Should Robshaw Captain England?

[Peat]

**** I forgot about Myall. Deserves to be looked at fo sho, although I'd say the names I mentioned are in front of him (and Day for that matter).

And you is dead right about the hookers.

Anyway, fingers crossed Seymour doesn't die and we can have a look at him as well. I is getting proper excited about the 6N now, which is probably not good for me. So excited I've inadvertantly turned into Lee Nelson and need shooting innit.

 

[stus768]

That article seems to imply u are right. Re- Hartley, don't rate him either, supposed to be a big ball carrier yet every time i see him with the ball he is being smashed backwards/losing the ball.
Don't want Easter to keep starting as he seems to only perform every few games. Robshaw certainly showed that he has the hands to play 8 and did well behind a pack that was loosing in the scrum on sun.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

to be honest, I don't know why Lawes-Palmer were split up for Deacon, they both did well in 2010, Palmer was one of the best players in the 6N, there was no need for Deacon to come in

I hope you're right on Palmer. He's one of the few experienced players who deserves to keep their spot, and will offer a lot on the pitch in terms of skill, leading by example, and mentoring the younger guys.

Don't want Easter to keep starting as he seems to only perform every few games. Robshaw certainly showed that he has the hands to play 8 and did well behind a pack that was loosing in the scrum on sun.

I agree with that - I hadn't realised that he had as much experience at 8 as he does. I'd put him there, to be honest - with Haskell gone, Easter crap and Fearns and Guest injured/will be lacking in game time before the 6N, then putting Robshaw in seems a good choice.
Waldrom is the other option - I thought he was 30+, but he's only 28 so will still be around when the next WC comes up.

 

[04perryo]

we could have at some point
6. Robshaw
7. Wood
8. Crane or in my opinion even though he is a bit young matt kvesic

 

[TRF_Olyy]

I wouldn't put Kvesic at 8, ever. He's a 7, and that's that. There's a real lack of 7s out there, then when a young talented one comes around, Worcester start using him as an 8 instead - really annoying.
The reverse could be said for Fearns - really talented 8, then gets put at 7 instead.

Look at the real successful teams around, they all have a true openside flanker, then look at the likes of England, who have a 6 or an 8 shoehorned in there, it just doesn't work out right.

 

[04perryo]

He First played at 8 actually but i understand what your saying but atm worcester have a real backrow problem with injuries so we have to play him 8 otherwise worcester would have started him as a 6 or 7 like the year before however from what ive seen of him at 8 when he picks and go's from the base of the scrum he can make good distance due to how strong and quick he is, so i would say he can play all 3 positions.

 

[Peat]

Kinda what perry said, obviously never seen him play 8 but I knew thats what he used to play...

Frankly, all this insistence on positions is mostly ********. Kvesic is talked about as a natural 7 when he's played most of his rugby at 8 to the best of my knowledge. Wood's talked up as a 7, I don't think he'd ever played it until he joined Saints (perry, can you confirm this?) Clark at Saints (who should be in contention) started as a 7, now plays 6... Gibson at LI, mostly playing 7, but has played all three back-row positions fairly equally...

Its about balance. Its having the right tool for every job, and getting every player in the back row to understand which jobs are primarily his. But the only specialist role really is the back of the scrum work for 8. Everything else is mix and match. Our greatest ever back-row was two 7s and a 6 before Woodward got his hands on them. Lets just get the three best players onto the pitch that click and get on with it.

 

[gingergenius]

Flood folds in big games/pressure situations (England vs Ireland, Tigers vs Leinster/Saracens) - can't really have a captain like that

He folded like the packs in front of him, same way Farrell folded against Saints last week.

Peat, there's a reason you can't be picking players in the wrong positions for their natural ability, and that's 150 years of the development of Rugby Football. If back row positions were interchangeable (like the two lock positions, or the wingers), they wouldn't have different names. But they do. You can be a good team without a fetcher at 7, and you can be a good team without a big carrier and footballer at 8, but you'll never be a great team.

NZ have dominated world rugby for most of the past 8 years, and they've done it with McCaw and So'oialo/ Read. The only other team with any dominance in that period has been South Africa, who had Burger/ Brussow and Rossouw/ Spies. The only team able to compete with them has been Australia, who've had Pocock and Samo. And before that period, it was England who had Hill and Back and Dallaglio.

The blindside flanker is your 'jack of all trades' forward, that's what that position is designed for, which is why you get some who are fast and athletic like Croft, others who tackle the **** out of the opposition like Kaino, others who'll carry brilliantly like O'Brien and others who'll fetch like Richard Hill.

A proper 7 is massively important, and part of England's recent failures has been their arsing around with natural blindsides like Moody, Haskell etc. in the 7 jersey. Another failure has been the lack of a proper 8, because Haskell works his ******** off and can carry but has no brain, and Easter is just too slow.

Squeezing Robshaw into one of these positions to accommodate Croft is a continuation of the ****ups that have plagued us post-Woodward. It may work in the Premiership (Saracens' pack lacks any big carriers or fetchers), and it may win a few 6N games, but it won't win grand slams, won't win Heineken Cups and will never ever win World Cups.

 

[Don't Skip Leg Day]

Peat, there's a reason you can't be picking players in the wrong positions for their natural ability, and that's 150 years of the development of Rugby Football. If back row positions were interchangeable (like the two lock positions, or the wingers), they wouldn't have different names. But they do. You can be a good team without a fetcher at 7, and you can be a good team without a big carrier and footballer at 8, but you'll never be a great team.

NZ have dominated world rugby for most of the past 8 years, and they've done it with McCaw and So'oialo/ Read. The only other team with any dominance in that period has been South Africa, who had Burger/ Brussow and Rossouw/ Spies. The only team able to compete with them has been Australia, who've had Pocock and Samo. And before that period, it was England who had Hill and Back and Dallaglio.

The blindside flanker is your 'jack of all trades' forward, that's what that position is designed for, which is why you get some who are fast and athletic like Croft, others who tackle the **** out of the opposition like Kaino, others who'll carry brilliantly like O'Brien and others who'll fetch like Richard Hill.

A proper 7 is massively important, and part of England's recent failures has been their arsing around with natural blindsides like Moody, Haskell etc. in the 7 jersey. Another failure has been the lack of a proper 8, because Haskell works his ******** off and can carry but has no brain, and Easter is just too slow.

Squeezing Robshaw into one of these positions to accommodate Croft is a continuation of the ****ups that have plagued us post-Woodward. It may work in the Premiership (Saracens' pack lacks any big carriers or fetchers), and it may win a few 6N games, but it won't win grand slams, won't win Heineken Cups and will never ever win World Cups.[/QUOTE]


I completely agree with this. What i would suggest would be pick the best 6, then the best 7 and then the best 8 in the premership and see how that goes but we really have very little stand outs for some of those positions.

I jsut don't know who the best would be?

6.Robshaw
7.Wood
8. Waldrum

That makes a total of under 10 caps though...hmmm any offers for form and experice?

 

[TRF_Olyy]

David Seymour is the best 7 in the premiership, and that's without being biased.


If I was being biased I'd say he was the best 7 in the world

 

[Peat]

France don't play with openside and blindside. They play with left and right.

Kieran Read and Dalliago were both 6s who made the switch to 8; Michael Jones and Richard Hill both switched from 6 to 7; Matt Kvesic is - possibly - switching from 8 to 7 - he's played a fair bit at 6 too, and Jamie Gibson to pick the other outstanding young openside around in England played a lot of his age grade rugby at lock and 6. Wood started as a 6. The list goes on and on.

Good players are not locked into their positions and the skills are transferrable. Some of them don't have the skills and intelligence to switch (I'm looking at you Haskell). But some do. Robshaw has been playing all three back-row positions over the last two seasons and it doesn't seem to have affected his performance at all really. He has the engine and breakdown skills to play 7; he has the hands and carrying to play 8 (and showed nice control at the back of a bad scrum against Wasps). If it was a squeeze I wouldn't be recommending it - Robshaw genuinely has the ability and skillset to play any back-row position. Whether this will be true at at the very top level I don't know but I'd like to put some serious effort and thought into seeing whether we can get our three best back-rows on the pitch. Its what Woodward did after all.

I certainly don't get why people who espouse the need for proper 7s and 8s and dismiss the idea of converting people then champion Tom Wood and Matt Kvesic as potential England 7s. They're both converts themselves after all.

 

[gingergenius]

I completely agree with this. What i would suggest would be pick the best 6, then the best 7 and then the best 8 in the premership and see how that goes but we really have very little stand outs for some of those positions.

I jsut don't know who the best would be?

6.Robshaw
7.Wood
8. Waldrum

That makes a total of under 10 caps though...hmmm any offers for form and experice?

That's 4 years for them to gain experience though. Under 10 caps could be over 100 collectively in 4 years. We have a situation potentially where we could have two blindsides injured and still have a top class player wearing 6, not to mention anyone else as yet to stick their hand up. We have 4 years to identify the new Richard Hill, and Wood/ Seymour are good places to start. And we have 4 years for a young 8man to stick his hand up, and in the meantime Waldrom is a decent option there too.

With this logic, we can really look happy.

We have Corbisiero at 1, who's still a young prop and will improve a lot over the next 4 years. There's guys like Marler who will also improve.
Cole at 3 is already a top class prop, and will improve like Corbs. Stevens is a good option in reserve, plus there'll be others emerging.

Hartley is a decent international player, and backup hookers will emerge. I wish Jamie George got more gametime with us, because he always impresses me.

2nd Row, there are a lot of uncapped players in the Premiership who need to be tried out to partner Lawes (Robson, Parling, Day etc.). Attwood can be blooded as backup in the 4 jersey and already looks a good player.

Scrum halves, we're already lucky with Youngs, Care and Simpson. The chances are that at least one will be fit and in form for international matches.

Tens, Flood is in pole position and there are a few options like Farrell, Burns, maybe Lamb, who can come in. A 100-1 outside bet on Cips sorting out his deficiencies as well.

Centres it's whoever partners Tuilagi, and we've got plenty of options - Allen, Barritt, Farrell, Lowe, Turner-Hall, Twelvetrees, someone like Waldouck if they're ever fit.

Back 3, Ashton will keep improving, Foden's class. Armitage can be criticised for a lot of things, but not his play which is a threat if ever Foden is off form or injured. Mike Brown's come on leaps and bounds too. Then there's the likes of Sharples leading the pack of young speedsters, with potential in the likes of Short and Wade, and Topsy Ojo I still think is a good player. Guy Armitage looked useful from the glimpse of him I got on Sunday, in the George North mould.

All that is necessary is a good coaching staff with good ideas to select the right players from that group (and a few others I've forgotten and others that will emerge). We have 4 years to do it, it's a long enough time. We're not short of good players. We just need to give them their chances, and when other players get a chance and don't impress, we can't rely on one good performance every four matches to perpetuate the myth that they're worth their place. This is why I'm dubious about selecting an outright captain so early. We need one who is the first name down on the team sheet.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

if he's so good then why was he unneeded at Saracens, and only just recently became a regular for Sale

Saracens said he was "too small for pro rugby"
He has been first choice at Sale for a while, just kept getting injured - when fit he was always in the 7 shirt


I would have him over all you have mentioned, Wood and Burger would come close, but aren't as good on the ground as he is, and I prefer 7s to be true fetchers (not to say Wood isn't, for example, I just think Seymour is better at it)

 

[Teh Mite]

Saracens said he was "too small for pro rugby"
He has been first choice at Sale for a while, just kept getting injured - when fit he was always in the 7 shirt

I would have him over all you have mentioned, Wood and Burger would come close, but aren't as good on the ground as he is, and I prefer 7s to be true fetchers (not to say Wood isn't, for example, I just think Seymour is better at it)

Really? REALLY?

 

[gingergenius]

France don't play with openside and blindside. They play with left and right.

Kieran Read and Dalliago were both 6s who made the switch to 8; Michael Jones and Richard Hill both switched from 6 to 7; Matt Kvesic is - possibly - switching from 8 to 7 - he's played a fair bit at 6 too, and Jamie Gibson to pick the other outstanding young openside around in England played a lot of his age grade rugby at lock and 6. Wood started as a 6. The list goes on and on.

Good players are not locked into their positions and the skills are transferrable. Some of them don't have the skills and intelligence to switch (I'm looking at you Haskell). But some do. Robshaw has been playing all three back-row positions over the last two seasons and it doesn't seem to have affected his performance at all really. He has the engine and breakdown skills to play 7; he has the hands and carrying to play 8 (and showed nice control at the back of a bad scrum against Wasps). If it was a squeeze I wouldn't be recommending it - Robshaw genuinely has the ability and skillset to play any back-row position. Whether this will be true at at the very top level I don't know but I'd like to put some serious effort and thought into seeing whether we can get our three best back-rows on the pitch. Its what Woodward did after all.

I certainly don't get why people who espouse the need for proper 7s and 8s and dismiss the idea of converting people then champion Tom Wood and Matt Kvesic as potential England 7s. They're both converts themselves after all.

Richard Hill was always a '7', he just played 6 for England because Back was 7. The same way Burger moves to blindside to accommodate Brussow. Dallaglio had the hands and carrying ability to play 8; so does Read, which is why they both excel. Wearing 7 on your back is different to being a '7'. A natural 7 is uncoachable, next time watch every ruck that Wales/ Australia/ NZ are involved in and you'll see Warburton/ Pocock/ McCaw at the bottom of it.

Woodward got our 3 best backrows on the pitch because he picked our best natural 8, one of the two best natural 7s, and filled the 6 jersey with the other. And France may play left and right, but then there's usually a bigger difference between their roles of flanker and 8, and their flankers usually have snaffling abilities.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

Really? REALLY?

Easily.

 

[stus768]

6- croft- needed for lineouts, plus may improve form if england start playing better attacking rugby
7-wood- also impressed by seymore who is a more natural 7
8- robshaw- has the hands, leadership ability and physicality to play here, has some experience and is not here because he is worse at 6 or 7 than the other 2 but because the other 2 cannot fill in at 8 like he can.

 

[Teh Mite]

Easily.

Have to agree to disagree in this instance. Although I'll concede Seymore is a better 7's player...

 

[Darwin]

Interesting to see that Robshaw is so highly rated in this forum; it really makes me wonder why he hasn't had more chances for England. I haven't seen that much off him, but whenever I've seen him play I've been very impressed. Personally I thought he was the best loose-forward in the entire England squad that toured Australia last year (impressive as they had a ridiculously large squad!), and was really surprised he was playing in the mid-week games rather than starting in the tests. He does the basics well (the first thing I look for in a loose-forward), but also looks to be good at the breakdown, is a good ball runner, and looks like a natural leader too. To me he looks like a natural 6, and I would definitely pick him ahead of Tom Croft (who has his moments, but doesn't have a complete game in my opinion).

Deciding the makeup of the loose-forward trio is not just a case of picking the three best loose-forwards, or even picking the best player in each position. For me a quality loose-forward trio has two things: complete players, and complementary players.

When I think of the great loose-forward trio's - Jones/Kronfeld/Brooke, Hill/Back/Dallaglio - or the best current trio (Kaino/McCaw/Read) what sticks out to me is that the players involved were pretty complete players. Sure many of the players have areas where they excelled, but the key thing was that they really had no glaring weaknesses as players - they all worked hard at the breakdown, tackled well, worked hard in the tight when required, and could all run with the ball in hand. This meant was they were equipped for whatever situation arose. For example if McCaw gets stuck at the bottom of a ruck, Kaino and Read would be there slowing down the opposition ball at the next breakdown. If Kaino makes a hit up, McCaw or Read would be there to hit it up next. It sounds simple, but if you don't have complete players in your trio this isn't always the case. To use Australia as an example, if Pocock gets caught at the bottom of a ruck you pretty much know that there won't be anyone competing at the next breakdown! When you have a player who isn't 'pulling their own weight' in some area, the other members of the trio also have to work extra hard in this area, meaning the rest of their game can suffer. For example if Tom Croft is playing a very loose game (which I think he does) the other two loose-forwards have to play a much tighter game to compensate, which can make them less effective (for this reason I'm not a big fan of the likes of Thomson, Higginbotham, Spies et. al. who I all think play too loose).

The second thing I believe a great loose-trio needs is players that have complementary skills. This may sound slightly contradictory as I'm talking about 'complete' players, however while these players have no real weaknesses, they also have areas that they excel in. Taking the NZ loose-trio as an example again (sorry, it is just the one I'm most familiar with ), on top of being good in most other areas McCaw is great at the breakdown, Kaino is great running close to the ruck and is a huge hitter on defense, while Read is a great open-field runner and is a brilliant option at the tail of the lineout. Though a trio of three complete player who are in addition all exceptional ball runners may work reasonably well, having outstanding skills in a number of areas is more advantageous, as players can change the game in a variety of ways.

I honestly don't watch near enough Northern Hemisphere club rugby to know who I'd pick, but I do like the look of Robshaw and Wood (and don't really rate the likes of Croft or Waldrom, as I don't think they are complete players). I think the key will be to settle on a loose-trio within the next couple of years so that they have 2+ good years together to build a combination before the next Rugby World Cup.

 

[Peat]

Richard Hill was always a '7', he just played 6 for England because Back was 7. The same way Burger moves to blindside to accommodate Brussow. Dallaglio had the hands and carrying ability to play 8; so does Read, which is why they both excel. Wearing 7 on your back is different to being a '7'. A natural 7 is uncoachable, next time watch every ruck that Wales/ Australia/ NZ are involved in and you'll see Warburton/ Pocock/ McCaw at the bottom of it.

Woodward got our 3 best backrows on the pitch because he picked our best natural 8, one of the two best natural 7s, and filled the 6 jersey with the other. And France may play left and right, but then there's usually a bigger difference between their roles of flanker and 8, and their flankers usually have snaffling abilities.

And Robshaw doesn't? If you think he doesn't, we'll have to disagree.

How can a man be a natural 8 if he's played most of his life elsewhere? By possessing all the natural attributes? By showing a natural aptitude when played there?

Robshaw's form has not dropped by being played at 7 or 8. He possesses the hands to play both positions, the brains to play both positions, the engine to play 7 and the carrying to play 8. There is no reason he can't switch to 7 the same way Wood has, or switch to 8 the way Read has. He has the ability to carry out those tasks. He is a complete player - and because he is such a complete player, he has the ability to fill all of the positions. He has done this up to International A level (played & for the Saxons this spring), why not try it at the top table? It would potentially allow us to pick our three best back-rows as a complimentary unit that covers just about base.

Incidentally, depending on how serious Easter's ankle injury is (not very admittedly from the last I've heard), Robshaw might will emerge as the outstanding English candidate for 8 come 6N time anyway. We're very thin on the ground there, there's quite a few long term injuries amongst those who might have made it, Narraway's not getting picked regularly for some reason, Morgan thinks he's a taff...

Anyway, disagree if you will - but if a man's got the talent to play more than one position, there's no harm in moving him around, and what I've seen of Robshaw says he has the talent for all of them.

darwin - I agree with you that the most important thing is they compliment each other, and like you prefer my back-rows to be complete players. However - and I don't know whether you agree with this or not - once you've got the three best players that compliment each other, they should be picked, irregardless of the number of the back of their shirt at club level, which after all might be two 7s and a 6. The only slight ****le in that is the 8 has to be able to control the ball at the base.

I also disagree with you about Croft, who for me gets through a lot of quiet work in the tight on his good days and is as complete as Robshaw and Wood. Yes, his good days haven't been so frequent recently - I don't know whether that's the coaching messing him around, lack of fitness, just simple poor form - but he offers a hell of a lot if we can get him back to form.