England Rugby - what is needed for a successful future....

[DJRC]

Nothing wrong with boring London. So long as it works. Winning is entertainment. Crushing power is entertaining. Rumbling, crushing, crashing forwards are entertaining.

Weak, fragile and undynamic forwards are dull and rubbish. Guess which England have been?

[Smollet]

irocfan said:

Oh - and @ #1

GET RID OF ROB fkING ANDREW

I mean seriously what has that done?

Earned a lot of money

[DocJock]

One of my favourite memories from rugby was being in the old 'schoolboy enclosure' at Murrayfield for a match against Wales in the seventies. That was a few rows of benches right down by the touchline.

You had the legendary Pontypool front row, and the Scotland props were Lions too, Ian McLauchlan and Sandy Carmichael.

At one point Scotland had FIVE successive 5m scrums. Five times the ball was hooked (what a novel idea!) and the shove went on. Not once did either pack give an inch, not once was the ball released.

Five or six minutes where a non-rugby person would wonder wtf was going on and think it was boring, but it was a fantastic, special passage of play and it happened about twenty feet in front of my nose.

[anonymous-user]

DJRC said:

Nothing wrong with boring London. So long as it works. Winning is entertainment. Crushing power is entertaining. Rumbling, crushing, crashing forwards are entertaining.

Weak, fragile and undynamic forwards are dull and rubbish. Guess which England have been?

It's amazing how exciting even a piss poor set of backs look behind a dominant pack.

[Derek Smith]

DocJock said:

DJRC, I've disagreed with you in the paat re the backs but never about the forwards.

That's where the game always has been, and always will be, won or lost.

Forwards can lose a match. They can't win it on their own. Their function is to feed the backs.

[DocJock]

You're arguing something I never said.

I am (was) a half-back at a reasonable standard. Playing behind a losing pack is awful. Half of your options are immediately taken away with slow/back-foot/retreating ball.

The old adage that forwards win matches and backs decide by how much has a lot of truth in it.

[Madness60]

There is some real old fashioned guff here!

We don't have the pack of baby eaters that could do that and anyway that sort of play will not win against the best teams.

What we do have is the basis of a good front five, need to rebuild a back row and then decide how we play the game. For me I would go with

Vunipola
Hartley (adds solidity to scrum and lineout)
Cole
Attwood (proper grunt and good in the line out)
Launchbury (real class act)
Itoje (no standout 6, he'll add lineout, grunt and power in the loose)
Kvesic (need a proper 7, wouldn't pick Armitage, he knew the rules)
Morgan (Hughes when he becomes available)
Youngs (best current scrum half, need to offer a threat at the base to slow down defences and give a fraction more time)
May
Ford
Tuilagi (fit and constantly watching how to play and not just bosh by Nonu)
Josephs
Watson
Brown

Marler
George
Brookes
Lawes (maybe Slater)
Robshaw
Simpson
Slade (10,12)
Nowell (11,13-15)

[DocJock]

Madness60 said:

There is some real old fashioned guff here!

We don't have the pack of baby eaters that could do that and anyway that sort of play will not win against the best teams.

You also won't beat the bast teams when your forwards are getting pushed around the park and stuffed in the set piece.

Trust me, I've followed Scotland for 50 years...

[irocfan]

-

Madness60 said:

There is some real old fashioned guff here!

We don't have the pack of baby eaters that could do that and anyway that sort of play will not win against the best teams.

What we do have is the basis of a good front five, need to rebuild a back row and then decide how we play the game. For me I would go with

Vunipola
Hartley (adds solidity to scrum and lineout)
Cole
Attwood (proper grunt and good in the line out)
Launchbury (real class act)
Itoje (no standout 6, he'll add lineout, grunt and power in the loose)
Kvesic (need a proper 7, wouldn't pick Armitage, he knew the rules)
Morgan (Hughes when he becomes available YES!!)
Youngs (best current scrum half, need to offer a threat at the base to slow down defences and give a fraction more time)
May
Ford
Tuilagi (fit and constantly watching how to play and not just bosh by Nonu)
Josephs
Watson
Brown

Marler
George
Brookes
Lawes (maybe Slater)
Robshaw
Simpson
Slade (10,12)
Nowell (11,13-15)

interesting - personally I'd lose May, unfair on him as he's done well (at least compared to most in England's RWC2015 set-up) but if you want a try-scorer who's flakey on defence I'd have Wade (or even Ashton), I'd have Care too (as long as he has his kicking sorted out - much prefer him to Youngs). I'd also suggest Foden (9, 15), Cips (10, 15 possibly emergency wing he's certainly got the wheels for it).

[Madness60]

irocfan said:

interesting - personally I'd lose May, unfair on him as he's done well (at least compared to most in England's RWC2015 set-up) but if you want a try-scorer who's flakey on defence I'd have Wade (or even Ashton), I'd have Care too (as long as he has his kicking sorted out - much prefer him to Youngs). I'd also suggest Foden (9, 15), Cips (10, 15 possibly emergency wing he's certainly got the wheels for it).

Wade, worth a look, he needs to talk to/work with Shane Williams on how small wingers defend!
Ashton - never again
Care- better choice than Wigglesworth but not convinced even if he did sort out his kicking, Robson may be a good bet in year or so. Fast, kicks well, good defence see how much game time he gets at Wasps
Don't think I'd be happy with Foden covering 9 in a major game, perhaps in an extended squad or on a tour but better back up than Goode. Probably a better fullback than Nowell but not as good a winger.
Cips- Would take Ford first choice, then Slade. Still think part of Cips brain says 'go on be a tt' and he has to constantly work to ignore it.

[London424]

DJRC said:

Nothing wrong with boring London. So long as it works. Winning is entertainment. Crushing power is entertaining. Rumbling, crushing, crashing forwards are entertaining.

Weak, fragile and undynamic forwards are dull and rubbish. Guess which England have been?

Maybe boring was the wrong phrase.

I just feel that reffing at the scrum seems all over the place and so having a technique where you are only looking to play for a penalty is not ideal.

I like watching the Irish scrum as Best hooks the ball and then the 8 can decide what to do. Watching England hope they can walk over the ball is tough watching!

There is endless talk about getting the opponents to commit lots of men to the breakdown area to create space out wide, well what better opportunity than when you've got 16 players all lumped together somewhere...plenty of room available and you can dictate which side of the scrum you want to overload.

Still, all pie in the sky hoping on my part. Anyway, I'm off to join the England squad practice for the QF's.

[DJRC]

There is no such thing as old fashioned in rugby as how to win the game hasn't changed in 100yrs! The same recipe for winning now is the same one at any point in the last century.

Talking about English wingers when you have no foundation just shows how far removed from the reality of looking at what is needed to win that many are. A back 3 of May, Watson, Brown will compete against any team with a proper bunch of bds up front. They won't win you any game with dross up front. That simple.

[Madness60]

DJRC said:

There is no such thing as old fashioned in rugby as how to win the game hasn't changed in 100yrs! The same recipe for winning now is the same one at any point in the last century.

Talking about English wingers when you have no foundation just shows how far removed from the reality of looking at what is needed to win that many are. A back 3 of May, Watson, Brown will compete against any team with a proper bunch of bds up front. They won't win you any game with dross up front. That simple.

So the All Blacks always win because they dominate teams up front? Really?? Really???

Even if that was true, try and pick a current pack of English forwards than can dominate the bigger world packs. We just don't have those forwards at the moment and our successful U20 teams have been good up front but not blasted other teams apart.

[Kermit power]

I reckon the first thing we need to start building for a successful future is for us to have a truly, utterly abject performance in our home World Cup...

It's bad already, but if Uruguay were able to do a number on us next Saturday, surely not even Rob Andrew and the Old Farts could survive that??

[DJRC]

Madness60 said:

DJRC said:

There is no such thing as old fashioned in rugby as how to win the game hasn't changed in 100yrs! The same recipe for winning now is the same one at any point in the last century.

Talking about English wingers when you have no foundation just shows how far removed from the reality of looking at what is needed to win that many are. A back 3 of May, Watson, Brown will compete against any team with a proper bunch of bds up front. They won't win you any game with dross up front. That simple.

So the All Blacks always win because they dominate teams up front? Really?? Really???

Even if that was true, try and pick a current pack of English forwards than can dominate the bigger world packs. We just don't have those forwards at the moment and our successful U20 teams have been good up front but not blasted other teams apart.

Yes. I thought I made that argument already a few days ago? No, wait? I did.

Pick any dominant All Black team you want. Feel free, any. At any point in their history. Check the Pack. Its that simple. We can start with the current one if you like and how they secure their own ball at the set pieces and how they use the breakdown, going forwards and in aggressive defence. EVERYTHING the current All Black team does starts with their Pack controlling/competing up front, inc. letting their back 3 runners loose from ball thats been kicked away by a scrum or fly half under pressure in the opposition half.
The AB's dont even have a dominant Pack, they have one that competes and controls their own balls. Again - they secure and control their own ball from set piece. They v rarely lose their own set pieces and fight to establish parity on opposition put in. That always means secure and stable ball for them to attack with and aggressive defence to force turn overs and opposition defensive errors.

Rugby is a very very simple game and its rules are almost laid in stone and EVERY successful team in its history has basically followed them.

[0000]

I think it would go a long way if we just picked the best (at Union) players, regardless of what they do off the pitch (within reason), whether they play in France or who their daddy is. Then, on the whole, stick with them even as their form comes and goes, invest in them, give them consistent experience. Churn the subs bench as much as you like for the next two or three years looking for new talent.

Find them some more friendlies against southern hemisphere teams too.

[Derek Smith]

There's a massive difference in the way rugby is played nowadays than in the pre-professional era.

I've seen a few premiership teams playing over the past five or six years, and that includes French teams, who would've have dominated any international team of 20 years ago.

The good old days were really good, waiting for a prop to wander over from the location of the last scrum. Oh, yes, those players were magic.

We now have props who can run, who can prop and who know the laws. We have second rows who are almost as fast as wingers.

See the tackles that come in now. They are tremendous. Any flanker would have been out for the count after a tackle that nowadays the player gets up from still holding the ball.

The fitness level of players in the Championship is awe inspiring. I'm 6'3", my eldest is 6'2" and my youngest is all but 6'3". As we applauded the Toulouse team in for a match against Quinns, even the scrum half was over 6', which was a relief from looking up all the time.

It is nice looking back at the old days, but to suggest that the level of play was similar to that of today is not really on. My level 6 team are individually fitter than any of the 1st division players of 20 years ago. They train for much longer. On top of that the backs are tackled at far higher speeds.

I remember 30 years ago seeing a 15 tackled on TV and it being brought up in the commentary.

I liked the old style rugby. I prefer this new sport that, weirdly, is also called rugby but is almost an entirely different sport.

I've sat in on level 4 training sessions, just for the fun of it. I could see such plans going down quite well with the players of 20 years ago, sitting their smoking away, with beers in their hands.

I am in awe of the current players.

My local club was 1st division in the 60s and 70s. The props were fat, unfit and if they trained, it was to get up to buy another round. The hooker was a pyromaniac. The second row were a little fitter, and the back row were aloof, but still hardly epitomised the male physique. The centres were quite fit and tended to train. Once in a while they would break out in a sweat.

It was a different game, played by different kinds of people, for different reasons.

Edited by Derek Smith on Monday 5th October 19:22

[irocfan]

OK then - England vs Uruguay... 70+? Care, Goode (I feel dirty for even suggesting that!) Slade and Nowell to play?

[Derek Smith]

irocfan said:

OK then - England vs Uruguay... 70+? Care, Goode (I feel dirty for even suggesting that!) Slade and Nowell to play?

It is a game to nothing. We need to think about the future. Play youngsters and those who haven't had a game yet. If we select solely for the win, then it is a missed opportunity.

[0000]

For Uruguay, all I ask is that Slade gets a start.