England World Cup Squad

[Vieux Talonneur]

"There was a famous Australian swimming coach, Bill Sweetenham, who worked with the British Olympic team. He made sure the swimmers were tired going into the World Championships, which just preceded the Olympics. They got some medals but he knew that if you can produce when you are tired and lacking energy, what are you going to be like when you are free of fatigue and energetic? That is what we are getting to now."

This is the interesting part to me. Seems as though fatiguing the players wasn't so much about getting them super fit as it was about getting them used to playing in horrid conditions so that they can now thrive in normal conditions. Kind of like when coaches would have you train with a 5kg ball so that when you go back to passing a regular ball you can absolutely rip it.

Honestly, Walters is probably the member of the current coaching team who I have most faith in. You only have to look at what he's done to George Martin to see how successfully he can develop players physically. So if he with his many qualifications, his years of experience and his direct access to the players says that this is how they should be training then I do believe him.

If you haven't already, read about Sweetenham. I saw that analogy and not sure it's the best one.

Walters seems to be demanding but also have a lightness of touch which is a great combination.

 

[Pieter Steph du Teague]

It's almost like training for an iron man and then only doing a marathon. You might get better but also you could just train for a marathon.

Sorry but this is a really poor comparison IMO. Of course no one would train for an iron man to then do a marathon; an iron man is a triathlon and a marathon is just a run. That's not a case of training at a higher intensity than what you're going to face in competition - it's just doing a separate event entirely. A more apt comparison would be to question whether 5k or 10k runners would run significantly further than those respective distances at times during their training. And the answer to that is that they absolutely would.

 

[Vieux Talonneur]

He was the South African fitness coach for the 2019 World Cup...and Tigers prem league winning fitness coach..etc..etc...so he knows how to get a team fit for winning ***

To which I raise you a "Proudfoot was their scrum coach". Walters is on record as saying he's keen to try his methods away from the Boks, recognising that he was working with some decent raw materials there.

Sorry but this is a really poor comparison IMO. Of course no one would train for an iron man to then do a marathon; an iron man is a triathlon and a marathon is just a run. That's not a case of training at a higher intensity than what you're going to face in competition - it's just doing a separate event entirely. A more apt comparison would be to question whether 5k or 10k runners would run significantly further than those respective distances at times during their training. And the answer to that is that they absolutely would.

They would indeed. But often not at high intensity. They're running every day so their training will include lots of over distance recovery runs which boost their mileage but are designed specifically not to be taxing.

Walters was talking about peaking which is meat and drink to athletes who are expert in tapering and very seldom in heavy training close to major events.

But 2 very different sports. For runners conditioning is virtually all. For rugby players it's just an element, an important element but just one aspect of their sport.

 

[Geordie]

To which I raise you a "Proudfoot was their scrum coach".

I could be the scrum coach for that bunch of forwards!

It would be a bit easier than coaching the current England availables....

 

[AngloScotsHybrid]

Some interesting comments at the end about the challenges Borthwick faced when he came in:

 

[Vieux Talonneur]

Great backdrop to a World Cup. Not saying they're wrong, but you've got to wonder about the timing.

Revolt against RFU leaders threatens England’s Rugby World Cup tilt

Thirty council members signed a letter accusing the RFU of inadequate leadership on the eve of England’s World Cup opener against Argentina

www.theguardian.com

 

[Lé Ddanno]

Role model is a load of nonsense really provided behaviour's on the right side of the law.

Totally agreed about impacting the team as well as individual.

Very late to the party, but right as he was being bigged up to get back into the side....

Danny Cipriani guilty of drink-driving

England rugby player fined over incident last year in which he crashed his Mercedes into a taxi in London

www.theguardian.com

He was always his own worst enemy.

 

[Becca]

Very late to the party, but right as he was being bigged up to get back into the side....

Danny Cipriani guilty of drink-driving

England rugby player fined over incident last year in which he crashed his Mercedes into a taxi in London

www.theguardian.com

He always seemed to self sabotage things in my opinion.

 

[West Country Wail]

With Australia losing, it feels like the inevitable 1/4 may be upon us...

 

[TRF_Olyy]

How much do we think we'll roll the dice vs Chile?
Feels like we don't really have the players to considering May/Marchant/Daly have played the full 80 twice, and you'd probably be looking at Marchant on the wing and Daly at 13 (reshuffling the deck chairs on the ***anic) if you wanted a completely new backline

If we take Farrell as an inevitability I could see us going for something like:

9. Youngs
10. Farrell
11. May
12. Lawrence
13. Marchant
14. Arundell
15. Smith

Maybe a 6:2 bench with just Care and Malins on, as we don't need Ford on there and Manu probably should have his game time managed. Guess you could put Daly on covering the whole backline alongside Malins

 

[Not Mike Brown's Sock]

Yeah I'm expecting:

Youngs
Faz
Arundell
Lawrence
Marchant
Marlins
Smith

Care
Daly

Or something similar

 

[Geordie]

It depends how much hes focused on familiarization.

Theres alot of work to do...so does he want to suddenly chop and change everything...or stick with his best teams and try to continue to improve the teams understanding and implementation etc.

i dont think there'll be massive changes. And ironically Youngs increased the temp of the team when he came on.

So a few changes but not the entire backline...

9 Youngs
10 Farrell
11 Daly
12 Lawrence
13 Marchant
14 Arundell
15 Steward

 

[Vieux Talonneur]

Yeah I'm expecting:

Youngs
Faz
Arundell
Lawrence
Marchant
Marlins
Smith

Care
Daly

Or something similar

Marlins sounds like he'd be a big fish in that lineup.

 

[stus768]

Are England really playing well? Feels like these twitter analysts are good for some insightful content but always get arrogant, think they're smarter than everyone else and are only ones who truly appreciate Borthwicks style.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

Ever since twitter started paying people for how mucn engagement they generate I just presume every brain-dead take is an attempt at ragebait

 

[Vieux Talonneur]

Are England really playing well? Feels like these twitter analysts are good for some insightful content but always get arrogant, think they're smarter than everyone else and are only ones who truly appreciate Borthwicks style.

We've got those stats against 2 distinctly average sides, neither of whom played well. Give me those against the Boks and Irish and I might just be starting to get excited.

 

[ncurd]

We've got those stats against 2 distinctly average sides, neither of whom played well. Give me those against the Boks and Irish and I might just be starting to get excited.

And without two fluke trys.

But yeah we're not playing top class opposition here these are sides England should be looking at dispatching with ease. And we're not. If Group C wasn't arguably worse we'd wouldn't even be considering the fact we'd likely be looking at a QF exit. Hell if our group had two competitive teams we'd be arguing at a group stage bomb out.

 

[BPM]

We've got those stats against 2 distinctly average sides, neither of whom played well. Give me those against the Boks and Irish and I might just be starting to get excited.

I agree. However, on the basis of your second sentence, literally no England team has ever excited you.

And without two fluke trys.

But yeah we're not playing top class opposition here these are sides England should be looking at dispatching with ease. And we're not. If Group C wasn't arguably worse we'd wouldn't even be considering the fact we'd likely be looking at a QF exit. Hell if our group had two competitive teams we'd be arguing at a group stage bomb out.

I'm under no illusions here. We're embarrassingly laboured and have definitely been the beneficiaries of Argentina and Japan's performances being even worse than ours.

With all that said, those two ifs are ultimately irrelevant. We didn't make the draw and we can only play what's in front of us.

 

[ncurd]

With all that said, those two ifs are ultimately irrelevant. We didn't make the draw and we can only play what's in front of us.

I think they are relevant we're likely to get to a semi final unless we end up against Fiji. So ultimately our sucess has to be measured by who we went up against and got there rather than the stats or how far we got.

We have to play who's in front of us and who is in front of us are **** as well so let's not pat out backs too much.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

we're likely to get to a semi final unless we end up against Fiji

I think Wales' first choice beats us tbh