Quote Originally Posted by William Treseder View Post
I think your putting too much emphasis on try scoring. England can score try’s for fun, but their defence stinks. I’m not sure if we’ve got enough to win the World Cup, but the gap is definitely closing between Northern and Southern Hemisphere. We have one of the meanest defences in the world, we finish games stronger than any other team at the moment, we’re on a 14 game winning streak, we have a solid, very experienced coaching staff and a tremendous squad spirit. All the ingredients are there for a massive assault on the biggest trophy later this yr in Japan.
You're going to the crux of what I am saying there. We have risen to second in the world on the back of Saturday's win and fourteen consecutive wins says that we have to be considered as possible winners in Japan - if we were looking at any side going into a World Cup competition in any other sport we'd be saying they have to be serious contenders. Both in terms of the statistics and what we see out on the pitch, our defensive play looks to be good enough for a World Cup winning team, but the statistics and the evidence of what our eyes have been showing us for a year and more tell us that our attacking game isn't up to those lofty standards.

I'll make one prediction about the World Cup, if we win it playing the same sort of rugby we've played during our winning run, there'll be law changes as a consequence in much the same way as football had to make the game more attractive after the dull 1990 World Cup.