Owen Farrell's defense

First topic message reminder :

He consistently shows up on the world player of the year nomination lists and is often considered one of England's prize assets. What surprises me about this is that he seems to also consistently receive a pass for fairly weak defending.

Statistically he was the weakest test player on the Lions tour and he is also England's weakest defender in terms of missed tackles in the six nations.

In two of the matches so far just like the Lions tour he has missed most tackles for England:

Italy game he missed 2, Care missed 3.
Scotland game he missed 4 tackles, England's next highest is 2.
In the Wales match he missed 7 tackles. Itoje missed 3 tackles, the second highest for England.

It seemed pretty obvious on the Lions tour that NZ were intentionally targetting him and it looks like Scotland did too last Saturday as two of Scotland's three tries involved fairly weak defending from Farrell.

For Scotland's second try Farrell missed a very easy tackle on Scotland's McInally in the phase before the try putting the Scots on the front foot.

For the third try Jones found a gap through Hughes and Farrell. Technically it was Hughes man but Jones was probably closer to Farrell.

All in all I reckon his defense is a really weak point for England that teams are now exploiting so surprised England fans dont seem too concerned about it.

No 7&1/2 wrote:3rd yeah after a chase down gets handed off. Not a big deal for me from that position you'd expect most people running back will step the chase.

He didn't step him though he handed him off. It was very poor from Farrell. Barrett should have been wrapped up.

Ok. You won't see many wrap him up from there. I'm willing to accept that him and Joseph are poor defenders then. I'll give him stick on saturday.

No 7&1/2 wrote:Ah yeah. Lions lose years in achieving of the tackles but its Farrells fault.

The 2nd 1 was a joint tackle with jd. Who miaow tells me is amazing where they go for a choke tackle. I would argue that that's tactics to an extent as well.

"Yeah, he's missing tackles in the way that the people analysing him have been saying - and yes, the opposition is clearly getting an advantage from them. But, I mean, it doesn't really count, though, does it? Does it...?"

Cognitive dissonance...

In all honesty, this thread sums up 606v2.

- An interesting, if slightly controversial, take on an aspect of rugby union
- Some people agree with the opinion, some don't
- Some take the time to explain at greater length why they agree or disagree

Then it goes downhill...

- Someone decides to lob an illogical bomb of misinterpretations laced with insults and injured pride onto the thread
- Cue the thread gaining a second life where the people agreeing or disagreeing are actively hostile to each other
- Several posters decide to start a fight and, to their surprise, once in a while a discussion of rugby breaks out - amongst all the childish taunting remains a slender grain of insight
- Endless bickering that goes round and round in circles for far, far too long
- Despite the main crux of the argument having been all but settled in the first few longer discussions, there's no sign of the most engaged posters in backing down. The fight will go on...and on...
- The thread should probably have been locked a long time ago but, sadly, it's the one of the few gaining any attention on the site...

No its not the end. You didn't answer the previous question miaow. But do you think you can view missed tackles without conext as a definitive marker for big a good defender. Or do you think you need to look at more than that. Anyhow I said I agree with you Farrell and Joseph are sub average defenders.

And to that you obviously think jd was a poor defender in that 2nd lions test as well. Or does context now come into it?

miaow wrote:In all honesty, this thread sums up 606v2.

- An interesting, if slightly controversial, take on an aspect of rugby union
- Some people agree with the opinion, some don't
- Some take the time to explain at greater length why they agree or disagree

Then it goes downhill...

- Someone decides to lob an illogical bomb of misinterpretations laced with insults and injured pride onto the thread
- Cue the thread gaining a second life where the people agreeing or disagreeing are actively hostile to each other
- Several posters decide to start a fight and, to their surprise, once in a while a discussion of rugby breaks out - amongst all the childish taunting remains a slender grain of insight
- Endless bickering that goes round and round in circles for far, far too long
- Despite the main crux of the argument having been all but settled in the first few longer discussions, there's no sign of the most engaged posters in backing down. The fight will go on...and on...
- The thread should probably have been locked a long time ago but, sadly, it's the one of the few gaining any attention on the site...

Which site is this you're on about???? Sounds like a swell place! Discussion, banter and passionate mud slinging.... a perfect forum.

No 7&1/2 wrote:No its not the end. You didn't answer the previous question miaow. But do you think you can view missed tackles without conext as a definitive marker for big a good defender. Or do you think you need to look at more than that. Anyhow I said I agree with you Farrell and Joseph are sub average defenders.

Your posts read more and more like Donald Trump's tweets by the day. Sad!

Over and out.

Can't answer simple points and off you go back into the wild.

You can always just ignore or 'foe' the people you don't like listening to

lostinwales wrote:You can always just ignore or 'foe' the people you don't like listening to

A very good idea! I would also suggest not engaging with people you dislike.

lostinwales wrote:You can always just ignore or 'foe' the people you don't like listening to

That poster loves to read 'fake news' though.

Surprise surprise Farrell misses the 2nd most tackles in the tournament.

Irish fans have been terrible winners just like they are regularly terrible losers. Some horrific tweets that will get some of them in trouble. This tournament has had so much bad blood. Shame.

??? What are you on about Cyril?  Do explain the shameful tweet world for all the Irish fans like me, who don't even have a damn twitter account.  Explain how all Irish fans are represented by a bunch of tweeters?

Check out Ulster tweets.

I understand they don’t represent all Ireland. Fair enough, but still.

Twitter is home to morons from every nationality. If we judged the world as a whole just by Twitter then the sun can't end us all soon enough.

Cyril wrote:Irish fans have been terrible winners just like they are regularly terrible losers. Some horrific tweets that will get some of them in trouble. This tournament has had so much bad blood. Shame.

Sounds like you are being a fairly poor loser yourself. What were the horific tweets?