Defenses?

Ok, its been a while since I've commented on here but if ever there was a time its over the next 6 weeks. So here's my question to you lot out there. At the moment most of us (if not all) are getting very "defensive" and hypersensitive towards any type of criticism of our national teams from others. Indeed, I think the media have greatly inflated Gatland's comments about England having an unsettled side. Many England pundits for example have been saying this for a while without it being big news. Therefore, my thread is about your own criticisms, concerns about your own national team and hence I will go forth first:

Wales:

Irrespective of it being a so called "warm up" Wales desperately needed that win last week in Dublin for psychological reasons if nothing else. We are a classic all or nothing nation with a fragile psyche when it matters. Whilst we have a settled team in general we have injuries in the front row and some inexperience  and when the pressure comes on at Twickenham we might be vulnerable. AWJ's injury concerns me and he remains a vital talisman. If Gatland persists with Lydiate who had a good game in Ireland then I fear that we may lack the dynamism that Tipuric brings to win games. Maybe it will be horses for courses. Behind the scrum we have a young scrum half who is very much learning his trade at this level and Dublin wasn't his greatest game, again inexperience in a key position might cost us although he is the best that we have. Our midfield looks predictable and average up against the best and I don't see much creativity or pace there. Out wide we are as good as most but not better which leaves Halfpenny. Halfpenny with his high ball retrieval and metronomic boot might be the difference to us getting out of the group or not. For what its with I see Aus topping the group followed by England then Wales. We remain too structured and predictable which can bring you success on occasion in the Northern Hemisphere but it wont be enough when the real deal starts and the stakes are of the highest order. That is when the welsh psyche reveals its fallibility as so often illustrated in the last few minutes of games v Aus and SA, which is when the real winners go up another gear and have the composure to deliver.

Here's hoping

England - Keep finishing second. Falling at the last hurdle. It's mainly experience and this team are not the finished article, it's like trying to do a presentation when you have not finished the slide on the results and conclusions.

Our hooker position is a problem (well known) as is centre. Different problems however. At hooker we have poor performances, whereas at centre we have had some very good performances but no consistency of selection and no one with a lot of caps - this is mainly because of people breaking down or being naughty.

Our team is under the most scrutiny of any at this world cup and due to our large player base we have lots of options, so no one can agree on the best squad or first XV. This is in many ways our biggest problem as well as our biggest advantage. Imagine if we only had Farrell and not Ford. He would be a nailed on starter, we could build the team around him, knowing that he will be the best player in that position for the foreseeable (think Scotland with Russell at the moment or Wales with Biggar, or Ireland with Sexton!). Of course the problem is then that if he gets crocked then we are up the proverbial creek without the paddle. With Ford as well though we cannot be consistent in how we play as he is very different to Farrell. Also, neither player gets as much experience. Of course, when one gets crocked we have no problem, the other one plays. This does make it very hard to build experience though, which is the major thing we lack.

Our press is awful and make the team and the supporters seem worse than they are in terms of attitude (not that all of either group are perfect!). We are expected to win most games and be a top 3 team at the least. People cite the number of players we have and the finance available, and they kind of have a point, though as ever it is not quite as simple as that.

Nice post screamingadds - I'd like to hear the views of some Aussies

I think the most recent Aussie may have spent a small amount of time across the ditch...

screamingaddabs summed up most of the issues with England quite nicely.

Could also add the worries of the breakdown.

England were beaten very badly in this area in the 6 nations vs Ireland. Didn't fair well against France away in the recent warm up match.

Worries about how the England backrow will deal with Tipuric/Warburton and Pocock/Hooper.

England left out players like Ksevic,Itoje and Ewers that they could have tried in the warm ups to at least give England some more options. If England do struggle at breakdown time then questions will be asked why these players weren't given opportunities.

Robshaw still has question marks over his leadership, nice bloke but when the going gets tough can he motivate the players? Not convinced. Leadership is an issue for England with the lack of experience in the squad. It's partly why I don't think England have gotten over the line in the 6 nations.

The 2003 England team was chock full of leaders even the 2007 team had it's fair share when they reached the final.

This current England side? Not so much - that's partly why Burgess is in there - he's meant to be a leader.

I think your point and concern about the breakdown is the most important for England yet Beshocked, all valid stuff though and good to see

You sum it up nicely beshocked with where England are and what the viewpoints are. We need different players in who have no international experience and we need more experience and leadership!

Points beshocked makes are fair, but I struggle to see how Itoje/Ewers would have much success beating Tipuric/Warbs/Pocock/Hooper to the breakdown

Kvesic admittedly should have been given a shot, but they went with Clark instead

I'll be far more worried if we get annihilated again this weekend

No 7 & 1/2 I actually don't think there was anything wrong with trying out Burgess and Slade in the warm ups as 36 and Burrell haven't really excelled. Just feel that Lancaster needed to experiment in the backrow too. I know I have been over this a few times.

Bambam not saying they would, Ewers is a 6/8, Itoje is a 4/5/6, they wouldn't have been directly been head to head with them, they both have their own strengths - Ewers is another strong carrier, Itoje no shrinking violet and would offer another lineout option. Not sure about Ewers work at the breakdown but Itoje's is improving all the time.

It's about improving the squad but trying to keep the core together.

The backrow options picked by England aren't bad but there's very little room for tactical changes. We know what Wood,Robshaw,Morgan,Billy,Haskell etc can do. It's the unproven guys like Ksevic,Itoje or Ewers who could have shaken things up a bit IMO in the warm ups. It's a missed opportunity IMO.

The likes of Slade and George are in the 31 and there's not too many complaints about them if any -this is because they have been given chances and haven't let the side down yet!

The problem with England is that we just don't have enough world class players. We may have lots of players but not enough who would make a Lions test side let alone a world XV. Argue about different back row players all you want but none are at the top level yet. Our set piece is ordinary and rolling maul a joke. A new centre pairing in our last RWC warm up match? Hardly a great starting position.
We have a coaching team addicted to laptops and stats and have ended up with a team of fit alrounders with no one world class in any one position. No doubt England will give any side a decent match as they will be fit, well prepared, defend strongly and off-load reasonably well, but of course they will not nail chances like some sides do. Of course they could win their group with home advantage, but they are a long way from being a RWC winning side. My prediction is 2nd in the group and a 1/4 final exit to SA.

Everyone (in Wales) seems to be obsessed with the 'we have to play Sam and Tips against England and Australia' notion as if its going to be all out attack.

These two teams will both run at us and attack us around the fringes and we have to be able to defend and that's where Lydiates comes in.

Yes I know there are limitations to his game, as there is to almost every player but when a game like ours is based on defence then he has to start.

For me England backline as a unit is almost would class. Need to find a 12 that would work better with youngs/care-Ford-Joseph-Brown-Watson. The front row is not what it used to be though....

beshocked wrote:No 7 & 1/2 I actually don't think there was anything wrong with trying out Burgess and Slade in the warm ups as 36 and Burrell haven't really excelled. Just feel that Lancaster needed to experiment in the backrow too. I know I have been over this a few times.

Bambam not saying they would, Ewers is a 6/8, Itoje is a 4/5/6, they wouldn't have been directly been head to head with them, they both have their own strengths - Ewers is another strong carrier, Itoje no shrinking violet and would offer another lineout option. Not sure about Ewers work at the breakdown but Itoje's is improving all the time.

It's about improving the squad but trying to keep the core together.

The backrow options picked by England aren't bad but there's very little room for tactical changes. We know what Wood,Robshaw,Morgan,Billy,Haskell etc can do. It's the unproven guys like Ksevic,Itoje or Ewers who could have shaken things up a bit IMO in the warm ups. It's a missed opportunity IMO.

The likes of Slade and George are in the 31 and there's not too many complaints about them if any -this is because they have been given chances and haven't let the side down yet!

No, it just amuses me that England are in this constant state as we dont have that core but want the next cab off the rank partially because of the 1st and around we go!

Ireland.

Well I guess Gats put it most succinctly, as he tends to do..... they don't play a lot of rugby.  And that might present itself as a pretty big hole in any gameplan that wants to win the highest graded Rugby Union event on the Planet.

We've been sliding by, and edging out, and crawling over the line these past two seasons; and all the while showing scant evidence that if our smothering defensive game and kick-chase medium paced attack falters, we'd have a contingency gameplan ready that we can play effectively to creatively think ourselves past an unflinching defensive wall put up by the enemy.

The bonus seems to be that Schmidt hasn't until now largely even felt the need to try to give us a more offensively paced offloading gameplan.  (I'd bet we've offloaded less than any of the top 10 sides over these last two seasons.)  He hasn't needed such a gameplan, we didn't play it (much) and he still got his two 6N in the bag.

The downside is that we all know that kind of luck plus dogged workrate won't continue.  The time will come when we'll need to show a genuine few more gears and for those gears to be smooth rather than rushed and unconvincing.  That means as time slides by, the more concern grows the less the Irish guys practice an alternative gameplan.  

You might say against Scotland in the 6N that Ireland opened up the throttle a bit but certainly they remained still much more 'pragmatic' and less ruthless than the English, Welsh and French in similar mode.

Some might say that's a design coming from Schmidt.  Only do enough - no showboating when not needed.  Others might say the ability simply isn't there in the players he has to select from.  Heaslip has lost much of his speed stamina.  He still lasts for the duration of games but must be more selective about how much of each game he devotes to full throttle. POC is most definitely the same.  POC is deemed essential for big game leadership and yet his very presence leads Joe and his coaching team to a gameplan that better utilises POC's 'downward curve' limitations.  POC can't let games become too dynamic or let strike runners have too much lee way or he inevitably gets burned and becomes an impediment to any chase game then required to attempt a fightback.  So we need a suffocating game designed to stop such players/runners at source.  We can't (as yet, on evidence) play a genuine counter attacking game.  
He's there for his influence and set-piece reassurance but Joe's gameplans are I feel actually limited to POC's own limitations.  
Kearney seems to have lost his in-the-air confidence and superiority.  Others on other Nation teams now show the way there - (Biggar/Halfpenny etc)  Bowe makes too many errors when in prime territory to score.  I remember specifically in the 6N him forlornly trying to back tap balls close to the opposition tryline when simply retaining possession to recycle would have been a better option.  But it seems his lack of inner confidence keeps making his decisions ill-timed and goads him to push responsibility for next play elsewhere.

So the criticism I have is that similar to Kidney before him, Schmidt now has a gameplan that relies on too much muscle and impact pain to win his tight margin games.  More energy than needed is being used to prop up the scoreboard and too much energy is then also needed particularly in the second half to keep those slim leads by trusting to defence, defence, defence as the reinvigorated opposition comes in wave upon wave of attack.  It's become too frequent a pattern in our most important games and our whole offensive philosophy needs retuning.  Defend more by being ruthless in offence rather than sitting back and trusting.

Are you suggesting they're on a downward curve Fly

I'm being obedient to the command of the OP, Ruby

You want a more confident assessment and write up a Thread that commands them

I only do your biding, m'Lord....

Nice one S Fly- Anyways I'm about to finish work now and head off home to watch the 9th best football team in the FIFA World rankings. Wales are now above England in the world rankings in Football and Rugby. Word has it that we re now gonna start a cricket team but I can't see that happening. I think the dreaded curve awaits us welsh fans - Later

Defence?

Oh and another problem of Lancaster has been starting slowly.

Look at the last 3 years when England have failed to win the GS -Wales in 2013,France in 2014,Ireland in 2015 - can't give these teams a big lead.

Managed to recover from slow starts vs Wales and Italy in the 6 nations but a slow start is not good. Even against Scotland they stuttered in the first 40 - could have been well up at half time if they took their chances but ended up behind when starting the 2nd half.

England managed to beat NZ because they got stuck into them early on and for once put the pressure on NZ.

England cannot afford to start slowly. This was apparent against France away in the warm up.

If England start slowly vs Fiji then Fiji will grow in confidence which will make it harder to beat them. On the other hand if England can start strongly then they can get into a groove. Settle the nerves. Force the opposition to chase the game.

Starting quickly is important for every side but England have had real problems here IMO.

England starting slowly is not new though. I remember being sat with my dad watching games in the late 90s when England would only get started after conceding a penalty or two. Seemed to very rarely score first. That continued right up into 2003 (based on my admittedly not stellar memory). I agree it needs fixing however.

screamingaddabs not new agreed but still a common occurence that needs addressing.

Funnily enough quite a few current problems aren't new. The centre conundrum is certainly not a new one, the lineout throwing even with Steve Thompson wasn't stellar. It's almost as if these issues have become English traditions.

It's normal to have a new centre every international window. It's shocking if there isn't.

Two new centres in the 31......

In light of England's performance in the last warm up game, I'm going to add my comment to this thread.

A very good England performance is sufficient to beat anyone else in the tournament (maybe also need a slice of luck v the ABs, such as a couple of injuries or a ref that interprets the 50/50s in our favour). Over the last 2 or 3 years, we have produced several very good performances.

A moderately poor England performance against either Wales or Australia could see us out of the tournament in the group stages. Over the last 3 years we've had a few of these too - Wales 2013, 3rd test in NZ, Ireland in last year's 6Ns (I am partly excluding the loss in France in the 2014 6Ns, as that was as much down to individual errors as team performance).

My point really is that we do not have the consistency that I would like going in to a RWC. As others have alluded to, we lack some experience and 'battle hardened' players, and there looks to be a lack of leadership when things aren't going the right way. Once we're on the back foot, we seem to stay there, and don't have someone (particularly in the forwards) who can do what Johnno or Dean Richards used to do of just getting into the heart of the action and turning it in our favour .

Now, perhaps some of this comes from the type of forward Lancaster picks - mainly good athletes who are generally 'good enough' at the set piece elements of their game but who contribute more in open play. We don't have the hulking behemoths of old, yet some in the media and fans think we are still a 10 man rugby side and should be overwhelming opponents up front. In fact, the game plan is much more akin to the New Zealand approach to total rugby, although rarely executed to the same high standard.

Nice post that Dummy-H and I thought the Ireland game sort of epitomised this where you should have been 20 plus up at HT and cruising into top gear yet found yourselves hanging on a for a few minutes at 15-13, still came through well but on another day it may have been different and knock out rugby doesn't allow you a 2nd chance - should be interesting -