Saxons...positives & negatives

After a narrow win against a decent Irish side...

+ Set piece

Very strong scrum & lineout and I think a case could be argued for all 3 front row starters being in the EPS. PDJ's anchored the scrum well and looks to have improved his carrying. Mullen always impresses and should be ahead of Marler for me. Gray, despite his size, shows up well in the loose and is surely better than Webber?

Robson, Garvey and Gaskell were excellent in the lineout and we looked spoilt for choices.

+ Garvey & Spencer

Great showings from the new lads. I thought Garvey carried very well and gave some power to the pack, often from standing starts, he can't be too far from an England cap. Spencer showed excellent decision making and basics, lacks a little around the fringes despite his try but he's a definate work in progress.

- Breakdown

We were schooled as normal. Our technique/physicality, or lack of in this area is worrying tbh. To be so dominant in the set piece yet so poor at the breakdown is infuriating. We struggle to commit to rucks and lose too much ball in the contact.

- Saull

After the rugby club & Barnes calling him the saviour of English openside play, he was a complete disappointment. He is nothing more than a good kick/chase flanker. He misses tackle after tackle, get blown away at the breakdown (Sanderson comparing him to McCaw/Pocock is laughable) and loses too much ball in the contact with his lack of physicality. Time for Gibson or Wallace to step above him.

- Robson

Motm...seriously? Might be a debatable call but I seriously don't rate him. Very strong on our throw but his lack of physicality means his England hopes should stop here. A lock should not be bumped in the tackle by a winger. His carrying is comparable to Mr Borthwick and I expect a minus yardage is in the cards. Very good AP player but he's found his level.

- Back play or lack of

Twelvetrees was poor. His distribution was erratic and he made the wrong choices at the wrong times. Burns also wasn't fully at the races and is a long way off Int recognition. Armitage was poor when he got on the ball which wasn't too often. To have such clean ball from set piece it's a concern to see so little created.

Johnny May needs to start against Scotland A.

Thoughts?

Waldrom isn't an international 8. Send him back to NZ.

The back line was the usual mess. Why can't we string a series of passes together to get the ball wide? Surely this is a basic skill. In this area we created very little, and by contrast Ireland were regularly fluent and threatening and had the basic knowledge of how to stretch a defence, create gaps and finish. We're still too reliant on the kick and chase game, which I fear is reflective of a collective lack of confidence in each other across the back division, lack of creativity and fear of taking contact and initiating one of those ruck things that we can't seem to master.

The set piece work was encouraging, but I can't help but raise an eyebrow at the opposition.

I was relieved to get the win (much needed), but thought we were a bit lucky on a couple of occasions (or three). As an indicator of what may be brought to the England first side I was disappointed and may be re-evaluating some of my earlier bravado on other threads...

I think Dean Ryan had it right about the breakdown. English refs are much stricter about slowing the ball down, so England players tend to undercommit to the breakdown relative to the other 6N countries. It's fixable - as Quins showed against Toulouse - but needs to be coached consistently.

The breakdown was the biggest concern, every time we went into contact I thought the Irish would turn us over.

The current Saxons team would finish in the top three in the real 6 nations.

The future is bright.

Well the set piece was abviously good, but I thought the forwards were fairly dominant in the loose too. Breakdown issues remain, but I think part of the solution to this is getting AP referees to change their interpretations to match those used elsewhere in Europe (if we can't get everyone else to follow the AP referees, who are probably closer to what the rules imply).

The backs were very disjointed, but these are combinations who have literally never played together before and realistically it will take time (and so changes at the breakdown to make sure the opposition defence aren't always lined up and waiting) before the coherence improves. I would play exactly the same backs next week, with the possible exception of moving May into one of the back 3 positions.

Spencer has a lovely pass and will be a regular international within a couple of years.

Burns, Twelvetrees and Hopper were not good in attack. Do we say they are useless and drop them after one outing or do we say they actually are better than that but just need a bit more experience? I say give them another chance. This is only the Saxons after all.

Gaskell looked unsure and a bit lightweight in the loose particularly towards the end of the match. Apart from lineout he didn't sparkle at backrow play.

The breakdown was a worry. The coaches will have to look at every breakdown in detail and understand what went wrong.

I think Garvey was simply outstanding, he added real grunt to the second row - with some powerful carries, big hits around the fringes and he helped with a very successful lineout.

Robson's workrate, dominance in the lineout won him man of the match, his tackle count was very high, his positioning was good and he worked well at clearing the rucks - but was not a predominant ball carrier.

Our front row was impressive, i'm not convinced by Doran-Jones at international level - but I think Mullan and Gray showed up very well last night. If Corbisiero continues to have problems with his scrummaging I could see Mullan taking his place in the EPS. Whilst i'm sure by the summer Gray will have pinched Mearsy's place in the EPS.

Saull was dissapointing, he's ineffective in attack - weak ball carrier and although very fast got dominated at the breakdown against the more physical Henry, Ruddock and Muldoon.

I think Waldrom was one of our better players, never taking a step back ball carrying. Whilst Gaskell may be effective in the loose, and the lineout - but around the breakdown he is far too lightweight for a blindside.

Spencer was a little hit and miss, Burns showed up well - very good passer of the ball and kicker, however his defence is woeful and he is too small for international rugby.

The rest of our backs showed touches of class, yet were suprisingly ineffective considering the experience of our back three and the potential of Twelvetrees and Hopper.

I posted it on the other thread:


For England, I don't know how to judge the scrum really. Without wishing to be unkind, the Irish lads in the front row were disappointing and beating them up in the scrum didn't prove an awful lot.

I was pretty impressed with Garvey and was exasperated that he was taken off so soon. If I was picking, he'd have been in the England 1st team squad. He would give us some much needed grunt. Looking at him, it is difficult to believe he is only 24 though! Robson was excellent too, he put in a huge amount of work and tackled all day.

I though Gaskell looked incredibly under-powered. He seemed to get to the gain-line and wilt backwards like a very tall and thin tree. I thought it was an odd selection because of the debate that is going on about Tom Croft. Aside from a couple of nice pieces of play, I thought Saull was fairly anonymous. The Irish won the breakdown (again!) and that has got to be a bit of an indictment.

Thomas Waldrom added some much need go forward in the back-row, he at least made ground in contact.

Ben Spencer seemed incredibly mature, considering the circumstances. He needs to learn to get his box kicks away a little quicker though

Freddie Burns was okay, would like to see him take charge a bit more though. There was slow ball crying to be kicked for position, but England ended up crabbing left and right across the pitch until they lost the ball instead. He was lucky to get away with the daft little kick that Waldrom eventually scored from.

Twelvetrees flattered to deceive in my opinion. He's got a great passing game, but insists on throwing at least one bullet at the recipients shins.

Hopper didn't really have enough to work with, which is pretty frustrating considering that England had a good degree of front foot ball.

Monye had an okay game, he was strong in defence and good in the contact area, would have like to see him get the ball a bit more though.

Banahan, again... He was okay. He made a try saving 'tackle', but he didn't offer that much in attack.

Armitage just looked disinterested to me.

Play Tom Johnson instead of Gaskell for the next match he looks useful

How come Andy Saull is the only back row player coming in for the blame in the back row performance? You can't blame one player for the fault of three, and as Ireland has some monsters in the back row it will probably be the same in the full international.

Gaskell was at least strong in the lineout, Saull was dominated in every facet

It seems odd that we keep comparing Saull to the whole Irish backrow, surely it should be the whole backrows job to outmuscle their opponents. Saull went well but Gaskell and Waldrom did nothing to help him.

The Irish worked as a pack and unsurprisingly were a lot more effective.

I personally didn't mean to do that, of course I don't expect him to dominate the braekdown on his own. I don't think he had an awful game either. I suppose in the week leading up to this match the spotlight very much fell on him and to me (bar the chase he made) he was anonymous. Saying that, it would be extremely harsh to judge his international prospects based on just one game.

I would also point out that to me wood is often anonimous and then everyone puts that down to him doing all of the unseen work and llauds him for it. Saull can't seem to win.

Other then the backrow I was very impressed with the Robson+Garvey partnership, both played very well tot heir strengths. Who was the replacement lock? I don't think I actually saw him once. The front row went well but I would have preferred them to get round the park bit more.

The backs looked pretty off the pace, Burns had a quite game by his standards and 36 was making far too many poor calls. I'd play the whole backline again in every game except taking out Banahan and Armitage and putting in May at 15 and a more effective winger...

"I'd play the whole backline again in every game except taking out Banahan and Armitage and putting in May at 15 and a more effective winger..."

I think this is a bit harsh considering the mid-field couldn't get a ball to the wing all day. 36 and Hopper were poor. Hopper looked light and was turned over easily. The Irish mid-field looked much more threatening.

I'm not Hopper's biggest fan - he's exciting to watch but too often gets isolated and misses too many tackles - but I think it would be harsh to judge him on the basis of yesterday's performance. I don't think he got a decent ball all evening; England didn't get quick possession often enough. It was also noticeable that 36 was throwing a lot of miss passes past him by the end of the game.

HERSH wrote:The current Saxons team would finish in the top three in the real 6 nations.

The future is bright.

And the Italian team second with Wolfhounds first,

The future is bright and very psychedelic.

robshaw4england wrote:
Spencer was a little hit and miss, Burns showed up well - very good passer of the ball and kicker, however his defence is woeful and he is too small for international rugby.

Burns is 6'1 and will probably weigh about 14 stone by the time he's stopped developing. There's no way he's too small for international rugby, and I didn't notice anything particularly wrong with his defending yesterday. I also thought Spencer had an excellent game other than a couple of charged down box-kicks - he has a fantastic pass and shows real composure for a 19 year old who was playing at Cambridge this time last year.

HERSH wrote:The current Saxons team would finish in the top three in the real 6 nations.

The future is bright.

Thanks Hersh that statement made me laugh

Your wind ups are becoming a bit predictable though - you need to vary the focus of them a bit

I hate people being ruled out of international rugbt because they are 'too small'. IMO if they are good enough, they are big enough. Burns may not be quite ready for first class international rugby just yet, but his size really shouldn't be a factor.

Cumbrian wrote:I hate people being ruled out of international rugbt because they are 'too small'. IMO if they are good enough, they are big enough. Burns may not be quite ready for first class international rugby just yet, but his size really shouldn't be a factor.

Not only that but he's no smaller than Owen Farrell, whose unquestioned and supposedly obvious inclusion in the EPS astounds me.

Sgt_Pooly wrote:After a narrow win against a decent Irish side...

+ Set piece

Very strong scrum & lineout and I think a case could be argued for all 3 front row starters being in the EPS. PDJ's anchored the scrum well and looks to have improved his carrying. Mullen always impresses and should be ahead of Marler for me. Gray, despite his size, shows up well in the loose and is surely better than Webber?

Robson, Garvey and Gaskell were excellent in the lineout and we looked spoilt for choices.

+ Garvey & Spencer

Great showings from the new lads. I thought Garvey carried very well and gave some power to the pack, often from standing starts, he can't be too far from an England cap. Spencer showed excellent decision making and basics, lacks a little around the fringes despite his try but he's a definate work in progress.

- Breakdown

We were schooled as normal. Our technique/physicality, or lack of in this area is worrying tbh. To be so dominant in the set piece yet so poor at the breakdown is infuriating. We struggle to commit to rucks and lose too much ball in the contact.

- Saull

After the rugby club & Barnes calling him the saviour of English openside play, he was a complete disappointment. He is nothing more than a good kick/chase flanker. He misses tackle after tackle, get blown away at the breakdown (Sanderson comparing him to McCaw/Pocock is laughable) and loses too much ball in the contact with his lack of physicality. Time for Gibson or Wallace to step above him.

- Robson

Motm...seriously? Might be a debatable call but I seriously don't rate him. Very strong on our throw but his lack of physicality means his England hopes should stop here. A lock should not be bumped in the tackle by a winger. His carrying is comparable to Mr Borthwick and I expect a minus yardage is in the cards. Very good AP player but he's found his level.

- Back play or lack of

Twelvetrees was poor. His distribution was erratic and he made the wrong choices at the wrong times. Burns also wasn't fully at the races and is a long way off Int recognition. Armitage was poor when he got on the ball which wasn't too often. To have such clean ball from set piece it's a concern to see so little created.

Johnny May needs to start against Scotland A.

Thoughts?

+1

I pretty much typed this elsewhere, could have saved myself the bother. The only thing i'd disagree with is Burns, who i thought was ok and offered a nice balance between kicking, running and passing. Hate to say it but i also thought Waldrom was pretty decent as a ball carrier

I've said it before but Garvey MUST be put in the EPS. We really don't have the luxury of abrasive 2nd rows Lancaster seems to think.

Yea Burns was ok, but with that platform I'd expect more.

Really like the look of Garvey, it's funny even in a game like that you can tell he has a bit of class about him.

DaveM wrote:I also thought Spencer had an excellent game other than a couple of charged down box-kicks - he has a fantastic pass and shows real composure for a 19 year old who was playing at Cambridge this time last year.

Not a huge amount wrong with his game at this early stage, and I can't remember noticing it when I've seen him play for Saracens before, but he wasn't getting it away fast enough for me the other day. He'd pick it up, then every time give it an extra unnecessary adjustment/flick in his hands, take another unnecessary little skip/step, then pass. It was noticable that when he came on Hodgson was getting it away quicker by comparison (not that I'm advocating him as an all round superior selection).

Garvey must replace Botha in the seniors on that performance. We are missing a player like that.

Garvey looked very good when carrying. He needs to put his shoulder in a bit more when defending a maul but other than that he played well.

It's interesting seeing how far the stats go to back up some of the opinions on here.

Most metres made with the ball was Waldrom, 44m, the only other forward who got into double figures in that regard was Gray, 11m. I thought Garvey had a very good game, but in terms of his carrying that many were praising, he only made 2m in 6 runs, which is pretty equivalent to Robson, who made 1m in 3 runs.

The best carrying back was Twelvetrees, with a very apt 36m to his credit. He also notched up the team's most tackles, 15. The best tackling forward was Waldrom with 14.

No clean breaks from the Saxons and only 6 defenders beaten the whole game, 3 of which were contributed by Waldrom.

Banahan is a curious one, 31m metres made (2nd highest for a back), but turned over twice out of the 6 runs he went on.

Not a chance Garvey only made 2m in that game

stlowe wrote:It's interesting seeing how far the stats go to back up some of the opinions on here.

Most metres made with the ball was Waldrom, 44m, the only other forward who got into double figures in that regard was Gray, 11m. I thought Garvey had a very good game, but in terms of his carrying that many were praising, he only made 2m in 6 runs, which is pretty equivalent to Robson, who made 1m in 3 runs.

The best carrying back was Twelvetrees, with a very apt 36m to his credit. He also notched up the team's most tackles, 15. The best tackling forward was Waldrom with 14.

No clean breaks from the Saxons and only 6 defenders beaten the whole game, 3 of which were contributed by Waldrom.

Banahan is a curious one, 31m metres made (2nd highest for a back), but turned over twice out of the 6 runs he went on.

I'm assuming that is just going by the Saxons statistics? What about the wolfhounds? They must be wrong though if it includes both as Kearney carried plenty for Ireland, and Ruddock definitely got double figures for carrying.

Yes Rory, my post was only regarding the Saxons' stats.

I thought Garvey had a very good game, but in terms of his carrying that many were praising, he only made 2m in 6 runs,

Now i am actually shocked at that...as i thought he made some bruising runs!

I suspect they've added Robsons 'minus' yards to Garvey's total. Not a chance that stat is correct, I seen him make numerous carries that we're well over 2 metres

And if he got knocked back in one carries it would whipe it all out.

The stats are from the ESPNscrum site who are supplied by OPTA. They're a specialist sports data company that have to be certain of the product they sell to the gambling sector, clubs & media. They employ people to sit through recordings of the games with the sole purpose of recording the relevant aspects, if there are any errors it's not going to be by a significant margin.

How odd. I strugg;e to remember all of 36's m's made as well.

stlowe wrote:The stats are from the ESPNscrum site who are supplied by OPTA. They're a specialist sports data company that have to be certain of the product they sell to the gambling sector, clubs & media. They employ people to sit through recordings of the games with the sole purpose of recording the relevant aspects, if there are any errors it's not going to be by a significant margin.

Do they employ people to sit through the recordings verifying that the people they employed to sit through the recordings with the sole purpose of recording relevant aspects, recorded the relevant aspects correctly? And do they employ people to sit through the recordings verifying that the people they employed to sit through the recordings to verify that the people who they employ to sit through the recordings to record the revelant aspects, verified that the people who record the relevant aspects had done the job properly?

And if so, who verified their work?

miteyironpaw wrote:

stlowe wrote:The stats are from the ESPNscrum site who are supplied by OPTA. They're a specialist sports data company that have to be certain of the product they sell to the gambling sector, clubs & media. They employ people to sit through recordings of the games with the sole purpose of recording the relevant aspects, if there are any errors it's not going to be by a significant margin.

Do they employ people to sit through the recordings verifying that the people they employed to sit through the recordings with the sole purpose of recording relevant aspects, recorded the relevant aspects correctly? And do they employ people to sit through the recordings verifying that the people they employed to sit through the recordings to verify that the people who they employ to sit through the recordings to record the revelant aspects, verified that the people who record the relevant aspects had done the job properly?

And if so, who verified their work?

Normally I'd laugh at that comment mitey, but as I'm currently dealing with the Auditors at work

Ouch, auditors. Possibly the least loved of professions? Slip them a little whisky in the coffee! That'll loosen them up.

stlowe wrote:The stats are from the ESPNscrum site who are supplied by OPTA. They're a specialist sports data company that have to be certain of the product they sell to the gambling sector, clubs & media. They employ people to sit through recordings of the games with the sole purpose of recording the relevant aspects, if there are any errors it's not going to be by a significant margin.

Well you say that, but I assume they're also sold amongst the print press? In the Sunday Times at the weekend they had the Woolfhounds down as loosing no scrums! And pens conceded were evens at about 7 each i think?!

Chjw131 wrote:

stlowe wrote:The stats are from the ESPNscrum site who are supplied by OPTA. They're a specialist sports data company that have to be certain of the product they sell to the gambling sector, clubs & media. They employ people to sit through recordings of the games with the sole purpose of recording the relevant aspects, if there are any errors it's not going to be by a significant margin.

Well you say that, but I assume they're also sold amongst the print press? In the Sunday Times at the weekend they had the Woolfhounds down as loosing no scrums! And pens conceded were evens at about 7 each i think?!

I've got the Sunday Times right in front of me and there aren't any stats supplied with their match report or mention of numbers of scrums/penalties in the article or associated.

The figures you say you read don't tally with the OPTA data, so if they were published somewhere I would query their origin. Articles with inset boxes featuring stats usually state the company who compiled them in the corner.

I always go to ESPNscrum and the Telegraph for rugby stats because of the format they allow you to access them in and because I know they use data supplied by OPTA, who are probably the biggest, most reputable and widely used company about.