O'Gara and Wilkinson Must Tour With Lions

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So the northern hemisphere rugby reaches its crescendo those with the skill, tenacity and big game mentality step up:

Ronan O'Gara and Wilkinson both featured heavily in stand out fly half performances. This should be all Gatland needs to know about who as the credentials to shepard the Lions to glory. He needs to drop this ridiculous notion of Top 14 involvement ruling out Lions contention and immediately name Wilkinson as starting 10 with O'Gara as reserve.

RubyGuby wrote:If he's that gifted what's Paddy Jackson doing as your number 2

Only Declan Kidney knows. Jackson isnt bad to be fair but Madigan offers something that no other fly half in the north offers:

He scores lots of tries.

mckay1402 wrote:

GloriousEmpire wrote:Madigon = untried. Sexton = tried and failed. Biggar = ditto

Only JW and O'Gara have the potential and experience and maturity. They will have learned from their past experiences and be "bigger" than the occasion allowing clear and rational approach to the games. Both top game managers with big game heads.

pretty sure Biggar was instrumental in beating England by a record score and winning the championship. of all the players mentioned he is the only one with any intensional form.

Biggar did ok but it was the Welsh pack with a bit of flourish added by Cuthbert who won the game. Got to give a bit of credit to their 9th man in the pack - Phillips and their 16th man in blue too.

Think Biggar's chances have been inflated by 1 game.

Are people forgetting Rhys Priestland and Toby Flood?

rodders wrote:Are people forgetting Rhys Priestland and Toby Flood?

Both very good players and both would be good additions to the squad but maybe they arent getting much notice because they dont offer much more than and are similar enough to Farrell and Sexton or even Biggar.

Getting dropped for their countries wont have helped either.

rodders wrote:Gats has history of saying things that don't turn out be true.

Are you Honestly saying that a man who is honestly telling people all about his honesty and how honest a bunch of players he has got, and how honesty is the most important think in his squad, may just possibly be a bit of a lier

As for Priestland, he is out for the rest of the regular season (could sneak into the play off games), and I think the Scarlets are not intending playing him again, so he is totally ruled out IMO.

Not forgetting Priestland, but he's injured, and therefore out of contention until he returns and proves that he's fit to play.

Before anyone accuses me of double standards, I apply the same test to Richie Gray.

No-one should tour unless they are fit and available to play in the first match.

It was interesting to see Gatland was at the Biarritz v Gloucester Amlin quarter final. Does that mean he's prepared to go really wild card and select Freddie Burns or Jonny May?

....or Iain Balshaw....

funnyExiledScot wrote:Not forgetting Priestland, but he's injured, and therefore out of contention until he returns and proves that he's fit to play.

Before anyone accuses me of double standards, I apply the same test to Richie Gray.

No-one should tour unless they are fit and available to play in the first match.

Totaly agree with that.

GloriousEmpire wrote:So the northern hemisphere rugby reaches its crescendo those with the skill, tenacity and big game mentality step up:

Ronan Ogara and Wilkinson both featured heavily in stand out fly half performances. This should be all Gatland needs to know about who as the credentials to shepard the Lions to glory. He needs to drop this ridiculous notion of Top 14 involvement ruling out Lions contention and immediately name Wilkinson as starting 10 with O'Gara as reserve.

Funniest opening post I have seen in a long time...

beshocked wrote:
If Tuilagi had picked up a relatively simple pass by Farrell it could have been a try for England early on. Could have changed the whole match on it's head. The Welsh loss was a collective one - funnily enough the focus of blame went on Farrell and Ashton.

I really don't think it did. There was pretty widespread acknowledgement that we were nailed in that game, and Ashton's criticism was only a continuation of criticism he'd been receiving even when we were winning.

Chjw131 wrote:It was interesting to see Gatland was at the Biarritz v Gloucester Amlin quarter final. Does that mean he's prepared to go really wild card and select Freddie Burns or Jonny May?

Twelvetrees more likely than those two, although oddly he didn't start that game.

Indeed thomh so by that logic Jonny May and Freddie Bruns were the two most likely options on the team sheets. Unless you're going to tell me he was there to see Mike Tindall in action...

funnyExiledScot wrote:....or Iain Balshaw....

Oh the days when he played FB for England I could've.... I remember one superb occasion when he retreated behind his own goal line to retrieve a ball kicked through and having managed to scoop it up, advance into his own 22 putting in a sublime pass into his own goal post. I think for the opposition to score.

Chjw131 wrote:

funnyExiledScot wrote:....or Iain Balshaw....

Oh the days when he played FB for England I could've.... I remember one superb occasion when he retreated behind his own goal line to retrieve a ball kicked through and having managed to scoop it up, advance into his own 22 putting in a sublime pass into his own goal post. I think for the opposition to score.

In fairness to Balshaw he's been very good for Biarritz as a 15 for a fair few seasons now.

It was always a big frustration though how readily several coaches were happy to switch him from wing to full back in his prime when we effectively lost a very good winger for an average 15. He had some great moments for Bath and England back in the day though, another with JSD that leaves me wondering what could've been in an England shirt.

thomh wrote:

Chjw131 wrote:It was interesting to see Gatland was at the Biarritz v Gloucester Amlin quarter final. Does that mean he's prepared to go really wild card and select Freddie Burns or Jonny May?

Twelvetrees more likely than those two, although oddly he didn't start that game.

It was the only match on that day, and perhaps Gatland was making sure he was visible and not being filmed taking stade Francais training sessions?

Equally when he decided to go he may have thought that Hamilton, Morgan and 36 were all due to play?

Now if you wanted to feed them to the Lions I'd be with you all the way