporters judge them purely on the occasional 'Hollywood' style charge in attack. There should be a few more of those charges from Warburton and Heaslip this week as Lydiate isn't a man short of doing the nitty gritty duties of a back row forward.

Exactly.

Croft and Heaslip are both luxury players, you can afford to carry one in your side for the moments of brilliance that they can produce but to have the two of them in there makes limited sense.

As a 6/8 combination Croft/Faletau; Lydiate/Heaslip; O'Brien/Faletau, O'Brien/ Heaslip or Lydiate/Faletau all look a lot better balanced than Croft/Heaslip. If you've got a grafter in there making a nuisance of himself at the breakdown and taking control of the fringes then you can get away with having a flashy ball carrier hanging out with the backs giving opposing three-quarters nightmares.

I think the main reason that Croft is out of the XV is because of O'Connell's injury. Him working himself into the ground as he has done all tour can be used to cover wandering backrowers. With Parling coming in who - with all respect to the bloke - isn't Paul O'Connell, the side needs a bit of steel in the pack; Lydiate will provide plenty of that.

We'd better hope for 80 minutes each from the Joneses as well.

Oh yeah, that was exactly my point (I think it's a few pages back), I thought before last weeks game that Croft and Heaslip are too similar... Croft is a superb line out exponent and unreal in the loose but against a gritty aussie side we need a bit more graft; Lydiate's workload will allow Warburton to get over the ball and win more, and also find himself in those random places where you think he just shouldn't be (but is what sets him out as one of the best in the world).

I'd completely overlooked Phillips not being on the bench.. shame for him but adds more weight to the injury argument. hopefully a good rest will see him ready to rock and dominate if we need him to for the 3rd test (although we really should put this to bed tomorrow).