Rugby World Cup warm up games

[Smudge]

I was disappointed when George took the first kick in front of the goal. It was a statement that catch and driving wasn't on the cards and as others have said, he seemed to kick everything away. As George has a very good rugby brain it was clearly dictated by the coaches. Do we have some special moves they don't want to broadcast before Paris?
Obviously, the video analysis people will be dissecting every aspect of our game and showing our hand before would mean we could only use it once or maybe twice.
I was against SB taking the England job and note the comments about the deterioration of Tiger's play once it was announced but equally, he is no fool and is not surrounded by fools. The actual competition will really be the forum to judge him and his coaches as well as the England team.

[sam16111986]

I was disappointed when George took the first kick in front of the goal. It was a statement that catch and driving wasn't on the cards and as others have said, he seemed to kick everything away. As George has a very good rugby brain it was clearly dictated by the coaches. Do we have some special moves they don't want to broadcast before Paris?
Obviously, the video analysis people will be dissecting every aspect of our game and showing our hand before would mean we could only use it once or maybe twice.
I was against SB taking the England job and note the comments about the deterioration of Tiger's play once it was announced but equally, he is no fool and is not surrounded by fools. The actual competition will really be the forum to judge him and his coaches as well as the England team.

Taking a penalty straight in front of the posts away from home against the team ranked number 1 in the world is normally considered very sensible when the score is 0-0.

We didn't kick all the ball away either, we played considerably more ball in hand than in previous weeks. The issue was the breakdown, we didn't clear effectively and the ref applied the laws loosely. Slow ball and turnovers when we had Ireland on the ropes limited what we could do. I'm sure they'll be looking at that before the world cup.

[TigerFeetSteve]

The difficulty for me lies in the inheritance of a fixed set of players. SB gave immediate marching orders to several on arrival, which he can't do. Walters had plenty of time to condition players to international standard, here we seem to gave internationals at a lower level of fitness. We also had/have players like Wiese who convert red zone, which England literally can't do.
However, I agree we seemed to be less effective and flexible as SBs tenure continued. We fortunately had great leaders on the pitch, and Pollard proved a diamond.

With regards to Walters and England. I would say unlike when in the Tigers job, he's focusing not on a season of match fitness, instead he's looking at getting them to peak for the world cup time frame, a much shorter peak time, so their fitness now is still at essentially a "preseason" level...

[Scott1]

V Fiji
Genge
Dan
Sinckler
Martin
Chessum
Ludlam
Willis
Earl
Care
Smith
Watson
Lawrence
Marchant
Arundell
Malins

Marler,George,Cole,Lawes,Curry,Youngs,Ford,Steward

Let’s get on that plane with a bang!

[LE18]

Smith looked very lively when he came on yesterday. He seems to be the only player who can break the line, but not from FH, we could have a game breaker but there are so many buts.

[LE18]

I would like to see an experiment in the backs, add some pace. What about:- Mitchell, Ford, Smith, Lawrence, Margent, Malins, Watson.? Gives Smith some room out on wing, alterative swap him and Watson over, but Smith needs room. Bit like Austin in reverse.

[Tiglon]

Smith looked very lively when he came on yesterday. He seems to be the only player who can break the line, but not from FH, we could have a game breaker but there are so many buts.

I thought that was his best performance for England so far. Stick him at full back or wing against Fiji and see what happens.

[LE18]

Smith looked very lively when he came on yesterday. He seems to be the only player who can break the line, but not from FH, we could have a game breaker but there are so many buts.

I thought that was his best performance for England so far. Stick him at full back or wing against Fiji and see what happens.

Agreed, I edited my post whilst you were typing, certainly his best showing.

[LE18]

I would like to see an experiment in the backs, add some pace. What about:- Mitchell, Ford, Smith, Lawrence, Margent, Malins, Watson.? Gives Smith some room out on wing, alterative swap him and Watson over, but Smith needs room. Bit like Austin in reverse.

[jgriffin]

The difficulty for me lies in the inheritance of a fixed set of players. SB gave immediate marching orders to several on arrival, which he can't do. Walters had plenty of time to condition players to international standard, here we seem to gave internationals at a lower level of fitness. We also had/have players like Wiese who convert red zone, which England literally can't do.
However, I agree we seemed to be less effective and flexible as SBs tenure continued. We fortunately had great leaders on the pitch, and Pollard proved a diamond.

With regards to Walters and England. I would say unlike when in the Tigers job, he's focusing not on a season of match fitness, instead he's looking at getting them to peak for the world cup time frame, a much shorter peak time, so their fitness now is still at essentially a "preseason" level...

I have noted elsewhere that if he is periodicising for peaking for the semis, they'll only be coming out of a very heavy load phase into the lighter, faster, loads of precompetition. A complex sport like rugby suggests no more than 5 peak matches, which means, with rotation, literally the length of the tournament.

[Dr H Flashman MBE]

Reading a few posters and posts, and I don’t like myself for it as I wear Tigers tinted glasses, but agree about Youngs and Stewart.
Youngs is a grade A top draw Tigers legend and always will be. Complete club man and inspiration. His time as an international time is coming to a close and I think that he had a bit of a shocker.
Stewart is young and rules the airways like a 1945 Spitefire over Britain, but needs more attacking edge, very much like he has for us. His tackling didn’t seem 100% either, but that maybe because he is 80 minutes away from the World Cup starting and didn’t fancy an injury.

I am not slating them as I wouldn’t do that but they need to be called out for 2 poor performances.

[Offside]

I would be interested to see the tackle stats for international 15s. As someone posted previously an international winger should be expected to finish most opportunities with a good side step. How many international fullbacks manage to make these tackles?

[Tiglon]

I would be interested to see the tackle stats for international 15s. As someone posted previously an international winger should be expected to finish most opportunities with a good side step. How many international fullbacks manage to make these tackles?

Agreed. One on one the winger should be making it 9/10 from that close to the line with that much space.

[TigerFeetSteve]

I would be interested to see the tackle stats for international 15s. As someone posted previously an international winger should be expected to finish most opportunities with a good side step. How many international fullbacks manage to make these tackles?

When I played 15, if I had to make a tackle it was either first phase post kick chase or on a line break. My job wasn't to be in a defensive line.

On a line break a tackle is a lot harder depending on the break it is often 1v1 with almost a full pitch width, usually any other position you're covering the width between the man inside and outside of you.

So I fully expect fullbacks to have the worst tackle stats.

[sam16111986]

Reading a few posters and posts, and I don’t like myself for it as I wear Tigers tinted glasses, but agree about Youngs and Stewart.
Youngs is a grade A top draw Tigers legend and always will be. Complete club man and inspiration. His time as an international time is coming to a close and I think that he had a bit of a shocker.
Stewart is young and rules the airways like a 1945 Spitefire over Britain, but needs more attacking edge, very much like he has for us. His tackling didn’t seem 100% either, but that maybe because he is 80 minutes away from the World Cup starting and didn’t fancy an injury.

I am not slating them as I wouldn’t do that but they need to be called out for 2 poor performances.

Steward led the team for the number of defenders beaten. No Irish player bettered his number either. He unsurprisingly made the most metres for England.

The only tackles he missed were in he 1vs 1s in a good 15m of space. International class players like Hansen and Ringrose will finish those 90% of the time as Tiglon says. The Hanson try in particular is a system fault as Daly is very narrow for no good reason with both his centres covering the space. If he'd held his width the pass to Hanson is a possible intercept or Hanson has to beat two players in a third of the space.