Englands Half Backs

I feel this was a mixed bag today for Wilko, but I felt that Youngs had a very poor game overall.

There were a number of times when he turned decent quick ball into a slow nothingness with his hesitation. I have reminders of Care in his breakthrough season when he would be at times indecisive and of course everyone is familiar with his habit of crabbing across the field before passing. However, recently he has been our standout scrum half having corrected this and I'm sure that Youngs can do the same, he is after all only about 22/23. Wigglesworth clearly made a difference when he came on, was fast and decisive at the breakdown and quickly got the ball out to Flood who then had time to see what was on and play accorrdingly.

Incidently this was something that he did which Wilko could have learnt from, he spent the entire game in "drop-goal mode" and frequently failed to see what was on outside him. Case in point, England get a good driving maul going from a lineout in the Scottish 22, great attacking ball, which comes out to wilko who then automatically goes for the drop and misses (the same situation with Wigglesworth and Flood led to Ashtons try). Fair enough if there has been 5-10 phases and we aren't going forward, then yes take some points but at least attempt to go for the try first. I feel this could be the downfall for this England side (yes i know there are other reasons, like ability) as it is a let off for the oppostion and, no offence to Scotland, there are times when we will be punished for doing so. England have shown that they can win playing good attacking rugby and Wilko is a very good distributor who can fit in with this game plan. However, the whole idea of Englands game being made for knockout rugby could be detrimental to us in the knockout stages (ironically enough) when we will need to score tries to beat other teams. IMO Wilko is the epitome of this attitude and whilst he is a legend (for the English at least) and there is no-one else I would rather have taking a pressure kick to win a game I still feel that certain aspects of his mindset hold us back. This is in part due to everyones view that he will kick England out of trouble and he now feels pressured to do this all the time, even more so when its a knockot game (as today essentially was)

As has already been mentioned on other posts Wilko also attempted very difficult kicks when the better option would have been to kick to the corners and pressure the Scots, this decision making was poor as it frequently let off the Scots (whether these decisions were made by himself or Moody I dont know but you would hope that had he not felt comfortable with the range he would let Moody know).

So for the next game who do 606v2 want to see at halfback?

For me I would go with Wigglesworth and Wilko. They are good controlling/managing players and I think having Wigglesworth take some of that responsiblity will help Wilko see what else is on around him, letting him focus on his own game rather than think that the entire outcome rests on his shoulders. Youngs is obviously a great impact player if needed and has a good partnership with Flood, who himself is also able to see out a game (his kicking from hand in tee is underrated IMO). I also feel that dropping Youngs to the bench will help get the most out of him and Wilko made some poor desicisions (his all round game was good) which should be corrected just by talking to him.