Tom Youngs throwing

[TigerLad]

This season I have noticed the vast improvement in TY's throwing. His error count has gone down each match. For example against London Welsh he must have made 2 or 3 errors, then against Ospreys today I dont think he made one error all day. Has anyone also noticed this or is it just me?

[Farmboy]

IIRC there was one called not straight

[Ads677]

IIRC there was one called not straight

But it was straighter than a later Osprey's throw which didn't get penalised!

[Will S]

I can live with one not straight per game if he delivers around the park like he did. A real impact carrier and great in defence.

[Farmboy]

I agree he had a good game & accept that it would be very rare for a hooker to throw perfect every time. The OP said no mistakes with his throwing was just pointing out there was one,also agree that O's got away with not straight difference being they were short so not as noticable.

[blocky_head7]

I would agree with the above, Tom Youngs has definately matured into a very good front row player and indeed his line out throwing now is much better. I just hope he isn't going to be one of those players who gets thrown into the England first team too early and takes a severe knock, or loses confidence.

Whilst on the matter of hookers, what has happened to Rob Hawkins? I saw him warm up a few games back but haven't seen him since. Can anyone shed any light on this?

[jamiewilkinson]

Looked like Hawkins was in a cast of sort on his right hand, not sure how far it went up his arm..

One throw judged not straight, very good lineouts yesterday and his effort around the field was awesome as it always is. there was a point where he took two or three big defensive hits, and just kept getting up, he looked sore afterwards but he kept going. Defensively sound again. He just keeps getting better

[Tigerbeat]

Spoke to Rob Hawkins yesterday and he said he is still a few weeks from a return.

[RWA]

...which means he'll be fit in the New Year ;)

[DickyP]

... I just hope he isn't going to be one of those players who gets thrown into the England first team too early and takes a severe knock, or loses confidence. ...

He might get dumped by England if he has a bad start but he certainly won't lose confidence - it's just not in his nature.

Apart from his throwing which has come on by leaps and bounds his general play is also superb: indeed he was one of the few it would be difficult to criticise last week against Toulouse where he went about his business as usual. Even the penalty he gave away for using the shoulder was a piece of Nigel Owens's idiosyncrasy: yes it was against the letter of the law but why ping that particular occurrence when I counted another 22 similar instances of launching into rucks with the shoulder in the same game when I went back and looked at it!

[Jay C]

Whilst not advocating a starting berth for ol' George, one thing you can rely on with Chutes is his line throwing.

If Youngs can get close to that level of consistency and keep the rest of his game up - he will get better at not getting pinged at the ruck as his technique improves and is a more than useful ball carrier and tackler - then he will be in the England elite squad for a while.

There was a great moment in the game yesterday, when Youngs tackled a player full on & went down dazed on one knee, then got back up and immediately smashed the next guy with an even bigger tackle ! The guy sure has got heart !

PS : Hawkins will be a useful backup to Youngs if he is on international duty (with Chutes as well, currently) but it will be interesting to see who replaces ol' George when he hangs up his boots - eg will Brookes be converted to hooker, or will we look outside the club ?

[masopa]

IIRC there was one called not straight

But it was straighter than a later Osprey's throw which didn't get penalised!

Wasn't that the lineout from which Toby scored the intercept?

If so, I'm glad Poite didn't whistle...

[Norfolk & Goode]

Youngs is consistently getting better in all aspects and Lancaster would be mad to not include him in the AI's supporting Hartley. Which leaves us i believe with a slight concern, Chutes will be sharing the 2 shirt with Hawkins, who is constantly picking up injuries himself in training, and Stevens who is not the calibre of the other hookers. So if Chutes gets injured we may have a problem!

[fleabane]

There's a chap who sits(?!?) in the stands every match who said on TV he wouldn't mind a game . . .

[MrPartridge]

Quite surprised this topic wasn't picked up again after the Gloucester match.

From the start I want to acknowledge that I like Tom Youngs and agree that he is maturing all the time. Clearly those in and around rugby who know much more about spotting good players than me also rate him hence his call up to the England squad.

However, his line out throwing at Kingsholm was very poor indeed and contributed to our demise. We lost 3 of our first 4 line outs and by the time the second-half arrived the Glaws fans were shouting 'not straight' before he even stepped up to throw-in (and they were usually right!).

I'm sure this is part of his game that Tom will be working on and hopefully we will see a better performance v Saints at the weekend.