Mike Catt : Nowell beat New Zealand

http://www.rfu.com/news/2014/april/news-articles/220414_catt_nz?utm_source=Social&utm_medium=media&utm_campaign=2014

Mike Catt has recently finished adding up the tries England scored in this years six nations and after subtracting the number they scored last year has determined that this "indisputable" evidence points to the impact of...Jack Nowell.

NZ will be ripped apart by the new latest saviour of English running rugby, as he would have it.

Interesting. Which all leads me to ask: concussion in rugby...are we doing enough to protect players from the long term effects?

Your ability to read an article, then summarise it with such amazing levels of accuracy astounds me.

If only you had not been born too late - a career as editor of Der Stürmer or  Правда would surely have beckoned.

I'm not on here long enough for GE's articles to irritate me. As a result, that made my evening

Did you see what I did in the title? Im well chuffed with myself over that.

Good clean topic with clear, concise facts. Well done empire

It is pretty clever wordplay, and manipulation of syllables.

GloriousEmpire wrote:

Interesting. Which all leads me to ask: concussion in rugby...are we doing enough to protect players from the long term effects?

Very good...about as subtle as it gets...  

Nowell is a pretty decent player I reckon. He has the talent anyway.

Guns....run and hide and save yourself now!!!...Anyone showing any kind of praise for Nowell on this site are hung, shot and quartered!!

GeordieFalcon wrote:Guns....run and hide and save yourself now!!!...Anyone showing any kind of praise for Nowell on this site are hung, shot and quartered!!

He had a good and bad six nations but you can see that he does have some strong qualities. He is a fluid runner and has a nice balance to his game. I honestly like the look of Nowell apart from his haircut. Showing potential means nothing though if you cant back it up.

Luke Fitz being a good example in Ireland. Probably one of the most naturally gifted backs to wear the shirt in a long time but injuries and very poor decision making means he hasnt really amounted to much.

Ive said the same about him on many threads on here and just got shot down in flames.

GeordieFalcon wrote:Ive said the same about him on many threads on here and just got shot down in flames.

Well I tend to only get shot down when I criticise English players like Goode and Brown so I think Ill be ok on this one.

Got to agree, his haircut is terrible

Ill give you Goode...but i can understand if you criticise Brown   

Nowell will be just fine its just gonna take a few years (when he eventually shaves his head switches back to FB and becomes Brown mkII).

Look at Marler - rubbished for a couple of seasons and now becoming a very classy player.

lostinwales wrote:Nowell will be just fine its just gonna take a few years (when he eventually shaves his head switches back to FB and becomes Brown mkII).

Look at Marler - rubbished for a couple of seasons and now becoming a very classy player.

Brown wasnt great for a good while too and look at him now.   

Still ridiculously early to be drawing conclusions on Nowell. It seems, as with all fresh new faces on the scene, people either want to build him up as the future or dismiss him as a hype job. I never understand why most want to embrace one of two extremes when there's a myriad of middle routes Nowell could go down. He could be a terrible/poor/average/decent/good/excellent/fantastic club player and a terrible/poor/average/decent/good/excellent/fantastic international from here on out. Many fans and critics who should frankly know better neglect this entirely. At this stage his record tells us very little... what is it, 2 tries for Exeter and 1 for England?

Knowsit17 wrote:Still ridiculously early to be drawing conclusions on Nowell. It seems, as with all fresh new faces on the scene, people either want to build him up as the future or dismiss him as a hype job. I never understand why most want to embrace one of two extremes when there's a myriad of middle routes Nowell could go down. He could be a terrible/poor/average/decent/good/excellent/fantastic club player and a terrible/poor/average/decent/good/excellent/fantastic international from here on out. Many fans and critics who should frankly know better neglect this entirely. At this stage his record tells us very little... what is it, 2 tries for Exeter and 1 for England?

That is mostly true but we do all look for potential and at the kind of mistakes players make now and how easily the problems can be fixed. With Nowell one of the big problems was making some bad errors of judgement, and its that kind of thing (if the player has any brains at all) that you would expect to improve a great deal with experience. He does appear to have a lot of good things going for him too, good defense, a bit of speed, and most importantly a great attitude.

The chances are higher that he will become a better player than he is now.

There is also a chance he will get injured or just generally have his form go down the pan. Time will tell

Hey, he's no May....