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Author Topic: International Rugby  (Read 381717 times)

Offline taylorsworkrate

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Re: International Rugby
« Reply #2790 on: August 10, 2019, 11:49:25 PM »
Think 10/11 are very decent odds for Wales tomorrow. They are at full strength whereas England have an extremely experimental line up.

Offline Jon Crofts

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Re: International Rugby
« Reply #2791 on: August 11, 2019, 03:52:39 PM »
Wales put back in their place, I’d fancy England next week as well.

Offline taylorsworkrate

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Re: International Rugby
« Reply #2792 on: August 11, 2019, 03:55:15 PM »
Think 10/11 are very decent odds for Wales tomorrow. They are at full strength whereas England have an extremely experimental line up.

That was incredibly shrewd tipping as England go on to win the game by 14 points!!

Interesting game. Plenty of positives for England as a pretty patched up team beat a Wales team at full strength.

Loads of power and pace out wide and a 2nd choice front 5 dominating the Welsh pack. Still leaky defensively though.

Offline paul_e

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Re: International Rugby
« Reply #2793 on: August 11, 2019, 04:20:36 PM »
Superb performance in the main, the backrow and back 3 were all superb but special mention to Ludlam looking anything but a young debutant, I'd take him to the world cup on the back of that, it's better than anything Shields has done in an England shirt and he showed he could play 6 or 7 and do a good job at both.

Also Watson, Daly, Coka looks like the right outside backs for me, pace, power and a hell of a lot of skill. Heinz, Ford, Francis and Joseph are clearly all backup options but I think every one of them did a decent job without putting their hands up to start in the world cup.

Up front I thought Genge did brilliantly in the scrum, I'm amazed they only conceded 3 penalties in the scrum all game because their 2nd row was folding almost all game. Cowan-Dickie really needs to improve his throwing at the lineout, he gave away good territory a few times by being wayward.

England's strength is in their depth but Jones really needs to convert that into competition for places to push the first 15 right to their very best.

Offline paul_e

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Re: International Rugby
« Reply #2794 on: August 12, 2019, 12:44:41 PM »
15-20 minutes from the world cup squad announcement, right now I expect:

Mako, Marler, Genge
Cole, Sinckler, Williams
George, Cowan-Dickie, Singleton
Itoje, Lawes, Launchbury, Kruis
Billy V, Curry, Underhill, Wilson, Ludlam
Youngs, Heinz
Farrell, Ford
Manu, Slade, Joseph, Francis
Daly, Watson, Coka, May, Nowell*

*Nowell is, by all accounts, 50/50 but I think they might risk it to have him available later in the tournament. If McConnochie had played yesterday I'd be less sure of this one. Singleton is the other stab in the dark but he'll take a 3rd hooker and I'm not sure who else there is that stands a chance, Tommy Taylor is a fantastic prospect but he's had a few games after 2 years of near constant injuries so I just can't see it. Ludlam has to have edged out Shields after that game.

Personally I'd swap Francis for Cipriani but I don't think that will happen.

Offline Jon Crofts

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Re: International Rugby
« Reply #2795 on: August 12, 2019, 01:02:06 PM »
Definitely no Te'o.

Offline Jon Crofts

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Re: International Rugby
« Reply #2796 on: August 12, 2019, 01:03:04 PM »
Forwards: Dan Cole (Leicester Tigers, 86 caps) **

Luke Cowan-Dickie (Exeter Chiefs, 12 caps)

Tom Curry (Sale Sharks, 11 caps)

Ellis Genge (Leicester Tigers, 10 caps)

Jamie George (Saracens, 37 caps) *

Maro Itoje (Saracens, 27 caps)

George Kruis (Saracens, 32 caps) *

Joe Launchbury (Wasps, 59 caps) *

Courtney Lawes (Northampton Saints, 72 caps) **

Lewis Ludlam (Northampton Saints, 1 cap)

Joe Marler (Harlequins, 58 caps) *

Kyle Sinckler (Harlequins, 22 caps)

Jack Singleton (Saracens, 1 cap)

Sam Underhill (Bath Rugby, 9 caps)

Billy Vunipola (Saracens, 42 caps) *

Mako Vunipola (Saracens, 53 caps) *

Mark Wilson (Newcastle Falcons / Sale Sharks, 13 caps)

Backs: Joe Cokanasiga (Bath Rugby, 5 caps)

Elliot Daly (Saracens, 31 caps)

Owen Farrell (Saracens, 70 caps) *

George Ford (Leicester Tigers, 56 caps) *

Piers Francis (Northampton Saints, 5 caps)

Willi Heinz (Gloucester Rugby, 1 cap)

Jonathan Joseph (Bath Rugby, 41 caps) *

Jonny May (Leicester Tigers, 45 caps) *

Ruaridh McConnochie (Bath Rugby, uncapped)

Jack Nowell (Exeter Chiefs, 33 caps) *

Henry Slade (Exeter Chiefs, 22 caps) *

Manu Tuilagi (Leicester Tigers, 33 caps) *

Anthony Watson (Bath Rugby, 34 caps) *

Ben Youngs (Leicester Tigers, 86 caps) **

Offline paul_e

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Re: International Rugby
« Reply #2797 on: August 12, 2019, 01:12:29 PM »
So my squad but has taken the risk of dropping Williams to take an extra back (in McConnochie). I hope that doesn't cause us problems.

Offline paul_e

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Re: International Rugby
« Reply #2798 on: August 12, 2019, 02:06:14 PM »
Also Anscombe out for Wales and won't make the world cup. What a fucking moron he was playing on when clearly injured and what the fuckis wrong with the welsh management to let him play on in a nothing game so close to the world cup. Feel sorry for him but he's got no one to blame but himself. Compare and contrast with Curry who got a knock and was taken off immediately and will be fine.

Offline UK Redsox

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Re: International Rugby
« Reply #2799 on: August 12, 2019, 02:08:12 PM »
What are the rules re calling up injury replacements during the tournament ?

I'd want three scrum halves


Offline paul_e

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Re: International Rugby
« Reply #2800 on: August 12, 2019, 05:30:58 PM »
I'm not sure once we pass the deadline for the squad announcements (8th Sept) but until then we can obviously just make changes.

After that I think changes can be made but the person that leaves can't be recalled, but I might be wrong on that.

Offline Jon Crofts

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Re: International Rugby
« Reply #2801 on: August 12, 2019, 06:27:42 PM »
Look on the bright side, at least this time round we're not all sat here thinking Sam fucking Burgess, why?

Offline paul_e

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Re: International Rugby
« Reply #2802 on: August 12, 2019, 07:40:16 PM »
I'm really happy with the squad as is.

The big positives for me are:
No Shields
No Spencer
No Brown
No Care
No T'eo

As a group they're either past it, not good enough or play completely the wrong way for what we need to do if we want to stand a chance.

The only real negatives are that I'd prefer Hartley, Robson and Cipriani to Singleton, Heinz and Francis and I'd have liked to have a specialist 8 as a backup but they're all pretty minor gripes. I do think 2 tightheads in the squad is a bit risky and I don't see the need for 6 outside backs, even with Nowell carrying an injury, I did think they might add McConnochie though but I thought it would be instead of Nowell if his fitness was worse than expected.


As you say there's no obvious "what the fuck" selections in there like Burgess (who Bath had realised wasn't ready to play centre and England ignored them). I have moaned about Heinz in the past but to be clear that was never about him as a player, it was about England giving fuckloads of gametime to Care and Wigglesworth, ignoring the age of the latter and the poor international record of the former. We created a problem for ourselves where we only have 4-5 caps of experience outside Youngs and it's spread across 3 players.

Offline Risso

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Re: International Rugby
« Reply #2803 on: August 13, 2019, 07:10:07 PM »
There was no chance of Hartley being fit, his knee is really bad. He even had to turn down my wife’s kind offer to him to join our dads’ five aside footy game on a Tuesday.

Offline paul_e

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Re: International Rugby
« Reply #2804 on: August 13, 2019, 08:31:29 PM »
There was no chance of Hartley being fit, his knee is really bad. He even had to turn down my wife’s kind offer to him to join our dads’ five aside footy game on a Tuesday.

Nope, If I'm honest I suspect him to retire in a few months having not played another game, everything I've heard is that it's completely fucked.

 


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