Who is England 12?

[msf]

Yeah, he has to beat 12trees first, but if he does at club level why wouldn't he take his place in the squad at international level?

 

[Ragey Erasmus]

It's crazy seeing Sausage Legs touted as an international.
The switch from 10 to 12 really did him the world of good.

Sausage legs?

 

[TRF_Olyy]

Sausage legs?

Atkinson's nickname at Sale, pretty sure it's his twitter handle as well.

 

[martinspoonboy1]

- I would love to see Eastmond given a go, but Lancaster won't pick him.
- Neither 12Trees nor Burrell have been great. (12Tress shades it)
- Having Farrell at 12 as the primary goal kicker is an option. (The question is will it destroy our creativity? I would guess not as Burrell is about as good distributor but without the kicking option). This option would take pressure off Ford and would allow a third kicking option, reducing liklihood of charge downs.
- Then there's tuilagi.
- Safe option and possibly best option for playing NZ and SA Barritt.

 

[j'nuh]

Burrell or Twelvetrees might be the short term answer come the WC. A burst of decent form and they'd be decent options. I wouldn't rule them out.

Tuilagi and Joseph is the possible dream partnership. Barritt is, for me, the emergency break glass option.

England's 11 conceded tries this Six Nations is a record for the number of tries conceded by England since 1991 (that's as far as the tables go back on the Six Nations website, so the record could have been a lot longer standing...).

I love the refreshing change of identity which has us attacking more. The last time we scored as many as 18 tries was back in 2003 (crucially though, the 2003 team only conceded 4 tries). But I just don't see us having a chance in hell of doing well in the WC with as porous a defence as we currently have.

Which makes Barritt a very viable option. Given Burrell offered little in attack, I don't think we lose out too much by swapping Burrell out for Barritt. Tuilagi is too tempting to pass up, but if he doesn't get back in time, and Twelvetrees doesn't go on an incredible run of form, then Barritt would be my option.

I'm still reeling a little that we didn't throw Slade at 12 this tournament, I think it was a mistake by Lancaster not to. That ship may have already sailed by now.

 

[goodNumber10]

i really think people are being a bit hard on Burrell, he really was havily marked this 6N, and England don't really know if they want to sit on the pot or p*ss in it...

Do they set targets or do they move defences left and right? Who knows? Certainly not England it would seem - i've said this a few times but they really are a team missing their own identity, they seem to be copying the best parts of other teams and not being quite as good at them as the originals.

So i think it's difficult for any 12 to shine in that environment, is he a ball player, or is he a target? again, who knows, certainly not England.

I think the best indication we got of how good Burrell can be is the Ford break right at the start of the Scotland game, the line he took to fly up on fords right, he was flying and covered that ground like nothing else in the team..... yeah i know he got tackled with the ball, and yeah he should have let it go, but i do understand he would have seen Seymour in his peripheral and not fancy the chanced pass (no saying he's not at fault i'm just saying i understand not throwing a 50/50 in that situation).

I think he needs some more time, but it's a commodity we just don't have.

 

[Ragey Erasmus]

i really think people are being a bit hard on Burrell, he really was havily marked this 6N, and England don't really know if they want to sit on the pot or p*ss in it...

Do they set targets or do they move defences left and right? Who knows? Certainly not England it would seem - i've said this a few times but they really are a team missing their own identity, they seem to be copying the best parts of other teams and not being quite as good at them as the originals.

So i think it's difficult for any 12 to shine in that environment, is he a ball player, or is he a target? again, who knows, certainly not England.

I think the best indication we got of how good Burrell can be is the Ford break right at the start of the Scotland game, the line he took to fly up on fords right, he was flying and covered that ground like nothing else in the team..... yeah i know he got tackled with the ball, and yeah he should have let it go, but i do understand he would have seen Seymour in his peripheral and not fancy the chanced pass (no saying he's not at fault i'm just saying i understand not throwing a 50/50 in that situation).

I think he needs some more time, but it's a commodity we just don't have.

Defensively at least, he was having the same problem with Saints though (falling off tackles) and before you say, no many of those were not him rushing up, it was flat out not making the tackle.

 

[msf]

Yeah, again there are no good options, so we need to go for the least bad one. I think that is Burrell, since he can both attack and defend, at least at Premiership level. I think Guscott has given people the impression that he is a bad defender by quoting his tackle stats, but as I pointed out before, that is because he really blitzes in defence, which can lead to turnovers. Of course, if the management don't want their 12 to do this they should go for Barritt, but then our attacking threat from 12 is almost non-existent. Eastmond and Ford is a recipe for disaster, and 12trees just isn't international class (too many errors). Tuilagi would be similar to Burrell, he might be better in attack but he doesn't usually play 12 so his positioning in defence would be a problem.

 

[goodNumber10]

This is going to get no love at all, but i'd really like to Fazlet move to 12 for Saracens and get some game time there when he comes back from his knee injury.

 

[Peat]

I too think people are being a little over-harsh on Burrell. He looked bad stuck between two star performers when in reality, he was probably just the wrong side of average. He did some very neat things in attack, albeit often letting himself down at the final juncture. His defence, well, I still think his main problem in defence is that he simply mis-reads the situation and doesn't get enough on players, leading to him missing tackles he shouldn't. But it's not terminal and with the exception of Barritt, we run a few risks with anyone at 12. I would rather have Burrell than Barritt on current 6N form, although obviously I'd rather have neither.

I agree with GN10 that people are going to hate Fazlet at 12. I know I do.

At the moment, out of the guys in contention, my preferences at 12 go

Tuilagi
Burrell/36 in form
Barritt
Burrell/36 out of form
Fazlet

 

[goodNumber10]

I too think people are being a little over-harsh on Burrell. He looked bad stuck between two star performers when in reality, he was probably just the wrong side of average. He did some very neat things in attack, albeit often letting himself down at the final juncture. His defence, well, I still think his main problem in defence is that he simply mis-reads the situation and doesn't get enough on players, leading to him missing tackles he shouldn't. But it's not terminal and with the exception of Barritt, we run a few risks with anyone at 12. I would rather have Burrell than Barritt on current 6N form, although obviously I'd rather have neither.

I agree with GN10 that people are going to hate Fazlet at 12. I know I do.

At the moment, out of the guys in contention, my preferences at 12 go

Tuilagi
Burrell/36 in form
Barritt
Burrell/36 out of form
Fazlet

don't disagree massively with that..

My point about Fazlet getting game time at 12 for Sarries is he is clearly going to end up covering it from within the match day squad, and probably even starting there during the world cup pool stages so he needs some time there - and who knows, on paper he's got the skill set, and the physical presence with regular game time......

 

[TheSaffycen]

It all depends on how Farrell looks when he is fit. He has a much better pass than Burrell, he has a kicking game, his defence is pretty good as well. Really he is the only option we have which is close to a ball playing 12 with good defence. His running is a problem but he would have 2 guys either side of him who can both run and that means that teams would have to stand off on them. Farrell also makes more breaks than he is given credit to, so hopefully with more creative players around him he might come on more attacking wise as well. Obviously Slade would work there as well, probably even better as he is a better athlete but he doesn't have the big game experience that Farrell has got.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

It's weird because Farrell has all of the qualities you'd want from a top drawer distributing 12, but I've never seen him play well there. Not consistently, anyway.

 

[goodNumber10]

It's weird because Farrell has all of the qualities you'd want from a top drawer distributing 12, but I've never seen him play well there. Not consistently, anyway.

it's not easy to swap between the two they are close together but the time on ball is vastly different (less), hence i think he needs game time there - he's played 10 a lot, and also it will help him come back in as the pressure will be off a little.

don't get me wrong, i'm not saying he should be England 12, but he's clearly going to slot in there a lot so he would do well with getting some game time there - that way we cna lose 36 from the bench and have back three cover.

 

[ncurd]

Fazlet @ 12 is certainly more appealing than Fazlet @ 10 currently. With JJ outside it may just work but we pretty much need to try it in all three warm up games I think Tualangi is first choice to try there but I suspect they probably will go for Ford/Fazlet/JJ and put Manu on the bench in the world cup.

Problem is they tried Ford/Farrell @ 10/12 during the AI whilst Farrell was woefully out of form and it looked very uninspiring.

 

[TommiG88]

i really think people are being a bit hard on Burrell, he really was havily marked this 6N, and England don't really know if they want to sit on the pot or p*ss in it...

Do they set targets or do they move defences left and right? Who knows? Certainly not England it would seem - i've said this a few times but they really are a team missing their own identity, they seem to be copying the best parts of other teams and not being quite as good at them as the originals.

So i think it's difficult for any 12 to shine in that environment, is he a ball player, or is he a target? again, who knows, certainly not England.

I think the best indication we got of how good Burrell can be is the Ford break right at the start of the Scotland game, the line he took to fly up on fords right, he was flying and covered that ground like nothing else in the team..... yeah i know he got tackled with the ball, and yeah he should have let it go, but i do understand he would have seen Seymour in his peripheral and not fancy the chanced pass (no saying he's not at fault i'm just saying i understand not throwing a 50/50 in that situation).

I think he needs some more time, but it's a commodity we just don't have.

Most of the time I do agree with you however I feel Burrell is out of his depth. I know I don't hide the fact, he's had 1 good game this season in my opinion.

We must have better options out there. With ford I know we can't have Eastmond but the way we are playing at the moment it would make no difference as we are not really spending much thought on our defence.

This picking the team malarkey is difficult.

Only a few names pick themselves at the moment.

Cole, lawes, robshaw due to being captain, vunipola, youngs, ford, Joseph, Nowell, brown.

The rest are up for consideration.

 

[Mrs. Peter Quinn]

I too think people are being a little over-harsh on Burrell. He looked bad stuck between two star performers when in reality, he was probably just the wrong side of average. He did some very neat things in attack, albeit often letting himself down at the final juncture. His defence, well, I still think his main problem in defence is that he simply mis-reads the situation and doesn't get enough on players, leading to him missing tackles he shouldn't. But it's not terminal and with the exception of Barritt, we run a few risks with anyone at 12. I would rather have Burrell than Barritt on current 6N form, although obviously I'd rather have neither.

I agree with GN10 that people are going to hate Fazlet at 12. I know I do.

At the moment, out of the guys in contention, my preferences at 12 go

Tuilagi
Burrell/36 in form
Barritt
Burrell/36 out of form
Fazlet

Cmon man, Burrell looked neat against Wales characteristically getting offloads away but nothing beyond that. Nice attempt at an offload in the opening minute against France but it didn't come off.

He looked for contact instead of space. Bumped off a few would be tacklers but ultimately went nowhere. I don't get why but numerous times he stopped running onto the ball and instead stepped in and sought the contact.

Ball skills were poor, knocked on some balls, some harder than others but the other guys in the back line made the most of those scenarios. Strayed offside a few times...
In short he didn't look bad because he was stuck in between two stars, he looked bad because the things he did were poor.
He was poor.

 

[msf]

RE: Farrell at 12, this worked at junior level because there was more space to wide passes there. I don't see it working at international level, not when teams playing us know they can just blitz to stop this, leaving us with a 12 who isn't a big ball carrier and who can't step. It might possibly work at the end of games, when defences are tired, but as a starting option I can't see it working. Can you imagine the All Blacks delight at hearing that Farrell was going to play 12? At the very best, it would stretch the game, which would just play into NZ or Australia's hands. It won't work against Wales or South Africa's defence either, in fact the only teams I can see it working against are those 2nd tier nations that aren't well organized, but then it didn't even work well against Samoa, so perhaps it's just a terrible idea all round. I didn't actually see either of the games where we had Farrell at 12 and Hodgson at 10, but since we only scored 2 charge downs we can't have been up to much attacking-wise.

 

[goodNumber10]

RE: Farrell at 12, this worked at junior level because there was more space to wide passes there. I don't see it working at international level, not when teams playing us know they can just blitz to stop this, leaving us with a 12 who isn't a big ball carrier and who can't step. It might possibly work at the end of games, when defences are tired, but as a starting option I can't see it working. Can you imagine the All Blacks delight at hearing that Farrell was going to play 12? At the very best, it would stretch the game, which would just play into NZ or Australia's hands. It won't work against Wales or South Africa's defence either, in fact the only teams I can see it working against are those 2nd tier nations that aren't well organized, but then it didn't even work well against Samoa, so perhaps it's just a terrible idea all round. I didn't actually see either of the games where we had Farrell at 12 and Hodgson at 10, but since we only scored 2 charge downs we can't have been up to much attacking-wise.

Yeah, I agree with all of that at present and i do not think he should be starting there; but it's clearly an option that Lancaster uses for tail ends of games and as stop gaps and Goal kicking is inevitibly going to be the deciding factor between Ford and Farrell - so that's why I think he should get more time at 12 to improve his skill set - better at premiership than at international level and you never know he may find his feet there and give us another genuine option.

 

[TheSaffycen]

RE: Farrell at 12, this worked at junior level because there was more space to wide passes there. I don't see it working at international level, not when teams playing us know they can just blitz to stop this, leaving us with a 12 who isn't a big ball carrier and who can't step. It might possibly work at the end of games, when defences are tired, but as a starting option I can't see it working. Can you imagine the All Blacks delight at hearing that Farrell was going to play 12? At the very best, it would stretch the game, which would just play into NZ or Australia's hands. It won't work against Wales or South Africa's defence either, in fact the only teams I can see it working against are those 2nd tier nations that aren't well organized, but then it didn't even work well against Samoa, so perhaps it's just a terrible idea all round. I didn't actually see either of the games where we had Farrell at 12 and Hodgson at 10, but since we only scored 2 charge downs we can't have been up to much attacking-wise.

But I think they would be more happy to see Burrell and Ford together. Both seem to be poor tacklers, and not the they caused the opposition to move into the back row. Farrell will tackle players behind the gainline and will force them to make decisions, though against Nonu he didn't do well (though he was injured).
Also who knows how we will play if they tell the guys to go out and attack. Faz looked a lot better when he was told to attack against Italy last year or with the Lions.