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Rugby IV - Striking Hookers Are Back In Fashion


Which Tyler

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Fair enough - though I'm always wary about making plans to intentionally leave out our best player (BillyV) - yes, needs must at the moment; and I'm happy enough playing a smaller (they all are) faster (most are) #8 - in fact, I'd see Mercer filling that role ALA Faletau / Parisse in another year or two.

I just don't think it gets the best out of Simmonds - who, by the way, I think is perfectly decent as a jackler at the breakdown; and certainly better suited to that than to physically smashing people as he's currently being asked to. For Simmonds himself, at 8, he'll never (IMO) be better than 3rd choice for England; and that only briefly until Mercer is ready. At 7 he could well become our first choice,and has distinct advantages over most/all of the competition for that shirt.

Let's face it, he's more powerful than the Curries; he's faster with better jackling than Robshaw/Haskell; he's more agile with better hands than Ellis/Underhill; and he's actually playing rugby, unlike Evans/Kvesic.

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15 minutes ago, Which Tyler said:

Fair enough - though I'm always wary about making plans to intentionally leave out our best player (BillyV) - yes, needs must at the moment; and I'm happy enough playing a smaller (they all are) faster (most are) #8 - in fact, I'd see Mercer filling that role ALA Faletau / Parisse in another year or two.

Yeah, I'm fine with that, obviously if he's fit Vunipola's going to be playing 8. My issue's more that the current balance/pattern of play works great with Vunipola at 8, less well but passably with a fully fit Hughes and they don't have anybody else who can do it. They need to have a plan b ready because the nature of modern rugby means you're definitely going to have times, potentially pretty often, when you're going to need it.

From Simmond's point of view he'd probably get more games for England right now if he was playing openside week in week out but give it a couple of years and you've potentially got the Curry twins, Underhill, Ben Earl, who looks a good player at Sarries, and Will Evans, who was the best forward at the Junior World Cup a couple of years back, all competing for one place. I think his best bet's probably to be a utility backrow who can slot in where needed or bench.

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I like the analysis you guys have given, clearly your understanding of the game is greater than mine.

Despite the breakdown problems I am still hoping for a solid win against Ireland. There's this running theme of  "who's best after the AB's"  and my feeling is that with everyone fit, that's England just ahead of Ireland, but opinions obviously vary on that.

I am heartened to see in this Six Nations tournament that Wales is doing better again despite injuries, and Scotland looks on the up, as does France who I feel are underestimated on the British Isle.

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Right, last round of the Six Nations.

Italy v Scotland: I'd expect Scotland to pick up the win to cap off a decent, if inconsistent, Six Nations for them. I'm sure they are pleased with beating England but they've been fairly loose at time in the other games so they'll want to improve on that front.

England v Ireland: Lots of changes for England, some of them probably overdue. I think it's a better team but they haven't had a lot of time to gel compared to a very settled looking Ireland side. Still, it's backs to the wall and they really need a win to avoid a very bad Six Nations becoming a disaster. Fingers crossed anyway since I'm going to the game.

From an Irish point of view it's reasonably important to get a win too. If they lose they've had a perfectly good Six Nations but it'd be hard to say they've really stepped up, the story would be England letting themselves down this year. On the other hand if they go to Twickenham and win a Grand Slam they've clearly kicked on and gone in front of England as the best NH side.

Wales v France: From the Welsh point of view this tournament's been pretty useful in terms of building depth but getting a win, and hopefully coming second, would put a bit more of a shine on it. For the French if they can get a win in Cardiff all of a sudden they've had their first half decent Six Nations in years and maybe there's a sliver of hope for improvement. If they lose the win against England was another flash in the pan. It should be a good game actually.

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18 hours ago, ljkeane said:

From an Irish point of view it's reasonably important to get a win too. If they lose they've had a perfectly good Six Nations but it'd be hard to say they've really stepped up, the story would be England letting themselves down this year. On the other hand if they go to Twickenham and win a Grand Slam they've clearly kicked on and gone in front of England as the best NH side.

That sounds right.  Time for a really good performance!

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Not the best Scotland performance against Italy, although they did manage to stick in there to come away with the victory. If it comes down to a last-minute kick to win the game there are few better players to be taking the kick than Laidlaw. Probably one of the better Italian performances in recent years, although they did still do their traditional thing of running out of steam at the end. Polledri looks like a good find for the Italians in the back row.

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Rubbish performance from England again, they gifted Ireland two tries to kill the the game as a contest. It was bloody freezing at Twickenham too!

Credit to Ireland though; they got in front and never threatened to let England back in. They’ve been consistently solid throughout the tournament.

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46 minutes ago, ljkeane said:

Credit to Ireland though; they got in front and never threatened to let England back in. They’ve been consistently solid throughout the tournament.

I think they were the best team in the tournament by a clear margin. All the other teams have been inconsistent, Ireland haven't necessarily been playing spectacularly well but they were consistently good.

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28 minutes ago, williamjm said:

I think they were the best team in the tournament by a clear margin. All the other teams have been inconsistent, Ireland haven't necessarily been playing spectacularly well but they were consistently good.

Absolutely this.

Ireland comfortably the second best team in the world at the moment, and have well deserved their Slam.

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A lot of that consistency comes from resolute tackling, forcing defensive turnovers and making the opposition work extremely hard for tries. 

On the flip side, the critical first and third tries came from enterprising kicks to change the dynamic of the attack (England had one like that too).  It’s not a case of Ireland just being solid and resolute to grind the opposition.  There’s some good variation there too. 

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Ok, having watched the England Ireland game again with a few less beers in me England didn't actually play that badly, at least compared to the France and Scotland games. They did largely sort the breakdown out, they scored 3 good tries and were close to a couple more (great tap tackle by Earls to deny them once and a very harsh penalty on Daly the other time), maybe with the luck going their way with the first and third Irish tries the game would have been a lot closer. Having said despite England creating some chances Ireland spent large parts of the game looking very comfortable in defence; it should have been a lot harder for a team to beat England in the Six Nations at Twickenham for the first time in six years.

A lot of rethinking for England to do going into the summer tour.

I'd say Cole should probably be done; the scrum wasn't notably worse without him involved today and there are a number of tightheads who offer a lot more in the loose. Joseph probably shouldn't be done but he needs to find some form before being an automatic selection anymore. He wasn't that bad but I'd call it a day for Hartley too, Cowan-Dickie's the better player now.

18 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

On the flip side, the critical first and third tries came from enterprising kicks to change the dynamic of the attack (England had one like that too).  It’s not a case of Ireland just being solid and resolute to grind the opposition.  There’s some good variation there too. 

I disagree on that actually, the second Irish try was the real moment of class in attack for them. The first try's an up and under in the 22, it was a good one, but it really should be dealt with. The third try's poor defence from England on the blindside then a bit of luck for Stockdale to not knock it on. The second try's a lovely move though; running a dummy loop (especially given how much Sexton likes to loop so the defence is always likely to over read it) off the tighthead prop in midfield with him doing a 360 degree spin to sell it then hitting Aki as the lead runner was great bit of play. Cracking try.  

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8 hours ago, ljkeane said:

The second try's a lovely move though; running a dummy loop (especially given how much Sexton likes to loop so the defence is always likely to over read it) off the tighthead prop in midfield with him doing a 360 degree spin to sell it then hitting Aki as the lead runner was great bit of play. Cracking try.  

It takes a bit of luck to win a Grand Slam and while we haven't played amazingly attractive rugby, it has been very effective.  We have some very experienced players but with also have young players breaking through to give us an opportunity to get even better.  They were very resolute in this championship and clinical in enough cases.  At the same time, England went from Grand Slam winners to 5th in 2 years.  So we can't say we weren't warned.

But we need to finally achieve something in a WC.

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2 hours ago, The Number 10 said:

What do folks think about Italy? 

Should there be relegation from the 6 Nations?

I don't have a problem with Italy being in the 6 Nations because while they don't win many matches, most of the time they manage to play competitively for at least some of the match so the games aren't completely one-sided. I can see the argument that it's a bit unfair to teams like Georgia that they would have no hope of getting into the 6 Nations no matter how well they played (or how badly the Italians played), but I'm not sure at the moment that having Georgia rather than Italy in the 6 Nations would make a huge difference.

I suspect it's unlikely to happen because the organisers would probably be terrified of the prospect of one of the big teams getting relegated and that hurting the tournament financially.

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4 hours ago, The Number 10 said:

What do folks think about Italy? 

Should there be relegation from the 6 Nations?

It's like the EU: they'll continue to expand to marginal additions at the periphery to extend the clout of the organization, but it's unlikely the later additions will ever catch up to the core.  The peripheral addition gets the benefit of better development opportunities while the core members get a fun trip to a nice destination while condescending to the locals.  It's unsustainable to add very many but no great harm from the first few.

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