Poms win but struggle

[LarryNJ]

http://www.scrum.com/41_47338.php

[The EnForcer]

I thought the US did a great job and showed some real promise.....good job boys!

Vickery could have and should have been sent off for a blatant and cynical kick/trip. Another tackle I noticed that Robinson did early in the first half was the almost judo like tackle.....he had a US guy by the shirt then slid in with his legs to trip him up...illegal in my book....am I right?

I'm glad to see england are back to their usual BS. Strutting about with chests expanded, loads of huffing and puffing and nothing to show for it. From that performance I would say the the Samoans will be eyeing up a big upset.

[Darren]

Top effort by the current Olympic Champions!

[Burgs]

Sensational by the US for mine and certainly no positives to spin by the Poms, they are in all sorts of trouble if that's the best they have got against the 15th placed team.

[Jess]

Those Poms will be shakin' in their boots now if they couldn't excel against USA (no offence Larry ).

Good luck against the Saffa's boys... it's going to be a bloodbath!

[Dramoth]

The poms are being touted over here to have a good tournament and might just successfully defend their 2003 world cup crown.

However on the performance they handed in yesterday against a strictly amateur squad in the yanks, they might consider themselves lucky to get out of the group stages.

The americans should have scored the first try of the match except for Vickery's effort in scything down his opponent and was lucky not to get a yellow for it. Personally, I felt that his kick could have broken the guys leg and if that had of happened it should have been a straight red. Try scoring opportunity and a cynical professional foul should have at least earned him a yellow.

If I was the English manager, I would have been a little concerned about their lack of ability to shut out the match and romp away from them.

England are once more displaying the fact that they depend too much on a certain core of players and when they dont fire, they just seem to be very flat.

And they also seem to be putting all their money on winning with Johnny in the squad rather than trying to put together a match winning team without him.

[Jess]

I can't help but wonder if the AB's will suffer in the same way England have since so many of their senior players retired after the world cup...

Wait... this is the All Blacks... they'll never suffer.

[LarryNJ]

if they couldn't excel against USA (no offence Larry ).

None taken!

“It’s very important for players, coaches and spectators to understand the gap between the professionals and the amateurs,” he said. “What we’re aspiring to do is to upset these professionals. The key is to try and give England a scare.”

And the stakes, Melville said, are much higher than just respect on the field.

“We’re playing for the growth of the game, we’re playing for future sponsors to get involved, we’re playing to make it professional as soon as we can. Success over there will speed up all those processes because people will start to believe in the game and you don’t grow your game on the back of failure.”



http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/07/sp...tml?ref=sports

I think they accomplished what they wanted to in that game. Unfortunately most people in the US have no idea that they are playing in the RWC let alone how well they played in their first game.

[frontrow]

That's a real shame Larry, they really played well and deserve more respect at home, at least they are in an "international" event and not another homegrown US of A "world" series, playing against other USA teams....Yeah right....