Will Gatland ever drop Jon Davies?

All the way through the warm-ups and today in our first world cup game he hasn't played well, despite the pressure of being replaced by Scarlets team-mate Scott Williams. JD is good at hitting gaps due to his 'centre of gravity' and has afterburners which he can turn on, but rarely does it and tends to struggle with the basics I:E passing. For me Scott should have been playing weeks ago. JD's dropping of balls and failing to tackle a player after chasing them down today was too much for me; there was also an identical occassion where Armitage danced around him at Twickenham and England almost scored in the corner.

Now I know scarlets fans will be telling me it's all the fault of James Hook and Jamie Roberts as they have been for weeks, or that he's being played out of position at 13. It might be worth noting that those said two happen to be two of our best players who have also played regulary out of position themselves.

Time to give Roberts and Williams a go in the centre, come on Gats sort it out.

What did he do wrong today?
I thought he played well!

JD had his best game for Wales today.

He made brilliant breaks, many of them half breaks that sucked in enough defenders to allow him to offload and get past the gain line. He was superb in support as well as getting us out of some really tricky situations in our own 22m.

He had a couple of wobbles, notably one knock on, otherwise I thought he was great. He's got an excellent understanding in defence with Roberts as well, their partnership is really growing. I wouldn't change it.

I've got to wonder what game some Welsh posters were watching for them to call for him being dropped. I wouldn't drop anyone from the team today.

and I've no doubt you won't really consider any of the above, down to me being a Scarlets fan

Nope, sorry. Considering all of what you just said never happened. Priestland was written off via facebook though, hopefully he's proved some doubters wrong. Was never in doubt in my mind though.

JD played well best performance in the red jersey and i have often been a huge critic of his.

If we wanted to pick holes in one player Shane Williams showed them the way to the tryline twice.

According to the stats JD made zero offloads dreamer.

Why can't Scarlets just admit when one of their players isn't firing for Wales, I really don't get it. And hopefully today finally shut you all up about Charteris too.

Well that's not true nj coz I've just re-watched the game and he made at least 2.

and if we're going by stats, JD was the only back on the field for Wales that beat defenders.

I've always rated Charteris, and I thought he was immense today, 2nd place in the MotM stakes today for me

Davies deserves to keep his place against Samoa. Why exactly do you have it in for him?

Nottins
If you watched the last 4 or 5 games that Wales have played you would have seen that Roberts played poorly against France but was superb in the first 1 and 1/2 games against England and played very very good yesterday.

Two reasons for this...............

1. An aware 10 (Priestland)and an aware 13 (Davies).

2. Jon Davies is playing under instructions from Gatland i.e. covering Roberts runs and playing out of position at outside centre. This is not his normal game which is receiving timed passes off the first receiver and scoring tries off the midfield channel i.e. 8 ML games played 8 tries scored 100% record and best in the MK last season. His overall defence was very very good.

He was quite superb in carrying out those instruction today and in the last 3 or 4 games

Perhaps actually looking at the overall game made highlight this for you.

Just a question for you with reference to your dislike of dropping balls or giving away penalties..... would you advocate dropping Lydiate as he gave away 3 or 4 penalties today?

rugbydreamer wrote:Well that's not true nj coz I've just re-watched the game and he made at least 2.

and if we're going by stats, JD was the only back on the field for Wales that beat defenders.

I've always rated Charteris, and I thought he was immense today, 2nd place in the MotM stakes today for me

Again going by the stats, Roberts, Williams, Faletau and North beat defenders. If that was his best game for us then his previous performances are worse than once thought. Has he ever played well for us? Dieing for Scott Williams to get another opportunity, I've been really impressed in his performances in a Wales shirt.

Charteris has had criticism for weeks, surely now there's no doubt that he and AWJ are our best 2nd partnership in the minds of the critics. Bradley was supposed to make an impact off the bench but still looked really lethargic.

nottins dont criticise any of the players they all put their hearts into that and JD and JR were both playing excellently.

As a neutral I thought Charteris and Davies both played well today.

well you're clearly going by a different stats site to me then, which just highlights the problems with stats....we aren't ever going to get the fully accurate ones. Only the teams are going to have them.

And yes of course he's played well for us. That's a bit of a strange and slightly ridiculous question NJ.

"Has he ever played well for us?"

You're asking this today?

Nottins

Has he ever played well for you?

Have you a selective memory?

Davies was very very good when playing in the SIs against NZ the second test with the Biggar/Davies/Roberts combo gave a real good account of themselves. He was also very very good in the 1st friendly against England where he nullified Tuilagi.

flyhalffactory wrote:Nottins
If you watched the last 4 or 5 games that Wales have played you would have seen that Roberts played poorly against France was superb in the first 1 and 1/2 games against England and played very very good yesterday.

Two reasons for this...............

1. An aware 10 (Priestland)and an aware 13 (Davies).

2. Jon Davies is playing under instructions from Gatland i.e. covering Roberts runs and playing out of position at outside centre. This is not his normal game which is receiving timed passes off the first receiver and scoring tries off the midfield channel i.e. 8 ML games played 8 tries scored 100% record and best in the MK last season. His overall defence was very very good.

He was quite superb in carrying out those instruction today and in the last 3 or 4 games

Perhaps actually looking at the overall game made highlight this for you.

Just a question for you with reference to your dislike of dropping balls or giving away penalties..... would you advocate dropping Lydiate as he gave away 3 or 4 penalties today?

I think Roberts has been superb in all 4 of those games, showing why he was man of the Lions series where he did not play alongside Priestland or Davies. Why exactly are you still going on about the 6 Nations? We are an entirely different team now.

Fair points about Lydiate. He's been quite error prone in our last 4 games and putting him to the bench wouldn't be such a bad idea. Although his ball carrying, tackling and breakdown work more than makes up for it. Besides that that means we'd have to play Powell at 6 who is not good at the breakdown, Argentina dominated him in that area.

flyhalffactory wrote:Nottins

Has he ever played well for you?

Have you a selective memory?

Davies was very very good when playing in the SIs against NZ the second test with the Biggar/Davies/Roberts combo gave a real good account of themselves. He was also very very good in the 1st friendly against England where he nullified Tuilagi.

What's an SI? Actually, I thought he played pretty well in that second test. Butchered a try scoring opportunity though, it was left up to Roberts to then score our try . Don't agree he played well against england.

nottins_jones wrote:

flyhalffactory wrote:Nottins
If you watched the last 4 or 5 games that Wales have played you would have seen that Roberts played poorly against France was superb in the first 1 and 1/2 games against England and played very very good yesterday.

Two reasons for this...............

1. An aware 10 (Priestland)and an aware 13 (Davies).

2. Jon Davies is playing under instructions from Gatland i.e. covering Roberts runs and playing out of position at outside centre. This is not his normal game which is receiving timed passes off the first receiver and scoring tries off the midfield channel i.e. 8 ML games played 8 tries scored 100% record and best in the MK last season. His overall defence was very very good.

He was quite superb in carrying out those instruction today and in the last 3 or 4 games

Perhaps actually looking at the overall game made highlight this for you.

Just a question for you with reference to your dislike of dropping balls or giving away penalties..... would you advocate dropping Lydiate as he gave away 3 or 4 penalties today?

I think Roberts has been superb in all 4 of those games, showing why he was man of the Lions series where he did not play alongside Priestland or Davies. Why exactly are you still going on about the 6 Nations? We are an entirely different team now.

Fair points about Lydiate. He's been quite error prone in our last 4 games and putting him to the bench wouldn't be such a bad idea. Although his ball carrying, tackling and breakdown work more than makes up for it. Besides that that means we'd have to play Powell at 6 who is not good at the breakdown, Argentina dominated him in that area.

You asked the question ............ has Davies ever played well for you?, I am providing you with some evidence of what Davies brings to the game and sometimes to prove it you need to look back over a period of games

nottins_jones wrote:

flyhalffactory wrote:Nottins

Has he ever played well for you?

Have you a selective memory?

Davies was very very good when playing in the SIs against NZ the second test with the Biggar/Davies/Roberts combo gave a real good account of themselves. He was also very very good in the 1st friendly against England where he nullified Tuilagi.

What's an SI? Actually, I thought he played pretty well in that second test. Butchered a try scoring opportunity though, it was left up to Roberts to then score our try . Don't agree he played well against england.

Summer Internationals

He made a couple of mistakes including, forcing a pass that was never on in the 2nd half, but faletau knocked on near the SA try line and danny lydiate gave away at least 2 penalties. But they were all fantastic. You also have to take into account he was pkaying13. Wales have a very young team. Even Roberts (he must love playing SA) is still only 25. Wales were fantastic today and I'm still not sure how we lost that game.

Am really glad for Charteris that he had such a good game and hopefully this can put to bed (at least for a while) the rubbish of Luke has never played a good game in the Welsh team.

With JD2, I don't think he's hit anywhere near the form he has had for the scarlets - but he's great in defence, runs great support lines and when he hits a gap he has excellent pace to get away from people.
Also don't think it would be fair to throw Williams into such a high intensity game for a starting debut and expect him to perform well.

not a massive fan of davies dont think hes a 13 and would love to see williams given a go, but davies did not play badly today and doesnt deserve to be dropped,

lydiate did give 3 penalties away today but one imo wasnt a penalty as the ball was out of the back of the scrum and i thought the penalty given for him entyering the SA maul from side was harsh tooo, if you drop him we would not win the breakdwon area end of

No changes required.
Let them get on with the job however I would prefer a stronger bench!!

hopefully we might have the likes of Geth Jenks, Ryan and Stephen Jones to call on! A bit of experience was just what we needed the last 15mins I think.

flyhalffactory wrote:
You asked the question ............ has Davies ever played well for you?, I am providing you with some evidence of what Davies brings to the game and sometimes to prove it you need to look back over a period of games

But it's pointless. We're a different and better team now. Our style doesn't seem to be suiting Davies well. Roberts is our first choice 12 so perhaps JD should sit on the bench as cover for him and then let a natural 13 play outside Roberts, which is Williams imo. If you're a good player, then you play well in most positions. Hook does, despite full back being his worst he still plays fairly well. The team seems to be hitting some form and imo JD isn't/hasn't for Wales.

As for Faletau, that's exactly the reason why most fans didn't select him in our starting XV. Looking at his number of caps and how he played against the Boks you have to give him some credit and allow him to keep his place for Samoa.

who's the natural 13 in our squad?

Oh, we don't have one. Both Williams and Davies play 12 for the Scarlets.

The only time I can remember JD dropping the ball was the ball was passed behind him, actually hitting him on the behind. You can't seriously drop him for that? No doubt he is not as comfortable at 13 as he is at 12, but Scott Williams is a 12 also. THe only player with test experience at 13 is Hook, who was looking quite good there.

And don't blame Shane for SAs first try, where was Hook when his opposite number was coming into the line? Miles out of position! When he did get to the tackle, it was a powder puff affair! Also don't forget Hook missed his second penalty, probably the easiest kick of the game. I know there are those who said that the Video Referee should have been called into play, but if he had kicked it through the middle of the posts there would have been no problem.

Thespacedragon wrote:No changes required.
Let them get on with the job however I would prefer a stronger bench!!

Hopefully Ryan will be in instead of Powell, and Jenkins will be ok - if so then a bench of P James, Burns, B Davies, R Jones, Knoyle, Williams & Halfpenny is a pretty good bench and gives us quite a few options.

Just realised though that as everyone has played so well and probably won't be dropped then Hook will most likely be stuck at FB for most of the tournament - his worst position IMO by far.

Gavindragon. I wasn't criticising lydiate. I was just making the point that even our best players make errors. For me, Danny lydiate is just superb. He hits everything and with warburton they make a great partnership. There is NO way I'd see lydiate dropped and there is no way gatland will drop him. He's vital and one of our key men.

To a certain extent I agree that he has never hit the level for Wales that he has for the Scarlets. I think he is better at 12 but Gatland has a vision and we almost saw it come to fruition today. His defence is sound and he makes half breaks.

I have thought for a long time that Charteris should be playing. Always gives his all and is a massive target in the lineout.

The only player I thought would have more of an impact then he did was North. I think SA had him targetted as a danger man after the last time they met.

Great game and I kind of wish i had been a neutral watching it. If we can keep the momentum we will certainly be dangerous to Australia should we make it to the quarters...

Seagultaf wrote:The only time I can remember JD dropping the ball was the ball was passed behind him, actually hitting him on the behind. You can't seriously drop him for that? No doubt he is not as comfortable at 13 as he is at 12, but Scott Williams is a 12 also. THe only player with test experience at 13 is Hook, who was looking quite good there.

And don't blame Shane for SAs first try, where was Hook when his opposite number was coming into the line? Miles out of position! When he did get to the tackle, it was a powder puff affair! Also don't forget Hook missed his second penalty, probably the easiest kick of the game. I know there are those who said that the Video Referee should have been called into play, but if he had kicked it through the middle of the posts there would have been no problem.

And also that last penalty should definitely have gone over. Can't help thinking that Jones would have kicked both of them. the boys will know where they've lost the game. I fully expect them to come out strongly in the next match

Is Nick Reynolds the 13 at the Scarlets then?

If you don't think he's a 13, fair enough. But he's certainly looked better there than Davies has. I don't think he'll be dropped anyway but hopefully Gatland would try Scott outside Roberts sometime in the 2nd half against Samoa.

man of gwent my reply wasnt iat you ( i think) someone above suggested dropping him, was just pointing out as you said that hes vital to us

Regan King was the 13 at the Scarlets, along with Maule. Reynolds can play there as well.

Nottins

I believe Williams plays I/C not O/C.

Hook plays well in any position yes................ but not very well,

Roberts plays superb with an aware 13 as he proved with BOD (Lions) Fourie (BaaBaas) Shanks (Wales & Blues) Lualala (Blues) and Davies (Wales) but during the same time period have you ever seen him have a good game with Hook at 13 I can't recall one. IMHO Hook is not as aware or as good overall a 13 or 12 as Jon Davies. If Hook goes back to 13 then Roberts will go into his shell again

I'll tell you again Davies is playing under instructions from Gatland, i.e. covering Roberts barnstorming runs and holding the defensive line. Williams will be under the same instructions

Gav. Sorry.

They must be mad. It's like saying warburton should be dropped. As I always do. I've watched the game again and his work rate is just excellent. He is absolutely vital.

Seems a strange thread this one - JD has underperformed for Wales since his debut but today he found his place in a welsh jersey, strong bullocking player who took it to them when need be. He does lack some composure though with a few fly hacks into no mans land. Be nice to see these boys on the front foot a bit more often. They were up against 2 monsters in the SA centre and did well.

I hate to say it fly half. You're right.

I thought JD2 had a mixed game, most of the time I thought he was poor he has a turning circle of a bus, he is easily beaten when he chases kicks, he is better at the biltz defence employed against England but drift he is not so good. I was disappointed by the first try as Shane was too close to Davies and should have been marking the try scorer, I am not sure whether Shane trust's Davies to take his man but I thought Hook should have moved forward to meet the attacker.

JD2 did makes some nice breaks but he threw a stupid pass near the end when we needed composure. There is no argument Roberts is our best centre, I don't think Scot Williams should start in that game but could have come on as he is solid player and different.

Osprey's fan here-JD2 had a good game, and im not a big fan of his. Same goes for roberts. Am i the only one in thinking that Priestland was mediocre, for 4 caps and against the world champions it was not a bad performance but i would rather hook or jones at 10, at least atm.
As for Scott Williams, seriously? he is a very good prospect, i like the guy, but as 1st choice replacement centre he is lucky enough.
Warburton was massive, so was Charteris and Bennett (wtf?)
Phillips was good and very physical but as usual took so long to pass the ball, overall had a positive impact, i think.

Thespacedragon wrote:No changes required.
Let them get on with the job however I would prefer a stronger bench!!

Hopefully Ryan will be in instead of Powell, and Jenkins will be ok - if so then a bench of P James, Burns, B Davies, R Jones, Knoyle, Williams & Halfpenny is a pretty good bench and gives us quite a few options.

Just realised though that as everyone has played so well and probably won't be dropped then Hook will most likely be stuck at FB for most of the tournament - his worst position IMO by far.

alun, agree there about Davies' defence. If anyone can exploit him on the drift defence it's the runners in the Samoa team. Running head on at him he should stop them.

it doesnt matter who wales change. its unlikely they would play better than they did today.

Why i's it unlikely. Reasons??

manofgwent wrote:I hate to say it fly half. You're right.

I Love You MOG

The reason Roberts is playing like he is is because of his partnership with JD2. Roberts can go off blazing through tacklers safe in the knowledge JD2 knows where he needs to be and what needs to be done.

The defence has been good, JD2 has been caught out positionally on occasion, but who hasnt at his age? JD2 had some absolutely excellant line breaks from our 22 against SA and bought us time to effectively clear our lines.

JD2JD2JD2JD2

split up the Roberts/JD2 axis if you want. but it'd make you a fool. Hook isn't strong enough defensively (in the tackle/positionally) to partner roberts, and this is why we didnt see the best of roberts when he was partnered with Hook.

Roberts makes big runs, sucks in a lot of defenders and causes the opposition problems for the full 80 minutes and it's all down to JD2.

nottins_jones wrote:Roberts makes big runs, sucks in a lot of defenders and causes the opposition problems for the full 80 minutes and it's all down to JD2.

when was the last time he caused a world class side problems whilst playing for wales?

JD had his best game yesterday and with Roberts getting back to his best I think they are developing in to a nice partnership.

Comfort wrote:

nottins_jones wrote:Roberts makes big runs, sucks in a lot of defenders and causes the opposition problems for the full 80 minutes and it's all down to JD2.

when was the last time he caused a world class side problems whilst playing for wales?

I thought Roberts was absolutely immense on Sunday and was Wales best player behind Warburton. He's playing a very limited crash ball game but doing it brilliantly and he was smashing over the gainline all game. He was in superb form in the warm ups too and is playing his best rugby since 2009.