Marks Out Of Ten: Southend V Tranmere

At 8am picked the paper up walking past the erie silence of the Shepherds Bush Walkabout, in fact it was 10 minutes out of my way but I just couldn't help myself, at 8 last night it was full of taunting Kiwis, "well we'll just have to finish the Poms off for you". Oh dear!

Added to Orient 0 Swansea 5, I'll repeat that, ORIENT 0 SWANSEA 5, honestly if Orient didn't exist you'd have to invent them for sheer comedy value, it could have been the perfect day, but then the Scallys of Birkenhead
had to spoil the party.

A word of warning; we have lost to the top three sides, I'm including Leeds in that statistic, and a top ten side in Brighton. We have to prove ourselves against the Swansea's and Notts. Forest's before we can feel confident about a top six place. (I see no reason why we won't.) We have now lost 50% of the times we were defeated in our Championship winning season with 79% of the fixtures left. We cannot afford to lose again, we went two months without losing twice two seasons ago, for a while, maybe once before the New Year, that's a long time!

Southend stopper Steve Collis had earlier denied Shane Sherriff and Gareth Taylor but he was powerless to stop Ben Chorley's close-range opener. Chorley volleyed home Paul McLaren's corner for his first Rovers goal since signing from MK Dons in the summer. John Achterberg kept Rovers ahead with saves to deny Eric Odhiambo and Nicky Bailey before the hosts equalised through Adam Barrett's 10-yard RIGHT FOOT finish. Rovers regained the lead when McLaren's free-kick was headed past Collis by Taylor from eight yards.

Collis - 7; Good game, arguably kept us in it early on. No chance with either goal, the winner a good old fashioned centre forward's header by the 34 year old Graham Taylor who is, suprisingly, not a fans favourite, memories of Bretty Angel for me. His distribution must improve though.

HUNT - 8; I kept a close eye on Lewis much is the discussion around the right back slot. He did not disappoint. Was everywhere, even popping up on the edge of the box in one attack, and always tackles like a demon. Unlucky to be on the losing side.

Clarke P. - 7; Kept the dangerous Taylor relatively tied up until he got away for the free-kick. It might seem strange to lose at home and give the central defenders a 7 and certainly two goals from two set pieces, everything I felt had gone from the Blues defensive game, did them no favours, but overall I thought they played as well as they have been during our recent unbeaten run. This was a step up from the Oldhams and Port Vales and they will have to learn quickly.

Richards - 7; See above; seems to play on auto-pilot at times, and unlucky when he hit the bar with a secong half header.

Barrett - 7; Usual game but gave away a brainless free-kick which led to Taylor's winner. However his goal was terrific, a great volley with his right foot, there would have been odds on that.

Gower - 6; The pick of a poor midfield, the real reason we lost, but of course
plaudits have to be given to Tranmere's tactics who hustled us out of our usual footballing stride. Has to keep playing, a) to get match fitter, b) he brings a better balance to the side than Black.

Maher - 6; Even the tricks were not there today, cut Maher off and the side that does not click as an offensive force. Showed glimses of what he can do but the main victim of the scousers hustling defensive game.

Bailey - 6; He does seem to have lost a bit of a spark recently but the quality was there to see on occasions and I'm confident he will come good again. Should have scored at least once with two good second half chances. Maybe a game or two on the subs bench to give Black a run on the right?

McCormack - 6; On four yellows maybe held back a touch. Certainly not the usual Mac and it does affect the rest of the side going forward as he was not breaking up the Tranmere burst out of defence that he does so well when on top of his game. Never looked like adding to his impressive goal tally.

Clarke L. - 6: With his supply cut off from midfield did not get many chances, a first half header landing on top of the net was one, to add to his five goals in a row. (I'm told with confidence a certain Micky Beesley also scored five in a row on debut as well as a player from the 20's, apologies was it Haynes? I'll have to look into all that another day.) Leon will never be a battering ram centre forward, needs the ball to his feet to be truly effective and was not helped by the lightweight Eric next to him.

Odhiambo - 5; I can see Tilly's thinking, he wants Eric to be the new Gray and you can see it's there, but can we afford for him to learn on the job. For defeats are a lot when we haven't hit Halloween yet. Should have started with Harrold and Eric on as a sub?

Harry, Foran and Black - 6; Didn't add much as the Wirral boys saw the game out fairly comfortably.

Ref, whoever he was, oh OK a 6.

So on to next week, Crewe, England football and England rugby. It starts at noon in the Cricketers and ends, well we'll have to see, but a win in all three would make for an amazing ten hours!

And if you thought we were a bit down after defeat, think about those poor Southern Hemisphere boys, beaten up by us northern softies. Ha, bloody, ha!!!

Australian commentators on Sunday slammed the Wallabies as an "error-riddled" team which showed "sheer stupidity" by allowing themselves to be outplayed by England in the World Cup.

Australia went into the competition with hopes of reaching the finals but were unceremoniously knocked out on Saturday by an English team which came back from a half-time deficit to win 12-10 at Stade Velodrome in Marseilles.

Favourites New Zealand were also dumped from the competition, failing to reach the semifinals for the first time, following a 20-18 loss to France.

"You've got to be choking, it's a new world order," read a headline on the Sydney Morning Herald's website.

The paper's rugby site said the England-Australia quarterfinal, which kicked off late Saturday Sydney time, had "some claim to be the worst game of the World Cup." The match, in which Australia scored the only try, was saved by England's attacking energy, ability to control possession and dominance of the scrum, it said. "Yes, last night's game was terrible, but England recognised their limitations, played well within those confines and played positively," it said. "That leaves only one team as the culprit - the error-riddled Wallabies."

Rugby commentator Roy Masters said Australia were "absolutely no challenge at all to a very resolute England" and laid some of the blame at the feet of retiring coach John Connolly. "The area where Australia really lost, which no one anticipated and can only come down to a very poor match plan from the coach, is that every time we received the ball... although in our own half, it was from kicks," he said. "Now we have perhaps one of the best backlines in all of the World Cup yet rather than link and run the ball back against a fairly disorganised, disintegrating English opposition, what did we do? We kicked it back to them. "It was sheer stupidity," he told ABC television from Marseilles. Connolly himself has admitted the Marseilles match was Australia's "worst performance" of the World Cup.

On Australian rugby blogs, there was as much praise for the English as criticism for the failings of the Australians. "The best team won hands down and valuable, albeit hard, lessons have been learnt again," wrote Nathan Bracks of Brisbane on News Ltd's site. "Let's just hope this time the Wallabies actually do something about it. I can't take losing to you Poms like this anymore." (Well get used to it son.)

But Sydney Morning Herald sports writer Jacqueline Magnay said whatever Australia's Wallabies woes, they would be small in comparison to All Blacks supporters. "I have some sympathy for our Tasman neighbours that, as bad as we feel this morning, just how bad they must be feeling?" she said. "What do they have to do to win the World Cup? They were odds-on favourites, they've done everything right and they just choked."

(And more whinging from the New Zealand Herald)

Players, coaches and fans were trying to come to terms tonight with the All Blacks' shock exit from the World Cup after this morning's 20-18 loss to France. The tournament favourites crashed out in Cardiff leaving the rugby world asking what went wrong.

All Blacks coach Graham Henry put it down to passion - saying the French had too much of it. Henry said the All Blacks had not taken scoring chances at decisive moments but conceded the better side had won. "The French played particularly well defensively, were pretty astute in their gameplan and took their opportunities," Henry said. "We are disappointed but realistic and understand the better side won on the day and a lot of credit goes to them. We gave it our best shot and it wasn't good enough. That's the fact of the matter and we have to live with it, accept it and get on."

Former All Black captain Stu Wilson was harder on the New Zealand players, saying the side looked stiff and that a lack of cool heads in the last ten minutes lost the game. He said the French forward pass on their winning try should have been picked up by three pairs of eyes, but the All Blacks had countless opportunities to slot a drop goal and that should have been the tactic. Put McAlister or Evans deep in the pocket and go for drop goal after drop goal," Wilson said.

He said it was apparent that no one stood up to give the team direction once the wheels started coming off. "The country is in mourning. They've now got to be prepared for the tsunami wave of criticism from the fans and the media," Wilson said.

Halfback Byron Kelleher said today's defeat was worse than the 1999 one, also at the hands of the French. "It hurts even more. We're a better team than '99 and we know it," he said. "Personally, to never reach the pinnacle of winning the World Cup breaks me. I'm suffering and it hurts me. No disrespect to any of the All Blacks in that 1999 campaign but the closeness and the camaraderie that we've got in this team is something special. We strongly believe we could have pulled it off and we were just two points away. It just didn't go for us on the night."

Commentator Murray Deaker described the result as nothing short of a national disaster. "Sadly we are a dumb rugby nation, we don't play the big matches well," he said. "We play them in a boofhead way. We were a bunch of boofheads playing out there tonight against a French side that isn't that good. On the big occasions we choke." In an epic quarter-final, France hit back from a 13-0 deficit to leave New Zealand still waiting for a second World Cup success after they won the inaugural tournament in 1987.