Ben Morgan

Who was the last Wales based player to play for England?

Botham?

We have had so many duel qualified internationals it is hard to tell.

John Callard, Dorien West, Duncan Bell, Start Barnes, Dewi Morris, Josh Lewsey, was born in England to a welsh mother and half welsh father, so I read.

Tom Shanklins dad played for Wales, but he was born in London, and George North was English born also.

How about John Scott for Cardiff RFC in 1984?
I know Stuart Barnes left Newport for Bristol in 1984, and then played for England.

Maurice Colclough played for Swansea and England in the 80's

I think my question was a bit vague, I'm talking about England capped players whilst playing for a Welsh club.

I'm going for John Scott unless anyone has better ideas!!!

Martin Corry has a Welsh speaking mother but he never played for a Welsh club, Duncan Bell played for Pontypridd but moved on to Bath as he could not qualify for Wales as he played for the Saxon's (I think).

Botham bypassed me, but looking into it he got U21 cap.......... not close enough for me, still banking on John Scott

I have to admit I am not conserned Morgan is playing for England, as Gatland stated he has to work on his conditioning. Morgan looks as if he eats too many burgers, with hard work he may get there but hope he won't be a one cap wonder.

Morgan is a good pick for England and would have been a good option for Wales. He is a powerful ball carrier who doesnt shirk from defence and has a brain. Andy Powell with intellegence if you like.

With Wales he would have been locked into a fight with Faletau for a spot though and at teh moment faletau would win hands down. I know he made his choice based on his national identity, but I do also think its the best choice for his career in teh long run. HOpefully the scarlets can keep hold of him as he is a big part of their side.

To be fair though...some players look unhealthy but are extremely fit...but if he is genuinely in need of conditioning...im sure the likes of Rowntree will identify that and up his conditioning work....

Conditioning is one of the easiest things to target in rugby....its the talent and rugby ability thats the hard part....

GeordieFalcon wrote:To be fair though...some players look unhealthy but are extremely fit...but if he is genuinely in need of conditioning...im sure the likes of Rowntree will identify that and up his conditioning work....

Conditioning is one of the easiest things to target in rugby....its the talent and rugby ability thats the hard part....

I remember Dean Richards looked a bit out of conditioning, but somehow the ball always came to him.

Do you think conditioning is easy to target. If Morgan is not ideally conditioned for international back row rugby, that means he's "only" in the 98th percentile of fitness. Getting from 98th percentile to 99.5th percentile is not easy.

That said, you could say the same about sprinting but specialist sprinting coach Margot Wells has improved a lot of players. I assume though Scarlets would already have a specialist conditioning coach?

Your right Alex...its not easy...but i think its one thing you can target directly and influence quite quickly.

Tweaking the conditioning / introducing new methods of fitness is a great way to take it up another level...and im a great believer in cross training...

ie doing some judo work...might improve fitness during the contact part of rugby...and improve a players strength and endurance in grappling for the ball etc...

Just had a look at London Welsh and whilst they have contributed a number of Wales and Lions players and even a South African international theyve never produced an England player.

Theres every chance they will get into the Jeff sometime in the next few years, surely then only a matter of time till they get a traitor on board?

GeordieFalcon wrote:Your right Alex...its not easy...but i think its one thing you can target directly and influence quite quickly.

Tweaking the conditioning / introducing new methods of fitness is a great way to take it up another level...and im a great believer in cross training...

ie doing some judo work...might improve fitness during the contact part of rugby...and improve a players strength and endurance in grappling for the ball etc...

My best rugby was played when doing Karate twice per week. All that stretching added to speed (in rugby training, stretching was done to warm up, not to improve flexibility), and you learn new techniques , - for example putting that extra power into the fraction of second around the tackle, or taking away someone's arm as they're about to (improperly) tackle you.

Judo I assume is great for when someone tackles you above the waist.

Judo groundwork is great for props, the breakdown and mauling. The only problem is that the basic aim of the sport is to raise your opponent into the air and land him on his back (instant red card) or to hold him on the ground such that he can't roll away (penalty. yellow card for repeated offences)....

If his conditioning still needs improving then that speaks volumes about the Pro game in Wales!

The sooner a Pro club in England get hold of him the better.

ha ha your good Hersh...ill give you that

Poorfour....yeah its not 100% ideal...but it'll work on certain aspects of fitness like grappling for an hour...drains your strength just like scrapping for the ball in rugby etc....

Just little tweaks to get that last % out...and also it actually releaves the boredom of the same training everyday...so keeps people motivated

HERSH wrote:If his conditioning still needs improving then that speaks volumes about the Pro game in Wales!

The sooner a Pro club in England get hold of him the better.

Not really, all England players get new fitness targets and schemes.
Phil Vickery through his own motivation lost 2 stone and added as many years to his career, he'd already been England capatin prior to that.

Its peaks volumes about Rugby Union that league players still laugh at the fitness levels.

Hersh:

I remember the Wales V England games prior to the RWC and commenting then how unfit looking a number of the England forwards looked such as Dan Cole, they looked as if it was pre-season rather that the end and pre-RWC. I don't see your argument he would be better off in England as the Scarlets do try to play rugby and not bash bash boring stuff. You seem to forget Morgan came to Wales for work and played all his rugby here so England stand to gain i.e., his skills. I wish him luck but not too much against Wales.

The rumours that people in the England squad were denigrated for doing extra training might lend some support to that.

It's important to bring in a culture of peak performance. I remember someone saying that when O'Driscoll arrived in the Ireland squad his fitness was streets ahead of every one else. Slowly that rubbed off on the team.

England were pretty unfit in the RWC despite the presence of Wilkinson and a few others.

Forget his name - CauCau something. A Fijian who was meant to be the best winger in the world about 10 years ago. Just couldn't train hard enough and got too fat. Sank somewhere in French Rugby and Leicester considered him too risky.

The peak thing is a key though. England may well have looked tired and jaded at that point but its probably because they were in the middle of being ragged solid getting them ato tehir peak for the world cup.
Tigers aklways start the seaosn in a mess because they are still doing their fitness work up till christams, the players are tired come match day. Whne the real season starts though they lay off and reap the benfits of the hard work ( well thats a simplified version of it, but its the vbasic principle)
The rugby seaon is far too long to be at you peak perfomance level all the time without limiting your ability to improve that. This is why athletes have a long off season and a short competition period.
Its also one of teh reaosns they wanted a permanent England squad ( EPS). Player sin it have their fitness regimes and goals dictated by England and to suit England rather than their clubs. How well thats really worked though is a nother matter, I remeber Johnson being shocked by the fitness stats of his squad when he first came in which sugests things went backwards between Woodward and him becoming manager.

England were unfit at the WC. As the players all said in the reports, sessions were long but not tiring. That sort of training is completely the opposite of what rugby players should be doing. Long, less intense sessions meant that they could have performed for long periods at a lesser level, when really, the fitness required for rugby is incredibly explosive and percussive. England's conditioning coaches failed in this respect.

bluestonevedder wrote:England were unfit at the WC. As the players all said in the reports, sessions were long but not tiring. That sort of training is completely the opposite of what rugby players should be doing. Long, less intense sessions meant that they could have performed for long periods at a lesser level, when really, the fitness required for rugby is incredibly explosive and percussive. England's conditioning coaches failed in this respect.

Interesting. I didnt read much of the leaked stuff. Really got to wonder about the fitness staff if thats true. Clearly Johnson wanted them fit, but that suggests whoever was in charge of doing it didnt have a clue what they were doing.
Its certainly an area Gatlands been sharp on and has a good track record with. Adam Jones mentioned in his interview on here how Gtaland turned him into a genuine test player. I think some of the studff said about their fitness levels at the world cup was cheap journalism parrotting Gatlands pre cup boasts, and side tend to look fitter when tehy are happy and playing well....but it was nt the team that went to New Zealan previously and got blown away in the last 20 minutes when the all blacks kicked into top gear.
I hope Morgan does get good advice and uses it well. He does look like hes needs to give a few pies back.

haha, Morgan does look a little overweight. There was an article on him in Rugby World a while back, and he explained that before he received his Scarlets contract, he was working on a building site and ate excessively. Apparently he ballooned to over 20st (!) and has since obviously lost loads of it. Whatever he's doing is working, and hopefully the England backroom staff with accelerate it further.

I thought Builders just drank tea?

HERSH wrote:I thought Builders just drank tea?

Im sure that what your wife tells you when you come over and find them in your house

Not this one Hersh. Apparently for breakfast he had a litre of chocolate milk, french baguette and more! Did no one else read the article?

Peter Seabiscuit Wheeler wrote:

HERSH wrote:I thought Builders just drank tea?

Im sure that what your wife tells you when you come over and find them in your house

Why would my wife want a chubby builder with a white van when she has a chubby ex Pro Prop with an Aston?

TycroesOsprey wrote:Andy Powell with intellegence if you like.

Not much of a compliment that! Could refer to most people that have a beating heart!

Bathite wrote:

TycroesOsprey wrote:Andy Powell with intellegence if you like.

Not much of a compliment that! Could refer to most people that have a beating heart!

Steady now, just think how dangerous Andy would be with some, he wrote to Jim'll fix it but couldnt spell it, fix that is.Why d'you think his favourite film is the Wizard of Oz eh??

andy powells minder wrote:Why d'you think his favourite film is the Wizard of Oz eh??

Cause it reminds him of who should have been the welsh number 8 at the time he was earning his caps?

Comfort wrote:

andy powells minder wrote:Why d'you think his favourite film is the Wizard of Oz eh??

Cause it reminds him of who should have been the welsh number 8 at the time he was earning his caps?

cos he like sparkly shoes..........................obviously

that was my original answer

GeordieFalcon wrote:To be fair though...some players look unhealthy but are extremely fit...but if he is genuinely in need of conditioning...im sure the likes of Rowntree will identify that and up his conditioning work....

Conditioning is one of the easiest things to target in rugby....its the talent and rugby ability thats the hard part....

Waldrom is a porker, yet he's always the top of the fitness tests for the tigers.

nathan, tell him to get off them, he'll crush them the fatbeast!

Jenkins is also one of the top performers in terms of fitness for Wales too.