England - the bench

I know England are still supposedly building a squad, and improvement in areas has been shown.
But was today the weakest bench that England have had for years?

I appreciate that a bench needs to provide some continuity, as well as injury cover.
However, it sometimes needs to have an impact.

Our bench consisted of:

Mears
PDJ
Botha
Dowson
Dickson
Farrell
Barritt

Obviously, Farrell is the current poster child of English rugby, but never gives you the feeling that he's going to make a massive attacking impact.... He's more of a controlling player.

Mears and Dowson both appear to bef slightly out of their league at this level, but I appreciate that we don't have many options at hooker, and injuries in the back row.

Barritt is coming back from injury, and is our current first choice 12, so I have no problem there, but neither Dickson nor Botha suggest to me that they're likely to change a game in our favour.



Am I being harsh on these players, or is our strength in depth a bit limited?
Should I give Us the benefit of the doubt due to the injuries we currently have?

To be fair, Youngs is injured and Dickson is our 3rd best scrumhalf so I don't have a problem with that.

However, I cannot believe Lancaster persisted with Mears on the bench. What does he offer? Nothing of any impact.

Marler was our bench option before and Doran Jones can cover both sides so it was more cover than impact that he was there.

We do really need a better impact backrow player than Dowson. Good club player but England need someone coming off the bench who would be good against tired defences. He is not.

wasps, I don't think you're being that harsh although at the moment it is the best we've got... except Mears.

Mears,Botha and Dowson shouldn't be ther and i hope by the AI's they'll be gone. Farrel shouldn't really be there either but there aren't any alternatives at the moment.

I think by the time the Ais come around the bench will look alot different.

He (Lancaster ) could of played some of the players that played in the mid week games, but i think he wanted to see what the test team was about, and that come the Ais he will have a better idea of who should and should not be in the Englanf team.

I loved it when the commentator described Mears as a Bonsai Hooker.

Im expecting quite a different squad come the AI's...the core may be the same...but there will be different personnel...if not then ill start being concerned...

Without injuries we could have a bench with the likes of Croft, Corbisiero / Marler, Youngs / Care, Goode. I think the main problems are hooker, second row and FH/Centre.

That's part of the problem though.

All teams always have some injuries, and it's about having the strength in depth to handle them.

In the grand scheme of things, we're not too badly off at the moment.
I admit that we're missing a few in the back row, but we're definitely short at hooker, regardless of injuries.
While we may not like Botha, he was first choice in the 6N's, and going into is tour.


Things will be better in the AI's, but we only need a couple of injuries and we're back exactly where we are now.
I'd be more happy if our 3rd / 4th choices were a little stronger.