Well I have talked up Tonga in the leadup to the World Cup based in their amazing lineup, however Tonga showed that it doesn’t matter how good your players are if you play rubbish as a team.
Ireland played smater and out coached Tonga and almost came away with a massive upset win. Going into this game you’d have thought Tonga should have won by 20 points but they have some massive problems with the way they play.
First of all, the Tongan defense does not move up at all. I mean…..they wait for the attact to come to them. I haven’t seen ANY team at any level do that for well over a decade.
They also play with no structure at all in attack. I was VERY dissapointed with Mateo, he is a star in the NRL but he just did not take over the running of the Tongan side and it hurt them.
Playing Michael Jennings at fullback was also a mistake. He was by far and away the best player on the field, but he is a great center and just looked lost at fullback.
This coupled with stupid penalties, forced passes and just general dumb football almost cost them.
Ireland did very well. They were so over matched physically but they worked hard for field position and as Tonga refused to move up in defense off their line the Irish found it easy to score when they got good field position.
The last 5 minutes of the match was insane, with both sides making crazy decisions and the game on the line. It was entertaining, but you felt that both teams had a lot to learn about performing under pressure.
