Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Come on England... | |
Posted by: | Michael Robinson | |
Date/Time: | 05/10/15 11:03:00 |
"Unlike Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Ireland we don't have a squad packed with players at their absolute peak with bags of experience." However England has almost 50 times the playing base of Australia, 13 times the playing base of Ireland and NZ and only S Africa comes close as England has only 3 times more players than them. There is no shortage of talent in the English system and perhaps this embarrassment of riches is the issue. Lancaster chopped and changed players but there didn't seem to be much in the way of development. It is unlikely that a player will perform at their best early in their international career and they need the experience and accumulation of caps over time. The thing is, Lancaster knew this and he said over 3 years ago he wanted to get a certain level of caps in the team by the time of the RWC, but he failed to hit his own target by a long margin with too many players tried and discarded. Trying out Burgess was the worst example of this. The game against Wales was huge and yet Lancaster picks someone with what, 2 previous international caps? Jeez... (assuming that it was Lancaster's decision and not Farrell's, or the RFU putting pressure to pick him to repay the money they'd spent...) The list of Rugby League converts who have flopped in Union is considerably longer than the list who have been successful. Picking bashing centres like Barritt and Burgess is fine, but then the pack needs to be full of bashers as well. Going for a more expansive game is fine, but then you don't pick players like Barritt and Burgess in the centre. So it is either the case that Lancaster didn't know how to identify his best team, style of play and stick with this so they develop the experience, in which case, there isn't much point keeping him. Or, he did know but didn't have the strength of conviction to stick with this, particularly if Farrell and others were dominating the discussion and forcing their own view of the world. That doesn't look great for him either. |