RugbyRebels

Digby wrote:

Puja wrote:

Digby wrote:Prep is important, better players likely more important still. I mean okay if your levels of fatigue/prep are simply god awful it's going to be a thing, but the relative gains in this area aren't likely to be chalk and cheese.

But we are currently getting all of our best players because of our previous hard line on the matter. So now we get to have both prep and best players.

Puja

Rarely has that resulted in a string of strong performances and results so tiny whoop. And if we were say to lose Ford and both Vunipolas to France in the next season or so then not so much anyway.

Mikey Brown wrote:Hmm. I’d question all of that.

Mellsblue wrote:Best players/squad in the short term but would some players, and therefore Eng, benefit in the long term from stints abroad? Marchant, Gareth Thomas and Stephen Jones are all on record as saying stints in NZ/France improved them. Plenty* who say differently, obvs.

*including Andy Goode who moaned about the lack of player welfare in France without grasping the irony of the fact he spent most of his career confusing casual onlookers as to why Leicester had three props on the pitch.

Scrumhead wrote:

FKAS wrote:

Scrumhead wrote:
I agree. Although it’s not really accurate to label Smith as a ‘flair merchant’. He certainly has flair, but that helps to create a false narrative that he is a maverick type of 10, when his game management is now top notch. Quins love broken field, but a lot of our play is a lot more structured than you’d think.

I’m not suggesting that’s what you meant BTW - I just worry that flair = maverick in a lot of people’s minds which creates doubt.

I disagree. His game management is much better than he's often given credit for but it is not top notch and nowhere near it. He failed, along with Care, to keep Sale at arm's distance the other week which meant their pack tired, fell off the pace due to the number of phases of defence required. Last season Youngs and Ford provided a masterclass in how a lesser team can dominate a game at WR, this included a period where with a two player advantage Care and Smith messed around inside their own 22 and lost the 15 v 13 period by 3-0.

Smith is an excellent 10 but he's not the finished article and I do worry that some fans and the media who are building up into the Messiah for English rugby are forgetting that he's 22 and that most starting international flyhalfs are older than that for good reason. You learn game management as you get older. Smith may end up as the premier 10 in the world but right now he's merely very good.

I just hope Smith gets a proper backline to work with and not the type of unbalanced crap Ford had to try and drag round the park.

I’m not ‘building him up into the Messiah for English rugby’, but I do think you’re being overly harsh when you say his game management is ‘nowhere near’ top notch. For your one example of him not managing a game particularly well, there are plenty of examples of him doing the total opposite.

Do I think his game management will improve with age/experience, 100%, yes. I just think his current skill set in that area is higher than you appear to.

Thanks for dismissing me to the ‘some fans’ club though.

Puja wrote:

Digby wrote:

Puja wrote:
But we are currently getting all of our best players because of our previous hard line on the matter. So now we get to have both prep and best players.

Puja

Rarely has that resulted in a string of strong performances and results so tiny whoop. And if we were say to lose Ford and both Vunipolas to France in the next season or so then not so much anyway.

We did get to the RWC final. Granted, we'd all've been happier if we'd won, but it's not bad.

Puja

Mellsblue wrote:

Puja wrote:

Mellsblue wrote:

Referenced that in the other thread but it got buried under the novel Fazonavirus news. I'm dubious about those stats considering they're a) from the Daily Fail and b) have two obvious errors in Hill getting capped after being an apprentice and there being a fairly large omission in their list of Eddie debutants. They're already trying to push the narrative that he's only found Curry and Underhill, and they're already struggling by trying to claim that Daly and Sinckler "don't really count" for some reason, but that narrative takes another hit if you notice that they've somehow entirely forgotten about Maro Itoje.

Puja

Danno wrote:

Puja wrote:

Mellsblue wrote:

Referenced that in the other thread but it got buried under the novel Fazonavirus news. I'm dubious about those stats considering they're a) from the Daily Fail and b) have two obvious errors in Hill getting capped after being an apprentice and there being a fairly large omission in their list of Eddie debutants. They're already trying to push the narrative that he's only found Curry and Underhill, and they're already struggling by trying to claim that Daly and Sinckler "don't really count" for some reason, but that narrative takes another hit if you notice that they've somehow entirely forgotten about Maro Itoje.

Puja

Was the 'Eddie's favourite team' thing? Because that also ignored the fact that all of Curry's 30+ caps came from Eddie in favour of the 18 (iirc) given to Robshaw, of all people.

Danno wrote:I just found it odd since Robshaw was a player he name checked in an opinion piece before he even got the HC role. Everyone, including Robshaw, knew his days were numbered and it was mainly down to a paucity of international standard English flankers at the time that he managed 18 appearances under EJ

Danno wrote:I just found it odd since Robshaw was a player he name checked in an opinion piece before he even got the HC role. Everyone, including Robshaw, knew his days were numbered and it was mainly down to a paucity of international standard English flankers at the time that he managed 18 appearances under EJ