Matt Banahan - Just where do you see his best position

First topic message reminder :

He's had one blinder at Inside centre, and a few not so great/rather forgetable at 13...

You cant knock his try scoring record or his passing and pace.
So i ask....where do you see his long term future.

Winger,
Outside Centre
or Inside Centre.

Personally id like to see him playing 12 for bath.
He has pace, size and handling ability that could really cause chaos in the midfield. This would also allow us to play a more tricky outside like Lowe, Waldouck etc.

That would also allow us to play our other options at wing - JSD, Ojo, Sharples, Strettle etc.
Whats your opinions

He made good yards against good defence made some good offloads and good tacklesand was always tracking off his wing. In my opinion he made other more experinced as supposedly better players on both sides. Maybe I was using a bit to much superlatives and hyperbole but he did play very well.

Back to topic ,I prefer Banahan at 12 than Hape ,in the long run more of a 13 imo.
I've alway's prefered a 12 with a boot ,something Hape can't or won't do.
What we must remember is Banahan has been moved around alot this season wing -13-12 and he is still a work in progress at the moment.
Still take him to WC, at least he will give you more options even if it's from the bench.

Cutting the oranges.

Sorry Leinster

but i agree with exiled scot....you cant say that his performance against England was "exceptional".

His first try was a good run in...following a poor bit of defending by JSD. I would expect most top flight (Magners League, Prem etc) to put that one away.

His second was good support play...and work...ie he went lookiong for the ball. The sign of a good winger.

He defended as required, and did everything generally well.
But it could not be called "exceptional".

Seems to me that when a young player (be he English, Irish, Welsh, Dutch, Filipino blah blah blah....) has one or two decent games then he's the next WORLD CLASS player......

PS,

Back to topic, i can see Banahan playing 12 quite alot next season for Bath......

But will he have the better ability than Allen there?

I think Allen is not the future for England at 12, but I don't know who is. Certainly I don't think it could be Banahan, Allen or Hape, because they all have their flaws.

Hape, can't kick and is prone to having a bad game, always solid in defence and sometimes good going foward, but definitely not a long term soloution.

Banahan, again can't kick paticularly well, and does'nt pass half as much as he should also can be left flat footed in defence. However his one big draw is obviously his size and the ability to get quick ball of first phase.

Allen is the most rounded player, but not as flashy in one area as the other three.

I don't think either of them are th future, and in my opinion that leaves two options. Olly Barkely is still injured, but in my humble opinion the best twelve England have. The other option is Billy Twelvetrees, although he could not really break into the tigers first team, he does have the most potential and is definitely the twelve for the future.

Its very curious why Twelvetrees hasnt had much gametime this season?

Maybe hes just not as good as people are thinking...Leicester of all teams should be able to work out a youngsters potential.

or maybe he just needs more time .

He has all the skills necessary to be an exceptional player, passing of both hands, kicking, both out of hand and of the floor and he has pace. He could be the complete package but not yet as he definitely needs more time and games for leicester.

Banahan's best position (at least for the RWC) is obvious - squad player who can cover the 3/4s from the bench. At present I think he's only really international quality as a winger and is a work in progress at centre but would be OK as replacement cover.

I believe 12trees has played more in the 10 jersey for Leicester this (last) season than as an IC, although of what I saw he looked like a centre filling in there - showed a lot of promise but I think is at least half a season of first team matches away from being ready to step up for England (I think Manu T is a little further down the line, but the RWC may have come a bit soon).

I don't see why Hape is picked ahead of Allen though - is AA still paying the price for looking weak when brought into the England team prematurely 3 or 4 years ago?

Not even sure why Hape is picked ahead of Barritt. I you want a hard straight running centre, Barritt is better than Hape in every respect.

That all said, I'd settle for a Hape/Banahan centre combination against Scotland in the World Cup.

Banahan is a good utility player, with practise he could be used very effectively by England. It depends on how England want to play, they always play one big centre, so once Tins goes it is going to be 12 or 13, idealy if Banahan is played at 12, England will need a pacy 13 who can work off him with Foden coming into the line as well. If he is Tins replacement he would need a ball playing 12 who can get the ball to him early and at pace. Giving him the ball static is receipe for disaster, he doesn't have the footwork to get away.

With regard to Visser, you have to look at the quality of the oposition when comparing him to other international wingers, at best England turned out an experimental Saxons team, by the end, it was not much better than and U21's.

If he had failed to impress against them, he would have shown he has no international future whatsoever.

I'm thinking post world cup now, but we all know that Johnson loves a big, physical centre partnership, and he clearly sees somthing in Banahan at 12....

Could Manu be effective outside him? Is he quick enough and good enough defensively?

It might lack a bit of subtlety, but it certainly wouldn't lack physicality!

"Could Manu be effective outside him? Is he quick enough and good enough defensively?"

Hes fast enough to play wing, so fast enough for 13..not an out and out Varndell but can accelearte well. Defensively hes a huge tackler and fantactic and winning the ball, but prone to mistakes or putting others under pressure as well. Tigers have a defensive system built around dealing with that that largely revolved around Allen being a lot smarter.

Does Banahan have any kind of kicking game now? Because Manu surely doesnt, nor Hape. Ideally you'd want one of the centers to have some kind of kicking ability.

Realisticaly though fitness permitting,rightly or wrongly, Tindall will start the WC. If he goes the best Manu could hope for, and quite rightly, is to be an impact sub covering centers and wing. The argument is between Flutey Hape or Banahan at 12 really.


"Barritt is better than Hape in every respect"

Except his hands, and the whole point of England playing these staright running players is for them to flip the ball out like a SBW wannabe and keep the momentum going. Barrits may be better at the running bit but isnt in Hapes class for offloading. Its an aspect the england caoching team have been clealry pushing in Banahan and Easter too.

Banahan should start for England; either at 12 or on the wing instead of Cueto.

He scores tries and offers something different to what we already have.

I prefer Banahan on the wing, but I reckon that he would have made a cracking Number 8...

He's not strong enough for a number 8. Big lump, but an 8 needs to be able to make yards around the fringes from a standing start...Bananaman needs momentum.

Back to the theoretical Banahan/Manu cetre axis: the problem, then, would presumably be one of defensive positioning and organisation?

....as a side point, it will be interesting to see where Matt Tait slots in at Tigers next season. It looks as if he's been brought in as the long term replacement for Murphy at 15, especially as Cockers seems to be quite happy with Manu and Smith as his OC options. But I'd still love to see him reach his potential at 13, and I think he would do so successfully outside a straight running, offloading bosh-merchant at 12....a bill that Banahan could fit with continued positional development (2 or 3 years ago I harboured the notion that a then on-form Turner-Hall and a then promising Tait would develop into the world-beating, complimentary centre partnership that us Englishmen have been denied for years!)

GeordieFalcon wrote:You cant knock his......pace.

Pace I can knock. He's not quick enough or elusive enough to be a top winger. I'd like to see him come on as a 12. Has he come out and said what his preferred position is?

This whole Hape offloading thing is a red herring to me. He's been an England regular for some time and we've seen very little evidence of it being effective. As a creative player, he's ineffective. His strength is his tackling, but surely there should be more to being an international 12 than simply containing your man and not getting knocked back.

Barritt breaks tackles, makes ground and provides a platform for Sarries. He also leads their defence. His feet are deceptively quick and allow him across the advantage line far better than I've seen from Hape. Don't get me wrong, I don't see Barritt as a top class international centre, but I do see he and Allen as the best (and contrasting) potential options at 12 for England.

On club form, there isn't a debate here, Barritt is better than Hape.

I've just been looking at the prem. stats between Hape and Barritt and Barritt shades it overall, but there's barely anything in it.

Attacking wise, Barritt is the busier, making an average of 3 more carries per game than Hape. But Hape equals Barritt in terms of metres carried per game, so looks to be the more effective carrier. In terms of offloads, there is literally nothing in it, with both averaging just less than one every two games (which backs up funnyExiledScot's point about it being a red herring in terms of selection criteria) but Barrit makes substantially more passes per game, averaging 7 to Hape's 3.

Defensively, there's barely anything in it. Barritt actually averages one tackle a game(ish) more than Hape, and the missed tackle rate is almost a dead heat.

...so, taking a wider 'club form' lens across the whole season it would seem that there is certainly a debate to be had - particularly when you throw-in Hape's status as the incumbent.

I would have thought Hape's status as the incumbent would count against him personally, unless England are targeting mediocrity deliberately. We've seen what he can do in international rugby. Not much, and there aren't signs to me that he's improving.

Not a big stats fan, and prefer to trust my naked eye judgment of players. Carries and metres gained is particularly deceptive, as it may have very little to do with the ability of the player in question, but rather the creative abilities of the player inside him and the style of rugby deployed by the team he's playing in.

I shouldn't of course have said there isn't a debate to be had. There always is, and selection is entirely subjective. Clearly MJ sees Hape as his best 12 otherwise he wouldn't keep picking him. I think he's wrong.

funnyExiledScot, I'm not some massive Hape fan (has he got any?!), but if Barritt is the better option - which he could well be - then it certainly isn't by a million miles, which many people seem to imply, often with an edge of pure dislike for Hape.

And it might be an old fashioned view, but I don't really believe in swapping--out the incumbent unless he's playing awfully, or there's an alternative player pushing forward an undeniable case for selection....I don't really see either happening.

And, yes, whilst all stats should be taken with a pinch of salt, they are certainly indicative, and undeniable: e.g, people banging on about Hape's offloading clearly have no leg to stand on if he makes less than one offload every two games!

The offloading thing came from league. He was a really good league centre and played a strong offloading game there. I've heard so much about it since his switch to Union, but without even knowing the stat you provided, I could have told you that it was being over-egged.

I'm not an anti-continuity supporter at all, and I've long allowed Scottish players the benefit of the doubt to prove themselves (I gave Parks about 3 years to do so on exactly the same premise as you suggest, there was no-one else banging on the door).

I think what convinced me about Barritt was his performance in the Aviva final. It was frankly a level above anything I've ever seen from Hape, and in a pressure match. Barritt has been involved in England squads before I believe as well - certainly for the Saxons - so I don't think it would be completely out of the blue. He's also proved himself over two seasons as consistent, so you know what you're going to get.

I will concede though that he's not an inspirational selection (and neither frankly is Allen), but I just think that England are selling themselves short with Hape. We've seen what the back line looks like with him in it, and I just don't think it works with him at 12, and I certainly don't think he's the right foil for Banahan were Banahan to end up at 13.

Your point about selection continuity does have traction provided the player in question is a proven class act going through a dip in form, but Hape has never delivered as a centre.

You make a fair point: it's not as if by selecting Barritt Johnson would be fielding his 5th 12 in 3 games or anything...he's a guy who's been around the squad, not a flavour of the month youngster...

...And I wouldn't be disappointed to see Barritt given a go. But nor would I be outraged if Hape was retained, and nor would I expect Barritt to emerge as a mind-blowing, world class centre.

It has been a position of dearth for England, and I think it still is......but I take your point: has Hape really done enough for us to 'stick' on him?