Can England Still Play Wet Weather Rugby?

This time of year in Britain, with it's perpetual drizzle, overcast skies and unrelenting damp grey dank used to be Valhalla for English rugby.

Flabby immobile lumps would wade, knee deep in mud, back and forth whilst a half back and fly half would metronomically kick for the corners, or the goal posts.

The revolution in English rugby brought about by Stuart Lancaster has led to not only a more adverturous style of play, with back line players now more than mere obstructions for opposition players to run around, or over, but has led to a startingly increase in the athleticism and mobility of the tight 5 and loose forwards and a startling depowering of the English set piece and absence of structure and game management skills. No better example can be given of just last week when England's scrum was mercilessly humbled by the maligned Australian pack and England conspired to play Fiji style tap-and-go whilst spurning match winning shots at goal.

With that in mind, and the conditions out doors today, can England find their traditional structured, direct, forward controlled game? Or will the very physical, very direct, very powerful and very structured Springboks school them in the art of wet weather rugby?

anotherworldofpain wrote:

The revolution in English rugby brought about by Stuart Lancaster has led to not only a more adverturous style of play, with back line players now more than mere obstructions for opposition players to run around,

See you make it too obvious when you say overtly ludicrous things things like this

Peter Seabiscuit Wheeler wrote:

anotherworldofpain wrote:

The revolution in English rugby brought about by Stuart Lancaster has led to not only a more adverturous style of play, with back line players now more than mere obstructions for opposition players to run around,

See you make it too obvious when you say overtly ludicrous things things like this

Read on PSW! I added "or over" just after you stopped reading.

anotherworldofpain wrote:This time of year in Britain, with it's perpetual drizzle, overcast skies and unrelenting damp grey dank used to be Valhalla for English rugby.

Flabby immobile lumps would wade, knee deep in mud, back and forth whilst a half back and fly half would metronomically kick for the corners, or the goal posts.

The revolution in English rugby brought about by Stuart Lancaster has led to not only a more adverturous style of play, with back line players now more than mere obstructions for opposition players to run around, or over, but has led to a startingly increase in the athleticism and mobility of the tight 5 and loose forwards and a startling depowering of the English set piece and absence of structure and game management skills. No better example can be given of just last week when England's scrum was mercilessly humbled by the maligned Australian pack and England conspired to play Fiji style tap-and-go whilst spurning match winning shots at goal.

With that in mind, and the conditions out doors today, can England find their traditional structured, direct, forward controlled game? Or will the very physical, very direct, very powerful and very structured Springboks school them in the art of wet weather rugby?

It tells you something when you realise you're longing for the days of those fat immobile lumps humbling opposition scrums (ok, Oz scrums...once). But i am. Our new breed of 'athletic' forwards are, essentially, soft as poopie. Our lumbering centres have the footwork of our props of yore. It's a real winning combination and I heartily recommend the All Blacks adopt a similar approach. Please.

The Boks will batter us, though I'm half hoping their machismo falters in the face of our mighty drizzle.

Hood, that made me giggle.

Can England play wet weather rugby? We will find out today

Can England still play rugby?

Nearly 10 years and nothing.

I'm sure we will play some rugby!

It'll just be sloppy, panicked, rabbit in headlights rugby always on the back foot and while constantly getting man shamed by the South Africans.

To cap it off the team probably all have to line up afterwards to ask for their genetalia back which will well and truly be in the the Boks pockets.

Oh and then The Hask will probably come on and clothes line some one.

RogerLewis wrote:Can England still play rugby?

Nearly 10 years and nothing.

There was the odd glimmer

Careful now.
Watch: Haskell might very well come on and play good sound Rugby. He might not be Einstein, but then again, Einstein was probably not too good at Rugby.
He (Haskell, not Einstein) is a pretty good player. I think he does have some real good matches in him.
Underestimate Das Hask at your own peril...............

Peter Seabiscuit Wheeler wrote:

RogerLewis wrote:Can England still play rugby?

Nearly 10 years and nothing.

There was the odd glimmer

Wales had an off day and were rebuilding. Oh wait that's England's excuse.

anotherworldofpain wrote:

Hood, that made me giggle.

I aim to please

Actually a decent, serious point in there though AWOP. When is peed it down you always heard people, even some SH commentators, say 'That'll suit England'. I think some people thought it disparaging but it always struck me as obvious - conditions are favourable to a team if they play in them more often.

You can't say that about this team. All our forwards are 'mobile' or 'dynamic' apparently. Which means the SRs are 2 stones lighter than SH equivalents but are quick enough to get to a ruck before promptly being blasted off it, the props are 'scavengers' which means they can now stay on their feet for more than 1 second when a breakdown fortuitously forms right by their feet, but they still have the guts of a veteran darts player, and the loose forwards are either a) big, slow, ponderous (Easter) or b) quick, light, powerless (Croft).

The worst thing is that the players who ARE physically blessed, well, they're James Haskell. And even though I'd want him playing, I'm not entirely convinced he knows what game he's playing.

Conditions are not conducive to running rugby here, so can we realistically condition players to be those sorts of players? I say screw it, none of this half-way measure, water-log the pitch, get everyone on a pie-only diet and build on a strategy of never, EVER putting the ball through the hands.

doctor_grey wrote:Careful now.
Watch: Haskell might very well come on and play good sound Rugby. He might not be Einstein, but then again, Einstein was probably not too good at Rugby.
He (Haskell, not Einstein) is a pretty good player. I think he does have some real good matches in him.
Underestimate Das Hask at your own peril...............

He's probably the only player other than Tuilagi (please let Billy Vunipola become the next!) who, on a good day, looks physically capable of not being humbled by them. He will also probably close line someone...or get pinged in some way. His penalty count has got ridiculous recently.

Yes excuse my mischievious tone, but if you write a straight up article nobody replies!

Will the wet pitch help the ENG scrum by depowering SA? Or will it just make it harder to hold up?

Hood83 wrote:

doctor_grey wrote:Careful now.
Watch: Haskell might very well come on and play good sound Rugby. He might not be Einstein, but then again, Einstein was probably not too good at Rugby.
He (Haskell, not Einstein) is a pretty good player. I think he does have some real good matches in him.
Underestimate Das Hask at your own peril...............

He's probably the only player other than Tuilagi (please let Billy Vunipola become the next!) who, on a good day, looks physically capable of not being humbled by them. He will also probably close line someone...or get pinged in some way. His penalty count has got ridiculous recently.

My comment was tongue in cheek, Hask is as you say one of our best players when his heads in the game. Billy V is another great shout! Hopefully we'll see him in the 6N's.

anotherworldofpain wrote:Yes excuse my mischievious tone, but if you write a straight up article nobody replies!

Will the wet pitch help the ENG scrum by depowering SA? Or will it just make it harder to hold up?

Dry, Wet, On water.. England will get crucified.

anotherworldofpain wrote:Yes excuse my mischievious tone, but if you write a straight up article nobody replies!

Will the wet pitch help the ENG scrum by depowering SA? Or will it just make it harder to hold up?

I think the latter, the Boks should still get the upper hand in there but I expect we'll see a lot more resets and players fiddling with their studs.

RogerLewis wrote:

anotherworldofpain wrote:Yes excuse my mischievious tone, but if you write a straight up article nobody replies!

Will the wet pitch help the ENG scrum by depowering SA? Or will it just make it harder to hold up?

Dry, Wet, On water.. England will get crucified.

If we do, it could be worse. We could be Welsh getting hammered by Argentina and Samoa.

Duty281 wrote:

RogerLewis wrote:

anotherworldofpain wrote:Yes excuse my mischievious tone, but if you write a straight up article nobody replies!

Will the wet pitch help the ENG scrum by depowering SA? Or will it just make it harder to hold up?

Dry, Wet, On water.. England will get crucified.

If we do, it could be worse. We could be Welsh getting hammered by Argentina and Samoa.

Tournament wins are far more important that friendlys.

Go back two years. England looked to have finally cracked the art of passing the ball and running past people,. winning away in Aus then walloping them at home.

They then took on SA and got kicked and shoved off the park. It largely went downhill from their (previously mentioned defeat of Wales aside), including getting absolutely creamed by Irelands pack a few months later.

England did come through a couple of horrible weather games last winter, but were far from convincing against frankly sh1te opposition. SA are bigger and tougher.

Go back to 2008 ...Johnsons first set of AIs in charge. First game up they win big against disorganised Islander opposition despite playing some sloppy rugby.
Next up they lose to Australia, no great disgrace but the axe comes out and its decided they need more forward grunt and to go back to basics to take on SA upfront.
England get absolutely dicked on in every department.

Im not holding out great hopes for this game.

RogerLewis wrote:

Duty281 wrote:

RogerLewis wrote:

anotherworldofpain wrote:Yes excuse my mischievious tone, but if you write a straight up article nobody replies!

Will the wet pitch help the ENG scrum by depowering SA? Or will it just make it harder to hold up?

Dry, Wet, On water.. England will get crucified.

If we do, it could be worse. We could be Welsh getting hammered by Argentina and Samoa.

Tournament wins are far more important that friendlys.

True, pity for Wales they lost so many games in the world cup.

Hey! No Wales/Eng bickering here please. Just keep it about SA/ENG and wet weather styles. There are plenty of places to bicker.

RogerLewis wrote:

Duty281 wrote:

RogerLewis wrote:

anotherworldofpain wrote:Yes excuse my mischievious tone, but if you write a straight up article nobody replies!

Will the wet pitch help the ENG scrum by depowering SA? Or will it just make it harder to hold up?

Dry, Wet, On water.. England will get crucified.

If we do, it could be worse. We could be Welsh getting hammered by Argentina and Samoa.

Tournament wins are far more important that friendlys.

Oh is that what they are now? Friendlies. So it won't matter if you lose all 4? Which you will. Agree with you about the Tournament wins - England have more Grand Slams, Five Nations Titles, Six Nations Titles and one more World Cup than the little Welsh.

anotherworldofpain wrote:Hey! No Wales/Eng bickering here please. Just keep it about SA/ENG and wet weather styles. There are plenty of places to bicker.

Funny coming from the WUM in chief!

The English get plenty of practice in the rain - now that Corbs is back in the front row I think we'll be a lot more solid at the scrum. I don't think it will be a man-shaming - I think we might even sneak it. Looking forward to a tough game!

Cant help but feel if we'd had a roof on Twickers it may have been different

ffs, more excuses. Pathetic mate. Your bad karma is cursing the team.

Linebreaker wrote:ffs, more excuses. Pathetic mate. Your bad karma is cursing the team.

Oh come on tell me you wouldnt have liked the Scotland game played indoors ......

No. The hurricane was the same for both teams and fair play to Scotland.

Wrong again bad loser.

linebreaker, I don't think I've seen Seabiscuit make a serious comment on here. I think you're reacting a bit strongly to a joke.

Seabiscuit, I know there have been a few serious posts but mostly hidden in sarcy urine-takes

RogerLewis wrote:

anotherworldofpain wrote:Yes excuse my mischievious tone, but if you write a straight up article nobody replies!

Will the wet pitch help the ENG scrum by depowering SA? Or will it just make it harder to hold up?

Dry, Wet, On water.. England will get crucified.

There's only one team that got crucified today. It wasn't England.

Forget can they play in wet weather?
Can they still play rugby end of?

HammerofThunor wrote:linebreaker, I don't think I've seen Seabiscuit make a serious comment on here. I think you're reacting a bit strongly to a joke.

Seabiscuit, I know there have been a few serious posts but mostly hidden in sarcy urine-takes

Tone is hard to gauge on here. Don't worry. We go 'way back'.

I thought England did a great job of wet weather rugby.

But I'm starting to wonder if they are the new Scotland viz the ability to score tries.

anotherworldofpain wrote:I thought England did a great job of wet weather rugby.

But I'm starting to wonder if they are the new Scotland viz the ability to score tries.

Id be happy with 3 against your lot next week.