After an impressive come from behind victory in the first test England will be disappointed by their performance in what was an ugly second test in which New Zealand ran on winners 9-2. However, Steve Mcnamara and his men will be confident of putting that behind them and win the series with a victory at the DW Stadium in the series decider on Saturday.
The series decider starts off with England as just a two point favourite and I haven’t seen anything in the previous two tests which has shown me that this wont be a nail biter.
England will be disappointed not to even score a try last week and I expect that there will have been an offensive focus during training this week. Joe Burgess has been extremely impressive during the series so I think he offers great value at 6/4 to score any time.
New Zealand have grown into the series and will be especially happy with how effective they were able to be on the defensive side of the ball last week. Utility player Kodi Nikorima, who was a late introduction at scrum-half for last Saturday’s second Test at the Olympic Stadium in London, keeps his place after playing a key role in the Kiwi’s victory.
Overall, I believe that the home field advantage will be enough to defeat this very talented New Zealand team. England must start well so the opening 20 minutes will be crucial and I think if they can do this they will do enough to win the game and thus take the series.
England’s 19-man squad: J Bateman, J Burgess, T Burgess, M Cooper, L Farrell, B Ferres, J Graham, R Hall, Z Hardaker, C Hill, J Hodgson, J McGillvary, S O’Loughlin (capt); J Roby, M Smith, K Watkins, E Whitehead, G Widdop, G Williams.
New Zealand: 1 R Tuivasa-Sheck, 2 J Nightingale, 3 J Kahu, 4 D Whare, 5 S Kenny-Dowall, 6 P Hiku, 7 K Nikorima; 8 J Bromwich, 9 I Luke (c), 10 S Moa, 11 K Proctor, 12 T Harris, 13 A Blair.
Interchange (from): M Taupau, B Matulino, A Glenn, L Brown, I Liu, G Beale.
Best Bets w/ Paddypower
Joe Burgess to score anytime @ 6/4
England -2.0 @10/11
England to win @ 4/6
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