SixAndAHalf wrote: ↑Sat Mar 16, 2024 10:36 pm
Where do we stand after the 6N then?
I see the basis of the team as George, Itoje, Martin, Chessum, CCS, Earl, Mitchell, Ford, Lawrence, IFW and Freeman (Watson also has a central contract).
If we are talking core components of the squad, not necessarily team, over the next period of time I would add Genge, Marcus Smith & Furbank.
Short term- Summer & Autumn series- it’d be really nice to see a big, powerful Tighthead emerge & a 9 that can challenge Mitchell. Elsewhere just keep building as much quality depth & banking experience for the younger players as possible.
SixAndAHalf wrote: ↑Sat Mar 16, 2024 10:36 pm
Where do we stand after the 6N then?
I see the basis of the team as George, Itoje, Martin, Chessum, CCS, Earl, Mitchell, Ford, Lawrence, IFW and Freeman (Watson also has a central contract).
If we are talking core components of the squad, not necessarily team, over the next period of time I would add Genge, Marcus Smith & Furbank.
Short term- Summer & Autumn series- it’d be really nice to see a big, powerful Tighthead emerge & a 9 that can challenge Mitchell. Elsewhere just keep building as much quality depth & banking experience for the younger players as possible.
and Theo Dan, tho....arrows. Not sure the comedy lineout try was him tho
SixAndAHalf wrote: ↑Sat Mar 16, 2024 10:36 pm
Where do we stand after the 6N then?
I see the basis of the team as George, Itoje, Martin, Chessum, CCS, Earl, Mitchell, Ford, Lawrence, IFW and Freeman (Watson also has a central contract).
If we are talking core components of the squad, not necessarily team, over the next period of time I would add Genge, Marcus Smith & Furbank.
Short term- Summer & Autumn series- it’d be really nice to see a big, powerful Tighthead emerge & a 9 that can challenge Mitchell. Elsewhere just keep building as much quality depth & banking experience for the younger players as possible.
and Theo Dan, tho....arrows. Not sure the comedy lineout try was him tho
Wasn't an overthrow, but he definitely misunderstood/misheard the call. He was throwing a completely different manouevre than the one the rest of the pack was doing.
Dan has to take the blame for that l/o. It turned out to be calamitous.
But he's a keeper.
We've improved. We're much better than we were at the start of the 6N's. Our attack has been developing nicely. Most of this squad will be kept and thats a good thing. If we can add a fit Quirke, a returning JVP, a Willis or two, Murley, Atkinson, Barbeary and Hill then we'll be in an even better place.
fivepointer wrote: ↑Sun Mar 17, 2024 7:41 am
Dan has to take the blame for that l/o. It turned out to be calamitous.
But he's a keeper.
We've improved. We're much better than we were at the start of the 6N's. Our attack has been developing nicely. Most of this squad will be kept and thats a good thing. If we can add a fit Quirke, a returning JVP, a Willis or two, Murley, Atkinson, Barbeary and Hill then we'll be in an even better place.
Timbo wrote: ↑Sat Mar 16, 2024 7:36 pm
I reckon Marchant would have been well suited to playing both 13 & wing in this defensive system. I’m sure Borthwick would love to have him back.
Highly likely he’s perfectly happy playing in Paris, Top14, nice wage etc, but can’t help but feel a player of his quality & age should be playing test rugby in front of huge crowds & possibly for the Lions. Bit of a waste.
Eddie legacy.
....in fairness he went off grid before, to enzid
Not quite the same, as that stint had a fixed end date, it was simply a loan. This one doesn't have a fixed end date...a lot more certain of a move.
If we are talking core components of the squad, not necessarily team, over the next period of time I would add Genge, Marcus Smith & Furbank.
Short term- Summer & Autumn series- it’d be really nice to see a big, powerful Tighthead emerge & a 9 that can challenge Mitchell. Elsewhere just keep building as much quality depth & banking experience for the younger players as possible.
and Theo Dan, tho....arrows. Not sure the comedy lineout try was him tho
Wasn't an overthrow, but he definitely misunderstood/misheard the call. He was throwing a completely different manouevre than the one the rest of the pack was doing.
Puja
or they got the move wrong but yes. He's still a tip top player in the making, terrific in the loose already at this level.
After a lot of hand wringing after 2 pretty awful performances, we picked up a lot in our last 2 matches. And we looked good, in patches or even in large swathes of games.
That's good. That's progress.
I do think we have the basis of the team in place. The only question marks are...
How long can Old Man Dan go on?
Do we have a long term 6? Could CCS be that man? Will Ted Hill come back into fitness and form?
What about our SHs? The difference in quality between Mitchell and the other two has been stark. And then the drop down between Care and Spencer was also stark. When will JvP and Quirke be back? Will they hit any form?
Do we have any centers coming through?
Will Murley get into the squad? He deserves it...
Will Biggles retain the 15 shirt?
Oh, and who will replace Marler as he retires?
But these questions have answers. I'm a lot more positive than after the Scotland debacle.
Hats off to Slowly Building, done a way better job in the last couple of months than I was prepared to believe he could, so falling on my sword. Jones impact significant, as as been change of playing attitude. The players have been able to step up their skill levels (sort, some basic errors still, and too many), and Dors was right in saying there were better performances hiding away if only the coach could do his job properly. There's a lot of positive stuff from the last couple of games, and as said above, a relatively young core to build around. Need more quality depth almost everywhere, but then that's true of most teams; front row (who held up really well in the tight against monsters), need to find some more props asap, back up 9 seem the most urgent areas.
Not quite IBWT but 8/10 since Scotland, prob 7/10 overall.
I agree with much of what has been said. Reliance on Mitchell is a real worry. Likewise ancient props are going to need attention sooner rather than later. Otherwise one can see natural evolution with Daly phased out over the coming seasons.
So, for the 6N in retrospect. I'm happy. Far happier than I expected to be.
I felt that Sexy Beast was always the wrong man for the job, too inexperienced and too stats driven (or more to the point, driven by the wrong stats). I didn't buy into the theory that he had 1 plan for the RWC, and a completely different plan for the post-RWC rebuild. I expected to play dull, brainless kick-ball and lose to Ireland Scotland and France without putting up much of a fight, and to maybe scrape past Wales and Italy whilst handing them the "moral victory".
I was wrong (well, maybe not that last bit).
I can see a plan, in defence, attack and transition. It an intelligent plan, and requires very different things from the players. It's a plan that Farrell would absolutely fail at implementing, but suits Ford and FSmith to the ground, and should be well within MSmith's capacity without wasting his point of difference.
We've blooded some youngsters, found a functional centre partnership for the first time since Farrell and Joseph (like it or not, they were functional together), and which shows so much more than that combination. We've found a pair of wingers who look at home on the international stage and fit the new gameplay. We've got a proper alternative at fullback (previously capped, but also previously thrown on the scrap heap).
If, but and maybe... If we'd arrived at the 6N with Martin fit, and with Underhill and Lawrence having a couple of matches under their belt since injury, and maybe Ford having had those injections a week or two earlier... We could have been properly challenging for the title. Give us those, and we're much more comfortable in the opening 2 weeks, arriving in Scotland with confidence and a bit of a groove, and it would be a far more positive campaign.
Of course, there's much still to do. The defence needs at least one more international window to get everyone used to it, probably 2 windows. We still need a proper attack coach (from what I hear, Wiggles is more kicking and skills than attacking shapes - if I'm hearing wrong, then I'm happy enough with him). We need a few improvements in personnel (limited by what's available) as we've too many stop-gaps. But I do have confidence that there is a plan, and that it's a decent one (and using decent stats). Whether it'll be good enough to beat NZ and South Africa (or France and Ireland once they've settled themselves again) is a different question, but I do believe it's good enough to give them something to worry about... In about a year's time.
I'd like to take a moment to say just how exciting it is to have a setup where the team looks better the longer they've been in camp. Has been a long while since we could say that.
Puja wrote: ↑Sun Mar 17, 2024 9:08 am
I'd like to take a moment to say just how exciting it is to have a setup where the team looks better the longer they've been in camp. Has been a long while since we could say that.
Puja wrote: ↑Sun Mar 17, 2024 9:08 am
I'd like to take a moment to say just how exciting it is to have a setup where the team looks better the longer they've been in camp. Has been a long while since we could say that.
Puja
This, absolutely, though it did look a bit shaky after the Scotland game.
I'm quite open to accepting the fact that they chose players who weren't match fit in the first couple of weeks to ensure they could get up to speed with the systems for the last couple of games and some of the early shonkiness can be attributed to that.
I'm also hopeful that we can get a lot of these combinations on the pitch again for the summer tour, with a bit of evolution of players in a planned way for a change, rather than reverting to previous regimes' seemingly endless, pointless, random chopping and changing.
The glaring work on area for me is the defence following a turnover of the ball. Obviously you're not going to be properly set when something like last night's weird line-out disaster happen, but there needs to be much better collective decision making on how we respond to that sort of situation, rather than some of the u8s level chaos we've seen more than once over the last few weeks.
16th man wrote: ↑Sun Mar 17, 2024 11:02 am
The glaring work on area for me is the defence following a turnover of the ball. Obviously you're not going to be properly set when something like last night's weird line-out disaster happen, but there needs to be much better collective decision making on how we respond to that sort of situation, rather than some of the u8s level chaos we've seen more than once over the last few weeks.
yes, you put it better than me- we need to change mode a bit when play becomes unstructured, esp against a side like France.
Puja wrote: ↑Sun Mar 17, 2024 9:08 am
I'd like to take a moment to say just how exciting it is to have a setup where the team looks better the longer they've been in camp. Has been a long while since we could say that.
Puja
The feedback from camp is very positive- very challenging and players understand what they are doing and why; he's also very clear in his comms, if delivered in a slightly bovine way.
Struggling with all the positivity.
To balance it out, I’ll make a bitchy remark about how having lost our ice leader animal we actually seem to be improving and have a more coherent backline.
Mellsblue wrote: ↑Sun Mar 17, 2024 11:55 am
Struggling with all the positivity.
To balance it out, I’ll make a bitchy remark about how having lost our ice leader animal we actually seem to be improving and have a more coherent backline.
If you want to cut through it all, you can point to the fact that, had France had Dupont and one of Ntamack or Jalibert on the pitch, the half time score might have been very, very bad.
Mellsblue wrote: ↑Sun Mar 17, 2024 11:55 am
Struggling with all the positivity.
To balance it out, I’ll make a bitchy remark about how having lost our ice leader animal we actually seem to be improving and have a more coherent backline.
If you want to cut through it all, you can point to the fact that, had France had Dupont and one of Ntamack or Jalibert on the pitch, the half time score might have been very, very bad.
16th man wrote: ↑Sun Mar 17, 2024 11:02 am
The glaring work on area for me is the defence following a turnover of the ball. Obviously you're not going to be properly set when something like last night's weird line-out disaster happen, but there needs to be much better collective decision making on how we respond to that sort of situation, rather than some of the u8s level chaos we've seen more than once over the last few weeks.
yes, you put it better than me- we need to change mode a bit when play becomes unstructured, esp against a side like France.
True but there is a reason there's a saying that goes "the best attacking ball is turnover ball". Invariably you have to scramble a bit, especially against a side as fleet footed as France. We did that fairly well.
I'd not blame Dan too much for the try that came from the overthrown lineout, as mentioned by some earlier. Ramos is incredibly fortunate that his slices hack at the ball bounces so incredibly kindly for France to run onto.
Timbo, having Dupont in the side is a cheat code for rugby. He's enough to give any side an extra 10%. What France have gained from this tournament is a viable alternative to Dupont later in the game when he's tiring, Le Garrec can come on and add tempo. We've often seen France move Dupont to 10 because he's not got the legs to keep playing at 9 but they need his attacking brain on their to set the tempo. Perhaps they don't have to flog him in the same way now. Somewhat worrying is thar Janeau down at Clermont is coming through and he's a similar player to those two as well. Incredible depth for France in a year or two.
but yes. He's still a tip top player in the making, terrific in the loose already at this level.
