6 Nations 2013

[Jon Crofts]

Steve Walsh should be left to do the Under 12s in future, it's all he's ever been fit for, the Mark Halsey of Rugby.

[paul_e]

I don't mean this to be anti-welsh, I apologise if it comes across that way.

Having calmed down from saturday my thought for this tournament is that the current path Lancaster has us set on is to follow the route Wales have taken.  Be solid up front and play a pick and drive game, only going out to the wings in broken field and treating the backs as an extension of the backrow.  It's successful at the 6N but I don't think it can work at world cup level (this is me categorically stating that Wales won't win the next world cup with the side they have), which is why I'm so disappointed with our 10, 12, 13 combination currently.

All 3 of Farrell, Barritt and Manu can break the line, I don't question that, what I do question is what they do next.  Manu has the ability to push on, but isn't really quick enough to break 30-40yards from there but he does exactly what you want from a bustling crash centre, Farrell and Barritt look like they didn't expect to get through and generally end up just running at another man and resetting for another ruck.  When Billy 36 was in there he broke the line and then looked for someone running on to change the angle and we looked a lot more dangerous for it.  Burns is similar, he breaks the line and then looks to bring other people into it.  The other option is Joseph who breaks the line and then trusts his pace to take him away.

We need to start having these options.  On top of that we need to support them by having an 8 who wants to get involved in the play (Morgan does this really well but it's not something that Wood does naturally which is why we've looked short of ideas since Morgan picked up his injury and why Billy V needs to get a chance) and wingers with the ability and pace to get on their shoulders and offer support (this is Ashton's best quality by far and the lack of chances to use it is why he's so anonymous - interestingly his lack of tries is at club level too, with Farrell and Barritt both inside him again).

Fundamentally we have the pace and trickery in the outside backs to play more like australia and new zealand but seem intent to pick a team to play northern hemisphere rugby and rely on territory and physicality.

[Dave Summers]

I'm glad you have calmed down Paul E, because I certainly haven't.  Although that maybe is because I have had to deal with a number of Welsh client's this morning !!!!

I said last week it was a team capable of winning but I feared we wouldn't and I was proven right.  I didn't expect 30-3 mind, but I did think Wales would win by the necessary margin to take the title.

Lancaster has done heaps of good things in the last 12 months but that shouldn't make him immune to criticism.  He had 2/3 hard calls to make this month and he flunked them and accomodated both players even if one was out of position.  It should have been ONE out of Croft and Wood.  It should have been ONE out of Barritt and Tuilagi.  These are the decisions he is paid royally to make.

We lost the game up front where, as predicted, Marler couldn't handle Jones and Cole found Jenkins too tough.  Our back row of were completely outplayed and we so needed a big ball carrier in there.  Again, Vunipola should have been in the 23 v Italy, but Croft came in when not fit.  Bad decision !!!

Ashton has come in for some fearful stick over the weekend, but how can he contribute when he doesn't get a pass and our sole tactic is too send Manu on the crash ball?. 

I do like Alex Goode but he appears to have had all of his counter attacking ability, which he showed plenty of in the Autumn, coached out of him and now it's just HOOOOOOF !!!.  Foden must come back, although I do feel Brown deserves a run in his correct position.

I have read this morning that we are going to revamp the backline to be like Wales. They want a big unit on the wing like Manu.  Please god no, he just isn't quick enough, centre or he don't play.  A winger, no matter how big, has to score tries and there are loads of them in the club game.  Let's start with May and Wade eh?

Very very upset, in case you hadn't noticed :-)

[PaulWinch again]

Thinking about it, we should be engineering the backline to play towards Ashton's strengths because if we do that he's a try machine. We need a specialist 8 in the team and hopefully Corbs will be back in the front row soon. It should be Manu and 36 in the centres and May on the other wing with either Foden or Brown at full back.

[paul_e]

I have read this morning that we are going to revamp the backline to be like Wales. They want a big unit on the wing like Manu.  Please god no, he just isn't quick enough, centre or he don't play.  A winger, no matter how big, has to score tries and there are loads of them in the club game.  Let's start with May and Wade eh?

This is exactly my worry in the post above.  If we want to make the most of the talent we have coming through we need to move away from the percentage based territory rugby the Wales play.  As a nation we seem to be so caught up on stopping the other team from doing there thing that we forget we need to play to our own strengths.  Barritt in the centres as a tackler and Brown on the wing to help uner the high ball are symptomatic of us not wanting to let teams play, the problem is, when it doesn't work you concede points and can't score at the other end to make up for it.

It's McLeish-style (to have a bit of a villa theme to the post) 'don't lose' rugby where we're looking to keep it tight defensively and hope that things at the other end sort themselves out.

This has been the basis for my whining about us for years.  Whenever we have someone genuinely exciting we seem to focus on the weaknesses and destroy them.  Some players those weaknesses are too big (Varndell is a good example, his defence is appalling) but youngsters like Wade and May only have small technical weaknesses but make up for them with a bit of unpredictability which Manu, Barritt, etc just don't have.

As for Brown, fullback or nothing but I'm not convinced he's good enough to justify being ahead of Foden, any time he does something well he undermines it by making poor decisions, I really don't get why so many people have listed him as a highlight of the tournament for us, he's done well from 22 to 22 but made mistakes in key areas that have conceded tries or cost us chances to score.  I think he was caught out badly for both welsh tries, the first was a terrible attempt at a tackle and the 2nd was just poor decision making, yes he had 2 on 1 but he needs to either commit to the outside man and hope the backrow get across or commit to the tackle and try to either stop the pass getting away or again hope that cover gets out wide (for what it's worth the first was the right choice in that situation, but either is better than back peddling between them both and not getting a tackle in at all).

[Dave Summers]

Couldn't agree with you more Paul.  This is the whole gist of my Barritt and Tuilagi argument in that they are obviously picked for defence and we are worrying about what the other team will do, instead of concentrating on ourselves.

Let's take Barritt, who I think has had a great season for England if I am honest.  He is picked purely for his defensive ability and nothing else.  On Saturday, embarrassingly for him, he was totally "gassed" by Tipuric for the 2nd try.  If he is getting burned by flankers then what is he still doing in the team?

I read somewhere that you can be coached into being a good defender, but creativity and flair can't be?. 

Now Cipriani is a case in point.  There probably hasn't been a more naturally talented outside half in England in my lifetime, but instead of building a team around him, the coaches didn't trust him and eventually binned him from the squad altogether.  He is now a shadow of the player he was, albeit with the odd fleeting glance and will never get picked again.

I want to see my England backline capable of scoring at least 4 tries a game.  Our mentality, as it was with SCW, should be if you score 4 tries, we will score 5.  At the moment it is, we will STOP you and then win by kicking goals.    We have enough talent to pick a backline to rival NZ if we want.

Finally back to the game.  Serious question now and I am half Welsh by the way.  Why do Wales only ever get up like they did Saturday for the game against England?.  I think someone asked this previously as well.  It's no use saying they do it for all games because they patently don't.  The atmosphere and the intensity on Saturday? where is it for Australia and NZ?.  If they did have it, then maybe they would beat some of the SH teams occasionally?

Just a thought !!

[usav]

Steve Walsh should be left to do the Under 12s in future, it's all he's ever been fit for, the Mark Halsey of Rugby.

I couldn't believe quite how bad he was, absolutely shocking.

[paul_e]

Couldn't agree with you more Paul.  This is the whole gist of my Barritt and Tuilagi argument in that they are obviously picked for defence and we are worrying about what the other team will do, instead of concentrating on ourselves.

Let's take Barritt, who I think has had a great season for England if I am honest.  He is picked purely for his defensive ability and nothing else.  On Saturday, embarrassingly for him, he was totally "gassed" by Tipuric for the 2nd try.  If he is getting burned by flankers then what is he still doing in the team?

I read somewhere that you can be coached into being a good defender, but creativity and flair can't be?. 

Now Cipriani is a case in point.  There probably hasn't been a more naturally talented outside half in England in my lifetime, but instead of building a team around him, the coaches didn't trust him and eventually binned him from the squad altogether.  He is now a shadow of the player he was, albeit with the odd fleeting glance and will never get picked again.

I want to see my England backline capable of scoring at least 4 tries a game.  Our mentality, as it was with SCW, should be if you score 4 tries, we will score 5.  At the moment it is, we will STOP you and then win by kicking goals.    We have enough talent to pick a backline to rival NZ if we want.

Finally back to the game.  Serious question now and I am half Welsh by the way.  Why do Wales only ever get up like they did Saturday for the game against England?.  I think someone asked this previously as well.  It's no use saying they do it for all games because they patently don't.  The atmosphere and the intensity on Saturday? where is it for Australia and NZ?.  If they did have it, then maybe they would beat some of the SH teams occasionally?

Just a thought !!

Cips is a toughie because he was as responsible for his own problems as anyone else, a lot like Henson for the welsh, he got in the side, had a few decent games and thought he'd made it and didn't work anything like hard enough to show he could remove the flaws from his game.  However, a quiet word to start concentrating on his game and showing his main focus was rugby was what was needed, what he got was being dumped from the squad and criticised by the coaches.

Will they come out and criticise Barritt for not working hard enough on his attacking game?  Of course not, because the belief that a strong defence is the priority is ingrained so deeply in our game that we can't break away from it.

This has been my argument in favour of Wade all along (I actually think Johnny May has stepped ahead of him this year though).  This is a winger who is as quick as almost anyone in the game and has better than a 1 in 2 record but we won't pick him in case he makes a mistake under a high kick, I repeat, not because he's played and has made mistakes but because we're scared that he might.  Instead we play a fullback out of position instead and act surprised that he hasn't scored in 16 appearances.  Then if he makes mistakes with the ball in hand that cost us scoring chances he's safe because at least his defence is good (which i debate anyway).

Kicking points is very important and having an 80% conversion rate from the tee is a must at the top level but basing your entire game around it is insane.

It drives me mad that we feel the need to change our game to account for other teams (the FB on the wing thing came on the back of them being scared of SA), lets make other teams worry about us, we have a good enough pack to function at the set piece and give us the option to drive through the middle but we need to use the options we have to do something outside that.  Manu smashing it in the middle as our main attacking strategy is not going to get us anywhere in the long run, I'm a little worried that the win over NZ masked that as we were clearly a better attacking unit against Scotland when that option was taken away.

[Dave Summers]

Cipriani I thought was treated appallingly by Johnson.  If I am honest, he has never recovered from the injury he got in 2008 just after he played that outstanding game v Ireland.

In the absence of anyone else, Johnno rushed him back for the Autumn Series 2008 when he had 2/3 kicks charged down.  For me, he put his body on the line for Johnno when he patently wasn't fit and he has paid for it ever since.  A talent like that would be nurtured and developed in Australia and Wales, but we just don't trust flair in England.

In essence Paul, I am agreeing with your entire post.  Couldn't have put it better myself.

[Jon Crofts]

Steve Walsh should be left to do the Under 12s in future, it's all he's ever been fit for, the Mark Halsey of Rugby.

I couldn't believe quite how bad he was, absolutely shocking.

My expectations were low when I found out he'd been appointed.
Most of his stupidity came from the scrum, one eyed decision making isn't helped by the ridiculous nature of the scrum today.  According to the rule book the scrum is a 'safe & quick way to restart a game' well if that's the case the rules need changing because we waste about 15 - 20 minutes of people like Steve Walsh fannying around with the scrum, case in point the first 2 scrums on Saturday, he made the mark where he wanted the England front row to be, twice he had to step in and move the front row about 4 inches, ooooh look at me everyone I'm in charge.  The twat.

[Dante Lavelli]

Cipriani I thought was treated appallingly by Johnson.  If I am honest, he has never recovered from the injury he got in 2008 just after he played that outstanding game v Ireland.

In the absence of anyone else, Johnno rushed him back for the Autumn Series 2008 when he had 2/3 kicks charged down.  For me, he put his body on the line for Johnno when he patently wasn't fit and he has paid for it ever since.  A talent like that would be nurtured and developed in Australia and Wales, but we just don't trust flair in England.

In essence Paul, I am agreeing with your entire post.  Couldn't have put it better myself.

Cipriani is a bit of a timebomb waiting to go off.  I'd imagine that the press have so much dirt on him that and they're just waiting for the right time for their "exclusive" to ruin his career.

[tomd2103]

Finally back to the game.  Serious question now and I am half Welsh by the way.  Why do Wales only ever get up like they did Saturday for the game against England?.  I think someone asked this previously as well.  It's no use saying they do it for all games because they patently don't.  The atmosphere and the intensity on Saturday? where is it for Australia and NZ?.  If they did have it, then maybe they would beat some of the SH teams occasionally?

Just a thought !!

Obviously never been to a Wales v New Zealand game in Cardiff Dave!!  Also can't have seen Wales play that much in the past few years if you think they only 'get up' for the England games.  They seemed pretty up for the games against Ireland and France when they won the grandslams in 2005, 2008 and 2012!!

The Welsh record against SH has been poor for some time now, but they never seem to be able to field a full-strength team when they play those teams.  Wales don't have too much strength in depth, so a few injuries really impact on them and they always seem to get thos injuries just before playing the SH teams.

[paul_e]

Finally back to the game.  Serious question now and I am half Welsh by the way.  Why do Wales only ever get up like they did Saturday for the game against England?.  I think someone asked this previously as well.  It's no use saying they do it for all games because they patently don't.  The atmosphere and the intensity on Saturday? where is it for Australia and NZ?.  If they did have it, then maybe they would beat some of the SH teams occasionally?

Just a thought !!

Obviously never been to a Wales v New Zealand game in Cardiff Dave!!  Also can't have seen Wales play that much in the past few years if you think they only 'get up' for the England games.  They seemed pretty up for the games against Ireland and France when they won the grandslams in 2005, 2008 and 2012!!

The Welsh record against SH has been poor for some time now, but they never seem to be able to field a full-strength team when they play those teams.  Wales don't have too much strength in depth, so a few injuries really impact on them and they always seem to get thos injuries just before playing the SH teams.

Injuries is a small part but nothing like as big as the welsh would have you believe, the bigger problem is that if you can stop them getting through around the fringes they struggle to make any impact because they have an entire backline of crash runners.  I was never a huge fan of Shane Williams because all he had was broken field running but he was immensely important to the welsh because he's the only player they had with the pace and vision to make things happen from nothing.  Their current game plan is to draw the game in tight and try to get a mismatch where cuthbert or north can run at a front row or a weaker tackler and use their pace or power to break into the corners.  It works in the northern hemisphere to an extent but in southern hemishpere rugby the front 5 are expected to be much better around the park so the mismatches don't really exist.  They'll get the run on someone every now and then but not enough to ever be comfy in those games.

[tomd2103]

Finally back to the game.  Serious question now and I am half Welsh by the way.  Why do Wales only ever get up like they did Saturday for the game against England?.  I think someone asked this previously as well.  It's no use saying they do it for all games because they patently don't.  The atmosphere and the intensity on Saturday? where is it for Australia and NZ?.  If they did have it, then maybe they would beat some of the SH teams occasionally?

Just a thought !!

Obviously never been to a Wales v New Zealand game in Cardiff Dave!!  Also can't have seen Wales play that much in the past few years if you think they only 'get up' for the England games.  They seemed pretty up for the games against Ireland and France when they won the grandslams in 2005, 2008 and 2012!!

The Welsh record against SH has been poor for some time now, but they never seem to be able to field a full-strength team when they play those teams.  Wales don't have too much strength in depth, so a few injuries really impact on them and they always seem to get thos injuries just before playing the SH teams.

Injuries is a small part but nothing like as big as the welsh would have you believe, the bigger problem is that if you can stop them getting through around the fringes they struggle to make any impact because they have an entire backline of crash runners.  I was never a huge fan of Shane Williams because all he had was broken field running but he was immensely important to the welsh because he's the only player they had with the pace and vision to make things happen from nothing.  Their current game plan is to draw the game in tight and try to get a mismatch where cuthbert or north can run at a front row or a weaker tackler and use their pace or power to break into the corners.  It works in the northern hemisphere to an extent but in southern hemishpere rugby the front 5 are expected to be much better around the park so the mismatches don't really exist.  They'll get the run on someone every now and then but not enough to ever be comfy in those games.

I agree somewhat with that Paul and think that style has been developed under Gatland.  We will probably see the Lions playing a similar style in the summer and it is frustrating to watch at times.  It involves recycling play towards one touchline with the aim of trying to create some space in midfield for the big runners.  One reason that doesn't work against the likes of the All Blacks is that they don't commit too many players to rucks, so are never too stretched in midfield.  I've not been a fan of the Roberts / Davies partnership for a while, as like the Barritt / Tuilagi partnership, it doesn't really offer much creativity and the back three don't see much of the ball.  Wales have looked far more dangerous in attack in the past when an on-form Gavin Henson has been at 12 as he added that creativity, but unfortunately he seems to be cut from the same cloth as Stephen Ireland when it comes to application.

As for the struggles against SH teams, apart from the fact that NZ/AUS/SA have simply just been better most of the time, Wales have really struggled at the breakdown against those teams and up until very recently, have really struggled with the added physicality they bring.  I also think that injuries are more than a small part, as you only have to look at the effect a couple of injuries have had on Ireland's performance this 6N.     

[Dave Summers]

Finally back to the game.  Serious question now and I am half Welsh by the way.  Why do Wales only ever get up like they did Saturday for the game against England?.  I think someone asked this previously as well.  It's no use saying they do it for all games because they patently don't.  The atmosphere and the intensity on Saturday? where is it for Australia and NZ?.  If they did have it, then maybe they would beat some of the SH teams occasionally?

Just a thought !!

Obviously never been to a Wales v New Zealand game in Cardiff Dave!!  Also can't have seen Wales play that much in the past few years if you think they only 'get up' for the England games.  They seemed pretty up for the games against Ireland and France when they won the grandslams in 2005, 2008 and 2012!!

The Welsh record against SH has been poor for some time now, but they never seem to be able to field a full-strength team when they play those teams.  Wales don't have too much strength in depth, so a few injuries really impact on them and they always seem to get thos injuries just before playing the SH teams.

No never been, just taking what I see off TV as my guiding line.

I don't agree with you.  The venom on Saturday is never there for any other game other than England in my opinion.

I guess we will agree to disagree