Comments on: Rugby World Cup 2015: England team to play Australia

By: Don P

Don P — Tue, 06 Oct 2015 15:17:00 +0000

Wales didn’t have forced subs v England. Didn’t 1 get booted in the head. Pretty forced to me.

By: Don P

Don P — Tue, 06 Oct 2015 15:12:34 +0000

… playing v Oz.

By: kit

kit — Fri, 02 Oct 2015 10:02:49 +0000

Going on this world cup alone, Only Ben Youngs, Billy Vunipola & Mike Brown have played anywhere near a Lions level. I feel in two years time though; Launchbury, George, May, Watson, Joseph, Burgess (as a forward where he belongs) Ford and Slade may also be in with a shout. That’s picking only players in the world cup squad, there’s a fair few others outside the squad who could be in contention.

By: Jacob

Jacob — Fri, 02 Oct 2015 09:13:10 +0000

This is a key one for me. Why haven’t we done much to get Steffon back playing in the Prem?

Personally, I massively agree with not picking players abroad – I do believe the knock on effects to the long term of English rugby could be damaging.

The Australian example isn’t comparable. Rugby Union is failing in Aus, there isn’t the support for it and they are losing fans and players to League and Aussie Rules. They are desperate for attention (and cash) so had to pick the big names. The RFU can take a longer view which they rightly have.

All that being said, they have the cash to bring Steffon to England, and it should have happened a long time ago.

By: TSR

TSR — Fri, 02 Oct 2015 08:36:29 +0000

I think the G&G article showed some examples, yes. I think there have been others too, but I take your points above about transgressions of other players. I was mainly interested in the English perspective of him. Cheers.

By: Jacob

Jacob — Fri, 02 Oct 2015 07:38:18 +0000

I think a lot of the problem with penalties at the scrum is that 9 times out of 10, all four of them are up to something!

Taking the Marler example from last Saturday where he looked to be boring in; he’d probably argue was only doing so in response to Francis turning on Youngs. 6 of one and half a dozen of the other.

For referees; then what do you do? It is very hard and I don’t think even ex-props at the top level would know every time.

In reality what happens is that whichever team gets a shove on tends to be looked at more kindly, as happened with Marler on Saturday.

By: Staggy

Staggy — Fri, 02 Oct 2015 06:24:31 +0000

Don’t worry no offense taken. Anyone who takes the heat off me is very welcome!!

By: Geat

Geat — Fri, 02 Oct 2015 04:55:32 +0000

I reckon our back 3 would all be in with a shout of making the plane (especially Brown and Watson), and possibly Lawes.

By: TSR

TSR — Thu, 01 Oct 2015 22:54:19 +0000

Straggy,
Well, we are fatter than most for a start, so running around in the sun getting abused is a bit too much like primary school. :)

Seriously though, I am not sure. But I would make couple of observations –
– most of the top level referees weren’t, to my knowledge, top level players
– there are pretty significant differences between top level scrummaging and the weekend grade fixtures
– I’m not sure therefore, that a low level prop is necessarily going to bring significant insight to test levelling scrummaging

As an aside, i have been refereed by a number of ex front rowers and, surprisingly I didn’t find it made that much difference. They would often penalise some minor technical detail as a way of emphasising their superior expertise, but would generally still seem oblivious to most of what was going on. That is at a much lower level of rugby though, so I am not sure it really adds much relevance to test refereeing.

By: Pablito

Pablito — Thu, 01 Oct 2015 22:24:45 +0000

Are you referring to the G&G article TSR? If so, certainly on one of the scrums they highlight, Marler is illegal but as others point out, just like McCaw at the breakdown, you do what you can get away with! He’s no worse or better than any others

Look at the Beast Vs Vickery on the Lions tour or Castrogiovanni in quite a lot of his games. Or for that matter, the many years when the Aussies tried every trick in the book to depower the scrum. You do what you need to to gain your team an advantage..

The important thing is to stop doing it if you get caught!

By: teecee

teecee — Thu, 01 Oct 2015 20:55:05 +0000

Nothing personal my friend. Anyway,i seem to be the Bete Noir around here at present!

By: teecee

teecee — Thu, 01 Oct 2015 20:51:00 +0000

Cold comfort Jon,though the sentiment is appreciated. Surely SL won’t be in charge by 2019! (you aren’t really from down under are you?)