Is Gatland Anti-English?

First topic message reminder :

When the squad was first announced there were raised eyebrows.

But as the attrition rate continues on players, some of whom were controversial selections in the first place, are replaced by even more controversial and pointedly non-English replacements it is becoming harder and harder to justify this in anyway other than as a pure out and out anti-English bias.

Does Gatland resent English players? not trust them? not understand them? The way they demolished the Barbarians and then Argentina with reserve selections should be putting the fear of god throughout the world of rugby and I wonder whether this blind eye he is turning is entirely motivated out of desire for Lions success or is it just Ostrich behaviour from a guy who deep down after all, is purely a Kiwi?

Exiledinborders wrote:Are you seriously suggesting that had Brian O'Driscoll not been injured in 2005, Ireland would have won either the 2007 or 2011 world cups? Winning a world cup is not about one player and certainly not a centre. I do not think even Ireland's greatest admirers would suggest that they have been remotely near world cup winning form.

I dont think Ireland were good enough to win the WC. However, in the lead up to the '07 WC Ireland were ranked as high as third in the world ahead of SA who went on to win the tournament. I think had we got our preparation a lot better we would have done quite well if we had the same draw as SA for example.

Glad to see Gatland has taken my criticism on board and finally called up Twelvetrees. Now we might see a Backline that can function with some creativity and skill!

The reason wood and robshaw didn't get picked is because they were smashed by theiroopponents in the game which mattered the grand slam decider, give me one goodreason why gatland would pick two players tthat were run off the park by tipric and Warburton its daft. Yea they played well against the all blacks but its not the all blacks their competing with to get in the squad, the only llayer that played well against wales was parling and through out the six nations thats why he was picked. Also why would you pick more English players like brown, Ashton,  barrat, goode etc when they can't score tries. Get your head out your arses anti-English be Frak you got a good 10 players on the tour lucky to have that accept it.

Its like can someone tell me what t.youngs did better than best, b.youngs did better than laidlaw, farrell did better than biggar, what corbs and vunipolo did better than grant, what Stevens did better than ross thats right they did nothing so accept your lucky and proves gats is not anti-English stop feeling sorry for your selves I don't mean to sound like im directing this at all English fans

Give it a rest welshboi. This article was written by a Kiwi masquerading as English.

I'm not sure anyone seriously thinks Gatland is anti-English.

Welshboii15, do me a favour and put the following player in order of ability?  Curious to see your thoughts;

Open-sides:

Warburton, Robshaw, Tipuric, Rennie, O'Brien

Blind-sides:

Lydiate, Ferris, Brown, Wood, O'Brien, Warburton, Robshaw

When on form 7s
● Warburton
●tipric
●rennie
●o'brian 
●robshaw

But it depends what kind of 7 you prefer in ypur team because o'brian and robshaw are more 6 and halfs.

As I rate them 7s
●tipric
●rennie/o'brian
●robshaw 
●Warburton

When on form 6
●ferris
●lydiate
●brown
●wood
●o'brian
●robshaw
●Warburton ( hes a 7 so thats why hes bottom )

But again it comes down to what your team play.

As I rate them
●ferris
●brown
●lydiate
●o'brian
●wood
●robshaw
● Warburton

So you think Tom Croft is only the 8th best blindside in the home nations???? or is their anyone else you missed out... Ryan Jones, Jonathan Thomas, PoM before you get to Croft.

Amazing that you think that Lydiate is actually playing better than O'Brien. The only person Lydiate is playing better than is Rory Best.

GloriousEmpire wrote:Glad to see Gatland has taken my criticism on board and finally called up Twelvetrees. Now we might see a Backline that can function with some creativity and skill!

Much like the traditional free scoring english backline eh empire

ReaSon I didn't put Croft,  POM etc on the list because I did it out of the list given
And nowhere have u said lydiate is playing better than SOB I said when on form and how I rate them pay more attention when your reading

welshboii15 wrote:ReaSon I didn't put Croft,  POM etc on the list because I did it out of the list given
And nowhere have u said lydiate is playing better than SOB I said when on form and how I rate them pay more attention when your reading

Not sure about kelly brown over tom wood!

Just personal opinion

welshboii15 wrote:The reason wood and robshaw didn't get picked is because they were smashed by theiroopponents in the game which mattered the grand slam decider, give me one goodreason why gatland would pick two players tthat were run off the park by tipric and Warburton its daft. Yea they played well against the all blacks but its not the all blacks their competing with to get in the squad, the only llayer that played well against wales was parling and through out the six nations thats why he was picked. Also why would you pick more English players like brown, Ashton,  barrat, goode etc when they can't score tries. Get your head out your arses anti-English be Frak you got a good 10 players on the tour lucky to have that accept it.

Equally, the English lads played better than their Welsh counterparts against SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE OPPOSITION. That's why Wales haven't defeated NZ since Adam wore short pants.

GloriousEmpire wrote:Wales haven't defeated NZ since Adam wore short pants.

Since adam Jones' father wore short pants would be more accurate.