Tom Wood is he as good as we think?

First topic message reminder :

Just a quick question to the fans out there, I hear a lot about Tom Wood being England's new Neil Back, and that he does a lot of the "unseen work" or "unglamorous work" or that he's a grafter etc

Now I know he does get through a fair few tackles per game, and he is a good option in the lineout. But After that what does he actually bring to the team? To be the new Neil Back he'd need to do things that really effect the out come of games. Right now he doesn't seem to have much baring on a game, just tackling people close to rucks.

For Saints this season and against NZ on the weekend i've tried to keep an eye our for Tom Wood to see his effect on the game. To be honest I struggle to remember many positive impacts. I failed to see any gainline stopping tackles, any turnovers or any good support or link play from him.

The stats for the game seem to back this up as he made 9 tackles and missed 1,made 1 clean break, 3 offloads and a total of 10m's from 5 runs.

So he had a pretty quiet game, perhaps fatigued after two finals last month. He made little headway against NZ and missed a tackle while making a fairly low number anyway.

Now compare this to Haskell from the week before, he made 13 tackles none missed, 9m's ran from 4 runs but no clean breaks.

Fairly similar stats tbh.

What I do remember, and this is obviously just my opinion, is that Haskell made a lot more impact on the game in the first test. His tackles had power to them, he pushed the opposition back over the gainline and if I could find a stat for it I'm sure he won at least one turnover.

Two different players but should Lancaster be looking at guys like Haskell a bit more? Do we lack power at 6 with Wood there? Do we miss someone that can make momentum changing tackles and turnovers in the 6 shirt? With Robshaw do we still have two guys who do everything pretty well but nothing spectacularly?

Ozzy3213 wrote:

mid_gen wrote:Tired of hearing about Armitage. He doesn't want to play for England, plenty of players that do.

Doesn't want to play for England?  Really?  You know that do you?

He has chosen to play in France, he knows as well as every other EQP what that means.

If he wants to play for England, he will play for an English club. He chooses not to, end of story.

FWIW I would love to see him in a white shirt...but that small advantage over all the other options we have is not worth all the problems that come with making exceptions to the rule. If he wants the shirt, he'll move.

Ozzy3213 wrote:

mid_gen wrote:Tired of hearing about Armitage. He doesn't want to play for England, plenty of players that do.

Doesn't want to play for England?  Really?  You know that do you?

If he wanted to play again for England he would come back across the channel, I am sure a number of clubs would love to have him. He knew the position when he went to play in France. Make an exception for him, however good a player he is, (not that good in my mind) and you open the doors to the cream of English talent disappearing off to the mega rich French clubs, to the detriment of the England side as a whole.

Even if he was the new JW, I wouldn't advocate picking him. The national side has to come before a players wage packet, if you want the mega bucks, go to France. If you want to play for England, stay at home. Simples!

yappysnap wrote:Just a quick question to the fans out there, I hear a lot about Tom Wood being England's new Neil Back, and that he does a lot of the "unseen work" or "unglamorous work" or that he's a grafter etc

Now I know he does get through a fair few tackles per game, and he is a good option in the lineout. But After that what does he actually bring to the team? To be the new Neil Back he'd need to do things that really effect the out come of games. Right now he doesn't seem to have much baring on a game, just tackling people close to rucks.

For Saints this season and against NZ on the weekend i've tried to keep an eye our for Tom Wood to see his effect on the game. To be honest I struggle to remember many positive impacts. I failed to see any gainline stopping tackles, any turnovers or any good support or link play from him.

The stats for the game seem to back this up as he made 9 tackles and missed 1,made 1 clean break, 3 offloads and a total of 10m's from 5 runs.

So he had a pretty quiet game, perhaps fatigued after two finals last month. He made little headway against NZ and missed a tackle while making a fairly low number anyway.

Now compare this to Haskell from the week before, he made 13 tackles none missed, 9m's ran from 4 runs but no clean breaks.

Fairly similar stats tbh.

What I do remember, and this is obviously just my opinion, is that Haskell made a lot more impact on the game in the first test. His tackles had power to them, he pushed the opposition back over the gainline and if I could find a stat for it I'm sure he won at least one turnover.

Two different players but should Lancaster be looking at guys like Haskell a bit more? Do we lack  power at 6 with Wood there? Do we miss someone that can make momentum changing tackles and turnovers in the 6 shirt? With Robshaw do we still have two guys who do everything pretty well but nothing spectacularly?

Yappy, anyone that compares Wood to Back knows not a lot about rugby union. Wood is a 6 or 6.5, back was an out and out 7. No comparison in the styles of play at all. Now a comparison with Richard Hill who played 7 for Sarries but 6 for England similar to Wood with Saints are fair enough. If he ever gets that good England will be celebrating with a lot more silverware; Hill was that good.

Another comparison is that when Hill was missing England didn't seem to gel very well, see 2007 RWC. Saints and England seem to have the same problem, he is the oil that lubricates the team machine.

Wasn't Wood originally playing 7 when Lancaster came along? And pencilled into the 7 shirt before his injury? But only moved to 6 to actually get on the pitch around Robshaw?

And don't both Robshaw and Wood play a mix of 6 and 7 roles? So to say there's no comparison in style of play is a little odd, especially when his duties carrying, breakdown work, making a nuisance, all sound a lot like Back's job when he played (but I'll grant Wood doesn't do them any where near as well, and yes he's no Hill either).

From memory Wood's first game for England was with Haskell at 7 but it was left and right flankers rather than specialised roles. At Worcester he was generally at 6 due to Sanderson at 7. At Saints he seems to more around depending on who else is playing.

Wood was (I think) Lancaster's original choice for Captain when he took over as Caretaker, and I am sure that is the main reason he always wants him in the side: Mr Wood is a leader and a motivator, leading by example. He needed to be part of the squad as an example of leadership to the other young guns. Both Robshaw and he were front-runners for the Captain's armband at the start of 2012, and only Wood's then fragile feet kept him out of the season. Haskell had the shirt and was highly experienced but was/is seen as a penalty machine. This hardly showed him as an ideal candidate to start and to be an example to the young bucks. He had also, of course, gone travelling.

He does indeed do a lot of the hard unseen graft and works very well with Robshaw, hence why SL rates him so highly. Having no Morgan in the 6N in 2013 meant he chose another 6 in Croft and put Wood at 8 which we all know was a mistake - SL should've chosen Haskell at 8 instead. SL just had to have one of his most important lieutenants on the field, even if it meant playing him out of position.

I rate Wood very highly (I am not a Saints fan) and SL obviously has him down as one of the first names on the sheet.

You say that Wood and Robshaw are good leaders, but I wonder just how true that is. Yes they both help the team raise their games, and lead by example for the full 80 and make few mistakes themselves.

But neither to my mind can grab the team, or the game by the throat and exert their influence on it, if things are going wrong we've seen repeatedly now that both are fairly useless at stopping it. Neither seem to make a decisive contribution that gets heads up and the players believing in themselves (something like Smith's tackle on Tuilagi).

Is this anotherlearning curve? Will they get better at changing the out come of games or is it just not in their characters? If not do we have a player that can through actions or words change a match that's sliding away from us?

yappysnap wrote:You say that Wood and Robshaw are good leaders, but I wonder just how true that is. Yes they both help the team raise their games, and lead by example for the full 80 and make few mistakes themselves.

But neither to my mind can grab the team, or the game by the throat and exert their influence on it, if things are going wrong we've seen repeatedly now that both are fairly useless at stopping it. Neither seem to make a decisive contribution that gets heads up and the players believing in themselves (something like Smith's tackle on Tuilagi).

Is this anotherlearning curve? Will they get better at changing the out come of games or is it just not in their characters? If not do we have a player that can through actions or words change a match that's sliding away from us?

Think they're both good leaders to be honest. There's only been Wales where I've truely thought we lost it and that had a few things contributing to it.

Well ill throw one in there...

IF (and its abig IF) Burgess is a 6 at Bath and takes to the game as he might....then they could ALL (Wood, Croft, Haskell) be under threat....as he "potentially" has the skills to be a beast of a 6.

He does indeed. Just seen Tompkins has popped off back to League. Let's hope Burgess doesn't end the same way and is more of a Robinson.

yappysnap wrote:You say that Wood and Robshaw are good leaders, but I wonder just how true that is. Yes they both help the team raise their games, and lead by example for the full 80 and make few mistakes themselves.

But neither to my mind can grab the team, or the game by the throat and exert their influence on it, if things are going wrong we've seen repeatedly now that both are fairly useless at stopping it. Neither seem to make a decisive contribution that gets heads up and the players believing in themselves (something like Smith's tackle on Tuilagi).

Is this anotherlearning curve? Will they get better at changing the out come of games or is it just not in their characters? If not do we have a player that can through actions or words change a match that's sliding away from us?

Being the captain and leading by example is not the same as being either the best player on the pitch or doing the stand out things. It is about inspiration and making the right decisions at the right time, Robshaw is still on a learning curve in regard to the later.

A classic example would be Mike Brearley at cricket, not close to being the best batsman, in fact barely test class, but a superb capitain who got th best out of the rest of the team.

Wood is an effective 7, but Saints, like England tend to play 2 6.5s, Clarke, Dowson, Wood and occasionall Nutley sharing the 6 & 7 shirts as such he suits the game plan of SL like a glove.

Back was a nuisence player in open play and a great stealer of the ball, took the black arts to a new level before McCaw rewrote the book. A Totally different style of play to what either Saints or England play, or most sides these days. Very few out and out fetchers about in modern rugby.