[2025 Six Nations] England vs France - 08/02/25

[spartan32]

Anyway, theres always the U20s match this evening to keep the mood up. The young lads stand a good chance of getting a win tonight. In terms of tomorrow's game I going to throw caution to the wind and say the lads are going to pull off a mighty 1 point victory in the dying minutes!!

 

[Vieux Talonneur]

Maybe I'm being unfair on the incumbent set up

You're not.

 

[Reiser99]

In defence of the England players, they've hardly had a very stable coaching set up. Coaches coming and going like bloody buses. One week doing one thing, then all change. So these lads have to first adapt from what their clubs want from them to what England want, and then that keeps changing. No wonder they are struggling to be consistent. If we really are to turn things around we must have a set, consistent, and top quality coaching team in place. I am no expert in coaching, but I suspect it would be fair to say that our coaches would be way down the pecking order on the international scene. That surely creates somewhat of a glass ceiling for the players. How can they reach their full potential when the team coaching them doesn't have the skills to get them there?

Maybe I'm being unfair on the incumbent set up, but it always seems like there's plenty of talent to work with, it just never comes together.

Any experienced coach has left. Not only do we have an inexperienced head coach, but the rest of the coaching setup too. It's a complete shitshow and is definitely affecting the squad.

 

[Grizwald]

Anyway, theres always the U20s match this evening to keep the mood up. The young lads stand a good chance of getting a win tonight. In terms of tomorrow's game I going to throw caution to the wind and say the lads are going to pull off a mighty 1 point victory in the dying minutes!!

Allegedly Dean Ryan and the tearing up of the player pathway etc is the main reason that there is a pretty obvious gap between the older generation of players Itoje etc and the new young lads starting to impress at senior level Pollock, Asher Opoku-Fordjour, Junior Kpoku etc.

It's a multi-faceted issue really, there's only really Willis that I can think of who's playing abroad that you'd have in the side, maybe Joe M4gmmarchant. Willis has become a better player for the experience but the gap in finances probably mean it will continue to happen. If it were me I'd be spending some of that dual contract money on keeping English qualified players in England unless they relax the rule. I think the likes of Kpoku playing in France isn't a bad thing for their development or bank balance but there always the chance they get capped by France too......

I think the bigger player pool kind of hinders giving young lads a shot rather than with smaller nations who take more of a 'if they're good enough they're old enough' approach.

 

[Vieux Talonneur]

Allegedly Dean Ryan and the tearing up of the player pathway etc is the main reason that there is a pretty obvious gap between the older generation of players Itoje etc and the new young lads starting to impress at senior level Pollock, Asher Opoku-Fordjour, Junior Kpoku etc.

It's a factor although I don't think as much as is often made out. The gap's probably more to do with the random distribution of when talent is born. As someone pointed out earlier Fra are lucky to have had 4 or 5 world class players to have been born at roughly the same time. In my book what happens once players are at senior club level is most likely to determine their impact at senior international level.

 

[Flankers' paradise]

I think the bigger player pool kind of hinders giving young lads a shot rather than with smaller nations who take more of a 'if they're good enough they're old enough' approach.

I don't actually think we have too wide a player pool, I think we have a wide enough playing pool but just don't utilise it. Look at how many players France and, to a lesser extent, South Africa cap. Why? because they take risks on young talent and don't keep underperforming players in squads for several years just because they're EPS or whatever. 2 years ago Ethan Dumortier was the next big thing on the French wing and tore up the 6n, 6 months later couldn't even make the world cup squad because of a certain LBB. and now a teenage Attissogbe is getting his shot because he has shown the promise. If England gave the same amount of opportunities to the Ben Redshaw's, the Ben Bamber's etc I think we'd be in a better, more competitive situation.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

Do England really have an issue capping younger guys?
Tons of young players in the squad/been capped recently and we have the joint lowest (with France) average squad age

 

[Rinkadink]

I think it's just a reluctance to cap, rotate, give downtime to under performance and give opportunities to in form players. It also really helps if you're in one of the RFU's cosy clubs.

 

[Amiga500]

Do England really have an issue capping younger guys?
Tons of young players in the squad/been capped recently and we have the joint lowest (with France) average squad age

I think England have a bigger issue sticking with them if they hit a sticky patch.

Like, your never gonna be allowed to get away with two less than 7/10 games in a row as a youngster.

But the likes of Ben Youngs made an international career that might have reached a 7/10 about 5 times in his last 5 years!

 

[Grizwald]

Do England really have an issue capping younger guys?
Tons of young players in the squad/been capped recently and we have the joint lowest (with France) average squad age

Summer tour will be a good opportunity for some to get the experience.

Thing that has stood out for me is the Japan game in the Autumn. Finn Smith if he's going to be considered as a potential starter should have started that game. Instead he's starting tomorrow.

 

[Ragey Erasmus]

I think the biggest thing with England selection is there is no consistency. We cap plenty of young players but we just as readily discard then at the first poor performance. We will let experienced players put in poor performance after poor performance and not even get benched.

A lot of young players brought into the squads are simply replacing other young players who have been discarded rather than unseating the favourites.

I don't think we're too bad with giving first chances but we are terrible at churning through players until they reach a certain number of caps, then become untouchable regardless of performance.

These combine to mean young, promising talent can be brought into a side of older underperformers and it's the young caps who then get the blame and get dropped when things go wrong.

We also don't seem to understand the concept of rotating players so our to players get benched in less important games. We seem to be the only tier 1 nation who tries to put out our top selection every single game at club and national level, and just burn them out.

 

[Vieux Talonneur]

Summer tour will be a good opportunity for some to get the experience.

Thing that has stood out for me is the Japan game in the Autumn. Finn Smith if he's going to be considered as a potential starter should have started that game. Instead he's starting tomorrow.

Agree, but went beyond that. We fielded a full strength starting XV when there was no need, wasting a great opportunity to properly blood several next cabs off the rank.

 

[Grizwald]

U20's have dominated the French equivalent currently 20-10 with France not having to do much for their points. Some real physicality in the English side.