Roko was hardly big or lumbering and had decent hands, he had some deficiencies (not the smartest defender, no boot to speak of) but deserved the international caps he got and actually looked like an international wing when he played (unlike Banners or Fiji Joe).
The Official English Rugby Thread
I don’t think that there are many in the stands that rate him. Lazy lump who has gotten by on also being a big lump. He’s even worse for England.inactionman wrote: ↑Thu Aug 24, 2023 4:32 pmI've said this before, but he's not even the best English-qualified wing at Bath.Hal Jordan wrote: ↑Thu Aug 24, 2023 4:00 pm It would appear that if Daly is also injured, Big Lumbering Joe is the next can off the rank. FFS.
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)
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Rhubarb & Custard
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inactionman wrote: ↑Thu Aug 24, 2023 3:20 pm
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.
If you're not contradicting yourself three times before breakfast you're simply not trying.
And yes skills do need to be practised, but you are working off a base for each player and Roberts was a lot better than he ever showed himself to be. That has to be partly on Roberts, but the coaching culture is very conservative as a rule in the UK.
Was the diamond Ford's? I remember it perhaps quite incorrectly as a Meehan thing, and there's an interesting name who one might think has a lot to offer, but partly he had some man management issues and partly he just seems a bad cultural fit (sadly)
Love the reply by the RFU ref development on that, saying he became a ref because he couldn't catch!
Give a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
Holy hell, we're collapsing like flies. I was vaguely hoping we might be able to scratch through to the semis, given our good fortune in pools, but right now I don't think we'll even make that.
Give a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
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Margin__Walker
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Good job we've got that crack S&C team in from Leicester ensuring that we're relentless on the pitch and not breaking down with injury in training.
No, wait.
No, wait.
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inactionman
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He can't break even more than Eddie did, can he?
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Margin__Walker
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They're giving it a bloody good go
The lack of interest in a genuine special talent like wade was always frustrating. The massive + in attack was less important than a minor - negative in defence.Rhubarb & Custard wrote: ↑Thu Aug 24, 2023 3:04 pmHe 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 riskinactionman wrote: ↑Thu Aug 24, 2023 2:58 pmHe had terrible hands.Rhubarb & Custard wrote: ↑Thu Aug 24, 2023 2:56 pm 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.
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
It wasn't minor. He was an absolute bomb scare in defence and never seemed to improve. You can't carry a player like that. No matter how good they might be with ball in hand.
All it would've taken was some commitment to doing the basics and following a system properly but by the end I only have to assume he didn't give a shit
All it would've taken was some commitment to doing the basics and following a system properly but by the end I only have to assume he didn't give a shit
Sinckler chest injury - pea heart.
He's no great loss at all - he's even lazier than Marler.
https://12ft.io/proxy?ref=&q=https://ww ... ury-squad/Margin__Walker wrote: ↑Fri Aug 25, 2023 1:08 pm Good job we've got that crack S&C team in from Leicester ensuring that we're relentless on the pitch and not breaking down with injury in training.
No, wait.
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Margin__Walker
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Yep, tapering is the word on the street. Let's see.Ovals wrote: ↑Sat Aug 26, 2023 11:45 amhttps://12ft.io/proxy?ref=&q=https://ww ... ury-squad/Margin__Walker wrote: ↑Fri Aug 25, 2023 1:08 pm Good job we've got that crack S&C team in from Leicester ensuring that we're relentless on the pitch and not breaking down with injury in training.
No, wait.
Thankfully their group is very forgiving
We'll be able to tell by how many Fiji put on us laterMargin__Walker wrote: ↑Sat Aug 26, 2023 12:01 pmYep, tapering is the word on the street. Let's see.Ovals wrote: ↑Sat Aug 26, 2023 11:45 amhttps://12ft.io/proxy?ref=&q=https://ww ... ury-squad/Margin__Walker wrote: ↑Fri Aug 25, 2023 1:08 pm Good job we've got that crack S&C team in from Leicester ensuring that we're relentless on the pitch and not breaking down with injury in training.
No, wait.
Thankfully their group is very forgiving
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Hal Jordan
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As they say of NFL players who win a massive contract and then phone it in, he got paid.Kawazaki wrote: ↑Fri Aug 25, 2023 8:44 pm
Sinckler chest injury - pea heart.
He's no great loss at all - he's even lazier than Marler.
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Hal Jordan
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Forward, but we got sliced open there, badly.
Edit: Jesus, Cole was barely moving in that "defence".
Edit: Jesus, Cole was barely moving in that "defence".
It then started pissing it down which may have had something to do with it, but after the first 15 minutes it wasn't great. Still better than having Youngs out there though. I know there's absolutely no point arguing with you about Farrell, so, I won't.
England are shite with Smith at 10 - it's Farrel's fault
England are shite with Ford at 10 - it's Farrel's fault
England are shite when Farrell isn't playing - it's Farrel's fault
Kawazaki wrote: ↑Sat Aug 26, 2023 3:27 pm
England are shite with Smith at 10 - it's Farrel's fault
England are shite with Ford at 10 - it's Farrel's fault
England are shite when Farrell isn't playing - it's Farrel's fault
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sockwithaticket
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Are we worse than the '05 -'11 sides yet?
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el capitan
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You could give it chapter and verse about many many many many things, and some of the problems we face go beyond the national side, but all I am going to say is that when literally every single player and every facet and thing you do is utterly shit, you can only look at the coaching team.
By a country mile.
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Hal Jordan
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They at least fronted up in the forwards and we reached the final in 2007.
This lot are 1970s bad.
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Hal Jordan
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Why the fuck he was catching it in the first place is symptomatic of the rot throughout the team.