RugbyRebels

Digby wrote:How has my reasonable question about what attacking structure England might/should use turned into this? You're all bastards!

Watching the Wasps Vs Sarries game trying to pick up on what they're doing, sodding TV coverage does't do any favours in this area, and I find I'm increasingly impressed with Gaskell. Not so much I'd want England to pick him, but when he's at the front of a pod of forwards his handling skills and decision making heading towards contact are nice, and England could use more of this, as is we've got Mako, Billy or Hughes, and, err...

This a good point. I could certainly see Gaskell moving to the US league in the future.

More examples of the 2 pod system causing problems, in one instance Ford and Farrell clearly aren't sure Clifford will be enough as the support forward over the tackled player and both join the ruck which means they can be floating behind a different 2 pod unit asking for the ball if wanted. And then a few phases later England get a 5 on 2 can't exploit it, and then not everything goes perfectly in a clearout (partly Warbs gets away with I'm sure accidentally blocking arriving England forwards) and we get turned over.

It's a good system if we can keep the ball moving, but it's hard to ensure continuity, and then with any breaks in play we lack carriers to get started again.

There were quite a few instances of failing to exploit a numerical advantage during the AIs were there not?

Which Tyler wrote:Yeah, I'd noticed that.

I also noticed during the AIs (or possibly the Summer Tours) that he also prefers talking to himself, live about Match A on his Global Results thread; rather than interacting with the rest of us on the match thread

He has literally just done it again after Mells's bump. I looked at what he'd written and he's not only quoted himself, but replied to himself to agree with his point. That is just... incredible.

Digby wrote:How has my reasonable question about what attacking structure England might/should use turned into this? You're all bastards!

Watching the Wasps Vs Sarries game trying to pick up on what they're doing, sodding TV coverage does't do any favours in this area, and I find I'm increasingly impressed with Gaskell. Not so much I'd want England to pick him, but when he's at the front of a pod of forwards his handling skills and decision making heading towards contact are nice, and England could use more of this, as is we've got Mako, Billy or Hughes, and, err...

Sorry Digby. How will England attack, you ask? Sporadically.

I think Gaskell's a highly underrated player, but as I understand it, he limits himself to an average of only 2 games per month because his knees won't take more than that. So unfortunately he'll never be a Premiership regular.

Puja

There always will be, it's not like even NZ nail 100% of overlaps. And Eddie may care to argue the system is a little higher risk but also creates more chances. I'm still inclined to think something more akin to a 1331 or 242 gives more chance for support and still having much of the pitch open to attack, and both'd be seemingly easier systems to coach. It's not easy to argue with Eddie's record of course, not even when we got stuffed in Dublin and could have easily lost 4 or 5 more games.

Also our handling in the forwards especially isn't great, and that's certainly not Eddie's fault.

Interesting on Gaskell. He was picking up a lot of leg injuries but they eventually diagnosed a lower back issue. Wonder if the knees are the same or something else.

Whatever happened to just chasing the ball from side to side? I don’t believe in all his bullshit about numbers.

Mikey Brown wrote:Whatever happened to just chasing the ball from side to side? I don’t believe in all his bullshit about numbers.

That actually used to be the England attack plan. The better (or really anything above rank average) teams simply told their wingers not to get dragged infield and providing no one missed a daft tackle that was our chance of scoring a try gone

Have the bird off the TUI advert demonstrate her limited dance steps from the 12 berth whilst the camera zooms in on her pert butt

Your obsession with brunette travel advert ladies is troubling but well placed.

Ha Ha. This Fred is forked now.

Mellsblue wrote:Your obsession with brunette travel advert ladies is troubling but well placed.

Probably stems from wrongly assuming Jaqueline Bisset was extolling the virtues of a simple t-shirt whilst swimming underwater during filming for Wish You Were Here...?

p/d wrote:

Mellsblue wrote:Your obsession with brunette travel advert ladies is troubling but well placed.

Probably stems from wrongly assuming Jaqueline Bisset was extolling the virtues of a simple t-shirt whilst swimming underwater during filming for Wish You Were Here...?

Now, that would be a good avatar. Action, not words, please!

As an update to some of the above and with reference to some of the 1014 pieces of analysis then yes England run forwards in groups of 2, or very mini pods, that England aren't tending perhaps to go at the guard, they'll try to go 1-2 channels wider depending on who's where in a defence line and then go open again or switchback depending on what happens, the first hit up is as much about taking away the blitz as anything else.

The real key for England then in this 6N is what do we do to protect our own ball? The other sides will have seen what happened when Italy played silly buggers and what happened when Ireland went hard at the breakdown, England just weren't ready to put the numbers in on attack to even always secure ball never mind deliver quick ball.

So will we find out if Underhill has it in him to stand up when he's never looked a player to base his game around the breakdown on attack ball, or will Haskell be back as simply the bigger more powerful player in contact? We also need a lot more from Hartley and Cole supporting up the middle

Oh, and will at any point we see a back with some size and power? And if we were to find 1-2 backs with more power, say Te'o and Cockanasiga for example, would that make Eddie happier to have some faster/smaller players in the pack?

Digby wrote: We also need a lot more from Hartley and Cole supporting up the middle

Channeling my inner Mells here. The reason we need a lot more from these two is twofold. Partly the system we have is too prone to being slowed down so the extra support presence/options needs to work harder or the system needs changing, and a lot of that is on 2 and 3, but also in our front row it's going to be too obvious we want to give the ball to Mako or Marler, and not Cole or Hartley. In the system we run they'll allow a defence to almost ignore them in the same way Farrell can be ignored when up in a front line as a classic 12

Rowan, give Digby his laptop back.

Can Cole actually even run?

morepork wrote:Can Cole actually even run?

He used to be able to when he was at Bedford, but curiously enough only for one half per game. Never did work out why.

#nichejoke

Puja

Cole must be doing something as the England attack system, other than Youngs kicking the ball away will create a lot of work off the ball. Hartley too.

But you'd still have to think you could lose some of that for extra metres in contact, and you mayn't even lose work off the ball with options like George.

Puja wrote:

morepork wrote:Can Cole actually even run?

He used to be able to when he was at Bedford, but curiously enough only for one half per game. Never did work out why.

#nichejoke

Puja

HaHaHa....wait, what?

Puja wrote:

morepork wrote:Can Cole actually even run?

He used to be able to when he was at Bedford, but curiously enough only for one half per game. Never did work out why.

#nichejoke

Puja

Your jokes are going downhill.

Mellsblue wrote:

Puja wrote:

morepork wrote:Can Cole actually even run?

He used to be able to when he was at Bedford, but curiously enough only for one half per game. Never did work out why.

#nichejoke

Puja

Your jokes are going downhill.

I knew I could rely on you getting it.

Puja

It doesn't even make any sense, you don't just run one for a half, and only the other way the next. Otherwise all the players would be at the dead ball line within 10 seconds and that'd be an effective end of the half. None of which pertains to shape and execution of the England attack mind