England England England. What have you made of their performances?

[Wimero]

Look, England are a good side, they just needed a more experienced coaching team and more leaders on the field who would have opted for the kick and then regardless of the loss to Aussie they would have been playing the Bokke this weekend.
The bulk of the England squad makes a fine team, plenty of athletes in there, they are just a bit young, nothing to worry about and plenty to build on but they need a sniffer and they need to play Burgess a LOT but not sat next to Brad Barritt.

Appreciate your comments.Thanks

 

[PacDuran]

I think Wales have been arguably the most consistent of the NH sides of the last 8 years, and for that Gatland deserves some praise.

However, in 8 years, Gatland has failed to make Wales properly competitive against the SH sides. Wales have been consistently clearly below the top tier. I don't see how anyone can call him a top coach without being able to take that next step and creating a top team. Unless you argue that he doesn't have the players at his disposal to create a top team, which I completely disagree with.

Also, England, Ireland and France have had their own problems over the last 8 years. After installing Schmidt, you can make the case that Ireland have gone ahead of Wales. If England and France have similar transformations, then unless Gatland has another level that he's hiding, then Wales can find themselves slipping down the rankings quite fast.

It's worth noting that Wales blew every game they have played against Australia for about 6 years. No joke, blown every single one of them. That's down to the mental fragility of the player sna dpoor captaincy no coaching. Though I suppose ultimate responsibility lies with the coach for not giving the captain's armband to Alun Wyn Jones.

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England will come good, very unlucky and I'm sure they will add to the Lions as they always do...

Very few English players would get into the Lion Squad if it was chosen this year. Can't think of one to be honest bud. Manu Tuilagi I think is the best 13 at the moment, but he's too bus battering female police officers.

 

[Tony Manx]

Very few English players would get into the Lion Squad if it was chosen this year. Can't think of one to be honest bud. Manu Tuilagi I think is the best 13 at the moment, but he's too bus battering female police officers.

Best at what? He has not played in eons so it cannot be rugby?

 

[Willodell100]

Very few English players would get into the Lion Squad if it was chosen this year. Can't think of one to be honest bud. Manu Tuilagi I think is the best 13 at the moment, but he's too bus battering female police officers.

I'll give you a few:

Joseph
B. Youngs
Ford
Slade
Watson
May
Brown
Cole
Launchbury
Vunipola

Two points.

1) England lost to a very good Australia side and bottled it against Wales but that doesn't mean they are suddenly terrible players. It has been widely accepted that it was team selection that was the route cause of England's early exit. The same players beat Wales in Cardiff this year.

2) Wales, Scotland & Ireland haven't suddenly become world beating sides. In reality all three have won one more game than England to make the next round. That is it!

 

[Wimero]

Have no doubts about it.England WILL come good again.There's a nucleus of very good players.I think we'll see a different England at the six nations.

 

[Cliffyboy]

Laughable

I'm not just being wise after the event, but Lancaster and Robshaw are that far out of their depth it isn't funny. Robshaw so irritates me with that pathetic and grovelling approach he often takes to the referee, when a decision goes against England, while Lancaster seems to believe that this 'deep-thinking' and studied, unemotional exterior he projects, means that he's well in control and analysing the game on the deepest of levels. Yeah, that would be right, and we then hear that as head coach he got over-ruled on Luther Burrell being in the squad. Some head coach, that's for sure - he obviously uses a different dictionary to the rest of us. There again, anyone who'd not include a talent like Danny Cipriani's and allow another coach to tell him is England career is over, is hardly a candidate for being appointed .......Hang about, say no more, English rugby at its finest. When you think of Woodward and Johnson and juxtapose them with Lancaster and Robshaw, it's almost cruel, and you see just how far we have deteriorated.

Even in one of their games in this world cup, I heard Robshaw say, when Owen Farrell, who half the time seems to have a worryingly deep-seated need to prove himself a hard man, again rightly got sin-binned, 'But what about' - thankfully, the rest got drowned out. Robshaw should be inspiring his men, not acting as some puppet apologist, as he does.

What also beats me is how so-called experts are arguing the status quo, as it were, should continue. I mean, with all due respect, grab a brain. Here we have a coaching team who have achieved virtually nothing, yet been awarded extended contracts while leading us to being the first host nation to exit the pool stages. Make sense of that!

Why have some crap rule that great players playing overseas can't be included? I mean, what fuxxxxx difference does that make? And why exclude great players like Hartley and Tuilagi, unless they have faced, or will be facing, serious criminal charges? If behind the scenes our coaches can't harness the talents, skills and fighting qualities of your Hartleys, your Ciprianis, and your Tuilagis, then they shouldn't be in the job cos I know who'd I'd want on my side, when the going got tough.

Even our so-called enquiry into this farce, has deliberately excluded the brilliant minds and awareness of Woodward, Greenwood, Wilkinson, Guscott, Dallaglio, Johnson and Moore, men who between them could transform English rugby and make us the All-Blacks of the Northern Hemisphere. Instead, imperious and on high, apparently untouchable, there sits Rob Andrew, in a classic case of the blind leading the blind.

 

[Zed]

England have some great players, but I'm perplexed as to how they ended up with a centre combination of Burgess and Barrit. Even at club level you're going to have issues sticking a big lump like SB, who has limited ball skills, in at 12. A 12 has to be able to play 10, period. I don't mean excel at 10, but at least be capable of stepping in as first receiver, being able to analyse the game, call moves, throw long cut out balls and kick if necessary. SB cannot do any of those things and it beggars belief that one of the worlds top rugby nations would go with such a selection. England need to totally rethink how they approach the game. Get the attack sorted first, then work on the defence.

 

[Yobbo]

England's play gave us a chuckle.
Their substitutions were crazy, so was their general approach.

With a decent coaching regime they'd do a lot better.

 

[Tony Manx]

England's play gave us a chuckle.
Their substitutions were crazy, so was their general approach.

With a decent coaching regime they'd do a lot better.

To be fair their substitution policy, like an old joke, was so tired it was not funny!

They have used subs by the premeditated game plan without reference to the need since Lancaster started!!

 

[TRF_Olyy]

You have no idea what your talking about. Sam Burgess is already one of the greatest players to hold a Rugby Ball. Your lambasting him before he's even got going. I guarantee over the next 2 or three years you will be eating your words by the spadeful. With the type of character he is and the mental toughness he possesses he will become England's stand out player.

Not at 12, though.

 

[The Jones Boy]

They left out Danny Cipriani, the form 10/12 and 15 utility player that every winning squad needs.
He has southern hemisphere experience.
Lancaster left him out in the cold.
For that alone the entire management structure needs to be changed.

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Also, just in... Stuart Barnes is trying to poach Richie McCaw to be either head coach or assistant coach to England.

 

[Cliffyboy]

They left out Danny Cipriani, the form 10/12 and 15 utility player that every winning squad needs.
He has southern hemisphere experience.
Lancaster left him out in the cold.
For that alone the entire management structure needs to be changed.

That's so well said. You could never imagine the All Blacks leaving out one of their most naturally gifted and talented players, except for some serious disciplinary matter. Just imagine an All Blacks coach telling one of your most talented players that he'd make sure he'd never wear the jersey again. It's just so pathetic, really it is.

And it's not only confined to rugby union, either. England has also done this with some of its greatest football talent.

Oh, I didn't notice your point about McCaw. I don't think he'd touch us with a barge pole.

 

[smartcooky]

England's campaign started to come unstuck in the last quarter of the Wales match. They had that game under control until then but the wheels came off in the last 20 and it was all downhill after that.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

Cipriani is not a 12, never has been and never will be.

 

[The Jones Boy]

Cipriani is not a 12, never has been and never will be.

In the England team as Lancaster and Farrell presented it, Cipriani could play anywhere in the backline and be better than anyone chosen by Lancaster and Farrell.

England were hideously unbelievably woeful. Australia utterly destroyed them at twickenham.

The fact he was in such good form will be why Farrell made sure he didn't get selected for the squad.

 

[Cliffyboy]

In the England team as Lancaster and Farrell presented it, Cipriani could play anywhere in the backline and be better than anyone chosen by Lancaster and Farrell.

England were hideously unbelievably woeful. Australia utterly destroyed them at twickenham.

The fact he was in such good form will be why Farrell made sure he didn't get selected for the squad.

In the game against France in Paris, when Cipriani came on and worked his magic, you can imagine England's coaches, despite his great play and try, almost willing him not to succeed. They should try reading William Blake's great poem 'A Poison Tree' cos it sure fits some of them like a glove.

I still find Farrell's being an England coach, given the situation with his own son, unfathomable. Even subconsciously, it's bound to have an effect, and I must admit to not rating Owen Farrell - I can't stomach that 'hard man' image he seems it necessary to project and which led, and not for the first time at that, to his being sin-binned. There's little enough integrity in this world as it is, and unfortunately at times this forum included, but when it results in you actually having a senior coach threatening to end a player's England career, as Farrell did, well, you can imagine the kind of cosy fireside chats he'd have been having at home with his son about Cipriani. Oh to be a fly on the wall in that house.

 

[YoungScud]

Sam Burgess is the future for England.

Yup. How's that working out?

 

[The Jones Boy]

The RWC isn't even over yet ya drongo, as for how it works out, the tense referred to was the future. Looks like he's so fed up with his treatment as the key scapegoat he may go back to league.
Let me remind everyone, England were still WINNING against Wales when they dragged Burgess from the field. Draw your attention here...
http://www.therugbyforum.com/threads/36771-Sam-Burgess-U-Turn

@ Cliffyboy; yes Sir, the situation with Andy Farrell has unbelievable.
Cipriani has sadly been shafted by English management twice.
First that dumb oaf Martin Johnson who was a terrible coach and now Farrell/Lancaster.