England.

First topic message reminder :

The six Nations have now completed 3 rounds of matches and I thought it might be interesting if I gave a neutral’s perspective from what I have seen so far and my opinion on each of the teams.

England.

Since they won the six Nations in 2011, England has not delivered on their promise of getting back to the heights of 2003. Although England has not lost many test matches during the six Nations of last year, they have looked encumbered and slow in the pack and totally disconnected in the backs.

It isn’t that they don’t have the players, they just don’t seem to be connecting at all. It is a given that England will always have a strong pack of forwards and will be able to compete at the tight phases and even at the break downs, but the system they have in place to secure the ruck, then make sure they covered every potential whole in securing the ball and then checking again reminds me of a television show Monk, where the guy has a back toothbrush for his back up tooth brush and then back bristles for his back bristles and that is for one night away.

There is no way you can put a team under pressure on defence when they have over a minute to organise their defences. Foden, Ashton, Barrit, Tuilagi and the rest of the players are looking average by large, simply because quick ball is a rumour.

There isn’t really more to say about their attacking ability until they can sort that out.

Defensively England is well organised and you have to commend their discipline under pressure especially in their own half. I have been waiting for England to show something more than just making runs and completing passes for the sake of it.

Hopefully they will stick with Farrell at 10 and give him an extended run, the Barritt , Tuilagi combination in my opinion can work as well, but they need to have some continuity in selection for that partnership to come to fruition.

Overall England looks exactly like SA did for the last two years, admittedly they kick less than us, but they seem to be in slow motion most of the time.

damage

possibly sometimes players can execute skill at club level but not at the higher levels.

damage_13 wrote:anyone think that Brown buchered the draw and pass simply cos it was his first cap at Home, last chance to score etc etc.

people need to realise that some players cannot cut it at international level mentally, or at least take time to get used to it.

I was really disappointed by Twelvetrees in the Eng A-Scotland (let's pretend it was Scotland A) game. I thought he might have an international X factor, but it was more like a Z factor.

Damage

I think we're all in agreement that Brown was swfull in that play, and gave Strettle tons to do!!

I want to make a few points and I hope noone bites my head off as I'm being deadly serious...

Firstly that U20's game that was lauded up... WOW!!!

It was like watching schoolboy rugby, the skills on show from England are pretty poor, a lot of swing passes, looking in both direction twice before playing a pass, and at one point the 9 goes left, takes a look around, and loops right before hitting a 5 wetre hole in the defence, it says it all really.

What I saw in that clip was a team far more conditioned than their opposition, they were bigger stronger and much faster, they ran circles around Italys 10 who looked like a prop in his movement.

From my experience of of English professional clubs at Junior and youth level their ethos is far different to the Welsh counterpart. At junior level I have a sneaky feeling it is selection policy that lets them down (as in Wales) and the key factor that aids selection is maturation rate. Infact in a recent study at a prem side it was confirmed that all but 1 of the current U16 team had reached PHV, meaning they were essentially the biggest strongest and most mature boys selected from the area, I suspect skill level was a secondary consideration.

Then at the age of 16, they are left from the basic techniques and taught strike plays, patterns, and exit techniques. This win preperation is in my view stifling to a 16 year olds progression, and it's not just in England, most NH nations do the same thing.

So whereas you have a promising 16 year old who can't pass off his left, or tackle, he will know his clubs strike moves backwards, even have revised lineout calls despite being a winger.

The culture of winning at all costs produces players who want to win at all costs but don't posess the tools to do so. Whereas the NZ set up forces kids to develop key skills in order to beat opposition, as they are categorised by size and not chronilogical age.