Post World Cup Priorities

[twitchy]

I saw him pre season and the commentators kept calling him chaplin, I thought they were doing it by accident.

Also I realise I find it incredibly hard to judge young sh's. They all seem to look the same to me. They look about 12 and are incredibly quick. We seem to have a million of these type of 9's but I can never tell which ones are good or not.

[Mikey Brown]

Agreed. I’m probably more disappointed about this than the World Cup final.

Don’t worry, just remember the Saracens thing.

[SixAndAHalf]

Though I have very high hopes for Chaplin. His improvement over the last two seasons has been superb and will hopefully only get better. Best upcoming SH I’ve seen for a good while. Way too early for him yet.

I've clearly missed one - who is Chaplin?

Puja

Charlie Chpalin, Gloiucester SH. Spent last season at Hartpury where he really grew as a player. He did represent Scotland at U20 level last season, but rumour has it England are also keen on his services and he has been in conversation with Richard Hill. He played in all the Prem Cup games at the sgtart of the season and looked very sharp. The only caveat on this one is getting him in the white shirt, but from what I hear that is a distinct possibility.

Scotland have Jamie Dobie coming through who is meant to be an excellent prospect so he might have a clearer path to an England slot.

[Scrumhead]

I saw him pre season and the commentators kept calling him chaplin, I thought they were doing it by accident.

Also I realise I find it incredibly hard to judge young sh's. They all seem to look the same to me. They look about 12 and are incredibly quick. We seem to have a million of these type of 9's but I can never tell which ones are good or not.

Yeah, I can relate to that ...

Generally, I think we need to be more intelligent about how we develop our players - particularly at 9.

Obviously it’s harder when the RFU doesn’t have an influence over most of the training they’re doing, but would it really be that difficult to have regular, short ‘Skills Camps’ with players we’ve identified as high potential. If it was done in such a way that it didn’t impact regular club training too much, it would surely be a win-win for England and for the clubs.

Sticking with scrum halves, you could have non-contact sessions with specialist coaches where the 9s selected for development work on their passing and box kicking. Obviously that doesn’t cover all elements of being a good scrum half, but I’d argue that working on improving the basics would make a positive difference with minimal risk of injury.

Clearly it would be more difficult for positions that rely more on skills in the contact area, but you could have flankers doing breakdown work and props focusing on body position and technique for example.

[SixAndAHalf]

I saw him pre season and the commentators kept calling him chaplin, I thought they were doing it by accident.

Also I realise I find it incredibly hard to judge young sh's. They all seem to look the same to me. They look about 12 and are incredibly quick. We seem to have a million of these type of 9's but I can never tell which ones are good or not.

Yeah, I can relate to that ...

Generally, I think we need to be more intelligent about how we develop our players - particularly at 9.

Obviously it’s harder when the RFU doesn’t have an influence over most of the training they’re doing, but would it really be that difficult to have regular, short ‘Skills Camps’ with players we’ve identified as high potential. If it was done in such a way that it didn’t impact regular club training too much, it would surely be a win-win for England and for the clubs.

Sticking with scrum halves, you could have non-contact sessions with specialist coaches where the 9s selected for development work on their passing and box kicking. Obviously that doesn’t cover all elements of being a good scrum half, but I’d argue that working on improving the basics would make a positive difference with minimal risk of injury.

Clearly it would be more difficult for positions that rely more on skills in the contact area, but you could have flankers doing breakdown work and props focusing on body position and technique for example.

We used to have the BMW Performance Academy (https://www.rugbyworld.com/countries/en ... demy-23181) and if you look at the they players chosen it appears like it may have worked reasonably well!

[Puja]

l
We used to have the BMW Performance Academy (https://www.rugbyworld.com/countries/en ... demy-23181) and if you look at the they players chosen it appears like it may have worked reasonably well!

The caption for the picture is outstanding: "Andy Farrell and Stuart Lancaster with Academy players Maro Itoje, Anthony Watson, Brett Herron and Kyle Sinckler"

One of these names isn't like the others. Can you guess which?

Puja