England to have caretaker coaches through 6n?

First topic message reminder :


There appears to be a few rumours popping about that England will go with the following for the 6n....

Stuart Lancaster pencilled in to be caretaker head coach,
Mike Ford in charge of defence and the backs
Graham Rowntree, upgraded to forwards coach

Anyone else heard these? Could they be true?

I do agree that England have a balance issue.

Personally I would go with the following:

6.Robshaw
7.Wood
8. Easter

Croft on the bench.

It's pretty harsh on Croft who is a top class player, but I think my starting combination is more balanced, and Croft lends himself nicely to the role of impact sub, particularly if the game is starting to open up.

I know Nick Easter has few fans these days, but he's the top performing 8 in the country alongside Tom Waldrom.

funnyExiledScot wrote:I have a lot of time for Tom Johnson, but I see no reason on form or ability to pick him ahead of Tom Croft or Chris Robshaw.

Sadly, 'tis true, TJ has not been his usual self so far this season

funnyExiledScot wrote:I do agree that England have a balance issue.

Personally I would go with the following:

6.Robshaw
7.Wood
8. Easter

Croft on the bench.

It's pretty harsh on Croft who is a top class player, but I think my starting combination is more balanced, and Croft lends himself nicely to the role of impact sub, particularly if the game is starting to open up.

I know Nick Easter has few fans these days, but he's the top performing 8 in the country alongside Tom Waldrom.

I have been a big fan of Easter through the years whilst he has had many critics....and at present the truth is..he is still the best 8 we have. Now thats fine for the short term....but we need to be looking beyond him long term.

Croft is as you say a classy player...but at the moment he does not suit Englands style. His talents are being wasted.
Now if we were to have two huge Second Rows...like a young Shaw and Grewcock etc to do the nasty stuff...then Croft comes in to his own....both as a lineout operator...and allowing him stay out a little more where his athleticsim can be used. However we dont have that...we have an athletic young lock in lawes...and ? the other to be confirmed so i feel we need more of a tough grafter in there at 6.

For the six nations...i guess i'd probably go with yours aswell 6. Robshaw 7. Wood 8. Easter

funnyExiledScot wrote:Currently Fearns and Narraway don't make the Bath and Glaws 1st XVs respectively.

In Fearns case that is because he hasn't been available. He started every match until his injury and was the form player of the backrow. He's out for a further 2-3months, so don't see him making the EPS.

funnyExiledScot wrote:It's as I thought. Your preferred back row is lighter in each position, compared to the "lightweight" back row you don't like.

On a point of order, according to espnscrum and premiershiprugby websites, Fearns is in excess of a stone heavier than either Wood or Croft. Wikipedia Have Wood just under a stone lighter.

hawalsh wrote:On a point of order, according to espnscrum and premiershiprugby websites, Fearns is in excess of a stone heavier than either Wood or Croft. Wikipedia Have Wood just under a stone lighter.

I was using the stone measurements on Wikipedia.

I had assumed that the suggested back row was 6.Johnson 7.Narraway 8.Fearns - which is why I compared Fearns to Easter.

They had Fearns in at 17st 3lbs, with Easter at 18st 6lbs and Wood at 17st 2lbs.

Whichever way you cut it my back row is the heavier of the two, whether you go position by position (with Croft the heaviest 6 and Easter the heaviest 8) or aggregate weight.

GeordieFalcon wrote:I have been a big fan of Easter through the years whilst he has had many critics....and at present the truth is..he is still the best 8 we have. Now thats fine for the short term....but we need to be looking beyond him long term.

Croft is as you say a classy player...but at the moment he does not suit Englands style. His talents are being wasted.
Now if we were to have two huge Second Rows...like a young Shaw and Grewcock etc to do the nasty stuff...then Croft comes in to his own....both as a lineout operator...and allowing him stay out a little more where his athleticsim can be used. However we dont have that...we have an athletic young lock in lawes...and ? the other to be confirmed so i feel we need more of a tough grafter in there at 6.

For the six nations...i guess i'd probably go with yours aswell 6. Robshaw 7. Wood 8. Easter

I agree that Easter isn't a long-term option but if you had both Robshaw and Wood on the flanks with Lawes at lock then I hardly think you could be accused of being short sighted.

England have some fine prospects at 8, not least Tom Guest, Jordan Crane and Carl Fearns, but sadly they are injured. Picking Easter is a pretty easy call really, he's both the form pick but also adds some need experience to what I suspect will be quite a green pack.

funnyExiledScot wrote:

hawalsh wrote:On a point of order, according to espnscrum and premiershiprugby websites, Fearns is in excess of a stone heavier than either Wood or Croft. Wikipedia Have Wood just under a stone lighter.

I was using the stone measurements on Wikipedia.

I had assumed that the suggested back row was 6.Johnson 7.Narraway 8.Fearns - which is why I compared Fearns to Easter.

They had Fearns in at 17st 3lbs, with Easter at 18st 6lbs and Wood at 17st 2lbs.

Whichever way you cut it my back row is the heavier of the two, whether you go position by position (with Croft the heaviest 6 and Easter the heaviest 8) or aggregate weight.

When they played against the Barbarians it was 6.Johnson 7.Fearns 8.Narraway. Narraway is only a makeshift flanker, whereas Fearns is pretty adept.

You misread it, Wikipedia lists Fearns as 17st 13lbs, not 3lbs. The weight of the backrow isn't important to me personally, and Johnson-Fearns-Narraway wouldn't be my choice, was just originally correcting what you had said in relation to Fearns as I knew he was relatively beefy. Having said that, going by the espnscrum & premiershiprugby site figures for the players (I'd probably trust them over Wikipedia as they're more likely to be from official data, and well, Wikipedia is Wikipedia), they both state the combined weight of Croft-Wood-Easter comes to 50st 9lbs and Johnson-Fearns-Narraway comes 51st 2lbs. Could be right, could be wrong, but the reality is there almost certainly isn't much in it.

Ok, my mistake. Fearns is heavier than Wood by a few pounds. My initial point was correct though.

The Wikipedia figures look to almost certainly be wrong, on the Saints website Wood is listed as 16st 7lbs and on the Quins website Easter is 17st 9lbs, making Fearns the heaviest of the lot and around 1.5 stone heavier than Wood.

There are also some conversion issues with the Wiki figures as well - the stones don't always match the kgs.

But anyway, do you think my initial point was wrong? Croft is still heavier than Johnson and Easter heavier than Narraway - whichever way you cut it.

I rate Fearns. See him as a potential 8 though rather than a potential 7, and he needs to get back playing for Bath post-injury so we can properly assess him.

funnyExiledScot wrote:But anyway, do you think my initial point was wrong? Croft is still heavier than Johnson and Easter heavier than Narraway - whichever way you cut it.

As a pedant, I would have to say that wasn't your original point, which was:

"Pretty sure Easter, Croft and Wood comes in as a heavier combination than Fearns, Narraway and Johnson"

As I've shown, all the non-Wikipedia data indicates this suggestion isn't correct.


A later post states:

"It's as I thought. Your preferred back row is lighter in each position"

In two positions rather than "each" would have been correct, though as you stated you thought you were comparing Johnson to Croft, Narraway to Wood and Fearns to Easter, your assertion as you held it would actually only have been correct for one position of the three (if their club, espnscrum and premiershiprugby data is to be believed).


Anyway, I'll trundle off back to my dungeon.