Wales : poor conditioning ?

First topic message reminder :

Wales looked lacklustre in week one and took a shellacking in week two.

Good players don't become poor players overnight and the efforts so far smack of "lions hangover". This isn't excuse making, merely reasoning. History bares out that following lions duty, the constituent nations suffer. Given that so many welsh players composed the lions, then it makes sense that this effect might be more localised this year.

But what is post-lions syndrome?

Is it a mental effect? Can players simply not find the motivation to train and/or play to their potential?

Is it physical exhaustion? Have they played too much rugby? Is the mind willing but the body unable?

Have players rested on laurels? Lacked pre-season training commitment and now suffer the consequences?

Has the exposure of key English and Irish players to welsh coaching and strategy given them a leap on welsh tactics?  Has Gatland stagnated allowing welsh play to be too predictable? Is Gatland merely exhausted?

These are important questions because the answers might give insight to how well Wales will fare in the remaining contest.

A week off will undoubtedly give them time to recoup mentally, but if the players are merely poorly conditioned then that period of time is too short to remedy the problems, and exhaustive training now will merely make the problem worse.

I suspect that now is time for Gatland to rip up his play book and start fresh, rotate the squad and use the tournament as a trail for fringe candidates. Welsh pride will say otherwise, and if Gatland is burned out then clear thought might not be possible. Maybe just nailing the colours to the mast and plowing through the storm is the best way - not panic and trusting the systems already in place. Tough call.

My gut feeling says Wales have probably one good performance left in them. Will it come against France? Or England? Or will they put one of the minnows to the sword in a pointless display of retribution.

Challenging times for a coach, but if anyone has it in them to overcome this crisis then it's Gatland. The shrewd kiwi has bounced back from disappointment before : disastrous AIs and World Cup disappointment didn't stop him taking the lions series and I'm intrigued to see (read) how he will tackle this one.

Do we have a man in a Top hat with a Goat?

Not poor conditioning so much as having a few players who were poorly conditioned- rushed back. Warburton and Jenkins especially short of game time, hence their release to the Blues this weekend.

lostinwales wrote:

Griff wrote:

lostinwales wrote:Woodward does seem to be playing the roll of the nutter in the corner full of crazy quotes these days. What however does slightly bug me is how he is portrayed by certain nationalities as the worst lions manager ever rather than the manager of the only NH team to dominate modern world rugby for any span and deliver a world cup

Can't he be both?  Wasn't he both???!

Well he was, although some would say there is competition on the Lions management side. Its just that the Lions thing is repeated all the time as a way of putting him down. Its the equivalent of saying Graham Henry is a crap coach because of the end of his spell in Wales (and his Lions performance) and ignoring what he did after.

I guess we should blame the Lions manager for Lions management issues then, not the Lions coach??? Same in the Gatland 'debacle'?

So why did WRUburton and Jenkins take Tips and James places?

Neither of them looked up to speed, strange selections from Gatland or was it the WRU in WRUburtons case?

Scrumpy wrote:

GunsGerms wrote:

lostinwales wrote:Woodward does seem to be playing the roll of the nutter in the corner full of crazy quotes these days. What however does slightly bug me is how he is portrayed by certain nationalities as the worst lions manager ever rather than the manager of the only NH team to dominate modern world rugby for any span and deliver a world cup

I will always remember him for his 6 nations campaigns, particularly the game against in Dublin in '03. Both teams were playing for the championship, both good teams. However, England were so ruthless in every way even before the match kicked off when Johnno made the Ireland president walk on mud to annoy everyone. Ireland had a very good team but England meant business and I think a lot of that was down to Woodwards coaching.

Did she ever get her shoes clean?   

Only last week an Irate English gentleman wrote into the Irish Independent expressing his distaste that ROG is still regarded so highly in Ireland.  

Very irate indeed!  

He asked us Irish to recall the time ROG kept his hands in his pockittzes when he met a little old Lady who represented the United Kingdom.  That's not me refering to the Queen as a little old lady - the Gentleman himself described her in such terms.

I laugh too, just like Scrumpy, whenever that one is brought up.  That was ROG payback.  Not to personally offend the little old Lady who I'm certain is a nice woman, (just as Johnson wasn't making a personal point to our President)...but symbolically, it was very much Touché from O'Gara.

Sorry English Gentleman, but it just had to be done.  Maybe we'll get back to respecting each other again from here on in.

On the post-Lions hangover question;

Tom Youngs
Dan Cole
Alex Corbisiero
Mako Vunipola
Geoff Parling
Tom Croft
Ben Youngs
Owen Farrell
Manu Tuilagi
----
Brad Barritt
Billy Twelvetrees
Christian Wade

England had 9 players with a significant role (there from the start, involved in tests etc) on the Lions tour. I've removed Stevens and Hartley from this obviously. Of those 9, only 2 are currently starting in the Six Nations (Cole and Farrell, neither of whom have backup players really pressuring them). 4 are long-term injured, and M Vunipola and both Youngs have been overtaken by players who didn't go.

From our perspective, it does look like the Lions could have had a big impact on the players who went, injuries and form-wise.

Bizarrely, I'd say that we're looking like a stronger team this year, but it could be that the players who are suffering after the tour were on the verge of making way for stronger alternatives anyway. England didn't have much use of Corbisiero last season in any case, Lawes at the moment is better than Parling ever was, same for Hartley v Youngs, Croft shouldn't have been selected ahead of Vunipola for the end of the 6N last year, and Care, who was the next scrum half in line for the tour, has stepped up ahead of Youngs. Tuilagi is the only one we're actually really missing.

Wales on the other hand have a much more defined first XV, so a Lions hangover will necessarily hurt them very badly, rather than just shifting a few close selection decisions towards players who had a rest over the summer.

One point on post-Lions performances from an individual perspective though; selection for the Lions squad, and test side in particular, will almost by definition be awarded on average to players who are at the time of the tour performing above their usual level. That's why they get picked. It's therefore a statistical necessity that the players' form will at some point after the tour return to a slightly lower level. That doesn't mean that the tour has caused the drop in form - it could just be performances returning to the mean.

I've seen the same point made about the 'Sports Illustrated curse' in American sport. There's a long-lasting idea that appearing on the cover of Sports Illustrated causes some horrendous drop in performance level. In actual fact, it's just that the players who are selected to appear on the cover were probably performing at an unusually high level at the time, which was bound to drop off sooner or later.

thomh wrote:One point on post-Lions performances from an individual perspective though; selection for the Lions squad, and test side in particular, will almost by definition be awarded on average to players who are at the time of the tour performing above their usual level. That's why they get picked. It's therefore a statistical necessity that the players' form will at some point after the tour return to a slightly lower level. That doesn't mean that the tour has caused the drop in form - it could just be performances returning to the mean.

I've seen the same point made about the 'Sports Illustrated curse' in American sport. There's a long-lasting idea that appearing on the cover of Sports Illustrated causes some horrendous drop in performance level. In actual fact, it's just that the players who are selected to appear on the cover were probably performing at an unusually high level at the time, which was bound to drop off sooner or later.

It was mostly English and Irish players that were the top form players directly before the Lions went on tour.  When does form matter?  At club level or International level?  And if International level form is the token by which a Lions squad is selected then it's a very hit-and-miss strategy as International form tends to be a few weeks or even months old, whilst Club form is usually plum up to date.

I know this isn't really the point you're making whilst mentioning that issue of 'form' or 'above average level' - but you do tie that idea of 'above usual level' players directly to "at the time of the [Lions] tour".

I meant more generally for the few months leading to the tour. A couple of England examples - the Youngs brothers were performing the best they had for quite a while towards the end of last season - Tom Youngs the best he ever had. That's why he was selected for the tour, but that wasn't his typical level of performance and this season his form has dipped. That's interpreted as post-Lions fatigue etc, but it could just be that it was his abnormally good performances last year, that got him selected, and this year they've returned to their usual standard.

I agree with you that it's not a perfectly applicable point, as selection for the tour did at times ignore current form and lean towards reputation/familiarity with Gatland's style (Lydiate for example), but I think it is an effect to be wary of when talking about a post-Lions hangover.

Not sure how true this is but read that everytime Wales win the 6N in a Lions year they record record breaking losses the season after, their top 5 losses in the 6N all come post championship win and large lions contingent.

So when we talk lions hangover, are we not just saying that national teams lose a few players to injury and fatigue, and our ability to replace these players is far better than Wales? We have unrivalled depth in the 6N, and can call on seasoned internationals to replace our best, whereas Wales have had to sacrifice their club ambitions just to get players back for international duty?

Of course its the lions, they have played rugby soildly for 16 months without a break ! You cant play with that level of intensity for that long with a hangover, and the welsh team was basically the lions team. It happens every four years. Next year they will be fine, unless gatland has them playing australia 7 times over the summer of course !

sirtidychris wrote:Of course its the lions, they have played rugby soildly for 16 months without a break ! You cant play with that level of intensity for that long with a hangover, and the welsh team was basically the lions team. It happens every four years. Next year they will be fine, unless gatland has them playing australia 7 times over the summer of course !

 

Nothing to do with the Lions at all. Zip. Sure half the Ireland team from last Saturday were on the Lions tour too. How come they werent tired? Probably because it was 7 months ago.

GunsGerms wrote:

sirtidychris wrote:Of course its the lions, they have played rugby soildly for 16 months without a break ! You cant play with that level of intensity for that long with a hangover, and the welsh team was basically the lions team. It happens every four years. Next year they will be fine, unless gatland has them playing australia 7 times over the summer of course !

 

Nothing to do with the Lions at all. Zip. Sure half the Ireland team from last Saturday were on the Lions tour too. How come they werent tired? Probably because it was 7 months ago.

Did they not also have a couple of weeks in the sun while the Welsh boys competed in tests though hahaha

To say it isn't the lion tour is silly, it's not the tour itself, it's the tour taking the rest period away from players, a lot of the Welsh players have also gone straight into AP and T14 league seasons.

I'd probably say it's a combination of that and their inability to select quality from behind injured players, is it really a shock that the only team without an A team are having to field unfit players?

Not sure the A-team point is relevant in itself. I'm not convinced that the Saxons actually does much to improve players at all (two games a year in scratch sides against other scratch sides), but just gives the coaches a bit of a closer look at them. The smaller playing pool, yes, but the A-team doesn't itself do a huge amount, I don't think.