Oh, for god's sake...

https://twitter.com/SousterRugby/status/655540306209853440

Sunday Times sport: Manu says he's been 'Judased' by Stuart Lancaster and England stars reveal what went wrong at RWC .

Brilliant

What's the betting it's 80% 'sources claim' to 15% 'we understand' to 4.5% 'players have said' and then one, edited, comment from Manu, taken out of context and altered.

If its true though its pretty pathetic.

For someone within the team to be told via a press conference that he will not be considered for selection for the RWC is simply wrong.

If its true where is the so called "culture" and standing by your players?

Any one have the full article?

From the sunday times (behind firewall), is a big article with several sections:

The players have spoken on condition of anonymity but insisit they are not speaking out of malice or as a knee-jerk reaction aided by hindsight.
they stress their opinions are personal designed to sti,ulate a debate about what went wrong and what needs to be done. "We are all embarrassed, hurt and disapointed" one player said "We don't want a rerepeat in 2019 for whoever is going to be there

It then goes on to talk about the build up, saying the players feel it started well, training camp in Denver was excellent, but that Lancaster lost his way as the tournament neared.

there are then several sectons:

Angry young Manu
Rehashes Manu's interview to the Mail last month, quotes an anonymous player, friends and a friend. The basic gist seems to be that following discussions where Manu updated Lancaster on his fitness and the legal advice to get the court case out of the way quickly so as not to impinge oin the World Cup, that Lancaster thanked Manu and said no more - till the press conference where he announced that Manu was banned from England till 2016. Then "a friend" states Manu is hurt and bewildered by this and wonders if Manu could play for Lancaster again.

Lancaster the Relegator
Talks about SL's experience before being appointed and mentions that a player "on the finge of the squad" called SL Lancastore the Relegator.

No Joy No Glory
A section that states Lancaster had become over controlling in his attempt to remove the "stain" of 2011.

Centre of Attention
Plays state Burrell should have gone, and either Burgess or Slade left out.

The Changing Man
Bemoaning his tinkering with selection, and the increasing nature as the WC approached. Talk about being conditioned to play a fast open game, then Lancaster selecting a team to play a physical defensive game against Wales. Suggestions Ben Morgan was not fit enough to be in the squad.

Trouble at the top
Mainly concerning the lack of an out and out attack coach. Farrell was responsible for coaching first phase attack, Catt multi phase. "We didn't have a Waynhe Smith, we needed one"


Bench Blunder
Saying what we all have about the bench men not offering the right stuff. specific mention made of Danny Care.


Question of Leadership
Lot of stuff about whether the coaches have hung Robshaw out to dry. Suggestions that if Lancaster wanted england to kick for goal against Wales he shoudl have let the team know, via a water boy or coach running on with a tee. Apparently at Saracens McCall is very big on giving instructions to the captain from the stand.


Knock on Wood
An anonymous attack on Tom Wood's response to the question about whether he would accept the captaincy.




all in all nothing directly attributable - but frankly rather unpleasant. Gut feel from reading the article (soory Yappy) is that most of the material has been provided by Quins players.

Well as for Manu, he was injured anyway, so he really should have sucked it up. And even if he had recovered in time, one thing England absolutely didn’t need is yet another player just back from injury, trying to play himself into some form during a RWC. Manu needs to forget about the test side for a while and prove himself back at his club.

The Wood thing is a bit of nothing – as he’s as likely to be dropped as Robshaw.

As for other players moaning – well, they would only be saying what all the rest of the country is saying, after all.

I’m just thankful no-one's brought up the dwarves.

To me its clear serious mistakes were made by the coaching team and that it would appear that the team did not collectively buy into the tactics and selection

Barney McGrew did it wrote:Well as for Manu, he was injured anyway, so he really should have sucked it up. And even if he had recovered in time, one thing England absolutely didn’t need is yet another player just back from injury, trying to play himself into some form during a RWC. Manu needs to forget about the test side for a while and prove himself back at his club.

While I agree, it should be noted that nothing new has come from Manu - just the anonymous players stating what they think friends of Manu think Manu thinks. Phew.

I do feel that IF Lancaster did not inform him he would be banned from the England set-up till the end of the year, merely announcing it to the press - well that is not good management.

There seems to be nothing above that isn't fairly obvious to all observers in recent weeks.

It is also ludicrous that England rugby can go through any sort of review without a bit of dirty washing showing up. After all, coaching, playing and sport is all about opinion. When something doesn't work, it's rarely because everyone involved completely agreed about everything!

Question: What's wrong with English Rugby?

Answer: the English media.

I hope Lancaster rides all this bull shít, the RFU could easily of sacked Woodward after 3 failed last minute attempts of a Grand slam, before he finally won it and then won the World Cup, and that was when only France and England could realistically win the 6 nations. Yet no one talks of those failures, they think Clive was some sort of coaching genius when all he realistically did was apply specialized coaching such as Dave Aldred as the world first kicking coach etc, he just took the NFL type coaching blue print and applied it to rugby union which someone was always going to do at some point.

I'm not talking about the English forum posters here, but referring to English rugby in general where they have this arrogant assumption that they should be winning everything.

The 2 previous successful eras England have had was the early 90's when England simply picked a massive, aggressive pack, and strangled the life out of games, then played for penalties to win games, using Dean Richards at No8 to keep things tight. England can't use that style in the modern game because every major team has that kind of size now.

The last period of success was down to sheer talent, Martin Johnson, Jason Leonard, Jason Robinson, Lawrence Dallagio, Richard Hill, Will Greenwood, Johny Wilkinson, Matt Dawson and Neil Back were freakishly talented. Much like the dominant Welsh team of the 70's of Edwards, Bennett, Barry John, Quinell, Merv the Swerve, the Pontypool front row, JPR, JJ etc, England just lucked into a lot of talent in a small period of time and thankfully made it pay handsomely.

I do think Lancaster has been indecisive with regards to selection and REALLY needs to back himself more, that's been his only real weakness so far. He should keep Mike Catt, though I think Farrell and Rowntree need to go as the pack and defense has been terrible in the World Cup.

If the Cipriani rumours are true and the RFU have validated them to some degree I would have a complete overhaul of the coaching set up. It's quite a simplistic approach but having the likes of Ford, Slade and Cipriani starting/benching gives the opposition something to think about instead of England trying to counteract them with Farrell, Barritt or Burgess.

Hammersmith harrier wrote:If the Cipriani rumours are true and the RFU have validated them to some degree I would have a complete overhaul of the coaching set up. It's quite a simplistic approach but having the likes of Ford, Slade and Cipriani starting/benching gives the opposition something to think about instead of England trying to counteract them with Farrell, Barritt or Burgess.

Did you like EVERY person that was in your classes in school?  Do you like every person in your work place?  In reality you shove 30-40 men together most of them in their early 20's to early 30's and all professional rugby players with self confidence and big egos and I'd be amazed if most of them actually liked each other.  You always hear things if you take an interest in your local team.  From what I gather most of the boys at the Ospreys can't stand Dan Bigger, they think he is a whiny arrogant tossér.  Of course there is going to be jealousy over contracts, over who's getting the best looking groupies and things like that.  

I don't really see the need for the English press to try and delve into this petty type of thing to understand England lost because the English players were not good enough.

One of the main things our coach told us at school was that even if you couldn't stand the bloke next to you, on that pitch, he was your mate. If you didn't do that you didn't play for the school. Once the match was done, you could go back to disliking them. But on the pitch, you like and respect each other at all times.

I can't believe that in the professional game that this sort of attitude isn't enforced, both by the coaches and the players themselves.

Care-Ford-May/Nowell-Slade-JJ-Watson-Brown please, with 1 x SH, Manu, Cips, Foden and Burrell in the mix for the bench.

Mr Bounce wrote:One of the main things our coach told us at school was that even if you couldn't stand the bloke next to you, on that pitch, he was your mate. If you didn't do that you didn't play for the school. Once the match was done, you could go back to disliking them. But on the pitch, you like and respect each other at all times.

I can't believe that in the professional game that this sort of attitude isn't enforced, both by the coaches and the players themselves.

I never heard of that before or even thought of it, lol.

Yet more attempts a t back stabbing SL in the press via "Leaks"its a pity the most Senior Tome
should post this rubbish.It makes me want to puke talk about kicking a man when he`s down

LondonTiger wrote:From the sunday times (behind firewall), is a big article with several sections:

The players have spoken on condition of anonymity but insisit they are not speaking out of malice or as a knee-jerk reaction aided by hindsight.
they stress their opinions are personal designed to sti,ulate a debate about what went wrong and what needs to be done. "We are all embarrassed, hurt and disapointed" one player said "We don't want a rerepeat in 2019 for whoever is going to be there

It then goes on to talk about the build up, saying the players feel it started well, training camp in Denver was excellent, but that Lancaster lost his way as the tournament neared.

there are then several sectons:

Angry young Manu
Rehashes Manu's interview to the Mail last month, quotes an anonymous player, friends and a friend. The basic gist seems to be that following discussions where Manu updated Lancaster on his fitness and the legal advice to get the court case out of the way quickly so as not to impinge oin the World Cup, that Lancaster thanked Manu and said no more - till the press conference where he announced that Manu was banned from England till 2016. Then "a friend" states Manu is hurt and bewildered by this and wonders if Manu could play for Lancaster again.

Lancaster the Relegator
Talks about SL's experience before being appointed and mentions that a player "on the finge of the squad" called SL Lancastore the Relegator.

No Joy No Glory
A section that states Lancaster had become over controlling in his attempt to remove the "stain" of 2011.

Centre of Attention
Plays state Burrell should have gone, and either Burgess or Slade left out.

The Changing Man
Bemoaning his tinkering with selection, and the increasing nature as the WC approached. Talk about being conditioned to play a fast open game, then Lancaster selecting a team to play a physical defensive game against Wales. Suggestions Ben Morgan was not fit enough to be in the squad.

Trouble at the top
Mainly concerning the lack of an out and out attack coach. Farrell was responsible for coaching first phase attack, Catt multi phase. "We didn't have a Waynhe Smith, we needed one"


Bench Blunder
Saying what we all have about the bench men not offering the right stuff. specific mention made of Danny Care.


Question of Leadership
Lot of stuff about whether the coaches have hung Robshaw out to dry. Suggestions that if Lancaster wanted england to kick for goal against Wales he shoudl have let the team know, via a water boy or coach running on with a tee. Apparently at Saracens McCall is very big on giving instructions to the captain from the stand.


Knock on Wood
An anonymous attack on Tom Wood's response to the question about whether he would accept the captaincy.




all in all nothing directly attributable - but frankly rather unpleasant. Gut feel from reading the article (soory Yappy) is that most of the material has been provided by Quins players.

Cheers for that LT.

None of it's really new info to be honest, and most of it was blooming obvious.

Most interesting thing there was how the attack is coached, talk about making it needlessly complicated!

You're right it may well be Quins players, although a lot may be conjecture from the recent Ward/Wood Twitter spat.