EPS Watch / Player Form Thread

[Puja]

While injury isn't exactly a break, there could be worse news. Gives him a bit of time away from the grind of matchday and gives Isiekwe and Kpoku some more gametime.

Puja

[twitchy]

Itoje our for a few weeks with a chipped patella sustained on Eng duty.

They reckon he could miss the ireland game.

[Timbo]

Itoje our for a few weeks with a chipped patella sustained on Eng duty.

They reckon he could miss the ireland game.

Nah. And who’s ‘they’?

[Stom]

Itoje our for a few weeks with a chipped patella sustained on Eng duty.

They reckon he could miss the ireland game.

Nah. And who’s ‘they’?

It was definitely in the Granuaid. So he's probably going to miss 1 game for Sarries...

[Timbo]

Only mentioned in the Guardian as pure random, idle speculation though. Sarries say ‘several weeks’.

[twitchy]

[Raggs]

Funny that there's a discussion about painkillers and rugby going on at the moment. Wonder how fine he'd have felt without painkillers (I am of course presuming he's on them).

[Stom]

Funny that there's a discussion about painkillers and rugby going on at the moment. Wonder how fine he'd have felt without painkillers (I am of course presuming he's on them).

I have a dodgy kneecap that was also chipped many years ago. And, day to day - even during strenuous exercise - I couldn't really tell anything was wrong. There was slight discomfort and often the next day I had some pain, but nothing particularly "fuck me, I need painkillers".

When it was finally diagnosed - and it was years after because the NHS were useless and it took me meeting a family friend (of my then future wife) who's one of the top knee surgeons around, apparently) - he said that if I wanted to do regular, high level sport, I'd need an operation. But that for a normal life, I could just take a few steps to limit any problems.

Luckily, the closest sports I came to high level involved a swimming pool, so it was never under serious strain.

The long and the short of that pointless aside is: he may not have noticed it was bad - it could have felt like it was slightly uncomfortable and that's it.

[Raggs]

Fair enough.

[Stom]

Fair enough.

Oh, and as a further aside. I remember after I first did it. I thought I was healed and everything was fine. But I was walking down the steps at Clapham Junction when suddenly my knee gave way and swelled right up. Just the wrong movement.

That could explain how it suddenly got diagnosed properly after a few weeks. It took some specific movement for it to happen.

[Mikey Brown]

Fearns pretty anonymous as Lyon get spanked at home by Glasgow, just in case he was still angling for a call-up.

[Mellsblue]

[p/d]

Ruthless in the second half. Mako very good on his return, as were Lozowski and Maitland. Up front they were functional but miss the Kruis/Itoje engine.

That said thought cardiff’s Olly Robinson superb. Even though he was yellow carded.

[Timbo]

Ruthless in the second half. Mako very good on his return, as were Lozowski and Maitland. Up front they were functional but miss the Kruis/Itoje engine.

That said thought cardiff’s Olly Robinson superb. Even though he was yellow carded.

Olly Robinson was mostly very effective on the day, although personally not a huge fan of 7’s that constantly attack the ball at the ruck. He gave away 3 penalties and easily could have been 3 or 4 more- not to mention the fact that of the turnover penalties he won most could have been given the other way for off feet/no release. Hugely reliant on getting a kind ref.

[Scrumhead]

Agreed. A couple of very good turnovers but a number of dubious ones too. I’ve definitely been guilty of trying to hard to get turnovers too often. It’s a bit of a fool’s errand.

The reason I was so impressed by Jack Willis last season was the maturity/game sense to know when to jackal and when not to and when he did, his technique/body position were so good that there was no debate on whether he was on his feet or not.

I hope he comes back in that form.

[fivepointer]

Cokanasiga likely to be out for about a month with knee injury. May be struggling to make first 6N game.

[Digby]

Well that’s a kick in the gonads

[Mikey Brown]

Just throwing this out there. Goode is a tosser but he's kind of good at this and Marler is always entertaining.



Interesting what Marler says at the end, is it valid to say Moon/Marler would be 3rd/4th behind Mako/Genge? Genge looks hugely promising but has he really made a claim for an England shirt yet?

[Which Tyler]

Moon yes
Marler no

[Epaminondas Pules]

Can Redpath and Sam Moore make their returns from long term injury tonight for Sale Jets

[padprop]

For me, Genge has been and will be underwhelming at test level. He goes off script far too much and for every good 10 metre burst he makes, there are 3 runs where he runs sideways, encroaches on people’s space and gets tackled behind the Gainline.

Undoubted potential, but I don’t know if he’s coachable enough to play the same way as an international team, and defenses will be far superior. There’s also the fact that he’s a massive loose cannon to factor in.

He’s looked tidy in the scrum recently though, gave Racing some problems but the Leicester scrum did fade later on.

With everyone fit and available, loosehead pecking order for me would be:

Marler
Mako
Moon
Genge
Ruskin
Hepburn

[Puja]

For me, Genge has been and will be underwhelming at test level. He goes off script far too much and for every good 10 metre burst he makes, there are 3 runs where he runs sideways, encroaches on people’s space and gets tackled behind the Gainline.

Undoubted potential, but I don’t know if he’s coachable enough to play the same way as an international team, and defenses will be far superior. There’s also the fact that he’s a massive loose cannon to factor in.

He’s looked tidy in the scrum recently though, gave Racing some problems but the Leicester scrum did fade later on.

With everyone fit and available, loosehead pecking order for me would be:

Marler
Mako
Moon
Genge
Ruskin
Hepburn

Genge has only had 5 caps, all off the bench. Bit early to write him off. I do get your point about what he does in the loose not necessarily transferring to the senior stage, but I'd have him up there just for his scrummaging, which I think is one of the best in the Prem. I'd be more than a little bit worried about the odds of keeping 15 on the pitch with both him and Sinckler though.

One can never say good news about a player getting injured, but Stuart Townsend is out for the rest of the season. It's a shame for him, as he's a really solid Premiership player, but he and White have been blocking Jack Maunder from game time for the past 1.5 seasons and put England in the horrible position where Wigglesworth is probably our first choice 9. White is out for a few weeks as well, so with any luck Maunder can stake a claim and start tearing up the Premiership like he was doing in 2017.

Puja

[Scrumhead]

I like Genge too. I share some of padprop’s reservations about how well his game will translate to test rugby, but I don’t think it’s fair to suggest he’s not coachable. For one, we don’t know this and two, he managed to switch from the back row to prop pretty successfully, which indicates that he might be more receptive to coaching than he appears.

It’s very early days and I think Moon’s emergence is actually a good thing for Genge as it means we’re less likely to be looking for too much too soon from him.

I can’t be bothered to check now, but I’m pretty sure he started at least one game on the Argentina tour (if not both)?

[Epaminondas Pules]

It is a little odd this Genge talk. He's a loose cannon with a disciplinary record that is far superior to the likes of Marler over the same period. Don't seem to have seen much talk about Marler being a loose cannon. He's feisty, but for example how many yellows or reds for that edginess? Two yellow cards in the last three seasons total! And his play won't translate? Seriously? You lot talk some shit at times.

By the way 5 caps, 3 starts, 2 sub appearances.

[fivepointer]

5 caps is maybe a bit early to write someone off.
Ellis can be a bit volatile. You can see it in his play and he can be wound up but i dont mind a tight forward who wont back down. When hes playing well he is a real handful, both in the set piece and in the loose. He'll only get better and is someone who will win a lot more caps.