How will England look to play in SA?

First topic message reminder :

Simple question really and one that i think follows on naturally enough after the selection of the squad and with the completion of the coaching team for this tour.

The lack of any heavyweight second rows concerns me as does the lack of depth at hooker and the lack of anything approximating a fetcher at 7 although of course i concede we can get by with a balanced back row.

South Africa will presumably play to their traditional strengths (which sort of happen to be ours also) - strong set peice and fairly conservative - particularly with a new team and a new coach. I think that the SA selections at 7 and 10 will tell us everything about their intentions on playing style.

How will we play though? More of the same from the 6N OR will we look to open up a bit more and get the ball into wider channels earlier? What exactly is Mike Catt's attacking/playing philosophy?

How much risk are we going to take for rewards of tries and potentially winning games?

Wales advantage over Australia is their scrum. Wales' scrum is a very powerful and efficient unit, and the Aussie's is quite the opposite. With their scrum going backwards, you'll be able to nullify some of their strong runners and Genia. Think Wales could take the series to be honest. Warbs vs. Pocock is going to be EPIC.

Luckless Pedestrian wrote:
The point is that optimism and pessimism should play no part in assessing a team's chances, because neither optimism nor pessimism on a fan's part will make the slightest bit of difference to his or her team's chances.

Then I think we are arguing the same point, but from different angles. Most of the responses on this thread are with regard to some particularly pessimistic posts, based on nothing but ungrounded opinions and conjecture.

I agree, it doesn't make a difference (unless you're in the stadium and can be vocal about it), but there's no problem with faith in your team.

Additionally, a team can go out and play either optimistic rugby, or pessimisitc, and that does affect their performance. I hope that England will play optimistically.

Australia's scrum isn't as weak as you're making out, nor is ours the juggernaut you suggest it is. And in any case, most of the scrums will collapse and the referee will guess which side to penalise.

Luckless Pedestrian wrote:Australia's scrum isn't as weak as you're making out, nor is ours the juggernaut you suggest it is. And in any case, most of the scrums will collapse and the referee will guess which side to penalise.

Australia's was pretty poor at the WC. Wales looked good during the 6N, and Jones and Gethin are very very decent. Personally, I think you should be pretty good in that area.

I'm hopeful we'll get the nudge on them, but even if we do, their backs are so creative that it may not matter. It's their backs that worry me.

Luckless Pedestrian

You are right in many respects. SA is a tougher place to tour.... but neither ENG or WAL are touring the countries. They are only playing test matches (the ENG tour matches are not provincal.. they will be poor sides made up of at best Championship level rugby... not even domestic cup level).

SA tours are tough because the relative strength of the provinces, the hard pitches and the altitude.

However.... they are not playing any provinces, they only play 1 test out of 3 at altitude and PE and Durban don't have traditional hard pitches given ENG will tour during the winter, where it rains... a lot (well for SA anyhow )

Other than that they are just standard away fixtures and the merits of each side will be the biggest determinant on who is victorious.

If I was looking to play either SA or AUS at the moment I'd play SA no questions. The domestic game is strong but there are a number of factors which take SA out of the driving seat in this series.

Luckless Pedestrian wrote:I'm hopeful we'll get the nudge on them, but even if we do, their backs are so creative that it may not matter. It's their backs that worry me.

But give the backs poor ball, and they'll suffer. I think one of the main concerns is that the Welsh backline are so physically big, that they turn quite slowly. We saw Farrell kick and gather behind the Welsh backs (then get nailed by North), and I think if Australia exploit this, it could be a potent weapon.

I'm surprised no one else tried to kick in behind us. The Wallabies never miss a trick so you can bet they'll be trying some grubber kicks.

fa0019 wrote:Luckless Pedestrian

You are right in many respects. SA is a tougher place to tour.... but neither ENG or WAL are touring the countries. They are only playing test matches (the ENG tour matches are not provincal.. they will be poor sides made up of at best Championship level rugby... not even domestic cup level).

SA tours are tough because the relative strength of the provinces, the hard pitches and the altitude.

However.... they are not playing any provinces, they only play 1 test out of 3 at altitude and PE and Durban don't have traditional hard pitches given ENG will tour during the winter, where it rains... a lot (well for SA anyhow )

Other than that they are just standard away fixtures and the merits of each side will be the biggest determinant on who is victorious.

If I was looking to play either SA or AUS at the moment I'd play SA no questions. The domestic game is strong but there are a number of factors which take SA out of the driving seat in this series.

FA, I am all for talking down the chances of the springboks, but geez mate, you are going to put me in a depression if you carry on like this.

I think they will play a lot less hard than in NZ. Lancaster seems harder on the players so no drunken kisses, dwarf throwing, ferry jumping etc this time. Just a quiet or two after the match and all the agression to be left out on the field.

Don't worry BB

just lulling them all into a false sense of security.

When are you thinking of telling them the PE & Durban tests have been moved to Bloem & Pretoria and Schalk, Bakkies, Victor, Jaque and Fourie have all been training in secret ready to be unleashed on the 9th June?

FA, don't let me abuse my moderator powers to delete messages where you reveal top secret info.

My apologises... I found the revelations next to a confession written by a Jo'burg hotel chef back in the mid 90s! I'll try and keep quiet from now on.

Back to the cover story......England to win 2-1

sorry, I meant