RugbyRebels

Mikey Brown wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 10:44 am No offence meant. That was intended more at poor Joe C’s expense than yours. I don’t doubt he has the pace, power and step in his locker, but we seem to have either a collective mental block or persistent coaching issues where we just can’t translate the talent of our enormous player pool in to consistently being a top 5 team.

I get what you’re saying about the South Africa game. I absolutely loved it. George Martin’s performance gave me such a boost in terms of belief that England can find the (cliched as it is) “traditional strengths” again.

Trouble is I think that game suffers from the same problems as wanting our exciting backs to run loose. England seem to be able to go in to full war mode for a World Cup knock out game, or facing Ireland with 14 men, but where is it the rest of the time? It must a mental thing, whether that’s coming directly from the players or the wrong kind of focus/motivation from the coaches.

A forward focused game is obviously less reliant on handling skills and fancy backs moves, but I don’t think that means it’s necessarily an easier option to consistently dominate the likes of Ireland, France and South Africa in the physical battle. I’m not sure we’ve really even had the players for it since Kruis and Vunipola were in their prime. Guys like Martin and CCS give me hope though.

Banquo wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 10:19 am

Mikey Brown wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 9:43 am

Banquo wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 8:45 am

aye, clarity, skills and passion for the shirt and game.

And a near infinite budget.

near infinite is a big number.- and although not capped, needs to come from somewhere? How much do Irish players earn, and where does it come from?

There's nothing stopping the RFU offering more, either. Our guys who stay are pretty well remunerated.


....eta had a quick look, and Irish players aren't vastly well paid- the key benefits/differences will be bigger squad sizes (though eg Bath have 72-77) and better rotation at a guess. Plus on the surface a system that feeds the pyramid better, provincial rugby being pretty demanding in standards terms, and likely much better (cos there's less) comms between Farrell and the 'club' DORs.

Banquo wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 10:22 am

Oakboy wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 9:51 am

Stom wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 9:28 am

But that's the thing. TAA doesn't hit those through balls DESPITE the system, he hits them BECAUSE OF the system. He isn't picked to play a role he cannot do, he's picked to play a role that highlights his strengths. Hence Liverpool switching to an inverted wing back, and the willingness to sacrifice some of what they get from Robertson on the other side in order to create a system that better suits all the players available to them. Ironically, this same structural change, designed to minimise defensive risk and maximise TAAs output, also ended up in Salah being forced to stay wider, dropping his involvements per game, and highlighting whenever he does not take a chance, because he's having fewer chances.

Those "moments of magic" come from creativity WITHIN a system, not OUTSIDE of the system.

It's why it took Grealish so long to get into Pep's City side. But once there, he was super important.

However, if the system is too rigid, it stifles creativity.

And if the system is too loose, there's not enough structure for creativity to thrive.

It's a difficult balance, but it's one that a HC should really be on top of. And if the message is not getting across, or players are getting tense and sticking to the plan like robots, there's one of three things that are wrong:

The Plan
The Personnel
The Message

So fix one of those and go again.

3) is not the hardest thing, but takes a true understanding of the plan.
2) is obviously the easy option, and in the middle of a tournament is the simplest to implement.
1) well, let's hope it's not 1, as then we're screwed.

Good stuff, most of which I accept. Developing your points, did you see in the BBC clip about England's attack not functioning that our turnover concessions have got progressively worse, culminating in 22 against Scotland? All three of your factors could contribute to that, presumably.

One remark from Warburton seemed apt when he referred to our backs being too deep and none of them getting the forwards into position to benefit from ruck delivery. That presumably referred mainly to Care and Ford. I wonder if either will feature in the 23 against Ireland, especially if hopes of Mitchell and Marcus Smith being fit are fulfilled.

as others have postulated, the depth of play he singled out was probably deliberate; hard to drop players playing to the plan they've been sent out to execute, though one assumes there was a plan b. Scotland themselves dropped deeper second half to react to our line speed and blitz.

Banquo wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 10:48 am

Mikey Brown wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 10:44 am No offence meant. That was intended more at poor Joe C’s expense than yours. I don’t doubt he has the pace, power and step in his locker, but we seem to have either a collective mental block or persistent coaching issues where we just can’t translate the talent of our enormous player pool in to consistently being a top 5 team.

I get what you’re saying about the South Africa game. I absolutely loved it. George Martin’s performance gave me such a boost in terms of belief that England can find the (cliched as it is) “traditional strengths” again.

Trouble is I think that game suffers from the same problems as wanting our exciting backs to run loose. England seem to be able to go in to full war mode for a World Cup knock out game, or facing Ireland with 14 men, but where is it the rest of the time? It must a mental thing, whether that’s coming directly from the players or the wrong kind of focus/motivation from the coaches.

A forward focused game is obviously less reliant on handling skills and fancy backs moves, but I don’t think that means it’s necessarily an easier option to consistently dominate the likes of Ireland, France and South Africa in the physical battle. I’m not sure we’ve really even had the players for it since Kruis and Vunipola were in their prime. Guys like Martin and CCS give me hope though.

Its not just physicality though- look how 'smart' the irish are up front, both sides of the ball. That said, we are getting smarter in the sense that the penalty count has plummeted from peak Jones-- not sure what impact that might have had on oppos ruck speed, that said.

As you've said, that approach is much more suited to the world cup knockout style of rugby, where most sides play very conservatively against opponents they respect. I'm a big fan of winning (almost at all costs), because you can develop much better when doing so- but you will need to develop more than just a forward game to beat the top 4 sides regularly.

The approach proposed by TheDasher is pretty much what Eddie Jones said when he took over btw.

Mikey Brown wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 9:58 am Why would the starters be the ones to go? I mean there's a chance of rotating one of them out, like Steward was, but I can't see Borthwick using that particular gamble as grounds for another one.

As much as I wanted to see more of them from the beginning of the tournament we haven't seen nearly enough of Ben Spencer of Finn Smith to assume they will displace the old boys.

Mikey Brown wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 11:20 am

Banquo wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 10:48 am

Mikey Brown wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 10:44 am No offence meant. That was intended more at poor Joe C’s expense than yours. I don’t doubt he has the pace, power and step in his locker, but we seem to have either a collective mental block or persistent coaching issues where we just can’t translate the talent of our enormous player pool in to consistently being a top 5 team.

I get what you’re saying about the South Africa game. I absolutely loved it. George Martin’s performance gave me such a boost in terms of belief that England can find the (cliched as it is) “traditional strengths” again.

Trouble is I think that game suffers from the same problems as wanting our exciting backs to run loose. England seem to be able to go in to full war mode for a World Cup knock out game, or facing Ireland with 14 men, but where is it the rest of the time? It must a mental thing, whether that’s coming directly from the players or the wrong kind of focus/motivation from the coaches.

A forward focused game is obviously less reliant on handling skills and fancy backs moves, but I don’t think that means it’s necessarily an easier option to consistently dominate the likes of Ireland, France and South Africa in the physical battle. I’m not sure we’ve really even had the players for it since Kruis and Vunipola were in their prime. Guys like Martin and CCS give me hope though.

Its not just physicality though- look how 'smart' the irish are up front, both sides of the ball. That said, we are getting smarter in the sense that the penalty count has plummeted from peak Jones-- not sure what impact that might have had on oppos ruck speed, that said.

As you've said, that approach is much more suited to the world cup knockout style of rugby, where most sides play very conservatively against opponents they respect. I'm a big fan of winning (almost at all costs), because you can develop much better when doing so- but you will need to develop more than just a forward game to beat the top 4 sides regularly.

The approach proposed by TheDasher is pretty much what Eddie Jones said when he took over btw.

I don't think I said it's just physicality, but maybe that's not what you were suggesting. I think there's a lot of uncertainty, and sometimes complacency, that will show itself whether we're trying to play a tight, forwards game or trying to fling it around a bit more. Borthwick talked endlessly about 'clarity of the message' when he was first appointed, but that certainly doesn't feel like what we're seeing when England play.

Spot on with Ireland. People talk about their monster pack but they're not even that big (although adding McCarthy has made them even scarier) in comparison to some other forward packs. They are intensely well drilled and very rarely seem to lose shape or focus. That's not a tactic you can just decide to adopt one day.

Jones's early run is kind of what I was referring to with prime Mako, Kruis, Vunipola (and the occasional bit of Tuilagi) and the cohesion of that Sarries core making a huge difference. I don't think that means it would be simple to replicate though. I think it was Hartley that talked quite in depth about the long-term physical and mental toll on the players he expected from Jones's tenure, along with others who've experienced the limited shelf-life of his coaching techniques in the past. I think the motivation from the 2015 RWC failure is kind of overlooked too when people give Jones all the credit.

Stom wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 11:11 am

Banquo wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 10:22 am

Oakboy wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 9:51 am

Good stuff, most of which I accept. Developing your points, did you see in the BBC clip about England's attack not functioning that our turnover concessions have got progressively worse, culminating in 22 against Scotland? All three of your factors could contribute to that, presumably.

One remark from Warburton seemed apt when he referred to our backs being too deep and none of them getting the forwards into position to benefit from ruck delivery. That presumably referred mainly to Care and Ford. I wonder if either will feature in the 23 against Ireland, especially if hopes of Mitchell and Marcus Smith being fit are fulfilled.

as others have postulated, the depth of play he singled out was probably deliberate; hard to drop players playing to the plan they've been sent out to execute, though one assumes there was a plan b. Scotland themselves dropped deeper second half to react to our line speed and blitz.

I still think that our problem is in the clarity of instruction. And that is something that can take time. But it's also something that requires a really good coach to get across to the players. If they're unsure of their role in the system, they're either going to do stupid things or retreat into playing by numbers. And neither of those are good.

Part of that is personnel, though. Lawrence came in and looked completely ill suited, imo. Maybe it's just ring rust, but if that's the case, that's still a huge ball dropped by the coaching team. They should be able to see this quite clearly in training.

TheDasher wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 9:37 am

Mellsblue wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 8:54 am So the plan is to only play in heavy rain?

I agree with you on the balance of the backline with Ford, Slade and Furbank, plus you could add Daly to this list of ball handlers not carriers.

It's not a video game - you can play as I've described in the dry. You can absolutely focus on set-piece, clever, tactical kicking a dominant forward pack etc in the dry. Zinging the ball along a backline that's totally unable to play cohesively time and again and fcking it up is something England can do in the wet or dry let's be honest.

Agree on Daly - unless you just play as I've described, using him for kick chasing and kicking, high balls etc only.

England need to focus solely on how to make life as difficult as possible for the opposition, not on how to make the game more appealing to fans or "showing that we can play expansively" - all nonsense - just win against Scotland by any means possible ffs, that should've been the game plan.

It's especially infuriating at the moment as we have these short periods in which we absolutely steamroller people up front - vs SA, at times vs Italy, vs Scotland - you can see it. A year ago, we couldn't and didn't even do that. Now we seem to have that within us but we're then trying to play expansively which we clearly cannot do.

Banquo wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 10:22 am

Oakboy wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 9:51 am

Stom wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 9:28 am

But that's the thing. TAA doesn't hit those through balls DESPITE the system, he hits them BECAUSE OF the system. He isn't picked to play a role he cannot do, he's picked to play a role that highlights his strengths. Hence Liverpool switching to an inverted wing back, and the willingness to sacrifice some of what they get from Robertson on the other side in order to create a system that better suits all the players available to them. Ironically, this same structural change, designed to minimise defensive risk and maximise TAAs output, also ended up in Salah being forced to stay wider, dropping his involvements per game, and highlighting whenever he does not take a chance, because he's having fewer chances.

Those "moments of magic" come from creativity WITHIN a system, not OUTSIDE of the system.

It's why it took Grealish so long to get into Pep's City side. But once there, he was super important.

However, if the system is too rigid, it stifles creativity.

And if the system is too loose, there's not enough structure for creativity to thrive.

It's a difficult balance, but it's one that a HC should really be on top of. And if the message is not getting across, or players are getting tense and sticking to the plan like robots, there's one of three things that are wrong:

The Plan
The Personnel
The Message

So fix one of those and go again.

3) is not the hardest thing, but takes a true understanding of the plan.
2) is obviously the easy option, and in the middle of a tournament is the simplest to implement.
1) well, let's hope it's not 1, as then we're screwed.

Good stuff, most of which I accept. Developing your points, did you see in the BBC clip about England's attack not functioning that our turnover concessions have got progressively worse, culminating in 22 against Scotland? All three of your factors could contribute to that, presumably.

One remark from Warburton seemed apt when he referred to our backs being too deep and none of them getting the forwards into position to benefit from ruck delivery. That presumably referred mainly to Care and Ford. I wonder if either will feature in the 23 against Ireland, especially if hopes of Mitchell and Marcus Smith being fit are fulfilled.

as others have postulated, the depth of play he singled out was probably deliberate; hard to drop players playing to the plan they've been sent out to execute, though one assumes there was a plan b. Scotland themselves dropped deeper second half to react to our line speed and blitz.

fivepointer wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 12:41 pm When Borthwick was installed wasnt there a number of people saying that he will bring absolute clarity to our performances. Everyone will have a role, they will know exactly what they should be doing and square pegs will fill square holes. That was a big sell wasnt it, unless i've completely misremembered.

Do we have that? No. We look muddled and uncertain, with basic errors riddling our play.

Coaching at this level is demanding and he's had to pick up Jones mess but it seems to me the one thing that people thought he would bring - he has failed to do.

Mellsblue wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 12:31 pm

Banquo wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 10:22 am

Oakboy wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 9:51 am

Good stuff, most of which I accept. Developing your points, did you see in the BBC clip about England's attack not functioning that our turnover concessions have got progressively worse, culminating in 22 against Scotland? All three of your factors could contribute to that, presumably.

One remark from Warburton seemed apt when he referred to our backs being too deep and none of them getting the forwards into position to benefit from ruck delivery. That presumably referred mainly to Care and Ford. I wonder if either will feature in the 23 against Ireland, especially if hopes of Mitchell and Marcus Smith being fit are fulfilled.

as others have postulated, the depth of play he singled out was probably deliberate; hard to drop players playing to the plan they've been sent out to execute, though one assumes there was a plan b. Scotland themselves dropped deeper second half to react to our line speed and blitz.

That was plan b. Plan c was implemented which was to revert to plan a, ie kick it.

Stom wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 12:52 pm

fivepointer wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 12:41 pm When Borthwick was installed wasnt there a number of people saying that he will bring absolute clarity to our performances. Everyone will have a role, they will know exactly what they should be doing and square pegs will fill square holes. That was a big sell wasnt it, unless i've completely misremembered.

Do we have that? No. We look muddled and uncertain, with basic errors riddling our play.

Coaching at this level is demanding and he's had to pick up Jones mess but it seems to me the one thing that people thought he would bring - he has failed to do.

The thing is, there's enough

Banquo wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 1:39 pm

Stom wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 12:52 pm

fivepointer wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 12:41 pm When Borthwick was installed wasnt there a number of people saying that he will bring absolute clarity to our performances. Everyone will have a role, they will know exactly what they should be doing and square pegs will fill square holes. That was a big sell wasnt it, unless i've completely misremembered.

Do we have that? No. We look muddled and uncertain, with basic errors riddling our play.

Coaching at this level is demanding and he's had to pick up Jones mess but it seems to me the one thing that people thought he would bring - he has failed to do.

The thing is, there's enough

points conceded?

Mellsblue wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 1:15 pm The problem is the experience of assistant coaches, imo. We resolved that with F. Jones for Sinfield but we desperately need to replace The Wiggler, based on the evidence we’ve seen so far.

Stom wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 2:45 pm

Banquo wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 1:39 pm

Stom wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 12:52 pm

The thing is, there's enough

points conceded?

I'm pretty sure nearly all our points conceded come from fractured play. Which obviously needs a lot of work. But our defence in structured play is holding up really well, and our penalty count is the lowest it's been for ages.

Mellsblue wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 12:29 pm

TheDasher wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 9:37 am

Mellsblue wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 8:54 am So the plan is to only play in heavy rain?

I agree with you on the balance of the backline with Ford, Slade and Furbank, plus you could add Daly to this list of ball handlers not carriers.

It's not a video game - you can play as I've described in the dry. You can absolutely focus on set-piece, clever, tactical kicking a dominant forward pack etc in the dry. Zinging the ball along a backline that's totally unable to play cohesively time and again and fcking it up is something England can do in the wet or dry let's be honest.

Agree on Daly - unless you just play as I've described, using him for kick chasing and kicking, high balls etc only.

England need to focus solely on how to make life as difficult as possible for the opposition, not on how to make the game more appealing to fans or "showing that we can play expansively" - all nonsense - just win against Scotland by any means possible ffs, that should've been the game plan.

It's especially infuriating at the moment as we have these short periods in which we absolutely steamroller people up front - vs SA, at times vs Italy, vs Scotland - you can see it. A year ago, we couldn't and didn't even do that. Now we seem to have that within us but we're then trying to play expansively which we clearly cannot do.

I’m still waiting for the tongue in cheek emoji.
You could play like that in the dry but then you’d get dry humped by the top teams.

Banquo wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 11:53 am

Mikey Brown wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 11:20 am

Banquo wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 10:48 am

Its not just physicality though- look how 'smart' the irish are up front, both sides of the ball. That said, we are getting smarter in the sense that the penalty count has plummeted from peak Jones-- not sure what impact that might have had on oppos ruck speed, that said.

As you've said, that approach is much more suited to the world cup knockout style of rugby, where most sides play very conservatively against opponents they respect. I'm a big fan of winning (almost at all costs), because you can develop much better when doing so- but you will need to develop more than just a forward game to beat the top 4 sides regularly.

The approach proposed by TheDasher is pretty much what Eddie Jones said when he took over btw.

I don't think I said it's just physicality, but maybe that's not what you were suggesting. I think there's a lot of uncertainty, and sometimes complacency, that will show itself whether we're trying to play a tight, forwards game or trying to fling it around a bit more. Borthwick talked endlessly about 'clarity of the message' when he was first appointed, but that certainly doesn't feel like what we're seeing when England play.

Spot on with Ireland. People talk about their monster pack but they're not even that big (although adding McCarthy has made them even scarier) in comparison to some other forward packs. They are intensely well drilled and very rarely seem to lose shape or focus. That's not a tactic you can just decide to adopt one day.

Jones's early run is kind of what I was referring to with prime Mako, Kruis, Vunipola (and the occasional bit of Tuilagi) and the cohesion of that Sarries core making a huge difference. I don't think that means it would be simple to replicate though. I think it was Hartley that talked quite in depth about the long-term physical and mental toll on the players he expected from Jones's tenure, along with others who've experienced the limited shelf-life of his coaching techniques in the past. I think the motivation from the 2015 RWC failure is kind of overlooked too when people give Jones all the credit.

Well you do need the physicality as a start point, and I'd taken your reference to specific players as having the necessary start point. But anyway, we violently agree, though I do think the forward drilling could be executed in the relatively short term, assuming access and a willing player group.

On Jones- international rugby is tough, maybe he was too intense over a long period, but can't undersell what he did 2016-9; I'm sure the players were similarly motivated post Jonno's world cup, for example.

TheDasher wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 3:46 pm

Banquo wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 11:53 am

Mikey Brown wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 11:20 am

I don't think I said it's just physicality, but maybe that's not what you were suggesting. I think there's a lot of uncertainty, and sometimes complacency, that will show itself whether we're trying to play a tight, forwards game or trying to fling it around a bit more. Borthwick talked endlessly about 'clarity of the message' when he was first appointed, but that certainly doesn't feel like what we're seeing when England play.

Spot on with Ireland. People talk about their monster pack but they're not even that big (although adding McCarthy has made them even scarier) in comparison to some other forward packs. They are intensely well drilled and very rarely seem to lose shape or focus. That's not a tactic you can just decide to adopt one day.

Jones's early run is kind of what I was referring to with prime Mako, Kruis, Vunipola (and the occasional bit of Tuilagi) and the cohesion of that Sarries core making a huge difference. I don't think that means it would be simple to replicate though. I think it was Hartley that talked quite in depth about the long-term physical and mental toll on the players he expected from Jones's tenure, along with others who've experienced the limited shelf-life of his coaching techniques in the past. I think the motivation from the 2015 RWC failure is kind of overlooked too when people give Jones all the credit.

Well you do need the physicality as a start point, and I'd taken your reference to specific players as having the necessary start point. But anyway, we violently agree, though I do think the forward drilling could be executed in the relatively short term, assuming access and a willing player group.

On Jones- international rugby is tough, maybe he was too intense over a long period, but can't undersell what he did 2016-9; I'm sure the players were similarly motivated post Jonno's world cup, for example.

really strong pool of players to play in the limited way I've described,

Banquo wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 10:48 am

Mikey Brown wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2024 10:44 am No offence meant. That was intended more at poor Joe C’s expense than yours. I don’t doubt he has the pace, power and step in his locker, but we seem to have either a collective mental block or persistent coaching issues where we just can’t translate the talent of our enormous player pool in to consistently being a top 5 team.

I get what you’re saying about the South Africa game. I absolutely loved it. George Martin’s performance gave me such a boost in terms of belief that England can find the (cliched as it is) “traditional strengths” again.

Trouble is I think that game suffers from the same problems as wanting our exciting backs to run loose. England seem to be able to go in to full war mode for a World Cup knock out game, or facing Ireland with 14 men, but where is it the rest of the time? It must a mental thing, whether that’s coming directly from the players or the wrong kind of focus/motivation from the coaches.

A forward focused game is obviously less reliant on handling skills and fancy backs moves, but I don’t think that means it’s necessarily an easier option to consistently dominate the likes of Ireland, France and South Africa in the physical battle. I’m not sure we’ve really even had the players for it since Kruis and Vunipola were in their prime. Guys like Martin and CCS give me hope though.

Its not just physicality though- look how 'smart' the irish are up front, both sides of the ball. That said, we are getting smarter in the sense that the penalty count has plummeted from peak Jones-- not sure what impact that might have had on oppos ruck speed, that said.

As you've said, that approach is much more suited to the world cup knockout style of rugby, where most sides play very conservatively against opponents they respect. I'm a big fan of winning (almost at all costs), because you can develop much better when doing so- but you will need to develop more than just a forward game to beat the top 4 sides regularly.

The approach proposed by TheDasher is pretty much what Eddie Jones said when he took over btw.