England team for game vs Ireland

First topic message reminder :

England team:
15 Ben Foden (Northampton Saints),
14 Chris Ashton (Northampton Saints),
13 Manu Tuilagi (Leicester Tigers),
12 Mike Tindall (Gloucester Rugby, captain),
11 Mark Cueto (Sale Sharks),
10 Jonny Wilkinson (Toulon),
9 Richard Wigglesworth (Saracens),
1 Andrew Sheridan (Sale Sharks),
2 Steve Thompson (London Wasps),
3 Dan Cole (Leicester Tigers),
4 Louis Deacon (Leicester Tigers),
5 Courtney Lawes (Northampton Saints),
6 Tom Croft (Leicester Tigers),
7 James Haskell (Ricoh Black Rams),
8 Nick Easter (Harlequins).

Replacements: 16 Dylan Hartley (Northampton Saints), 17 Matt Stevens (Saracens), 18 Simon Shaw (Unattached), 19 Tom Wood (Northampton Saints), 20 Joe Simpson (London Wasps), 21 Toby Flood (Leicester Tigers), 22 Delon Armitage (London Irish).

robbo277 wrote:

HURLEY_BURLEY wrote:No BOD. Ye have a chance !

Sure Foden won't be happy to see that, having skinned O'Driscoll at least once in the Heineken Cup final.

Remind me who lifted that particular trophy?
Drico has lost a yard of pace, I will give you that. Suspect you would still like him in your midfield all the same.

Hurley

BOD in our midfield? Only if we can have a time machine as well and take the wear and tear of the last 10 years off him. Top player, but slightly over the hill (although as with all really great players, he's found a way to compensate for his slowing down and remained an effective player).

O'Driscoll and Tuilagi would be a phenomenal midfield! I'll have that please.

However, being better than Hape isn't a glowing reference of an International centre.

O'Driscoll was a world class player and remains a very, very good one, but he's not as good as he once was and I feel he can be got at a little (by running around him as Foden did, rather than trying to smash through him - he always seems to get back up!)

Yeah it will be a sad day when he hangs up his boots. A one in a generation player.
I am apprehensive of how Darcy & Earls will fare against your brutes on Sat.

HURLEY_BURLEY wrote:Yeah it will be a sad day when he hangs up his boots. A one in a generation player.
I am apprehensive of how Darcy & Earls will fare against your brutes on Sat.

depends entirely on how well we use these brutes. The smaller man can take down the bigger man if the running angles are poor, the ball is slow and the passing inaccurate. All things which England excelled at in Cardiff. I felt a bit sorry for the centres that day because although they got so much ball it was always so slow, we could have had Gibson and Blanco in midfield and they'd have gotten nowhere.

I do like the look of the team, very happy that Tualaghi as been chosen to start along side Tindall as well.

This should be a cracking game, Although Ireland have not played that well so far you can bet they will for this game.

Also like the look of the bench cannot wait now.

Gutted, i'm at me mother-in-laws all saturday and will be reduced to watching on my laptop. Looks like it's going to be a fantastic match.

Manu's Boxing Coach wrote:Thought MJ would have given Flood one more game to prove himself as he is normally pretty loyal.

Flood didn't play well in the second half of the six nations either though. Wilkinson deserves the 10 shirt right now.

Seagultaf wrote:Suprised Stevens isn't chosen, he has looked very strong in the warm ups.

Our scrum dominance disappeared when he came on at the MS though.

formerly known as Sam wrote:
Only back outside of the half backs with a kicking game.

Monye has a very good kicking game, and I would assume Sharples does as well given that he has played full back a fair bit for Gloucester.

Turkster wrote:

Manu's Boxing Coach wrote:

Turkster wrote:

dummy_half wrote:

14 of the starting 15 English born, with the other one having been here since age 12.

since the age of 14, not 12.

I thought it was 13? But does it really matter?

yes, he was wrong.

Actually he was 13, at least according to Tiger's head of operations:

Tuilagi

Well if looks a pretty good side, not perfect but pretty good given the constraints of the available players. An on form Flood and Youngs, a proper 7, a form 11 and a Twelvetrees at IC would make us better, but this will do for now.

Moving Tinds one in just means one more player outside him won't receive a decent pass. How can someone who does this for a living for as long as he's done it not aquire this skill? Seriously, how?

Does there come a time somewhere in his career where coaching staff are simply too embarrassed to point it out to him because so many other people before them have picked him to play at such high levels?

Is Mike so blind to himself that he actually believes he's even remotely good at it?

Does he recognise the deficiency but is unable to join the dots to see that putting in some dedicated work at it, even now in his career, would improve it?

Does he fundamentally care enough?

It's not that he throws the occasional pie - it's that he throws the occasional decent one or even one at all

Yeah Tinds handling is appalling...however this can be cured very easily...its called a miss pass...

Seriously though im not sure on him at 12. But Tuilagi is a good shout for 13.

Shame Allen wasnt in the squad...would liked to have seen him given a run out.

It'll be all irrelevant anyway if we dont match them at the breakdown. THe last meeting was a long day at the office for the England pack.

Happy with the team except from Wigglesworth. Feel confident of victory by 12-15 points over the Irish!

Yeah Tinds handling is appalling

Managed a simple pass to Manu through and showed better hands than Hape (no knock ons, no forward passes and no losing it at every contact).