Puja wrote:I was having this thought about selections earlier and wanted to see what the brain trust thought. Gatland's been picking some very well shuffled sides for his first games, which I'm sure is lovely in terms of team bonding, but surely isn't particularly good for cohesion and momentum.
Wouldn't it have made more sense to pick a Saracens-heavy XV for one game, an Ireland-heavy XV for another, a Welsh-heavy side to lose the third, etc. You'd get less blending, but you'd also have Murray and Sexton playing together or Mako, George, Itoje and Kruis hunting as a pack, rather than people looking slightly lost at what the others are doing.
Given Gatland, it might still have been a disaster, but I can't help but feel it might've been resulted in a more auspicious start to the series.
Puja
I'd have thought that you would already know enough about the Saracens/Irish/Welsh combinations to know what they will bring to a test. Surely it's more useful to look at how players who usually oppose each other play together? I haven't heard anyone talk about an in situ 9/10 combo that the AB's should fear.
I guess the choice is momentum vs integrating players from different sides. He's got plenty of training time and games to look at combinations, but he'll never get these first two games back.
canta_brian wrote:I don't think your current combos beat the Abs. They might win some of the other tour games.
If you try some unusual stuff you might sacrifice some additional tour games but find a spark that could see them competitive in the tests.
Or you could find nothing and lose everything.
Depends what you call success. Would you be happy with a three nil test series and a few non test wins?
Or would you rather risk a bit knowing it may lead to losing everything looking for a chance to win the tests?
I like the latter approach but I think it sounds more SCW than Gatland - who doesn't strike me as the experimental type and seems of rather conservative DNA.
