Casforum • The Leading Castleford Tigers Community

What a match today well on top up to the last seven minutes then to nearly loss it, for me its the first time I have been optimistic about winning against an Australian side for many a year, the pack we have are better than we have had for a long time, I thought Windop was excellent at the back , with the bounce of the ball WE CAN DO IT

I agree. It's our best chance for years

Keep the Melbourne trio quiet for starters and they have a chance.

Aussies by 50

Keithy wrote:Aussies by 50

That’s the spirit Keithy

It’s like de ja vu to us against sts win a nail biter then never get a chance in final I feel hope I’m wrong like it’s gunn take a huge effort let’s hope the Aussies have taken there eye off it as they all think it’s won already

We were very lucky in the end v Tonga - that was a try in the dying embers for my money. Ball stripped out.

It would be great to turn that lot over for once but here are my 3 reasons why it will be groundhog day:

- We lack strike and a cutting edge in the centres
- We lack genuine class in the pivots (apart from Roby)
- Our kicking game is not good enough (especially Luke's)

We certainly can match them up the middle but they need to have an off day out wide for us to be able to nick it.

It’s possible, but very improbable. The Aussies are just a level above any other team so far.

NZ, Tonga, England are about the same to me.

My wife and I have been fortunate to go on three tours down under we have seen England win only once against Papua new Guinea, its a shame we have fell out with long distance travel because I honestly think we have the best chance ever over recent years to turn them over, our Luke as not shown the form he as at CAS but the coach might have had some input to that

Widdop done ok at full back mgillvary had a good tournament but are half backs have been poor if we dont find a good kicking game from somewhere they will win easily

Hearing Hodgson is out of the final.
Done his ACL

gateman wrote:What a match today well on top up to the last seven minutes then to nearly loss it, for me its the first time I have been optimistic about winning against an Australian side for many a year, the pack we have are better than we have had for a long time, I thought Windop was excellent at the back , with the bounce of the ball WE CAN DO IT

In a word "no"

If Hodgson is out I would like to see George Williams given a go at hooker to spell Roby he as a decent kicking game and could cause problems when attacking

gateman wrote:My wife and I have been fortunate to go on three tours down under we have seen England win only once against Papua new Guinea, its a shame we have fell out with long distance travel because I honestly think we have the best chance ever over recent years to turn them over, our Luke as not shown the form he as at CAS but the coach might have had some input to that

We can do it if everything falls into line. Our defence was amazing for 73 minutes yesterday and everyone talks about the Tongan 'no try' at the end but they were incredibly lucky to be given the first one which looked short.
Luke has been given a kicking and distribution job by Bennett and he did that job well on Sunday. Looking back to the pedestrian start we had with Hodgson's slow and obvious distribution in the pool stages we have come on leaps and bounds.

Nowt would give me greater pleasure than to see england win for me its a mighty task
how many england players get in there side ...george graham would maybe oloughlin id struggle name many more

[quote="tigerfeat”]george graham[/quote]

Only if we were going for a 1-0 win!
James Graham and Sam Burgess might stake a claim int he Australian forwards.
On form, you’ve got to wonder whether McGilvary would get in on the right edge.
I don’t think Widdop would be far away either, he’s well regarded in the NRL. He’s definately behind Cronk and Morgan though, and probably Munster too.

Oz only got pushed by us in the tournament and most people said we look better with roby at 9. It is possible.

I would like to see Williams at interchange hooker but his kicking is nothing special. Gale makes the most out of poor field position and time. Maybe if we challenged for the ball in the air more we'd get better results for the risk. We seem happy to control the ball catcher.

If only we had Shenton and Hardaker in the team, our attack would improve ten fold.

takethetwo wrote:If only we had Shenton and Hardaker in the team, our attack would improve ten fold.

Quite right

Anything is possible and I'll be cheering them on.