General Zod. wrote:Ok.

Why do you think Tony Smith took him off at half-time?

General Zod. wrote:Ok.

Why do you think Tony Smith took him off at half-time?

Chris1953 wrote:I can obviously see that changes needed to be made although I feel that smith should have gone as his display at centre was dire defensively.

Also in my opinion he did nothing on the wing that briscoe couldn't .

I think he was made a scapegoat

knocker norton wrote:To take Lee Smith out of the firing line would be a decent guess?

Chris1953 wrote:I can obviously see that changes needed to be made although I feel that smith should have gone as his display at centre was dire defensively.

Also in my opinion he did nothing on the wing that briscoe couldn't .

I think he was made a scapegoat

sandy wrote:it's easier for smith to drop a young lad and move his name sake than to drop one of his mates

General Zod. wrote:This afternoon's game is proof of just how ridiculas the Tom Briscoe verses Fox debate.

The hard evidence proved the harsh reality that Tom Briscoe was way, way out of his depth as an international winger and for any FC fan to claim that it was a mistake to bring him off at half-time is nothing shirt of pathetic considering the hard evidence of a second-half scoreline of 16-0 is total vindication that it was the correct decision.

Whilst I partially agree with FC fans that Briscoe "did nothing wrong" and Smith was for the more at fault in terms of defensive positioning, Tom Briscoe does not have the pace to counter long-range threats or neither the agility to turn quick enough to defend short-range kicks which made the Aussie game-plan easy.

In last weeks game against France, Tom Briscoe's lack of agility was exposed when Bosc put a kick through for Pelo and he took an age to turn and it was so obvious to anyone that the Aussie game-plan would be to kick behind Tom Briscoe knowing that by the time he recovered the ball, the defensive line would be smothering him, leaving England on the back foot without any chance of an effective "exit set".

Had Fox played in that position today, whilst he like Tom Briscoe couldn't have done anything about Smith's woeful positioning, the Aussies long range threat is nullified. For instance, where Tom Briscoe was making minimal gain on Inglis, Fox would have cut him down.

I think today's game proved that English players aren't all that bad as they are made out to be with Crabtree proving his worth (to many on this site who said he wouldn't) and also big raps to Westwood who proved me wrong.

If England are to win the final (should they beat NZ) then they have to nullify the the Aussies long-range threat, and if they are to do that properly, then Fox has to play.

The sad thing is, many FC fans would have been happy to leave Tom Briscoe on the pitch and see us get annihilated by 60+ just to save face.

PAUL M wrote:You've finally shown yourself up. So the Aussies could not score long disctance tries if Fox had played

You really are a clown at times, the only reason we got near in the second half was the aussies had already won the game.

General Zod. wrote:Although Smith made a mistake in picking Briscoe in the first place, the changes he made were spot on and vindicated by the 2nd half improvement.

General Zod. wrote:Of course they could have, but they would have been less likely had Fox played.

I like it how these deluded FC fans gob off without providing any analysis of the game. They simply repeat "Briscoe did nothing wrong" - pathetic...