It is an interesting hypothetical as to what their ceiling could actually be if they were to really pour energy into football. I agree that they are good at sport, but they do also play a lot of sports that aren’t really popular in most of the world. Personally, I think they’d find it hard to ever have much success in football. 1) Their population is small compared to most of the footballing superpowers 2) Added to that, they are a very low density country, even in major cities which makes it hard for informal games, street football etc as fewer kids live in small areas and thus there is less competition 3) Geographical isolation from other football countries and cultures means they lack the exposure to other styles of play, tactical approaches and philosophies to learn from 4) Geographical isolation + small population means they are a small market and are unable to ever attract serious investment into their league and clubs, limiting their ability to invest in grassroots infrastructure 5) I think America and Australia are more focused on and place more emphasis on athleticism and physicality in sport, rather than the technical, creative side of things which as we know too well- doesn’t work in football
Good performance in the warm up match Pope, Stokes, Crawley and Duckett for the all meanwhile Root and Brook were out for 1 and 2. Cricket is not but unpredictable.
For that all blacks XVs match’s no Hendy sucked…. And Jamie Blamire being picked as a starter over Kepu was a joke. One more thing, Mapletoft is generally a very good eye for talent, a poor coach. Never thought much of him at Under 20s for 2 years and nothing to me has changed.
People still view Fiji as a chuck it around side. They are an excellent side missing game management. If they had that, they’d be freightening. Mauger has done a brilliant job with them.
Borthwick is slowly building a very good squad and doing it the right way imo. Many of the forwards on the bench could easily be starting but giving really important starts to fringe players means the depth is very impressive.
Shoutout to Pepper. Unbeievable player. I also thought underrated was Baxter and Heyes who were marvellous all game and even had the likes of De Groot on toast.
Preparations continue ahead of our final @QuilterNations clash against Argentina this Sunday 👊@O2 | #WearTheRose pic.twitter.com/KWvjXVDX4H— England Rugby (@EnglandRugby) November 18, 2025
🚨 ASHES SQUAD 🚨Your 12-player England Ashes squad for the first Test in Perth 📋Read more 👇— England Cricket (@englandcricket) November 19, 2025
See you at @allianz_stad 🙌Head coach Steve Borthwick has named his match day squad to face Argentina this Sunday 🌹@O2 | #WearTheRose— England Rugby (@EnglandRugby) November 19, 2025
I said it at the time and double down that there wasn’t nearly enough criticism for us failing to beat India at home. We won every toss in the series, and generally had the better of the conditions as well. Outside of their matches against us, India have now won one of their last nine tests, they’ve lost seven of those, four of them at home. The most scathing aspect of it is how we made their batting order look like 11 Bradman clones, whilst everyone else they’ve played in the last year- or just over is skittling them for <200.
England's Ashes cricketers are avoiding eating duck Down Under - fearing it will mean they score nothing - The Sun. Bazball has a very strong hold on the media - there is never much criticism full stop. If that will change if the Ashes go badly I’m not sure
There has been plenty of criticism of performances, this is just patently not true. There record is just massively better than the 3-4 years before so they are hardly going to completely go in on them.
Cricket is going well I see! All that preparation which didn’t happen that the ‘ has beens ‘ warned about appears to be costly. Who would have thought.