S4, Regional Tournament: New Zealand vs. Great Britain (vBookie)

New Zealand

1 Chris Smith
2 Alan Izett
3 Volt Man
4 Jason Denton
5 Heath Davis
6 Seige Morgan
7 Simon Humble*
8 Dexter Astele
9 Sam Bakkum
10 Sam Somerset
11 Damien Taylor
12 Gareth Weaver
13 Geoff Smith
14 Lucas Schaw
15 Peter Jackson

16 Jonty Rhodes
17 James Torres
18 Mike Martyn
19 Cr' Hurricane
20 Matthew Scoble
21 Matt Dorn
22 John Heads

Great Britain

1. Jonny Ridd
2. Eddie Morris
3. David Dafter
4. Sam Verigotta (c)
5. James McDougal
6. Simon Laing
7. Callum Laing
8. Marcuss Deane

9. Ben Hornby
10. Jake Luffman (k)
11. Al Farnsworth
12. Sam Graham
13. Chris Warrington
14. Jordan Logan
15. Bobby Blunder

Substitutes
16. Matt Jones
17. Oukoudu Gbagbo
18. Bruce Force
19. Jake Howe
20. Chad Dyer
21. Tom Clough
22. Ginger Furball

 

If England can do it, it should be a walk in the park for GB

 

Piece 'o cake this

 

This'll be tonight. Come on, NZ!

 

Got a kick off time set up Heath?

 

Probably try and do it late-ish NZT so Poms can catch it early GMT. 8.30pm NZT/7.30am GMT sort of thing.

 

cool cool

 

Preview:

The tale of this match is in who's out injured. Both teams are missing key players - New Zealand shorn of Regan Hutchinson and Joshua Ritchie whilst the British are missing influential pivot Ed Ames and up and coming prop Os du Toit.

Despite these forced absences, this match looks like a cracker in the offing with two evenly matched teams facing down.

The two front rows look fairly evenly matched, though Eddie Morris and David Dafter should prove superior to Chris Smith and Alan Izett at scrum time. Morris has had a few issues at the line-out in recent times, but if the British get over his throw-woes, then they are faced with the solid lock pairing Jason Denton and Heath Davis. Although the British have stars of their own in the second row in Sam Verigotta and James McDougal, Denton has arguably been the stand out lock of the season to date. The battle of the second rows is an eagerly awaited and finely poised contest.

The two backrows again should show a tight competition as Siege Morgan and Simon Humble might be less well known in the Seasonal Rugby community than the British pairing of Laing and Laing but they are solid performers in their own right. The only clear advantage for either team is at #8 where Marcuss Deane should boss his Kiwi counterpart.

In the backs, the New Zealanders have made an unforced change. In comes Sam Somerset for a first start ahead of seasoned campaigner Matthew Scoble who had a mediocre run out last time. With Ed Ames' injury, the revitalised Sam Bakkum should emerge a clear winner over his scrum half opponent Ben Hornby. Jake Luffman should be as reliable as ever with the boot.

Two exciting back lines each have a weakness this time around through injury. Chris Warrington is likely to be found out of his depth facing Geoff Smith at centre whilst Peter Jackson can certainly expect to be tested at full back.

The bookies are marginally favouring Great Britain here, but Sam Graham has been out of sorts this season and word has it that both him and Al Farnsworth haven't been putting in the hard yards at training, so I'm picking this game to be much closer than the bookies think - especially with New Zealand playing at home.

Expect the difference at full time to be less than a try - maybe even less than 3 points. But which way you want to put your money - well, I'll leave that up to you.

 

Scheduled to go at 8.30pm NZT (exactly 2 hours away).

This one should be a little cracker. Go NZ!!!

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