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(Very) early thoughts on the 2017 Lions

It's hilarious that so many people just can't get over Hogg's dive. He was young, made a stupid mistake and apologised afterwards. Have other young athletes not done the same? He hasn't repeat offended so I'd advise those who still label him as cheating scum to let it go and appreciate his undoubted talent.
 
Groundhog said:
Anyone who's watched Williams play in the last 2 years will know he's a very good boy who plays his rugby and doesn't get caught up in the nonsense anymore. He's an example of a player who was scum but actually did something to calm down and behave like an adult. Also he's one of the most gifted and elusive attackers in the isles. Not as good as Hogg in some areas, but still very well rounded.
I've a big soft spot for him since he stopped being such a ****ly little ****.
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his attitude has certainly improved over the last couple of years. same could be said about hogg, i used to hate him (although cannot deny his talent) due to all the diving and pandering etc but he has matured as well it seems
 
Fairly neutral opinion on Hogg. Never particularly disliked him. He seems to have an ego, which can sometimes be no harm, especially as he can back it up. Likely our starting 15 as it stands, but there's a lot of rugby yet to be played.
 
Groundhog said:
Fairly neutral opinion on Hogg. Never particularly disliked him. He seems to have an ego, which can sometimes be no harm, especially as he can back it up. Likely our starting 15 as it stands, but there's a lot of rugby yet to be played.
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I just wonder how Hogg will work in the team, he has previously come out and complained about the English so if the team if largely English, especially either of the wingers, will he be unwilling to work with them? You only have to look at Brown and May to see what a mess it can be when the FB and winger clearly aren't on the same page. Funny really, him singling the English out as not respecting Scotland says a lot more about his attitude towards the English than the English attitude to Scotland. It's extremely unprofessional to go to the media and start bleating like that.
 
ragerancher said:
I just wonder how Hogg will work in the team, he has previously come out and complained about the English so if the team if largely English, especially either of the wingers, will he be unwilling to work with them? You only have to look at Brown and May to see what a mess it can be when the FB and winger clearly aren't on the same page. Funny really, him singling the English out as not respecting Scotland says a lot more about his attitude towards the English than the English attitude to Scotland. It's extremely unprofessional to go to the media and start bleating like that.
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He's a leader in the Scottish team and was obviously seriously pumped, probably right too considering the Scots haven't earned your respect at all, worse was thrown out from most camps in the last 6n. Hogg is already a Lion and knows he has to play with English players so I would take thise comments with a pinch of salt.
 
ragerancher said:
I just wonder how Hogg will work in the team, he has previously come out and complained about the English so if the team if largely English, especially either of the wingers, will he be unwilling to work with them? You only have to look at Brown and May to see what a mess it can be when the FB and winger clearly aren't on the same page. Funny really, him singling the English out as not respecting Scotland says a lot more about his attitude towards the English than the English attitude to Scotland. It's extremely unprofessional to go to the media and start bleating like that.
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If taking potshots against other Lions countries in the media was a disqualification to being an effective member of the team, I'm not sure the concept would have lasted so long, and Gatland wouldn't be gearing up for a place on his third Lions tour in a row...
 
Peat, I missed your original point about Ford. I hear you re. Fords experience but I don't know, I can't really shake off a feeling of unease sometimes with Ford. I think he's too flakey for the lions, and certainly more targetable than the other fly half options. I just think Jackson is less of a risk. I acknowledge that England owe much of their recent developments in attacking play to the way he runs the game but still.
 
HenryChinaski said:
Peat, I missed your original point about Ford. I hear you re. Fords experience but I don't know, I can't really shake off a feeling of unease sometimes with Ford. I think he's too flakey for the lions, and certainly more targetable than the other fly half options. I just think Jackson is less of a risk. I acknowledge that England owe much of their recent developments in attacking play to the way he runs the game but still.
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I really don't get the flaky thing when it comes to Ford, goalkicking aside. His performance has been fairly consistent through international windows and he doesn't let mistakes or pressure get to the way he plays. If anything he's possibly too overbold when things are going wrong. He's capable of putting in some distinctly mixed performances if out of form but its not like he suddenly drops out of form with little notice or with the pressure on. On form, he's very consistent so far, even when the pressure comes on.

The goalkicking is the one thing where I think there is merit to saying sometimes his head seems to drop if he starts poorly. I wish we had a bigger sample of his international goalkicking this year. But you can always have someone else do the goalkicking. You can't really have someone else do the tactical kicking, passing and tactical decision making. You can have players help but without really distorting it, that's it. And I'm a Jackson fan but he's not ahead on those things. Not at this level, as much as he's come on this year.
 
TRF_Peat said:
I really don't get the flaky thing when it comes to Ford, goalkicking aside. His performance has been fairly consistent through international windows and he doesn't let mistakes or pressure get to the way he plays. If anything he's possibly too overbold when things are going wrong. He's capable of putting in some distinctly mixed performances if out of form but its not like he suddenly drops out of form with little notice or with the pressure on. On form, he's very consistent so far, even when the pressure comes on.

The goalkicking is the one thing where I think there is merit to saying sometimes his head seems to drop if he starts poorly. I wish we had a bigger sample of his international goalkicking this year. But you can always have someone else do the goalkicking. You can't really have someone else do the tactical kicking, passing and tactical decision making. You can have players help but without really distorting it, that's it. And I'm a Jackson fan but he's not ahead on those things. Not at this level, as much as he's come on this year.
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Perhaps Flaky is the wrong word but, more so in the six nations and last year than in the recent autumn internationals I've been aware of him making a number of successive, little errors whether that be knocking it on, kicking out on the full, and they often seem to come in clusters which have perhaps made me assume that it's flakiness based on pressure/confidence. But you're correct in that from my memory he has tended to not completely capitulate when these things have happened and tends to keep trying things so maybe I'm wrong to call it flakiness.

The other thing is just physicality - Jackson is a similar size but I'm happier with him as a defender. Credit where it's due, Ford has made every pound count a lot of the time but at the end of the day there are still occasions when he might as well not even bother and that's always going to be a worry with him.

Finally, Ford has been good under Jones for sure, but do you feel like he's been genuinely tried and tested against the best? That sounds strange given that we've played Australia 4 times, as well as south africa, Ireland and wales but to be honest none of them really have played that well. I don't know if I'm being unreasonable but I feel like we've played a lot of teams not at their best in the last year / teams who were out thought by Jones and I feel like it's been some time since Ford has been targeted by a really good side playing their best rugby.I want to see that happen with Ford coming out the other side. I get the feeling the only possible diagnostic test for this will be playing the All-Blacks. But I'd rather this be with England prior to a lions tour!
 
The thing is Ford hasn't been fed fast ball from rucks for ages, quick recycling even now is not a strong point for England. The last time he had that was with Bath 2 years ago with Peter Stringer and we all know how Bath played then. Yeah we lost in the final to Sarries but I've never understood why that failure has always been place squarely on Ford's shoulders, the entire team were outplayed. Farrell was behind a pack that were dominating and Ford was behind a pack that could barely secure their own ball that game. Likewise the Ireland game last year where we got completely outplayed as a team. I can't think of times where the team has been performing well but Ford has caused things to fall apart with poor decisions. If anyone wants to mention about not being able to deal with being behind a pack that's losing, Farrell never experiences this at Sarries and the times he has experienced it with England, we have lost.
 
HenryChinaski said:
Perhaps Flaky is the wrong word but, more so in the six nations and last year than in the recent autumn internationals I've been aware of him making a number of successive, little errors whether that be knocking it on, kicking out on the full, and they often seem to come in clusters which have perhaps made me assume that it's flakiness based on pressure/confidence. But you're correct in that from my memory he has tended to not completely capitulate when these things have happened and tends to keep trying things so maybe I'm wrong to call it flakiness.

The other thing is just physicality - Jackson is a similar size but I'm happier with him as a defender. Credit where it's due, Ford has made every pound count a lot of the time but at the end of the day there are still occasions when he might as well not even bother and that's always going to be a worry with him.

Finally, Ford has been good under Jones for sure, but do you feel like he's been genuinely tried and tested against the best? That sounds strange given that we've played Australia 4 times, as well as south africa, Ireland and wales but to be honest none of them really have played that well. I don't know if I'm being unreasonable but I feel like we've played a lot of teams not at their best in the last year / teams who were out thought by Jones and I feel like it's been some time since Ford has been targeted by a really good side playing their best rugby.I want to see that happen with Ford coming out the other side. I get the feeling the only possible diagnostic test for this will be playing the All-Blacks. But I'd rather this be with England prior to a lions tour!
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Fair points but I would quibble to an extent with all of them. Ford does have those little 2-3 minute spells where someone's replaced all limbs with big floppy penises and nothing much goes right but so do most fly-halves. I know I've seen Jackson and Sexton have a few. I'm not sure Ford's outrageously bad here.

Jackson is a straight up better defender (I have to say, they're officially more or less the same size but that smells wrong to me) but he's not flawless, and, while Ford is very well hidden, I do think its pretty rare to see him be directly at fault. You're more likely to see any of the other 3 be wrong like that imo, largely because they go for big tackles while Ford (when not being an idiot) just goes to stop them. Still, yes, if you're more concerned about defence, then you'd put Jackson there.

Ford's was good under Lancaster too. Australia haven't been at their best but how many teams would beat them 3 in a row on their home soil? He's not faced NZ or a dominant SH side yet, and lost his one game against Ireland at a peak, but what he's faced hasn't been chopped liver. And in comparison to Jackson who's got one game against NZ, he's ahead of the game.

I don't think Ford is a completely safe bet - there's a reason I've said we only have one exceptional choice at fly-half - but I do think he's safer than Jackson (goal kicking aside) and possessed of greater upside too. If the pack does its end and the backs are up to snuff, a side led by an in-form Ford will really challenge NZ. I'm not sure that's true of any fly-half we have other than Sexton. The question is consistency I guess, which is what you're getting at with flakiness I think. Just my concerns are a lot smaller than yours, particularly if we're talking Jackson, who has some very expensive little spells of over-confidence from time to time.
 
Can't believe people are talking about paddy Jackson at all.

It will be sexton and Ford, farrell will go as centre/ FH and then the next best is Russell.

Although we all know garland will pick sexton and bigger.....or Sam Davies according to one bell end on here.
 
living sacrifice said:
Can't believe people are talking about paddy Jackson at all.

It will be sexton and Ford, farrell will go as centre/ FH and then the next best is Russell.
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Jackson's highly talented and can beat the nearly-best. Of course he's in the conversation.

Although we all know garland will pick sexton and bigger.....or Sam Davies according to one bell end on here.
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Play nice now, we don't need a thread full of namecalling
 
TRF_Peat said:
Jackson's highly talented and can beat the nearly-best. Of course he's in the conversation.



Play nice now, we don't need a thread full of namecalling
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I think Ford is better than Sexton (place kicking aside), sexton is better than paddy Jackson so I don't see I need for a third flyhalf when you have Farrell in the squad as a 12. If you do I think Russell has been fantastic.
 
living sacrifice said:
I think Ford is better than Sexton (place kicking aside), sexton is better than paddy Jackson so I don't see I need for a third flyhalf when you have Farrell in the squad as a 12. If you do I think Russell has been fantastic.
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Accepting your pecking order for the sake of argument, we had our fifth choice loosehead on tour last time round and still ended up needing Tom Court for a cameo. Five different outside backs got called up. We've had the 4th choice hooker out there two tours in a row etc.etc. Talking about the potentially 5th place guy is still relevant.

But while you might disagree with Jackson as 3rd best fly-half available, its not an outrageous opinion to have. Hence him being in the conversation.
 

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