Wales vs England - 13/08/2011 - RWC Warm Up

[Aout]

that was a phenomenally bad performance from banahan, even by his standards. the only problem wit that logic is that plenty others of the first team would also have played themselves off the plane. I felt sorry for Foden, he looked lively whenever he had the ball and had to live with the idiots around him. cueto was alright too. but i really was most shocked by how clueless flood was today. really did not expect that from him. most of all i think its MJ who i've lost more confidence in. a lot of us are disappointed with some team selections, but sometimes i think well, maybe its just working well like that in training or something. but that has to be able to translate into game time. I havent seen a more clueless england back game since the early 2010 six nations.

what now then, backwise?

9) youngs (when fit)
10) hodgson
11) cueto
12) Flutey(?)
13) Tuilagi
14) Ashton
15) Foden


To be fair the referee was bad, but as you say he was sporadically awful to both teams. the fault really lies with how we played.

Why the hell would you want Hodgson to start ? What else should Wilkinson be doing in order to catch your attention ? Last week's performance was not enough ?

 

[TRF_Olyy]

He was solid but he was hardly amazing

Wilkinson is consistent though, he wont get any better with more gametime now before the WC - try someone else out, if they don't work, put Wilkinson back in

 

[gingergenius]

Ok, a sensible team to face Ireland:

1. Stevens
2. Hartley
3. Cole
4. Lawes
5. Palmer
6. Croft
7. Wood
8. Haskell
9. Simpson (needs a chance)
10. Wilkinson
11. Sharples
12. Flood
13. Tuilagi
14. Ashton
15. Foden

16. Thompson
17. Wilson (deserves a go)
18. Deacon
19. Robshaw (needs a go)
20. Care (unless Youngs is fit)
21. Flutey
22. Armitage

getting towards our strongest team, with places for a few experiments. However, I don't see why Simpson or Robshaw would get a go at all in MJ's thinking, and I see very little likelihood of my Flood at 12 idea getting any distance either...

 

[TRF_Olyy]

Who would you have as captain out of that?
Hartley's the only one with club captain experience (I think?) - Wouldn't want him captaining England though....
Palmer and Wilko both have the experience, but would they make good captains?
Croft?

 

[Aout]

Haskell.

James Haskell.

 

[Teh Mite]

Haskell.

James Haskell.

:lol:

But, a likely candidate while the old farts are involved. <_<

 

[gingergenius]

Who would you have as captain out of that?
Hartley's the only one with club captain experience (I think?) - Wouldn't want him captaining England though....
Palmer and Wilko both have the experience, but would they make good captains?
Croft?

well considering that (in my opinion, with cueto and youngs in) is our strongest XV from the EPS, that's a very interesting question. You'd say the obvious player would be Wilko; I'd go for Croft.

 

[Mrs. Peter Quinn]

Why the hell would you want Hodgson to start ? What else should Wilkinson be doing in order to catch your attention ? Last week's performance was not enough ?

I'm talking about giving Hodgson game time to figure out whether he is in front of or behind flood. We also need to see whether Hodgson can get our backs going. I'm not doubting that kilkinson is now our first choice 10, but we need to know where we afre with the others, and bearing in midn that awful performance from flood, it woulld also be unwise to go into the world cup with hodgson having player 15 minutes of gametime out of all the warmup matches...

 

[mikefoot1]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_union/welsh/14517441.stm

Anyone else quite gutted about this?

 

[TRF_Olyy]

Don't know why you would be - Scott Williams is as good as current-Henson and actually gives a cr*p about rugby

 

[TVH11]

yer posted that up earlier this morning. Quite gutted for him, Scott Williams looked quite sharp yesterday, but seemed for "contact" orientated There was something in Henson's little touches yesterday that made one think he was almost back Ah well we'll never know now, although WRU seem as if they "may" call him mid world cup

 

[TVH11]

To add to the above, we saw yesterday how ineffective two crash ball centers are (no disrespect to England, but the back-line was very flat with them).

If one was to look when Wales have been successful in recent years we've had

Distributor at 12 and a more Direct runner at 13.
Jon Davies and Roberts individually are great players (with the latter only recently re finding form), but for me don't offer enough versatility and flair as an unit. ah well, may see Hook back at 12

 

[Me 1]

To add to the above, we saw yesterday how ineffective two crash ball centers are (no disrespect to England, but the back-line was very flat with them).

If one was to look when Wales have been successful in recent years we've had

Distributor at 12 and a more Direct runner at 13.
Jon Davies and Roberts individually are great players (with the latter only recently re finding form), but for me don't offer enough versatility and flair as an unit. ah well, may see Hook back at 12

I'd much rather Hook at 10 but you could well be right as Davies and Roberts need to play alongside someone creative. I would give Scott Williams another chance but he might not be the answer.

 

[Sixesandsevens]

Noone else thought Wood was attrocious then?

 

[TRF_Olyy]

Nah,
He was anonymous but that doesn't = atrocious (in my books)

 

[Teh Mite]

Wood looked like a player who's been injured for months and then chucked in at the deep end into a clueless gameplan.

 

[dullonien]

I missed the game yesterday due to family staying, but managed to watch it this morning. A great morale and confidence boosting win, but there's a huge amount to work on!

I think Gatland took a risk in not picking Adam Jones for this 'must win' game, and it very nearly didn't work out. I think Mitchell did many things well, but he struggled once again in the scrum, as did Paul James. I don't think Lloyd Burns alongside them at hooker helped too much either, because the scrum fared a little better when Bennett came on. It's continuously obvious just how important Gethin Jenkins, and especially Adam Jones are to this team, despite a short spell where the back-ups started showing some promise during the 6 nations. Despite the possibility of injury, if Gethin and Adam are fit, they should feature against Argentina, because it is imperitive we secure another win next week, and the biggest threat will come from the Argies scrum in that game.

The lineout was the other big, big problem in this game. I think Lloyd Burns has played himself out of contention, because he had a shocker in his primary role of throwing into the lineout. I never thought I'd see the day where I was actively praying to see Bennett brought onto the field. At the same time, I feel Bennett has prooved many people wrong over the course of this double header against the old enemy, including myself. His performances were far from perfect, and I'd still prefer Rees or Hibbard, but I think he's secured a place on the plane, and amazingly I'm ok with that! For the final warm-up game, if Hibbard is fit, then I'd like to see him get an opportunity, but either way I think Ken Owens has to be involved. There's a good chance Rees will miss the WC which is a massive blow, and in that eventuality we need a better third choice hooker than Burns imo, Owens deserves an opportunity to stake a claim.

Our second-row partnership is another worrying problem I feel. I thought that both Wyn-Jones and Charteris were poor. Neither put their stamp on the game, and that's worrying. For such a tall man, Charteris seems next to useless in the lineout. He took just one or two clean takes, but most of the time he seems to wildly slap the ball back. He also failed to put any real pressure on the England throw, which in contrast functioned superbly. As always, it's a little unfair to put all the blame on one individual when it comes to the lineout, in all probibility it was a collective failure between thrower, jumper and lifters, infact there was one example pointed out by the Sky analysis showing Lydiate getting completely out of position and not lifting at one lineout, terrible! This area of the game has got to be adressed before we meet SA, because Matfield and co will be targetting our failings here.

The final negative I picked up was Faletau, I'm still not fully convinced him. Despite being better than last week, his hands still let him down on way to many occasions. He needs to learn that protecting the ball has to be his number one priority. I still feel Delve deserves a chance next week.

Now, on to some of the positives, and starting with the biggest, Warburton. He seems to be growing as a player every single game, and is showing that he has every skillset in the locker to be one of the best opensides in the game. I feel he's already up there infact. Yesterday he was simply inceadible in the tight. His workrate at the tackle area was ferrocious, accurate and relentless. I'd like to know how many turn-overs he actually secured, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was creeping up towards double figures. On top of this, he put in plenty of first-up tackles (the count was 11 at one stage), and I don't remember him being penalised once! In the rare occasions we had ball in hand in England's 22, he once again showed his acceleration, and ability to cross the gain-line, even if he didn't make a searing break like last week. All this whilst captaining the side at an age of 22! How much more is there to come I wonder?

The other big positive was our defense, which was awesome by pretty much every player. Roberts caught my eye in midfield, and did this early on by smashing Banahan backwards. He continued this all game, and made sure there was no way through midfield. Henson looked back to his old self in this regard aswell. Pitty it looks like his world cup dreams are over once again. We were sometimes a little over eagre at the breakdown, resulting in multiple penalties, although I though both Roberts and Phillips' yellow cards were a little harsh, although Roberts was the casualty of multiple infringements. Phillips was certainly in the wrong, but a yellow card for that, when the infringement was inside Englands own half? Riiiight.

Overall, this display reminded me of our success of the '08 grand slam, the ability to soak up the pressure, be clinical in attack and come away with the win. England didn't help themselves by turning down multiple 3 point opportunities in the first half, and Englad were unlucky not to get a penalty try from the 5m scrum, but that's how things go sometimes. If we can sort out our set piece then I think we have a good chance of doing well at the WC, however with our emerging problems at hooker and lock, that could be a big if. Still, much happier than I've been in quite some time.

 

[Ozzay]

Gutted for Gav, those few touches he had early on looked like he was coming back.

Roberts at 13 was immense i thought, actually liked him there instead of 12!

 

[Sixesandsevens]

Wood looked like a player who's been injured for months and then chucked in at the deep end into a clueless gameplan.

I didnt think getting pushed off our own ball again and again by their scrum half was anonymous!

 

[Thingimubob]

I would actually probably consider having Hook and Roberts in the centres again, TVH is right about 2 crash ball centres don't quite work. Not sure what Scott Williams is yet, would def like to see him start next week anyway.