England JWC Campaign

Squad

Forwards

Ralph Adams-Hale (Saracens) - Prop
Josh Bayliss (Bath Rugby) - Back Row
Jamie Blamire (Newcastle Falcons) - Hooker
Josh Caulfield (Exeter Chiefs) - Lock/Back Row
Justin Clegg (Worcester Warriors) - Lock
Max Davies (Newcastle Falcons) - Lock
Ollie Dawe (Bristol Rugby) - Prop
Ben Earl (Saracens) - Back Row
Will Evans (Leicester Tigers) - Back Row
Ciaran Knight (Gloucester Rugby) - Prop
Zach Mercer (Bath Rugby) - Back Row
Joe Mullis (Gloucester Rugby) - Hooker
Jack Nay (Saracens) - Back Row
Alex Seville (Gloucester Rugby) - Prop
Marcus Street (Exeter Chiefs) - Prop
Henry Walker (Gloucester Rugby) - Hooker

Backs
Sam Aspland-Robinson (Harlequins) - Wing
Theo Brophy Clews (London Irish) - Fly Half
Will Butler (Worcester Warriors) - Centre
Ali Crossdale (Saracens) - Wing/Full Back
Gabriel Ibitoye (Harlequins) - Wing
Max Malins (Saracens) - Full Back
Alex Mitchell (Northampton Saints) - Scrum Half
Dominic Morris (Saracens) - Centre
Tom Parton (London Irish) - Full Back
Harry Randall (Gloucester Rugby) - Scrum Half
Jacob Umaga (Wasps) - Fly Half/Centre
Max Wright (Yorkshire Carnegie) - Centre



Fixtures (all live on ITV)

England v Samoa: Wednesday 31 May – Avchala Stadium (10am KO BST)
England v Wales: Sunday 4 June - Avchala Stadium (5pm KO BST)
England v Australia: Thursday 8 June -  Avchala Stadium (5pm KO BST)
Semi-finals and knock-out matches (Tuesday 13 June) Details TBC
Final and knock-out matches (Sunday 18 June) Details TBC

Any stand outs? Wasn't Max Malins a FH?

Hood83 wrote:Any stand outs? Wasn't Max Malins a FH?

I think he's nominally a FB but had a very high class outing at FH in the junior 6N

It looks a solid squad to me - the Quins lads are both good attackers, Brophy Clews I know to be seen as a good young 10. Umaga we have all heard about. Dawe a solid prop at Bris, Mercer we know about. 

It does feel like in his approach EJ has given the U20s a massive handicap by stealing away a lot of U20 players!

Shows how poor Saints academy is these days, I player in the squad.

WELL-PAST-IT wrote:Shows how poor Saints academy is these days, I player in the squad.

And he's from the Sale academy.

WELL-PAST-IT wrote:Shows how poor Saints academy is these days, I player in the squad.

Same as the falcons! Poor showing!

1 from tigers Senior Academy and 1 who was in our Junior Academy. So we are no better.

Its not a good sign...two top sides and one who always had a decent reputation for their academy cant produce 5 between them!

GeordieFalcon wrote:Its not a good sign...two top sides and one who always had a decent reputation for their academy cant produce 5 between them!

Leicester and saints are two top sides aren't they?? ....well at least I think they are!

I wish

Some of it nowadays is to do with the Public Schools feeding junior academies, however there has been a shift. Representation by club:

Wasps 1 (pinched from Tigers Junior academy)
Exeter 2
Saracens 6
Leicester 1
Bath 2
Saints 1
Quins 2
Glaws 5
Falcons 2 (I played with his dad!!)
Sale 0
Worcester 2
Bristol 1
London Irish 2
Leeds 1

With 14 Academies and 28 players there is only room for 2 per club on average. Saracens and Glaws very well represented

Scottrf wrote:I wish

Ah they are. Both just going through a phase. They need to shake of the cobwebs and get the coaching teams sorted. The rest will follow.

I didn't realise a certain Louis Lynagh (son of Aussie Legend Michael) played for England u16's the other day v Wales U16's!!

Bet the Aussies hated seeing that!!!

I get the impression that there are a lot of kids that go through the England age grade system and then go on to represent other nationalities!
Its probably not the case but Moriarty is the one that stands out in my mind.
I seem to recall that Greig Tonks was also an England U20s that wanted to explore his Scottish heritage.

Moriarty, I think, never had an intention of playing for England, but was in the English schools/academy system.

Tonks, while SA born, was raised from the age of 2 in Nottinghamshire and in Tigers academy. Think he played for england at U16/18/20 he became Scottish (thanks to his mum) because he was not good enough to play in the AP.

Didn't Martin Johnson play age group rugby for NZ?

I don't think theres huge numbers do it, but theres a few.

Just thought id never see the day any relative of Michael Lynagh wore the red rose!

Yeah, Jonno played while down there on a trip. Came back with a wife too

It would have been a bigger shock if rather than Lynagh, it had been Campese as my nephew mistakenly thought. Lynagh is far from a typical Aussie - and while he has lived in London for eons, not sure he ever worked behind a bar.

He's not a true Aussie if he's never worked in a Walkabout! Or chanted Aussie Aussie Aussie oi oi oi...

GeordieFalcon wrote:

He's not a true Aussie if he's never worked in a Walkabout! Or chanted Aussie Aussie Aussie oi oi oi...

I've patronised a Walkabout on occasion

(Sadly there's only 1 left in London. Real estate developers got the rest)

Is it bad that I've gotten to EQ without working in a bar? (PS, Eddie, if you need an aging prop/blindside I'm available - and I hear the money's good)


Modern times eh. Tougher visa requirements mean there's a lot less Aussie/Kiwi bar staff about.

Sadly? Terrible places.

Scottrf wrote:Sadly? Terrible places.

True.

But every now and then one gets homesick for a bit of Aussie/Kiwi guitar rock, cheap filtered-through-a-horse beer & dodgy accents


Granted it's been at least 3 years since I was last that homesick

And I'm actually getting paid to go along to this (https://londonbigdayout.com/) next weekend (I'm doing some refereeing), so that'll be that fix sorted for a while.

I went to a few of them in London, when my Aussie pals worked there in the late 90's.

I don't think we ever had a walkabout up here in Newcastle.

Newcastle's idea of an aussie pub was to put a big mannequin in the middle of a pub wearing a Drizabone and hat and call the pub....Bar OZ!

propdavid_london wrote:I get the impression that there are a lot of kids that go through the England age grade system and then go on to represent other nationalities!
Its probably not the case but Moriarty is the one that stands out in my mind.
I seem to recall that Greig Tonks was also an England U20s that wanted to explore his Scottish heritage.

Aside from Moriarty and Tonks I can think of a few others like Tom Heathcote, Kieran Lowe, Tom Price and Matt Protheroe off the top of my head. Probably missed a few.

I suppose when the squads change almost on a yearly basis when you hit these ages groups, you always have places available so lots of players get caps in the England age groups...

Once they hit the seniors and squad turnovers aren't so frequent, the players who don't make the England side elect to look further afield to their Scottish ties etc...

Team for the game against Samoa has been announced:

15. Tom Parton (London Irish)
14. Ali Crossdale (Saracens)
13. Dominic Morris (Saracens)
12. Will Butler (Worcester Warriors)
11. Gabriel Ibitoye (Harlequins)
10. Theo Brophy Clews (London Irish) captain
9. Alex Mitchell (Northampton Saints)
1. Ollie Dawe (Bristol Rugby)
2. Jamie Blamire (Newcastle Falcons)
3. Marcus Street (Exeter Chiefs)
4. Josh Caulfield (Exeter Chiefs)
5. Dino Lamb (Harlequins)
6. Max Davies (Newcastle Falcons)
7. Josh Bayliss (Bath Rugby)
8. Zach Mercer (Bath Rugby)

Replacements:

16. Henry Walker (Gloucester Rugby)
17. Alex Seville (Gloucester Rugby)
18. Ciaran Knight (Gloucester Rugby)
19. Justin Clegg (Worcester Warriors)
20. Joe Mullis (Gloucester Rugby)
21. Harry Randall (Gloucester Rugby)
22. Max Malins (Saracens)
23. Jacob Umaga (Wasps)

It looks a bit patched together. Without trying to be disrespectful, you would assume this will be one of the easier games and they need to give everyone a game.

Very different to the 6N side.

Cumbrian wrote:It looks a bit patched together.  Without trying to be disrespectful, you would assume this will be one of the easier games and they need to give everyone a game.

There's rules on minutes played per player that force you to use your whole squad during the tournament

So we have fly-halfs at 10, 14, 15, 22 and 23. I'm particularly interested in seeing Crossdale (who came through the Falcons academy GF). In the pack Street and Mercer are the players I will be watching most closely.

We have lost talent from the second row and at number 7 compared to the 6 Nations (or afterwards in the case of Evans). It's also a shame Maunder isn't there. This is still a really talented squad, perhaps our most talented ever at a JWC, but the losses in the pack might be too much given the squad is also pretty young.

Don't forget Max Davies the lock at 6 Dave.

Can't give you much on Croasdale I'm afraid mate.

Ok, I'll keep an eye out for Davies.

Don't worry, I thought I would cheer you up a bit about your academy, as Crossdale was with you until he moved to Sarries. He is extremely gifted.

Absolutely delighted to see Theo Brophy-Clews getting the start in the 10 jersey. He had a torrid time after getting injured in last years tournament and missed the first four months of this season. Since then he's proved to be an excellent understudy to James Marshall at 10 and has covered at 12 for us in the Championship run in.

Parton whilst having played at 10, looks to me as if he will go the way of Alex Goode (that's not a criticism, as Goode is a fantastic player), and will end up as a 15 who can cover 10 in a pinch. I'm not sure he will go on and earn full international honours, but he will be a very good Premiership player.

That's my two pennies worth on the London Irish lads in the squad. Will be interesting to see how we go without the likes of Isiekwe and the Curry twins in the pack in this tournament.

TBC has picked up an injury, so is out of todays game. Malins starts at 10, Max Wright onto the bench I believe.

This could get messy 17-0 after about 15 mins.

Streaming it live on World Rugby website:

http://www.worldrugby.org/video/252169

Although the stream is choppy for me.

Bonus point try after 22 minutes.

Mercer with a nice bit of skill in the previous phase. He really is a fantastic player, I just hope he isn't too lightweight (I'm always wary of these things because of Alex Gray).

Good try from first phase ball, going at a point a minute at the moment.

29-3

Unfortunately this game is done now, if England keep their foot on the gas it will be 60+ points.

Probably going to put the NZ vs. Scotland game on, the Scots are giving them a good go by all accounts.

74 - 17? Beats our previous record against them...

Are any of the evening matches televised?

mikey_dragon wrote:Are any of the evening matches televised?

http://www.worldrugby.org/worldrugbytv/video

Ireland down 12 -0 against Italy so far

In other words, no, they're just on the world rugby site? Surely our games are on S4C?

Apparently nothing televised until semi finals

ITV bought the rights to do feck all with them

Semi s and final on TV all the rest online. Itv have highlights I believe.

Worthless ITV.

mikey_dragon wrote:In other words, no, they're just on the world rugby site? Surely our games are on S4C?

Alright helmet chops, only trying to help ffs

munkian wrote:

mikey_dragon wrote:In other words, no, they're just on the world rugby site? Surely our games are on S4C?

Alright helmet chops, only trying to help ffs

Well give an actual answer then you part-timer.

The wales v Australia game is live on s4c tonight (Kick-off 5.30) and the Wales v England game is live on Sunday also at 5.30pm

mikey_dragon wrote:

munkian wrote:

mikey_dragon wrote:In other words, no, they're just on the world rugby site? Surely our games are on S4C?

Alright helmet chops, only trying to help ffs

Well give an actual answer then you part-timer.

Look it up yourself FW