Most Overrated Player on the Tour?

Its gotta be Jamie Heaslip

Yet only now has Gatland realised this

I would have taken him on the tour...but no way had him in a starting test squad

AWJ, one good game and he is now test match captain.

Mike Phillips
And Gatland still doesn't realise it.

Lydiate without a shadow of a doubt. Shouldn't be touring. Can only tackle. Does nothing else. Hailed as a deity in certain quarters.

Grant.Totally anonymous in the last Test.

Taffineastbourne wrote:Grant.Totally anonymous in the last Test.

at least you have a sense of humour  

Brian O'Driscoll?

beshocked wrote:Lydiate without a shadow of a doubt. Shouldn't be touring. Can only tackle. Does nothing else. Hailed as a deity in certain quarters.

Ask SoB what he thinks after Lydiate slipped that backhanded offload to let him score that cracking try!

Taffineastbourne I don't remember Lydiate doing that in either of the tests.

beshocked wrote:Lydiate without a shadow of a doubt. Shouldn't be touring. Can only tackle. Does nothing else. Hailed as a deity in certain quarters.

Am so glad that someone else thinks this, and considering all he does is tackle, he's not even that good at it. Last test he played in MAko and Parling both had a higher tackle count with better completion rates and BOD had slightly lower count (12 to 13) but better completion.

Vunipola got too much praise for his early performances against weak opposition and then too much criticism for the test performance last week.

Phillips has got away with one of the worst scrum half performances I have ever seen by being picked for the 3rd test.

Heaslip hasn't done enough in the tests and should have been dropped last week.

I thought AWJ got away without much criticism last week for a couple of silly penalties he gave away, particularly the one at the end after we lost the lineout. He has to start though, with POC out.

All of the above is my opinion and not proven fact.

Lydiate for me too, never understood why he is hyped up so much.

I did think the same of Toby if I'm honest but his starting to win me round although he isn't a world beater he is a hard worker, not as good as Ben Morgan mind.

Shane Williams

Lydiate seems to get constantly glorified for doing basic defensive work quite well, he adds very little else around the park. We could have taken Wood/Robshaw who are much better players imo.

Mike Phillips...that guy is just so bad at being a scrum half.

HongKongCherry wrote:Shane Williams

That sums this farce of a tour up.

Has to be Mike Phillips for me. Ponderous, slow, poor distribution, absent from the breakdown half the time, his only virtue the occasional route one bosh but was completely shut down in the first test and couldn't do that either. Dire. Dire. Dire.

Murray and B.Youngs should be in 3rd Test. Either to start.

HongKongCherry wrote:Shane Williams

Yeah and the rest of the dirt track ringers too.

Gethin Jekins, Teddy's no 2.

 

VictorU3 wrote:

HongKongCherry wrote:Shane Williams

That sums this farce of a tour up.

Mike Phillips. This whole,oh I was injured joke was a farce.

Joe Calzaghe.

Halfpenny.

Just an awful, awful player who has single-handedly lost the series.

theslosty wrote:Halfpenny.

Just an awful, awful player who has single-handedly lost the series.

Even I'll call that a WUM.

Halfpenny's problem is Gatland looks at him and thinks :

"You are a wee bloke, best you stick to kicking and leave the ball running / carrying to Roberts, Phillips and the big lads"

All the while ignoring the scintilating threat Halfpenny poses in open play. IMO he is the most underused player in Gatlandball.

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:

theslosty wrote:Halfpenny.

Just an awful, awful player who has single-handedly lost the series.

Even I'll call that a WUM.

Halfpenny's problem is Gatland looks at him and thinks :

"You are a wee bloke, best you stick to kicking and leave the ball running / carrying to Roberts, Phillips and the big lads"

All the while ignoring the scintilating threat Halfpenny poses in open play. IMO he is the most underused player in Gatlandball.

He has missed 90% of 5% of the kicks he has taken. Case closed.

theslosty wrote:Halfpenny.

Just an awful, awful player who has single-handedly lost the series.

 

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:

theslosty wrote:Halfpenny.

Just an awful, awful player who has single-handedly lost the series.

Even I'll call that a WUM.

Halfpenny's problem is Gatland looks at him and thinks :

"You are a wee bloke, best you stick to kicking and leave the ball running / carrying to Roberts, Phillips and the big lads"

All the while ignoring the scintilating threat Halfpenny poses in open play. IMO he is the most underused player in Gatlandball.

Perfect call. Why weren't you taken along as advisor to Gatland? Oh right.............. Scottish

shouldn't this thread be called most overrated Welsh player

jimmyinthewell68 wrote:shouldn't this thread be called most  overrated Welsh player

Not really at least one from each nation has been mentioned all ready so it seems pretty in line with the Lions concept

Problem with Shane? He came in to get the Lions out of a hole, and did a pretty good job of it. No-one ever suggested he was there to do more than that.

jimmyinthewell68 wrote:shouldn't this thread be called most  overrated Welsh player

Fair point, maybe we should select one from each Nation?

England - Croft
Ireland - Zebo
Scotland - Hard to pick one as I haven't seen many of them play.
Wales - Lydiate.

Wales: North.  One try. One carry.  Shocking stats.
Ireland:  BOD, Drico and O'Driscoll.  None of them should have toured.
Scotland: Hogg.  He had potential but he never showed it in the games he didn't play in, which is always the sign of a bad player.
England: Stevens.  Some said he'd be absolute shhit and he proved pretty okay so he was overrated in the beginning.

Richie Gray despite repeated evidence to the contrary some people insist he's a good lock and also insist it was the correct decision to select him over his countryman Jim Hamilton.

Mike Phillips, he must either be Gatland's love child or have some serious blackmail on him. A very average 9 who has been bizarrely selected over two better players again.

Rob Kearney, comfortably the third best 15 on tour and should have been sent home before now.

Owen Farrell, how he's considered the second best flyhalf in Britain and Ireland is beyond me.

Fly, to be fair, bar Stevens, you could realistically claim the rest are over rated. Because no matter how good they are they all get defended as though they were Gods by their own fans

formerly known as Sam wrote:Richie Gray despite repeated evidence to the contrary some people insist he's a good lock and also insist it was the correct decision to select him over his countryman Jim Hamilton.

Mike Phillips, he must either be Gatland's love child or have some serious blackmail on him. A very average 9 who has been bizarrely selected over two better players again.

Rob Kearney, comfortably the third best 15 on tour and should have been sent home before now.

Owen Farrell, how he's considered the second best flyhalf in Britain and Ireland is beyond me.

Explain this to me like I'm a 5 year old please, what is expected of an international lock these days? Ok so last season Gray sold a wonderful dummy and scored a great try against Ireland. This year under Dean Ryan, his rucking, breakdown work and aggression in the tight has all improved and he has been one of the top tackling and carrying forwards on this Tour, all the while doing his work without flaw at the lineout and scrum.

Did you want him to strap a lawn mower around his waist so he could cut the grass while he played?

he has done just as much or more than AWJ and he is a freaking lions test match captain!

please share with the rest of us what Gray has done to be considered overrated.

I'm not huge on Lydiate I'll admit - he's strong in defence but Ferris/Wood seem better players to me

VictorU3 wrote:
Fair point, maybe we should select one from each Nation?

England - Croft
Ireland - Zebo
Scotland - Hard to pick one as I haven't seen many of them play.
Wales - Lydiate.

Hard to argue with that. For Scotland for me it must be Maitland.

Most Overrated Player on the Tour?

Ryan Jones, world class player, but what the hell has he done on tour?  

BOD that's why he as been dropped. 

Halfpenny
Jon Davies
Tom Youngs
North
Lydiate

We did that one a few paragraphs ago, majectic....

[quote="t1000advancedprototype"]Halfpenny
Jon Davies
Tom Youngs
North
Lydiate[/quote

We did the happy irony ones a few pages back too, t....

beshocked wrote:Taffineastbourne I don't remember Lydiate doing that in either of the tests.

there is a good reason for that!This thread is about the Tour. 

The coach staff, their ten mins or so each game has shown any results and their offloading onto certain players has been poor.

When the first Test begins the 'tour' ends. As most tourists find out pretty lively

Sexton, the petulant man child "as i expected" has offered nothing!

Heaslip and Vin also very very poor.

Jelly I don't know how you can call Vunipola overrated at all. He has done exactly what people have said he would be - be strong in the loose but find it tough in the scrum.

Sam as you obviously think Farrell is overrated (despite him getting a routine bashing by every man and his dog) who do you think the top 5 British and Irish fly halves are?

Taffineastbourne well he shouldn't be touring.

If I was going to do it by countries.

Ireland - Bowe - looked off the pace on Saturday. Got on tour based on reputation not form.
England - Croft - for all his supposed skills just hasn't lived up to the hype. Was meant to be a real strong performer but hasn't delivered.
Scotland - None are rated by Gatland.
Wales- Lydiate - Like Bowe got on tour due to supposed reputation. Not form. An one dimensional tackle machine praised to the rafters for doing what pretty much any backrower could do - tackle. Still outperformed in this area by a maligned centre, a maligned prop and a maligned 2nd row.

Can I turn this question around a little and ask which players have enhanced their reputation because I am struggling to think of one !!

Possibly from my point of view: Tom Youngs as I didn't really know much about him but was impressed with him in the first test.

Matt Stevens.He is worse than I thought he was.I thought he was poor but he has surpassed that.

Most overrated: Ian Evans

Most irrelevant: Christian Wade