How much did player conditioning cause England's RWC downfall?

Weight can easily be deceptive I agree. Who out of Paul O'Connell (112kg) and Geoff Parling (117kg) carries and tackles better for example.

However one thing has been rather standout for me for a while.... that England's physical conditioning is exceptionally poor. This isn't saying the guys are unfit. Its that they have not been conditioned right for the game, for their position.

People say that talent is lacking in England. Complete BS. Over the last 8 years, they have reached the final of the JRWC 6 times and won it twice. They are not lacking in talent. Yes they may have more funds at junior level but NZ, AUS, SA do to.

Then look at the pack who fielded on Saturday. That is near to a lancaster first choice pack than you could think of. They were man-shamed upfront yesterday. Beaten up. They were done so by Fiji and France before the start of the tournament. Only against Wales with a newby tighthead did they get a little nudge on. England lost 5 penalties to AUS yesterday... it was similar to their 2013 defeat to Wales.

I've had a look at the packs of the major nations at this RWC and the pack size is rather stark.

England's front five was at least 20kg lighter than any other team... yet their backrow was the heaviest of all sides. The balance is nuts. You need big beast upfront to win ball and mobile backrowers to tackle and win possession. England not only have gone opposite to this, they have gone against the grain of every side playing at the moment.

Here is the basic breakdown

ENG
Front 5 - 564kgs
Back 3 - 333kgs
Total - 897kgs

AUS
Front 5 - 590kgs
Back 3 - 326kgs
Total - 916kgs

WAL
Front 5 - 594kgs
Back 3 - 324kgs
Total - 918kgs

SA
Front 5 - 584kgs
Back 3 - 332kgs
Total - 916kgs

NZ
Front 5 - 584kgs
Back 3 - 323kgs
Total - 907kgs

IRE
Front 5 - 583kgs
Back 3 - 326kgs
Total - 909kgs

England looked completely out of sync in all facets of the game. Scrums, Lineouts, rucks. This is in part due to their physical condition and lack of it.

Take Mako for instance. First choice sub as loosehead... again because of workrate and ball carrying over set piece. He's in terrible shape physically for a test match level prop. I myself met and spoke with a current springbok prop just prior to the tournament began. He said that he was conditioned to be about 120kg and have no more than 12% body fat. His club and the boks programmed his training and diet towards these goals and he was heavily regulated. If Mako has a fat ratio of less than 12% then I'm a monkey's uncle (debatable!)

Mako has been in the side for what 2-3 years now? How after all this time can he not be in shape. He's a pro athlete. If he doesn't take this serious then should he really be someone at the summit of English elite rugby? By all accounts he's very talented but at what stage do you say, sorry mate if you want to take rugby seriously, get yourself in order if not you're off the squad.

In the end it comes down to coaching, the way the players see themselves, the standards they set.

Look at Robshaw. If England were serious about him playing openside then why not alter his game and physical stature towards his changing role. He's too heavy, his guns compared to Warburton/Pocock is small (its not simply for show, opensides in for the steal need huge arms). He is built like a 6, a big tackler in the midfield, a big ball carrier weight (but he doesn't carry at all).

In essence I feel England have taken a rather unscientific approach to the game. Built around a idea of front five mobility of say AUS around 2005 where all the backline talent was meaningless as they got marched left right and centre and a Jack Rowell inspired backrow of Ivan Drago behemoths... where even he acknowledged was outdated after NZ tore them a new one in 1995. It has undermined IMO talented individuals, both in the pack and those in the backs who are unable to show their talents to the world.

Its simply unprofessional.

I think it is a bit simplistic to think bicep size is directly correlated to turnovers made...

Interesting, but I suspect the answer is not much. You say the approach is not scientific enough, I think many would argue the opposite.

I do think there have been some strange selection calls: playing a forward in the centre, dropping Ford, poor bench cover reducing options etc. However, peel away the disappointment and you have to accept that this England team are not as good as they thought. There are no world class players to select. They are an honest (if not always humble) hard working bunch who have lost two tests to two tier 1 teams - it happens.

I dont think conditioning played any part.

Didn't Mako manage 80 mins against Australia for the Lions? Hardly terrible state (although we all know Gatland doesn't put much faith on fitness).

I think there are a number of issues here.  And we could probably discuss these on their own merits for quite a while and not hit all the points.

The first point was a concern of mine once the RWC roster was announced.  Too many players coming back from injury whom I didn't feel had properly recovered and/or had not come back to their previous match fitness.  Using Brad barritt as an example.  Regardlesss of wht anyone thinks of him, he was clearly a shadow of his former self.  He could always be relied upon to shut down mid-filed attacks all game long.  In this RWC, not remotely the case.  Extrapolate this to all the other players coming back, some were OK some clearly not.  

Second was the clear and very bizarre lack of proper game conditioning.  Even as doc who works with pro sports teams and players from time to time it is very hard to understand how players who performed well in the 6 Nations couldn't maintain the pace just 6 months later.  Clearly something was wrong - over trained, under trained, but obviously poorly trained.  The players club coaches might have something more to say once the players return.

Affiliated with that is the apparent lack of explosive power by the players.  Again, this is part of coditioning and is a finely balanced thing.  We see this both going into the tackle and also attacking the rucks.  This is not simply Pocock dominating the breakdown, this is something more.  

What did you see?

All aspects of the England set-up deserve to be reappraised.

However, not everything about World Cup winning sides is spot on: on balance, more just goes right in their preparation than for any other side.

Consequently, we've got to figure out which of these factors are important. Would our conditioning program have mattered if we'd had more consistent selection? Maybe our conditioning was fine but our tactics and game plan were fatally flawed.

Right now, there's almost no part of the England set-up which hasn't been questioned by someone, and it's not even 24 hours since the final whistle blew. It was the same four years ago, and yet I'm fairly certain that Martin Johnson didn't get everything wrong: he just didn't get enough things right.

So if England had won last week and still lost this week but qualified would it have been papering over the cracks, funny how things seem ok when teams are winning. Surely these problems would still be there.

bedfordwelsh wrote:So if England had won last week and still lost this week but qualified would it have been papering over the cracks, funny how things seem ok when teams are winning.  Surely these problems would still be there.

We were talking about these kinds of observations in the RWC warm-up matches. The consensus was everything should be fine once the RWC hots up. Even if England had beaten Wales, it was clear the longer that game lasted the worse England looked physically. England should have beaten Wales, especially considering the patchwork condition of the team at the end. But that would not have changed anythiing.

England losing to Wales was more psychological than physical
Of course these are inextricably linked but it was the former that was found wanting when it mattered.

And by the way, England were carrying far far too much weight!

RubyGuby wrote:England losing to Wales was more psychological than physical
Of course these are inextricably linked but it was the former that was found wanting when it mattered.

And by the way, England were carrying far far too much weight!

Yes and no... that was the point of the article.

Their backrow is the heaviest in tier 1 rugby.... and thats with Wood, Robshaw and Morgan. Vunipola is heavier than Morgan and Haskell is heavier than Wood and Robshaw. The only backrow which came close was the boks... and they're are naturally big big guys. Could Morgan and Vunipola last 80 mins if required... probably yes but not without a significant drop in performance.

Added to this their front five is the lightest in tier 1 rugby.. by 20kg min and again if Lawes plays over Parling or Launchbury it gets lighter.

The current springbok I met at a Q&A. His target weight was 120kg (tighthead) yet only with 12% body fat. Its great if props can pinch the odd opposition ball but if they struggle come the scrum then everything they do elsewhere is counter-productive.

Good points in the opp but I think the issue is tactical rather than conditioning.

Everyone knows the strengths of the Welsh and Australian backrow.

England have set their stall out with their back row and the type of player they are selecting - big ball carriers, heavy men like Morgan, Haskell, Robshaw, Vainapolo.

They've sacrificed mobility for power and it didn't pay off.

Likewise their tight 5 lacks a bit of grunt, experience and power - an AWJ, O'Connell, Papa type to galvanize the pack and put a bit of fear in the opposition.

fa0019 Billy played 5 games for 80 minutes in the 6 nations so yes he can play that long.

rodders

Robshaw is meant to be a big ball carrier are you kidding me?!

You say sacrificing mobility for power.....where was the power? Pretty much only Billy brought power.

I think the difficulty with the England pack is that it's not really got much balance.

Doesn't know what it wants to be. If Lancaster wanted the English forwards to be pacy,dynamic and skilled he failed miserably at that because the basic skills weren't good enough.

NZ are the best in the world because they've got all the basics of rugby nailed down whether it's the backs or the forwards.

England in comparison struggled at most of the basics of passing, kicking,restarts, ball retention, handling, set piece etc.

Probably due to too much work on the training ground in a mechanical process whereas the best way to practice what you preach is against opposition.

Working on the decision making. Decision making in a game which is ever changing is tough to do on a training ground.

I think in regards to conditioning, England quite clearly wasn't good enough.

NZ are the best because their basics are superb. They can always scrum well, always secure good lineout ball. Never suffer from securing their own possession. Thats the core fundamentals of the game.

I'd say for the last 10 years AUS has had a better backline... but that's all been inconsequential since come the forwards they've been lacking.

People think the SH game is built around fancy one handed offloads etc. Complete BS... its built around sound fundamentals. After that they can sure work on their offloads etc but the mistakes the NH do is to move away from working on their core roles and try and build more mobile players... and that is when their house of cards come down.

What are the chances of an all SH semi-final lineup? At the moment good to fair.

beshocked wrote:fa0019 Billy played 5 games for 80 minutes in the 6 nations so yes he can play that long.

rodders

Robshaw is meant to be a big ball carrier are you kidding me?!

You say sacrificing mobility for power.....where was the power? Pretty much only Billy brought power.

.

I think that's a massive thing Beshocked.

4 Parling
5 Lawes
6 Wood
7 Robshaw

To me that's not a "powerful" spine of the pack. Id add that the props look poor at the moment. Marler has never been a renowned scrummager but for a period was showing huge improvements there...yet he has regressed. And he doesn't bring the big carrying game he was initially brought in for.

There seems to be a fair bit of generic waffle with regards to Englands conditioning (define conditioning, define good and bad conditioning, then put it into context of a poor performance).

Every forward at the RWC is immensely powerfull, the RFU spend a fortune on being ahead of the game when it comes to scientific ethos and conditioning.

The area where England fall down on is grass roots rugby, the junior system in the UK and Ireland has been proved a substandard atmosphere for skill aqcuisition, yet noone has the balls to stand up and say so, never mind spend money on sorting it out. A top down approach will never work, and all NH teams are destined for close but not close enough.

How much did player conditioning cause England's RWC downfall?

Zip.
Nada.
Zilch.


What was missing was basic skills and rugby nous.

People will claim that other players called up would have made a difference. but that is Love sacks too. There are no players not selected who are better to any great degree. Purely personal preference over similar talents.


and the next person to talk about JWC success should frankly take a long hard look at whether they actually understand a single thing about rugby. Age group success is pretty much exclusively linked to the number of players available. Findingh a decent squad of guys born in the same year is much easier when you have a shedload of players.


The performance of English clubs against decent european opposition lays bare the quality of our players. they are just not skilled enough.

Fenster we've won the JWC two out of the last 3 times ....

GeordieFalcon wrote:Fenster we've won the JWC two out of the last 3 times ....

So we should.

LondonTiger wrote:

GeordieFalcon wrote:Fenster we've won the JWC two out of the last 3 times ....

So we should.

And what were Englands key attributes in those JWC's?

Does JWC success equate to international success? Clearly not, as England have always been a JWC powerhouse.

Come to think of it what was Wales key attribute in their final run?

The weight I'm referring to his the unrealistic weight of expectation that weighed far far to heavily. Why oh why did ALL the broadsheets and recognised papers have England down to win in the days leading up to the game. What was that based on against a very powerful and exciting Aus. team. The weight of unrealistic expectation gave these players  very little room to relax and express themselves. They "tighten" up and it showed all over the field

RubyGuby wrote:The weight I'm referring to his the unrealistic weight of expectation that weighed far far to heavily. Why oh why did ALL the broadsheets and recognised papers have England down to win in the days leading up to the game. What was that based on against a very powerful and exciting Aus. team. The weight of unrealistic expectation gave these players  very little room to relax and express themselves. They "tighten" up and it showed all over the field

Popular opinion to newspaper sales ratio?

RubyGuby wrote:The weight I'm referring to his the unrealistic weight of expectation that weighed far far to heavily. Why oh why did ALL the broadsheets and recognised papers have England down to win in the days leading up to the game. What was that based on against a very powerful and exciting Aus. team. The weight of unrealistic expectation gave these players  very little room to relax and express themselves. They "tighten" up and it showed all over the field

I do not necessarily agree that it was external pressure, but in the first minute we saw two massive errors from players who should have known better.

The aimless kick by Youngs when we were in a good position was followed by a complete brain fart from Mike Brown when trying to collect the aussie kick. Those two mistakes from guys who are leaders in the team set the tone for the entire 80 minutes.

Conditioning was not the issue

Tactics, selection and leadership were

RubyGuby wrote:The weight I'm referring to his the unrealistic weight of expectation that weighed far far to heavily. Why oh why did ALL the broadsheets and recognised papers have England down to win in the days leading up to the game. What was that based on against a very powerful and exciting Aus. team. The weight of unrealistic expectation gave these players  very little room to relax and express themselves. They "tighten" up and it showed all over the field

They always back themselves at home....

No 100% agree with this. Was saying even in the warm ups England looked tense and under pressure to get results.

They played like a side terrified to lose rather than a side with a plan how to win.

Given the hyperbole post-mortem its not surprising they buckled. Its not like they lost to Fiji, they were beaten by equal or better sides - a top team was always going out but there seems to be a disbelief within the England camp that it is them.

They cut very similar figures to Ireland in 2007.

LondonTiger wrote: How much did player conditioning cause England's RWC downfall?

Zip.
Nada.
Zilch.


What was missing was basic skills and rugby nous.

People will claim that other players called up would have made a difference. but that is Love sacks too. There are no players not selected who are better to any great degree. Purely personal preference over similar talents.


and the next person to talk about JWC success should frankly take a long hard look at whether they actually understand a single thing about rugby. Age group success is pretty much exclusively linked to the number of players available. Findingh a decent squad of guys born in the same year is much easier when you have a shedload of players.


The performance of English clubs against decent european opposition lays bare the quality of our players. they are just not skilled enough.

Speak for yourself this year:

Leicester beat Toulon

Bath beat Toulouse

Saracens beat Clermont, Racing Metro and Munster.

Not all doom and gloom. Let's not forget that these sides have higher salary caps than all English sides (yes even the three who allegedly broke the cap).

I'll be honest, one thing I did notice during the Wales V England game, was how much fitter the Welsh players were compared to the England players. Weather it was down to sheer bloody mindedness and the adrenaline was kicking in, or were the Welsh players just that bit of a % fitter ? I do not know. But for me, there is not much between the 2nd to 7th side in the world rankings, and perhaps it's all down to attitude and the willingness to dig deep and win.

Some have that, some don't.

LordDowlais wrote:I'll be honest, one thing I did notice during the Wales V England game, was how much fitter the Welsh players were compared to the England players. Weather it was down to sheer bloody mindedness and the adrenaline was kicking in, or were the Welsh players just that bit of a % fitter ? I do not know. But for me, there is not much between the 2nd to 7th side in the world rankings, and perhaps it's all down to attitude and the willingness to dig deep and win.

Some have that, some don't.

I did not think the Welsh were fitter. I just thought that adversity brought them together.

LordDowlais wrote:I'll be honest, one thing I did notice during the Wales V England game, was how much fitter the Welsh players were compared to the England players.

That's because the pro12 is a faster league than the Premiership.

When it comes to digging deep we have it in spades

RubyGuby wrote:When it comes to digging sheep we have it in spades

corrected for ewe.

LondonTiger wrote:

RubyGuby wrote:When it comes to digging sheep we have it in spades

corrected for ewe.

We sh@g em, you eat em.

LondonTiger wrote:

RubyGuby wrote:The weight I'm referring to his the unrealistic weight of expectation that weighed far far to heavily. Why oh why did ALL the broadsheets and recognised papers have England down to win in the days leading up to the game. What was that based on against a very powerful and exciting Aus. team. The weight of unrealistic expectation gave these players  very little room to relax and express themselves. They "tighten" up and it showed all over the field

I do not necessarily agree that it was external pressure, but in the first minute we saw two massive errors from players who should have known better.

The aimless kick by Youngs when we were in a good position was followed by a complete brain fart from Mike Brown when trying to collect the aussie kick. Those two mistakes from guys who are leaders in the team set the tone for the entire 80 minutes.

In team games a few early jitters can run through an entire team.

I say this almost on repeat in debates with fans on many different sports. The margins are really fine at the top level. Games are often decided on a moment or two of brilliance but more often on an error or two. Brown, generally one of england's best players, made two huge and  ultimately point costing errors in the first half, the foot in touch and the knock on. England showed some promise with ball in hand in the first half... we made the breaks but couldn't finish them... the wallabies made two line clear breaks and scored them both.  Now i'm not suggesting that these things are flukes, far from it - its testament to the clinical nature of the australians. But at half time we led on many of the stats but were 17-3 down. We huffed and puffed our way back in the match in the second half and until the sin bin with 15 to go were back to within a converted try.

The australian's were the clearly the better side... scrum supremacy, turnovers etc, far better tactical kicking. But for all that they made fewer, costly individual mistakes. Brown takes a better decision with the foot in touch, doesn't knock on 5 yards from his own line, etc the scoreboard looks different, and the confidence levels of the two teams are different.

As woodward said at half time, we also played on too long after the penalty advantage in the first half....have a hail mary kick for glory then take the three points if it doesn't come off.

We got stuffed in the end and the right and better team clearly won, but the 'right' team doesn't always win and we shot ourselves in the foot on the pitch, irrespective of how we shot ourselves in the foot with selection and tactics.

fa0019 wrote:NZ are the best because their basics are superb. They can always scrum well, always secure good lineout ball. Never suffer from securing their own possession. Thats the core fundamentals of the game.

I'd say for the last 10 years AUS has had a better backline... but that's all been inconsequential since come the forwards they've been lacking.

People think the SH game is built around fancy one handed offloads etc. Complete BS... its built around sound fundamentals. After that they can sure work on their offloads etc but the mistakes the NH do is to move away from working on their core roles and try and build more mobile players... and that is when their house of cards come down.

What are the chances of an all SH semi-final lineup? At the moment good to fair.

NZ also have their leadership group which everything is built around, guys like McCaw, Smith, Nonu and Carter learned from guys like Umaga before them and they are passing it on to the Reads and Canes who will be the leaders after this RWC

England don't look like they have any structures like that in place, theres a lack of experience and leadership on the field and very few seem to be taking control and talking to each other bossing the team around. Theres also a softness to them that previous England teams never had, guys like Corry, Johnson, Dallaglio, Carling and Moore had a bit to them that isn't there now, theres no intimidation factor.

People criticised Robshaw after the Wales game but he showed balls and backed his forwards to win them the game

"People criticised Robshaw after the Wales game but he showed naivety and backed his forwards which cost them the game and the tournament"

Just corrected that one for you Marty

Agree with London tiger, fitness/conditioning had nothing to do with it in my opinion.

I don't believe selection had much impact either, there might have been a 2 or 3 players that could have been selected in the squad ahead of those that were but it wouldn't have made a significant difference.

I think England simply lacked composure under pressure and failed to execute under pressure, possibly due to their lack of experience both at test and club level. Wholesale changes to the squad would be the worst thing England can do now and dropping the likes of Owen Farrell (as some are suggesting) is ridiculous! England need to build a squad with 600-700 caps as other sides have done and stop dropping players as they approach their 29th birthday! Experience and leadership from senior players is key.

Addressing the oz game specifically it was always going to be tough after defeat to Wales meant they had to beat high quality opposition in the form of Australia, when that opposition could still afford to lose. This imbalance in pressure consumed the inexperienced England side, they lost their composure and failed to execute tactically and technically. Having said that I still think if England had a solid platform at the scrum they could have beaten Australia and credit has to go to oz for their performance in the scrum and, frankly, in every facet, they performed superbly.

Looking back now it was that last 20 minutes against Wales that really cost England their place in the quarters. Again credit the opposition for applying some pressure but England failed to react positively to that pressure and failed to execute tactically. In short England didn't play well enough in 2 crucial matches against strong opposition.

Not wanting to sound like I am making excuses but the biggest factor in England's early exit was the draw for the pools. France would probably have gone out in the group stage of their home world cup in 07 after defeat to Argentina in their first match, had the rest of the pool been as strong as England's this time around. Unfortunately for Stuart Lancaster he now has the accolade of being the first coach to see the host nation out in the group stage. I feel sorry for Lancaster and I do feel he has done a good job for England up to this point but I believe his teams performance in this tournament leaves his position untenable.

HQ matt wrote:Agree with London tiger, fitness/conditioning had nothing to do with it in my opinion.

I don't believe selection had much impact either, there might have been a 2 or 3 players that could have been selected in the squad ahead of those that were but it wouldn't have made a significant difference.

I think England simply lacked composure under pressure and failed to execute under pressure, possibly due to their lack of experience both at test and club level. Wholesale changes to the squad would be the worst thing England can do now and dropping the likes of Owen Farrell (as some are suggesting) is ridiculous! England need to build a squad with 600-700 caps as other sides have done and stop dropping players as they approach their 29th birthday! Experience and leadership from senior players is key.

Addressing the oz game specifically it was always going to be tough after defeat to Wales meant they had to beat high quality opposition in the form of Australia, when that opposition could still afford to lose. This imbalance in pressure consumed the inexperienced England side, they lost their composure and failed to execute tactically and technically. Having said that I still think if England had a solid platform at the scrum they could have beaten Australia and credit has to go to oz for their performance in the scrum and, frankly, in every facet, they performed superbly.

Looking back now it was that last 20 minutes against Wales that really cost England their place in the quarters. Again credit the opposition for applying some pressure but England failed to react positively to that pressure and failed to execute tactically. In short England didn't play well enough in 2 crucial matches against strong opposition.

Not wanting to sound like I am making excuses but the biggest factor in England's early exit was the draw for the pools. France would probably have gone out in the group stage of their home world cup in 07 after defeat to Argentina in their first match, had the rest of the pool been as strong as England's this time around. Unfortunately for Stuart Lancaster he now has the accolade of being the first coach to see the host nation out in the group stage. I feel sorry for Lancaster and I do feel he has done a good job for England up to this point but I believe his teams performance in this tournament leaves his position untenable.  

Nice post

milkboy the difference was that Australia seemed to have a plan and England didn't.

Australia kicked with purpose, England didn't.

If England are going to hoof the ball in the air, more often than not they need to win the aerial battle. Unfortunately too often there was a knock on or the Aussies would get the ball.

To be frank I don't Lancaster and co conditioned the team well enough to deal with the circumstances.

England had no answer to Wales' comeback - the circumstance wasn't something you could teach on the training ground.

Lancaster's England doesn't deal with pressure well - that's why they haven't won a slam and that's why they lost to Wales and Australia at home in the RWC.

I am not sure it's a fitness issue, it's a mental issue and a decision making issue.

What was the plan in the last 20 minutes vs Wales and what was the plan in the 80 minutes vs Australia?

How were England planning to win? I couldn't understand what Lancaster was thinking.

HQ matt wrote:
I think England simply lacked composure under pressure and failed to execute under pressure, possibly due to their lack of experience both at test and club level. Wholesale changes to the squad would be the worst thing England can do now and dropping the likes of Owen Farrell (as some are suggesting) is ridiculous! England need to build a squad with 600-700 caps as other sides have done and stop dropping players as they approach their 29th birthday! Experience and leadership from senior players is key. 

Totally agree - England have the nucleus of a good side.

If they can get over the line a couple of times in the 6N and get some consistency against the SH they'll be a different kettle of fish down in Japan and the better for this experience. The Lions tour down in NZ will be a chance for guys to cut their teeth as well.

Too many guys are green, naive and a bit soft mentally but time will fix that, but not if the RFU make knee jerk decisions based on a handful of disappointing results, which ultimately is all this is.

England showed glimpses with the talent they have in the outside backs that the are world class but games are won and lost in the pack and their's is pretty average and when you combine with the inexperience that is a big hurdle to overcome.

Lancashire is a bit tactically naive but does he deserve another shot at the 6N? I think so unless these rumors floating around about Burgess, Farrell etc. have some truth in them.

Fanster wrote:

LondonTiger wrote:

GeordieFalcon wrote:Fenster we've won the JWC two out of the last 3 times ....

So we should.

And what were Englands key attributes in those JWC's?

Does JWC success equate to international success? Clearly not, as England have always been a JWC powerhouse.

In the past England have just bullied teams at that level with a big pack but still lost in the finals etc.

The recent England teams that won it were far more skilled. Flankers like Jack Clifford etc. I think there HAS been a big switch at that level as far as England is concerned. Maybe something Lancaster has been pushing.

Fanster wrote:

LondonTiger wrote:

GeordieFalcon wrote:Fenster we've won the JWC two out of the last 3 times ....

So we should.

And what were Englands key attributes in those JWC's?

Does JWC success equate to international success? Clearly not, as England have always been a JWC powerhouse.

huge player base.

At age group level with our volume of players shoudl be hard to put out a bad team.

It really worries me that Lancaster might not be sacked.

Geordiefalcon where was the skill? I thought the skill levels were poor, compare the basic skills of the English forwards to NZ, there is a huge gulf.

I think if England get rid of the inexperienced and mediocre coaches and bring in some actual genuine coaching talent, England could be a threat. It's about getting the best out of the players you have and quite clearly Lancaster and co haven't.

HQ Matt I don't think it's ridiculous to drop Farrell Jr, he was a key integral part of the toxic coaching of Lancaster and co.

Drop him - get him to sort his bloody head out.

It's unacceptable for England to go out of their own RWC, even if it was a tough group.

Perhaps if Lancaster had learnt from previous mistakes there might be an argument for keeping on Lancaster but he hasn't.

To be fair to Farrell Junior it must be very difficult for him playing with this set up as well, he's almost in a lose lose situation and he's a talented lad - He must be a key part of the system with his skill set. He lacks creativity but so does Biggar and Sexton and yet they play to their strengths in a structure that compliments them rather than hampers them.

We have the players Beshocked....

The problem is Lancaster is very stubborn in certain areas and too rash in others.

His system is about a pack that performs all round well....rather than excelling in specialist areas like they should be.

How Matt Kvesic was not taken to the WC is beyond me. How Jamie George never got a look in is beyond me.

I was one of the ones backing Barritts inclusion..yet after 1 game you could see that was a mistake...yet Lancaster couldn't see that...when he had Slade etc available.

The players were available...the selections and tactics were wrong.

I am hugely disappointed that Lancaster bottled it. We started playing some good rugby, then threw that out the window come world cup time. Too much focus on defence and what the opposition might do and not enough focus on attack and what WE can do! We could have had big forwards beating the shoite out of people with zippy backs running creative lines, with the world's most solid full back, a back row that, whilst limited is full of running, and some of the most exciting backs in the world.

Instead, our forwards got slimmed down and weren't shunting anyone ever, our exciting backs were left at home or in the squad but not on the bench, our centres were the biggest lumps available and our play making fly half was left as a bit part player. All we had left was a limited back row and a fantastic full back.

Lancaster had built so much potential, then changed tack at the last moment and threw it away.

Whoever is in charge next (even if it is Lancaster) needs to get the players hitting rucks like we did when we beat NZ, play Slade and Ford and JJ in the 23 at least and XV preferably.

We HAVE to win the next six nations. No excuses. We face fantastic opposition, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, France can all beat us, but we need to step up and start CONSISTENTLY beating these teams. We CAN do that.

Geordiefalcon to be honest I wouldn't be upset if Lancaster's pack performed all round well but in reality they don't do that either.


Yet screamingaddabs all the weaknesses were exposed vs Ireland in the 6 nations.

Poor restarts. Check
Beasted at the breakdown. Check
Poor discipline. Check
Lack of leadership. Check
Inability to win the aerial battle. Check.
Flaky set piece. Check

fair points beshocked.

re-starts seems to be an english rugby cultural void. For as long as I can remember, I've watched sides take their own ball from us on re-starts, while we kick into no-mans land and never get it back... not long enough to be deliberately playing for distance or short enough to challenge for it successfully. I can't ever remember watching an england game where i wasn't left wondering if we ever practice it.... and I'm going back 40 years!!

England's game plan v Wales in Cardiff this year is now unrecognisable. On that day they had energy, they were dynamic all over the field and played with tempo and skill. They were the better team from the 1st minute and they challenged and won restarts and bossed the collision areas. What happened?

screamingaddabs wrote:I am hugely disappointed that Lancaster bottled it.  

Lancaster had built so much potential, then changed tack at the last moment and threw it away.

In a long line of coaches bottling it.

Johnson in 2011 suddenley changed tack
Ashton in 2007 suffered a player revolt.
SCW in 1999 panicked and changed direction
Cooke in 1991 was ignored by his team come the final.

And how close were the greatest team england have ever had to losing in 2003. We seemed like rabbits in headlights against Wales for much of the 1/4 final and struggled with a very limited Aussie side in the final.