Rhys Priestland-what did I tell you!

I for one am one of the few to have not fallen into the illusion that Rhys Priestland is the next big thing in world rugby.Priestland showed today during the match against England all of the problems with his fluctuating game.Last week I said that Priestland was a mediocre tackler (better than Ronan O'Gara)but after that display I'd say he is right up their with the worst of them.
Every time he seemed to get the ball his first instinct was to kick , half the time he didn't even look up to see what was on but stared down at the ball and kicked aimlessly into the middle of the pitch.One of those times he was charged down which resulted in an England penalty and his sending off.
At this point I was thinking England actually have a chance is this exciting game however the sending off of the "brilliant" Priestland seemed to have only strengthened the Welsh giants , this is backed up by the fact that in that 10 minute time period Wales got 3 points and England got 0.
If you have an outhalf who can't place kick , can't tackle and can't kick for touch then you can't win against the power houses of world rugby and it is as simple as that.

yes he chose a lot of poor options today, but does he deserve this character assasination? No. What, did he boff your wife or something?

The thing is, the welsh fans have never really bogged him up

You're obviously obsessed.

Here we go, 1 poor game from Priestland and all of a sudden he needs to be lynched.

Give it a rest.

All the welsh fans were saying he should be starting for the lions and was going to be one for the future after the world cup.

and most of the English fans didn't think we'd win at Twickers. Anyone can be wrong Hugo. I'd worry about your own team and the improvements you need to make

Hugo, show me theultiple posts by welsh fans calling for him to be the Lions 10, copy and paste will be fine, and then I might get your point.

hugo124 wrote:Last week I said that Priestland was a mediocre tackler (better than Ronan O'Gara)but after that display I'd say he is right up their with the worst of them.

He was bumped off twice by Manu Tuilagi. He's not the first defender to have that happen to him and he won't be the last.

Hugo - you may or may not be a WUM, but in this case you are right. Priestland last 3 performances (Australia, Ireland, Scotland) have not been great , and today he was dire. I have felt that he was playing above himself and would fall to earth one day and today that happened.

But don't get your hopes up too high , because we have other excellent Welsh 10s to deploy.

So why don't you post about how mediorcer Young is?

There were many "people" who thought he was going to be the next best thing.

Anyway...

Cardiff Taffy

9. M Phillips
10. R Priestland
11. L Halfpenny
12. J Roberts
13. B O'Driscoll
14. G North
15. R Kearney



King Carlos
9.Mike Phillips
10.Priestland

11.North
12.Roberts
13.O'Driscoll
14.Bowe
15.Halfpenny


That took me two minutes to find them and I am not bothered to find any more but I think you get the point

luckless_pedestrian wrote:

hugo124 wrote:Last week I said that Priestland was a mediocre tackler (better than Ronan O'Gara)but after that display I'd say he is right up their with the worst of them.

He was bumped off twice by Manu Tuilagi. He's not the first defender to have that happen to him and he won't be the last.

Sorry are you actually trying to argue the point that he is a good tackler.

No, I'm saying that Manu Tuilagi bumps off quite a few would-be tacklers. I'd wait until Ireland visit Twickenham before judging Priestland's tackling of him.

RP was put under a lot of pressure, which is a credit to England.

When any FH is put under pressure they make bad options - even Dan Carter.

Doesn't mean he's suddenly a bad player.

Priestland was poor today, his main fault in the past has been that his head has dropped when things go wrong and I felt that half way through the second half that is precisely what had happened. Gatland chose not to bring on the experienced Jones and Priestland's game improved, he created a gilt edges scoring oportunity, which Williams butcherd. But ultimately Wales won the game.

He clearly has a lot to learn, 10 is a high pressure position. The problem Wales has at the moment is that Jones is 34 and well past his best. Hook, well I suspect we all remember his last 3 competitive starts at 10 (France 6N and France and Australia WC) also both Tovey and Biggar are going through a sticky patch at present. Hopefully lessons will be learnt and Priestand will have a stormer against Italy.

He was under no pressure for that charge down. He had all the time in the world.

Dan Parks did something similar and was criticized so much he felt obliged to retire from international rubgy forthwith. And he didn't even get yellow carded.

[quote="miteyironpaw"]RP was put under a lot of pressure, which is a credit to England.

When any FH is put under pressure they make bad options - even Dan Carter.

Doesn't mean he's suddenly a bad player.


I highly disagree as in numerous occasions he just got the ball under no real pressure and just kicked it aimlessly right into the hands of Foden who was along with Tuilagi the only attacking weapon England had.

Had a stinker today but he'll be back, before today he's created plenty of opportunities against other sides and generally been very good with ball in hand, although his kicking is on and off.

In fairness to you, Hugo, he was the same against Scotland - kicking the ball straight to one of their back three.

he did take forever with that kick which got charged down. He needs to string a couple of performances together. You could tell from what Gatland was saying afterwards that he was going to, ahem, point out what he did wrong over the next couple of weeks!

It is, and has been for some time a Wales tactic to kick the ball out of defence, to an in field position. If the oposing back 3 are in the correct covering position they will field the ball and run it back, but it does allow Wales to defend further up the field.

Priestland was not great today but he cant be blamed for playing the pre dtermined tactics.

Seagultaf wrote:It is, and has been for some time a Wales tactic to kick the ball out of defence, to an in field position. If the oposing back 3 are in the correct covering position they will field the ball and run it back, but it does allow Wales to defend further up the field.

Priestland was not great today but he cant be blamed for playing the pre dtermined tactics.

Exactly, it keeps pace on the game and prevents the need to isolate your fowards on the wing and potentially give quality ball from the back of the lineout (especially if your own is susceptible). You can kick further in the straight line than you can into touch. NZ starting doing this when the ELVs came in. Team's who back their fitness and broken game as Wales do, it makes sense.

Seagultaf wrote:It is, and has been for some time a Wales tactic to kick the ball out of defence, to an in field position. If the oposing back 3 are in the correct covering position they will field the ball and run it back, but it does allow Wales to defend further up the field.

Priestland was not great today but he cant be blamed for playing the pre dtermined tactics.

Fair enough , I see where you are coming from but I don't think Gatland told him to just kick it aimlessly into Foden(arguably one of the best counter attacking full backs in the game) every time and basically give England possession back in a great position.Considering Gatland is one of the best coaches around in terms of reading other teams and creating a game plan somehow I think Priestland execution was a bit off target tonight.

No - but he can be blamed for hoofing away possession in the England 25 when we were rampant after the North break; for getting turned over after attempting to run out of own 25; for missing oenalties to touch; for holding on on the ground and conceding a penalty in front of the posts (which Farrell thankfully missed). And then there's teh question of the charge-down and yellow...

Luckily for him we won that game. If not, the press & pundits & public would be flaying him alive

How about giving England credit for c losing him down?

Mike Phillips loopy passing didn't help either.

Mike Phillips wasn't great today either. So frustrating to watch.

I think out of Priestland's 17 Wales games he has had two bad games. Today against England and the one against Australia. The defences of each team put him under lots of pressure and he pretty much folded. But despite that, I don't he played that badly in either of those. So yeah, I guess seeing as he is still our no.1 fly-half he is one for the future for those who you say were saying this before the world cup.

Morgannwg wrote:I think out of Priestland's 17 Wales games he has had two bad games. Today against England and the one against Australia. The defences of each team put him under lots of pressure and he pretty much folded. But despite that, I don't he played that badly in either of those. So yeah, I guess seeing as he is still our no.1 fly-half he is one for the future for those who you say were saying this before the world cup.

I honestly don't he's had much of an impact in 16 of those games.In the world cup he played well against Ireland and was completely blown up to be the best outhalf in the world cup.

To Morgnannw - You don't think he played that badly today? Blimey, in that case I'd hate to see a performance from him you do consider bad!

samuraidragon wrote:You don't think he played that badly today? Blimey, in that case I'd hate to see a performance from him you do consider bad!

What are you talking about?

I hope this six nations tournament settles the argument between Sexton and Priestland.

I can't think of a game Preistland has kicked well out of hand but during this game every aspect was very poor and should have cost us the game, charge down, missed penalties to touch, turn overs, up and unders, clearance kicks. D Biggar has never played that bad in a game. Preistland is hot or cold even in the same game, some lovely passes and some good tackles but his kicking is mainly poor, against Scotland his kicking was terrible.

hugo124 wrote:

Morgannwg wrote:I think out of Priestland's 17 Wales games he has had two bad games. Today against England and the one against Australia. The defences of each team put him under lots of pressure and he pretty much folded. But despite that, I don't he played that badly in either of those. So yeah, I guess seeing as he is still our no.1 fly-half he is one for the future for those who you say were saying this before the world cup.

I honestly don't he's had much of an impact in 16 of those games.In the world cup he played well against Ireland and was completely blown up to be the best outhalf in the world cup.

No he wasn't, and what is the arguement between he and Sexton? If anything it is actually Sexton that has been overated. Although now that he's on his way to establishing himself as first choice 10, he is looking better. So, are you Irish? An Ireland fan created an article slagging off RP last week. Why don't you just go and analyse that thread.

Just looked at the Priestland sin-binning. A yellow for off-side when he wasn't offside and when England weren't going to score a try anyway. Total BS.

Morgannwg:

I agree, I could not work out why he was off side and the scrum half butchered the ball forward before Preistland hit him. Preistland was so rubbish the ref did us a favour, I did not think it at the time.

Morgannwg wrote:Just looked at the Priestland sin-binning. A yellow for off-side when he wasn't offside and when England weren't going to score a try anyway. Total BS.

I was the one who wrote that article you ignorant monsoon and obviously Priestland was offside and England would have scored if he didn't interfere do you not know England are really good at scoring off charge downs.If you don't think he was offside then you don't know the rules of rugby

Moral victory for England guys, you dont beat England you just score more points than them

The charge down and yellow card was very poor but I'm far far more worried about the fact that once again he aimlessly kicked away the ball in England's 22. What a waste of good attacking ball. His out of hand kicking is very poor (not just today) his up and unders were utter rubbish.

He does get the backline moving a treat in fairness and I dont care if a 10 can't tackle if they get us scoring try's.

I'm not a fan of Rhys but he's currently our best option.
I think Tovey (if given a real chance) will be 10 at the next world cup but there aren't really any other options..
Hook? Hmmm maybe.


I don't understand why the papers big him up so
much and he's untouchable. In the world cup he made some very bad calls but got away with it...

YOU WILL ALL LAUGH BUT BIGGAR OR S JONES CAN DO MORE OF WHAT IS REQUIRED OF A 10 THAN RP AT THE MOMENT. C'MON, RP NOT EVEN THE MAIN KICKER!!!!

AND WE NEED GAVIN HENSON IN THE CENTRE ASAP !!!!!GENIUS FOR BLUES AT THE LAST GAME. LIKE MINDED AROUND HIM WILL BE AWSOME.

SILKY SKILLS, STOP THE BOSH BASH THAT S GOING NOWHWERE.

AND START LOOKING FOR A NEW 9 TO REPLACE PHILLIPS, DIRE.

Gavstar, what you say about RP & Phillips is right. What you say about Henson is debatable. What you say about S Jones is wrong.

You're right, he's not the best thing since sliced bread. However the in field kicking was a direction from Gatland.

What shows he's over rated:
1 missed touch FROM PENALTIES
2 fannied out of any contact with Tuilagi
3 pathetic half breaks which were easily defended and turned over
4 we were better without him
5 after he came back I panicked every time he had the ball
6 OK England sussed him out and did a job on him, but he's far too easily sussed

He really is a busted flush now, a liability.

When Biggar had a bad game for Wales - nothing as bad as this, just some naivety in drawing men in an overlap situation - he got named and shamed by Howley and booted from the squad. Time for another look?

the lad has had one bad game and one poor kicking performance against irland....give the lad a break ffs!

No. I'm a Scarlets supporter and distantly related to him, he's not up to it and the sooner we all realise it the better.

Does it come across to anyones mind that perhaps kicking it back in field is a deliberate tactic by the Welsh team? I mean we've apparently got this terrible lineout so if we kick it out all the time we basically lose possession anyway...

It is a tactic, you can't blame him, but that doesn't excuse the rest of it either!

I wish having someone as a foe would hide their threads.

slartibartfast wrote:How about giving England credit for c losing him down?

Mike Phillips loopy passing didn't help either.

absolutely. england played really well and piled the pressure on RP. he did have a pig of a game but it wasnt all his own fault and much of it was down to england playing well, imho

i said during the carding, 'jones shoyuld come on to replace him' but afterwards i realised this was knee jerk reaction and would have been a backwards step. gatland did well to put RP back on, to give the guy a chance to put the errors behiond him.

we have a great coach and coaching team. this is what is giving us the results, excelent man management.

Spoiler:

I wish having someone as a foe would hide their threads.

Dan Biggar - what an insult to Rhys Priestland that is. The guy was targetted, get over it. He still helped Wales win as he did throughout the world cup. And saying that he fannied out of tackling Tuilagi is just childish and incorrect. Manu was gangtackled anyway and if you have ever played rugby you'll know that when that happens that leaves the next tackler to go in for the ball. He just got knocked back by Manu's upper body mass. All these comments about him punching holes in our lines is BS, he was tackled every time.

Not sure why I bother to comment. The mods need to ban this muppet ASAP and also I assume he is an incarnation of Ferris O'Brien Heaslip.