The Official English Rugby Thread

[Margin__Walker]

RFU have just released the pricing and ticket allocations to clubs today (oh and the bastards have given us just 4 weeks to mail out our membership and order our allocation)
Wales Sat 10th Feb KO 4:45
Ireland Sat 9th March KO 4:45
Tickets £80, £112, £130, £146, £163. U15 concession £30
Bet I sell out our Premium allocation twice over!!!!

4.45 again ffs

[Paddington Bear]

It’s prime time tv and we draw the biggest audiences, wouldn’t expect an England Saturday earlier kick off for a long time to come, now the autumn games are all joined up

[Hal Jordan]

Word is they might try Smith at full back...

[inactionman]

Word is they might try Smith at full back...

You haven't been listening to Stuart Barnes again, have you

[duke]

Word is they might try Smith at full back...

You haven't been listening to Stuart Barnes again, have you

Telegraph is running the story as well

[inactionman]

Word is they might try Smith at full back...

You haven't been listening to Stuart Barnes again, have you

Telegraph is running the story as well

Stephen Jones as well

[inactionman]

It has the possibility of being exciting, if nothing else.

[sockwithaticket]

Fucking hilarious.

Our bad execution of a very easy to combat brand of rugby makes it difficult to beat teams, so clearly the answer is to play a creative fly half out of position in the hope that something just happens.

Even if Smith does create something from back there, we saw last week that support for his breaks was pretty much non-existent and as such they didn't lead to anything. Not that linebreaks going unsupported and fizzling out is unique to Borthwick era, it's something we were fairly poor at even in Jones' better years and under Lancaster.

[Sandstorm]

Fucking hilarious.

Our bad execution of a very easy to combat brand of rugby makes it difficult to beat teams, so clearly the answer is to play a creative fly half out of position in the hope that something just happens.

Even if Smith does create something from back there, we saw last week that support for his breaks was pretty much non-existent and as such they didn't lead to anything. Not that linebreaks going unsupported and fizzling out is unique to Borthwick era, it's something we were fairly poor at even in Jones' better years and under Lancaster.

Surely you always play two fly halves at 10 & 12 in the starting lineup for England?

[duke]

Team's up

[Hal Jordan]

Smith was a filthy lie, largely a decent team

May
Cole
I hope Dan can throw a ball in straight, or to his jumpers
Maybe Malins can score a try

[sockwithaticket]

Fucking hilarious.

Our bad execution of a very easy to combat brand of rugby makes it difficult to beat teams, so clearly the answer is to play a creative fly half out of position in the hope that something just happens.

Even if Smith does create something from back there, we saw last week that support for his breaks was pretty much non-existent and as such they didn't lead to anything. Not that linebreaks going unsupported and fizzling out is unique to Borthwick era, it's something we were fairly poor at even in Jones' better years and under Lancaster.

Surely you always play two fly halves at 10 & 12 in the starting lineup for England?

Well that depends on your opinion of Farrell as a flyhalf...

But also, no, not always. We've gone through phases of starting Farrell at 10 and Tuilagi at 12 when given the option. Lawrence has played a lot at 12 in the last year or so and Tuilagi's back there at the moment.

[Margin__Walker]

Mail suggesting Daly out of the RWC squad with injury. Watson could potentially follow. May and Cokanasiga to be added.

[sockwithaticket]

Smith was a filthy lie, largely a decent team

May
Cole
I hope Dan can throw a ball in straight, or to his jumpers
Maybe Malins can score a try

Backs are a mess of non-complimentary combos, but we're not going to use them for much anyway so I guess it doesn't matter.

[Hal Jordan]

Fucking hilarious.

Our bad execution of a very easy to combat brand of rugby makes it difficult to beat teams, so clearly the answer is to play a creative fly half out of position in the hope that something just happens.

Even if Smith does create something from back there, we saw last week that support for his breaks was pretty much non-existent and as such they didn't lead to anything. Not that linebreaks going unsupported and fizzling out is unique to Borthwick era, it's something we were fairly poor at even in Jones' better years and under Lancaster.

Surely you always play two fly halves at 10 & 12 in the starting lineup for England?

Well that depends on your opinion of Farrell as a flyhalf...

But also, no, not always. We've gone through phases of starting Farrell at 10 and Tuilagi at 12 when given the option. Lawrence has played a lot at 12 in the last year or so and Tuilagi's back there at the moment.

The lack of a quality inside centre who plays there for his club, week in, week out, has been an issue for 20 bloody years now.

[SaintK]

Mail suggesting Daly out of the RWC squad with injury. Watson could potentially follow. May and Cokanasiga to be added.

Curry also doubtful

[Stranger]

Surely you always play two fly halves at 10 & 12 in the starting lineup for England?

Well that depends on your opinion of Farrell as a flyhalf...

But also, no, not always. We've gone through phases of starting Farrell at 10 and Tuilagi at 12 when given the option. Lawrence has played a lot at 12 in the last year or so and Tuilagi's back there at the moment.

The lack of a quality inside centre who plays there for his club, week in, week out, has been an issue for 20 bloody years now.

Dan Kelly - So of course Borthwick decided to look at Porter

[sockwithaticket]

Mail suggesting Daly out of the RWC squad with injury. Watson could potentially follow. May and Cokanasiga to be added.

[Margin__Walker]

Mail suggesting Daly out of the RWC squad with injury. Watson could potentially follow. May and Cokanasiga to be added.

Scrap that. Daly should be okay. Watson, not so much.



Assume Arundell pinged his back trying to advance his part time powerlifting career.

[dpedin]

Mail suggesting Daly out of the RWC squad with injury. Watson could potentially follow. May and Cokanasiga to be added.

Scrap that. Daly should be okay. Watson, not so much.



Assume Arundell pinged his back trying to advance his part time powerlifting career.

Shame for Watson, he is a quality player but has had no luck with injuries.

[Rhubarb & Custard]

Fucking hilarious.

Our bad execution of a very easy to combat brand of rugby makes it difficult to beat teams, so clearly the answer is to play a creative fly half out of position in the hope that something just happens.

Even if Smith does create something from back there, we saw last week that support for his breaks was pretty much non-existent and as such they didn't lead to anything. Not that linebreaks going unsupported and fizzling out is unique to Borthwick era, it's something we were fairly poor at even in Jones' better years and under Lancaster.

At the start of his career Nonu couldn't pass or kick, by the end he was a very good decision maker and excellent in executing skills around passing and kicking.

At the start of his carer Tuilagi couldn't pass or kick, now...

This whole thing with Smith is how do we cover off our centres as a group cannot make a good decision to pass and be trusted to execute, so we have Daly covering from the left wing, and might need help from Smith at 15 with Farrell unavailable. And it's hard to see how the coaching, the sheer lack of intent to improve the likes of Noon, Tindall, Burrell, Erinle, Hipkiss, Barritt, JTH, Lawrence, Tuilagi, Marchant isn't an endemic problem.

Of course it's not we've proved problem free picking centres who in theory can pass, Paul, Geraghty, Farrell x2, Francis, Eastmond, Twelvetrees...

[inactionman]

Fucking hilarious.

Our bad execution of a very easy to combat brand of rugby makes it difficult to beat teams, so clearly the answer is to play a creative fly half out of position in the hope that something just happens.

Even if Smith does create something from back there, we saw last week that support for his breaks was pretty much non-existent and as such they didn't lead to anything. Not that linebreaks going unsupported and fizzling out is unique to Borthwick era, it's something we were fairly poor at even in Jones' better years and under Lancaster.

At the start of his career Nonu couldn't pass or kick, by the end he was a very good decision maker and excellent in executing skills around passing and kicking.

At the start of his carer Tuilagi couldn't pass or kick, now...

This whole thing with Smith is how do we cover off our centres as a group cannot make a good decision to pass and be trusted to execute, so we have Daly covering from the left wing, and might need help from Smith at 15 with Farrell unavailable. And it's hard to see how the coaching, the sheer lack of intent to improve the likes of Noon, Tindall, Burrell, Erinle, Hipkiss, Barritt, JTH, Lawrence, Tuilagi, Marchant isn't an endemic problem.

Of course it's not we've proved problem free picking centres who in theory can pass, Paul, Geraghty, Farrell x2, Francis, Eastmond, Twelvetrees...

In terms of passing, some of your list of shame are actually decent enough, even if it's not their key skill.

Others were indeed dreadful. Hipkiss had a few seasons at Bath and I don't think I saw him pass the ball once (bloody powerful runner though). I could, however, say exactly the same about Lions centre Jamie Roberts.

[Rhubarb & Custard]

Fucking hilarious.

Our bad execution of a very easy to combat brand of rugby makes it difficult to beat teams, so clearly the answer is to play a creative fly half out of position in the hope that something just happens.

Even if Smith does create something from back there, we saw last week that support for his breaks was pretty much non-existent and as such they didn't lead to anything. Not that linebreaks going unsupported and fizzling out is unique to Borthwick era, it's something we were fairly poor at even in Jones' better years and under Lancaster.

At the start of his career Nonu couldn't pass or kick, by the end he was a very good decision maker and excellent in executing skills around passing and kicking.

At the start of his carer Tuilagi couldn't pass or kick, now...

This whole thing with Smith is how do we cover off our centres as a group cannot make a good decision to pass and be trusted to execute, so we have Daly covering from the left wing, and might need help from Smith at 15 with Farrell unavailable. And it's hard to see how the coaching, the sheer lack of intent to improve the likes of Noon, Tindall, Burrell, Erinle, Hipkiss, Barritt, JTH, Lawrence, Tuilagi, Marchant isn't an endemic problem.

Of course it's not we've proved problem free picking centres who in theory can pass, Paul, Geraghty, Farrell x2, Francis, Eastmond, Twelvetrees...

In terms of passing, some of your list of shame are actually decent enough, even if it's not their key skill.

Others were indeed dreadful. Hipkiss had a few seasons at Bath and I don't think I saw him pass the ball once (bloody powerful runner though). I could, however, say exactly the same about Lions centre Jamie Roberts.

Some of them could let go of the ball, and to the left and the right. Decent, even decent enough, would be a ways off for any of them. And, even if in theory they could pass there's an insufficient body of work doing so under pressure against a good test defence to really sell such claim in practice

[sockwithaticket]

The point about lack of development is certainly one that's worth making. Even if a guy starts his career as crowbar or bosh merchant, that he can go years without adding skills he feels comfortable enough to use in a game is a pretty poor reflection of coaching in the English pro game or player willingness to learn. Perhaps both.

[Slick]

Team's up

Genuinely not taking the piss, but that's an incredibly uninspiring backline. He could at least have given us a laugh and picked Smith at full back which would have been the worst selection since that Italian chap had a shot at scrum half.

[Rhubarb & Custard]

Coaches will often give players work ons, such as improve your passing. But we simply don't seem to spend the time developing both the decision making and the execution much outside the 10, and

It's always something we're going to get to, and then do contact, pick and goes and defence work instead. We are probably playing 5-10 games too many each year depending on the player and depending on development needed, and we do have some trickier wether conditions.

Actually we have two problems, getting as much potential out of players as possible, and raising the level of potential in the coming generations, but it's not really on the pro game to develop hand/eye skills in 8 year olds across a nation

[inactionman]

At the start of his career Nonu couldn't pass or kick, by the end he was a very good decision maker and excellent in executing skills around passing and kicking.

At the start of his carer Tuilagi couldn't pass or kick, now...

This whole thing with Smith is how do we cover off our centres as a group cannot make a good decision to pass and be trusted to execute, so we have Daly covering from the left wing, and might need help from Smith at 15 with Farrell unavailable. And it's hard to see how the coaching, the sheer lack of intent to improve the likes of Noon, Tindall, Burrell, Erinle, Hipkiss, Barritt, JTH, Lawrence, Tuilagi, Marchant isn't an endemic problem.

Of course it's not we've proved problem free picking centres who in theory can pass, Paul, Geraghty, Farrell x2, Francis, Eastmond, Twelvetrees...

In terms of passing, some of your list of shame are actually decent enough, even if it's not their key skill.

Others were indeed dreadful. Hipkiss had a few seasons at Bath and I don't think I saw him pass the ball once (bloody powerful runner though). I could, however, say exactly the same about Lions centre Jamie Roberts.

Some of them could let go of the ball, and to the left and the right. Decent, even decent enough, would be a ways off for any of them. And, even if in theory they could pass there's an insufficient body of work doing so under pressure against a good test defence to really sell such claim in practice

I've seen Lawrence do it on many occasions, admittedly mainly in the sense of drawing and releasing, but he has decent hands. He's not really been in a team where he's been called to distribute a la Catt or Greenwood, and I don't argue he'd have their range of skill but he's able to pass well under pressure.

I'd agree I wouldn't really want the likes of Noon or Hipkiss trying to pick a pass, and I also wonder why a pro couldn't at least work on getting serviceable in what is a central skill. I realise any pro wants to focus in games on their most effective skill (I wouldn't want Tuilagi constantly trying little chip kicks, for example), but that shouldn't mean forgoing other skills.

It's not exclusively an English problem, I mentioned Jamie Roberts in my post above, and this is a shining example.



I reiterate, that's a British and Irish Lions centre.

[Rhubarb & Custard]

Actually Roberts didn't have terrible hands, but he was certainly used as a bosh merchant, and it showed at times he couldn't pair making a good decision and executing it under pressure, both how little was expected/encouraged of him and the lack of actual practice.

[inactionman]

Still, at least he can laugh at himself

[inactionman]

Actually Roberts didn't have terrible hands, but he was certainly used as a bosh merchant, and it showed at times he couldn't pair making a good decision and executing it under pressure, both how little was expected/encouraged of him and the lack of actual practice.

He had terrible hands.

[Rhubarb & Custard]

Actually Roberts didn't have terrible hands, but he was certainly used as a bosh merchant, and it showed at times he couldn't pair making a good decision and executing it under pressure, both how little was expected/encouraged of him and the lack of actual practice.

He had terrible hands.

He certainly had plenty of terrible outcomes. But I've seen him up close in training, and he was actually pretty decent, genuinely he looked quite good (and I've seen bad), but at club and country nobody looked to build on that, it just wasn't part of the thinking. And players can tend to be what you tell them to be, partly we can tend to fall in line, partly they want to work on what's getting them selected and they don't chance things the coach isn't looking for if that puts selection at risk

In England we want to line players up, in attack and defence, we want the high confrontational square on contacts, we're not that interested in space and evasion, nor speed. And Wales has some similar lack of thinking to us in this. And we typically give scant regards to players like Eastmond, like Smith, and even if we pick them we don't consider what might allow them to work better. Christ, England weren't even interested in Wade, and he scared the daylights out of anyone who marked him, but, he was no Banahan

[inactionman]

Actually Roberts didn't have terrible hands, but he was certainly used as a bosh merchant, and it showed at times he couldn't pair making a good decision and executing it under pressure, both how little was expected/encouraged of him and the lack of actual practice.

He had terrible hands.

He certainly had plenty of terrible outcomes. But I've seen him up close in training, and he was actually pretty decent, genuinely he looked quite good (and I've seen bad), but at club and country nobody looked to build on that, it just wasn't part of the thinking. And players can tend to be what you tell them to be, partly we can tend to fall in line, partly they want to work on what's getting them selected and they don't chance things the coach isn't looking for if that puts selection at risk

In England we want to line players up, in attack and defence, we want the high confrontational square on contacts, we're not that interested in space and evasion, nor speed. And Wales has some similar lack of thinking to us in this. And we typically give scant regards to players like Eastmond, like Smith, and even if we pick them we don't consider what might allow them to work better. Christ, England weren't even interested in Wade, and he scared the daylights out of anyone who marked him, but, he was no Banahan

If your point - as I understood it - was that skills need to work in practice, under pressure, it would seem you're contradicting yourself a bit here here?

Anyway, I agree that skills will generally be refined to meet what is required in terms of maximising native strengths within a game plan, recognising there are only so many hours in the day, but you'd hope most pros would be competent in the core skills of their position.

It's also the case that sometimes a standout skill in one area will be seen by coaching staff as compensating for deficiencies in other areas. I recall Bath signed Matawalu to play as Scrum Half under Mike Ford's short-lived but glorious diamond attack, despite him being seemingly almost unable to pass off his left hand. I'm not sure I agreed with it, but it was great fun for a while.

As an aside, Eastmond was utterly electric for a few seasons at Bath, alongside JJ and Ford, but he seemed to lose a bit of career direction (read: he was promised the Earth at Bath by Ford and didn't really survive Ford's exit) rather than necessarily be cut.

[Hal Jordan]

It would appear that if Daly is also injured, Big Lumbering Joe is the next can off the rank. FFS.

[ASMO]

It would appear that if Daly is also injured, Big Lumbering Joe is the next can off the rank. FFS.

Lets be honest here, England are royally fucked, even Colombia must fancy their chances

[sefton]

I wish this RWC malarkey was on Sky Sports, at least then I could cancel my subscription before I was tempted to watch the horror show.

[inactionman]

It would appear that if Daly is also injured, Big Lumbering Joe is the next can off the rank. FFS.

I've said this before, but he's not even the best English-qualified wing at Bath.

But he is big and strong.

(To be fair, what he's good at he's very good at, but almost to R&C's point there are glaring weaknesses)

[sefton]

What was the name of that other useless large turd of a winger that Barf foisted on us?

[Lobby]

What was the name of that other useless large turd of a winger that Barf foisted on us?

Banahan.

Who has just been appointed as the new backs coach for Scotland women's team, God help them.

[sefton]

What was the name of that other useless large turd of a winger that Barf foisted on us?

Banahan.

Who has just been appointed as the new backs coach for Scotland women's team, God help them.

That was the fucker, hands like tits and we tried to make him a centre at one point IIRC.

[Hal Jordan]

Or Semesa Rokoduguni?