Ben Youngs out of 3rd Test

With a shoulder injury. Karl Dickson called up.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-union/18479748

Ben Youngs is out of the tour due to a shoulder injury. Shame, thought he was getting back to his best and worked really well with Floody.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/rugbyunion/international/england/9337129/Englands-Ben-Youngs-ruled-out-of-South-Africa-tour-with-shoulder-injury.html

Oops!...Sorry LT, didnt see your original post.

Please, let it be Care who starts the third test not Dickson.

Bad news for England, I thought he was one of the better performers on the day.

Choice for England now between a pair of dicksons and a silly billy.

Got to start Care? More of a like-for-like with Youngs and has probably played with Flood more times than Dickson has. Lee Dickson to start midweek with his brother on the bench. Give Karl Dickson the second half to keep Lee fresh for Saturday.

It is a real shame for youngs and for England.

So it as to Care starting and flood. Dickson on the bench.

If both Dickson's are in the squad why not give them the SA babrian game on wednesday? And leave Care for the test on saturday.

Shame for him as a player he must be gutted but a big shame for England because if it wasn't for him the score line would have been far more humiliating.
Hope he has a good season coming up thou he would be a shoe in for the Lions if on top form.

majesticimperialman wrote:If both Dickson's are in the squad why not give them the SA babrian game on wednesday? And leave Care for the test on saturday.

Because Lancaster is in love with them and will want to play both in the test?

I hope he does go with Care, its more of a like for like replacement. As with Youngs hes a genuine attacking threat in his own right. Given Englands backs from 11-14 are pretty disfunctional as an attacking force its not much use having a guy who can do nothing but chuck the the ball blindly into the space behind him hoping someone is there to run into the nearest defender with it.
It would be ridiculous to put Dickson jnr in the test squad at this short notice

viewtothegym wrote:Shame for him as a player he must be gutted but a big shame for England because if it wasn't for him the score line would have been far more humiliating.
Hope he has a good season coming up thou he would be a shoe in for the Lions if on top form.

Yea he was probably the best scrumhalf of the weekend wasn't he

Youngs has been desperately trying to get back to full fitness and form after his knee problems pre-RWC and struggled for the majority of the season. He looked sharper towards the end and was probably the MOTM at the weekend as he was the difference between it being a game and it being a practice session for the Boks. Two tries from quick thinking and one assist through good vision and quick thinking. We're going to miss him in the third test.

Hopefully we'll see that level of performance as a constant next season along with a little more precision in Ben's passing, which he'll have to sharpen up as Sam Harrison is snaping on his heels at Tigers and that guy has a brilliant passing game.

Bad luck for Ben Youngs, who I really hope keeps playing at his best. I agree he can make the Lions tour if he is on form. Care has got to start for the reasons stated above. In subtley different ways I think they are equally talented players but Care, out of the 3 main choices on tour, has by far the most experience playing behind a beaten and sometimes badly beaten pack AND has played well for Quins in this situation.

It also sucks that 2 of our better performers on tour have picked up these injuries. Can't Mears get injured ?

The only proble for Care, and I want him to play on Saturday, is that the england team seem poor on supporting an off-loading game.

So many times we have seen Marler and Robshaw (plus Manu) going into contact with the ball beacause there are no support options for them to offload to.

Quins are very good at getting men either side and moving the point of attack. England, atm, are not.

We need to identify why that is. If it's the gameplan, we need to adopt a non-Sarries gameplan. Even beshocked admits he is frustrated at Sarries' gameplan that has lost them matches they should have won this season Nd failed to get the best out of some talented attacking players like Goode, Strettle, Short and Hodgson. When a plan is failing and bemoaned by a club's supporters at Club level, it isn't going to cut it internationally.

LT what worried me is that England were trying to play an offloading game even though the players weren't in position. By trying to force it we committed so many handling errors.

CJ, Mears won't get injured as he never attempts to do anything. Waddling around 5m behind play and then leaning on the ruck is a good way to stay fit and healthy!

formerly known as Sam wrote:LT what worried me is that England were trying to play an offloading game even though the players weren't in position. By trying to force it we committed so many handling errors.

CJ, Mears won't get injured as he never attempts to do anything. Waddling around 5m behind play and then leaning on the ruck is a good way to stay fit and healthy!

Grey and Youngs (T) need to sit on him.

Grey can sit on him whilst Youngs takes his place on the bench! Would be nice to have at least one impact sub.

yappysnap wrote:

viewtothegym wrote:Shame for him as a player he must be gutted but a big shame for England because if it wasn't for him the score line would have been far more humiliating.
Hope he has a good season coming up thou he would be a shoe in for the Lions if on top form.

Yea he was probably the best scrumhalf of the weekend wasn't he

i agree by a mile

Shame about the other 14

Bit harsh Yappy, there were some decent performances out there from England players.

If everyone had been playing to Youngs level though we would have won, too many times we're happy for our players to just plod along and not embarass us.

If Youngs and all his team mates played to that level ever game then England would comfortably win the RWC next time out. Things are not always going to go your way, the bounce of the ball, the decision of the ref etc can always go against you and stop you making the impact you want. There is certainly need for significant improvement but the likes of Corbs and Cole were perfecly efficient and did their jobs to a good level without hitting the heights of Youngs. Should they be chastised for a perfectly good but not spectacular performance?

To a point yes, the reason the AB's are the best is that they expect the very best from every player. I don't think any of those players out there played to their best, Cole had near zero impact ball in hand and was another forward who couldn't make a big impact in defence, and he's the more experienced player in the pack now, he needs to lead by example. Corbs did do well but it was a run out when some key SA players were off the park and the Boks were resting themselves ready for T3.

ChequeredJersey wrote:We need to identify why that is. If it's the gameplan, we need to adopt a non-Sarries gameplan. Even beshocked admits he is frustrated at Sarries' gameplan that has lost them matches they should have won this season Nd failed to get the best out of some talented attacking players like Goode, Strettle, Short and Hodgson. When a plan is failing and bemoaned by a club's supporters at Club level, it isn't going to cut it internationally.

The difficulty is how should England play with the players available?

England aren't going to overpower SA. SA can simply outmuscle them.

I suppose the difficulty is can England beat SA with the players they have? If so then how?

beshocked wrote:

ChequeredJersey wrote:We need to identify why that is. If it's the gameplan, we need to adopt a non-Sarries gameplan. Even beshocked admits he is frustrated at Sarries' gameplan that has lost them matches they should have won this season Nd failed to get the best out of some talented attacking players like Goode, Strettle, Short and Hodgson. When a plan is failing and bemoaned by a club's supporters at Club level, it isn't going to cut it internationally.

The difficulty is how should England play with the players available?

England aren't going to overpower SA. SA can simply outmuscle them.

I suppose the difficulty is can England beat SA with the players they have? If so then how?

Smarty-pants answer: score more points than them!

Two ways to achieve that. Score more or concede less. To me the attack looked pretty good, but maybe we were lacking a natural 12 (a call-up for Anthony Allen?) This could also help shore up the defence a little bit, but I think the main problems were missed tackles in the tighter exchanges and allowing South African forwards over the gainline. For this we need bigger, meaner forwards, and a backrow of Haskell, Fearns (after tonight's performance) and Waldrom might not be too far off, although I believe Leicester prefer Crane (when he is fit) for this kind of gameplan, so not sure if Waldrom would be best suited for it (although neither would Morgan be).

robbo, Haskell had a tepid first mid week game and Fearns disappeared after half time for the mid week side in the second game after providing a truely pants display in the first game. I'm not sure selecting those two on bulk alone is going to solve the issues England had in the backrow.

Allen looks set to miss out because Barritt will return, we very much missed him in the second test.

Cole had near zero impact ball in hand and was another forward who couldn't make a big impact in defence

What do you mean by 'couldn't make a big impact in defence'? There were no bone shuddering tackles but if you go back and look at the breakdown you'll see Cole is in an as many as Robshaw and disrupting as much ball (without all the penalties conceded). The turnover in the shadow of the England posts with the Boks looking set to score another try was vital. Defence isn't all about big tackles Yappy. We may have lost the serious but there is no point over reacting, we need to take what was good and build on it. The props have shown up well (Cole, Corbs and Marler have anyway) and that's a positive against the Boks who are famed for their brutally physical front rowers.

formerly known as Sam wrote:(Cole, Corbs and Marler have anyway) and that's a positive against the Boks who are famed for their brutally physical front rowers.

Agreed, and Dan Cole continue to be our best breakdown forward.

Sadly PDJ has been shown to be useless and Mullan has seemed to struggle physically - so strength in depth right now, especially on the TH, does not look good.

PDJ came on at loosehead as opposed to his preferred tighthead so that may earn him another chance but he really didn't look up to much which is a real shame. Mullan did alright in the mid week games and did well to shove around the fatty the 2nd SA Baabaas team fielded. I agree that he needs to up his physical impact though.

At this rate a lot is going to be placed on the shoulder of Henry Thomas at Sale and Kyle Sinckler at Quins. I really can't believe we're so short on English tightheads.

To be fair tighthead is an issue in several countries.

It is a worrying trend LT, not helped by the ineffectual nature of the officiating at the scrum. The sooner we see the hit removed (which has been done in every level outside the fully professional top 2 divisions in France) and the insistence of a proper feed the better. Get back to technique rather than the hit and I think the NH slightly smaller built props will shine a little more.

As Ben Youngs is out, I'd be inclined to drop Flood and re-try the Care/Farrell partnership and put Dickson/Charlie on the bench.

Portnoy wrote:As Ben Youngs is out, I'd be inclined to drop Flood and re-try the Care/Farrell partnership and put Dickson/Charlie on the bench.

Have they ever played together?

Anyway I have to disagree. Care/Flood should work just fine. I do not want to see Dickson/Flood however.

I'd be inclined to drop Farrell completely to be honest. His kick and defend the return mentality really killed us in the first test and the first time he touched the ball in the second he started the aerial ping pong that led to Pieterson's try (it was Joseph with the final horriffically aimless kick however). Move Goode up to the bench he can cover 10 in an emergency and Flood showed more attacking skills in the second test than Hodgson managed in the two mid week games.

Care/Flood to start with Dickson/Goode on the bench. Just because they are on the bench doesn't mean they have to be used! Though Goode coming on at 15 on 60ish mins would be good.

It's just a ruse to avoid further Tigers getting injured.

I liked the JWC squad for that same reason. (ultimately).