Failing to win line outs was a major flaw in England RWC campaign?

Question

They scored few tries too and Tait made a horrendous error early on to give SA the lead in the final. Have your say!

Answer 1

I think South Africa won fairly.

The lost line outs definitely influenced England's game, I don't think they expected it with all the talk prior to the game.

There will always be penalties, I don't think you can really blame them for those, I actually thought it was a reasonably good disciplined game.

I think South Africa could have won by a larger margin if they utilized their very talented backline better, but England drew them into a forward game and as a result we saw more backline play from England than from South Africa and backline play is not England's strength.

Also, I think South Africa neutralized the Jonny Wilkinson factor very well, by putting him under pressure.

For some of the other answerer's: If your gonna start blaming the referee you should at least consider that there were bad decisions that went both ways. First of all that TMO decision that everyone's complaining about, was in fact the right decision - if you still doubt it, go and view it on the RWC2007 official website. Flood deserved a yellow card for pushing Montgomery over the advertising boards and John Smit was penalised for an English player running in to him. I thought I'd mention these just to show that there were bad decisions in favor of both teams.

Answer 2

I think when thje South African team got two of best England players sent off injured then got a try disallowed its difficult to win fairly.

Answer 3

Well surely you can forgive us for not dominating the lineout against SA, they are the best in the world at it. Other than that we held our own pretty well.

We never have been an attacking team that scores loads of trys so don't worry about that.

As for Tait, everyone makes errors sometimes, Moody tripped someone over and gave away a penlty but your not having a go at him.

Edit - MB1801 (or something) John Smit knew exactly what he was doing, he turned his back so it didn't look as if he was trying to block. He and Bakkies Botha delibarately obstructed Danny Hipkiss.