At 25-25, after England secured the kick-off, the fly-half kicked it out
Was Marcus Smith kick to end game a draw against All Blacks right call?
The match finished England 25-25 New Zealand, and during their comeback, all of the momentum was with England. But on Saturday at Twickenham, with England claiming the final kick-off, fly-half Marcus Smith opted to kick the ball into touch and end the match as a draw, rather than go for the win.
Was Marcus Smith right to kick the ball out and end England's match against NZ yesterday at 25-25?
— Rugby World (@Rugbyworldmag) November 20, 2022
Some inside the ground were… Less than impressed.
England escape with a 25-25 draw v NZ despite playing well for about 10mins v 14 men.
But many supporters at Twickenham are fuming that England kicked the ball out at the death instead of going for the win.
— Alex Lowe (@AlexMLowe) November 19, 2022
So was it the right call?
Asked about it after the match, England boss Eddie Jones told reporters: “It’s always up to the players, I trust their decision making. That’s the best 40 minutes I’ve seen Marcus play in Test rugby. Aggressive, decisive, he wanted to own the game. I thought that was a big step forward for the young man.”
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The Final Kick off from England vs NZ.
Some interesting stuff in there – around why they probably opted to kick it dead and take the draw.
1/ pic.twitter.com/eL4AXCPFtY— thedeadballarea (@thedeadballarea) November 20, 2022
All Blacks coach Ian Foster also said post-match: “Was I surprised? Yeah, I was. All I know is if you flipped it over I would have liked our guys to have a crack so I am not sure what their tactics were but to be fair to them, they were running hot for seven, eight minutes. Things were going really well and they probably felt like getting back to a draw was a massive achievement in that time and so they probably decided to take it.”
Meanwhile, skipper Owen Farrell said: “We just wanted to see where we were at at the ruck. If we got go-forward and got on the front foot and we had an opportunity we wanted to take it, if not we wanted to make a good decision. I think that was what was done.”
What did you make of the call? Let us know either via rugbyworldletters@futurenet.com or via our social media channels.
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