England vs NZ RWC Semi Final, 26th October 2019 match thread.

Venue: International Stadium Yokohama
Kick off 5pm local, 9am Irish time, 9pm NZ time.
Officials: Ref: Nigel Owens(Wales). Assistant referees: Romain Poite(France) & Pascal Gauzere(France). TMO Marius Jonker (SA).

Teams:





Both teams have significant changes from the match at the end of 2018. The addition of the Vunipola boys will make a huge difference for England, and the NZ team has had multiple changes across the pitch.

Team Selections

England:

Eddie Jones has decided to reshuffle his backline, with Ford coming in, Farrell moving to 12 and Slade dropping out of the starting lineup. With the backline performing well last week, it will be interesting to see if this is the right call.


NZ:

NZ have decided to bulk up the forward pack, with Scott Barrett coming into blindside flanker, and Sam Cane dropping to the bench. Savea moves to openside. No doubt, this is to combat the bulk of the Vunipolas.


Key Matchups:

There's interesting matchups across the field, but some of the more interesting ones for me:

Loose forwards: Can the power of Billy V be negated by the NZ loose 3? Will the England loosies be able to stop Savea from making his usual yardage?

Midfield: The English combination of creativity of Farrell and bish bash bosh of Tuilagi against the solid defence and offloading game of ALB and Goodhue.

Back 3: The back 3 for both sides are lethal. The question is which team will take their chances when they arise?


Prediction:

A tight match with less than a score in it

England 19-25 NZ