English summer rugby

[j'nuh]

So how long does everyone give until Robson becomes saviour of the English scrum-half spot?

It's worth it alone just to see this on team sheets:

... 7. Kvesic 8. Morgan 9. Robson 10. Burns 11. May 12. Twelvetrees ...

 

[TRF_Olyy]

You mean Nathan Fowles...?

England have a lot of decent young scrumhalves coming through, it's the ones who are slightly older so should be getting towards their peak that are failing to perform consistently.
I mean Youngs is what, 23? 24? Yet his best performances came in his first few caps when he was about 20, and he's rarely hit those heights since.

 

[Peat]

What gripes me about Lee Dickson is not his style, but the fact I don't think he's good enough at it. He can dilly-dally outrageously at rucks - I think he's the only guy I've seen get pinged under the 5 second rule - and his passing has its fair share of kinks. We're not talking about a Peter Stringer here.

I do flat out prefer sniping scrum-halves mind, and feel England's best rugby in the last 5 years came with one. I also think that with YoCare and Simpson, we can build around that style in the knowledge we're not going to run out any time soon. The more we see of a scrum-half running at the line with big/quick units hitting lines of his shoulder at pace, the happier I am, as I feel its the best way to build momentum, get over the gain line and suck defenders in. Actually, just runners off of nine hitting the ball at pace would be nice in general...

What sort of player is Fowles Olyy? Heard good things about him, but not seen too much. Between him, Robson and Ben Spencer, with Calum Braley and Stuart Townsend also highly rated as youngsters, hopefully we'll get a bit more pressure on the starting pair to step it up soon.


On a side note, I'm slightly worried by the pro-big club view Lancaster seems to be taking. Joe Simpson wasn't the only guy to lose out due to Wasps' bad form. The lack of Elliot Daly on the summer tour still makes me shake my head slightly, particularly when we had that oaf Joel Tompkins out there instead. Tompkins does not strike me as having England potential, Daly does. Look at Kvesic moving, look at the amount of international recognition Exeter have had. Not sure it gets the most out of things.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

Fowles is just a well rounded scrumhalf - quick accurate passer and doesn't eff around at the back of the ruck like a lot do, and surprisingly quick/nippy too. We played our best rugby last season (bar one game where Peel turned up) with him at 9.

Having Peel and Redpath as mentors certainly isn't going to harm his development either.

 

[Don't Skip Leg Day]

I do think we have lots of young scrum halves in england but all of them seem to have a weak part to thier game. I thought players like YOCare or Dickson would have improved on their weak areas rather than just not develop at all and thats a real worry that young players (i count all 3 as young still) havent really learned anythign from their international caps.

I don't think we will see anyone new come to the scene before the world cup i think it will be whoever is in the best form.

and to J'nuh - with a tigers esque front 5 i'd love to see that 7 - 12 gloucester combo. Scrap the usless sarries players who can't pass and play some backs and loose forwards who can! I think 12trees is the england centre we have needed for years. Can't really see another 12 challenging him.

 

[ratsapprentice]

I was browsing some stats yesterday, trying to see if I could see a pattern between SH's with obvious stylistic differences but had no luck really.
The stats obviously don't tell all that much...

The one thing I did notice is that Ben Young's tackle stats are significantly worse than pretty much every other SH.
He has barely makes any tackles (most players have 2-3 times the number over a season), and has missed loads, again a far higher percentage than most other players.

This is in all competitions BTW (Prem,Hiene,Intnl).

I'm not saying that's why he isnt good enough, I just found it interesting because I hadn't particularly noticed it when watching him.

I think Robson looks pretty good, I can't really speak for any of the other guys as I haven't seen them enough.


Actually, **** it... We need Fumiaki Tanaka!

 

[Patchey]

Actually, **** it... We need Fumiaki Tanaka!

+1

 

[Ragey Erasmus]

Actually, **** it... We need Fumiaki Tanaka!

+2

The speed of the Japanese recycling was a joy to behold. If England could get something like that, I'd be much happier.

 

[HenryChinaski]

On the 9 thing, I certainly think the problem with Youngs (and arguably Philips) as that they are CONSTANTLY looking to snipe - thus de-prioritising the needs of the fly-half and devaluing the surprise of a snipe. It should be a weapon best left every now and again as a way of testing fringe defences (and keeping them honest)

 

[ratsapprentice]

That's the problem for Youngs though, if he doesn't run at the line, then there are far better options than him.
So he has no real incentive to stop.

 

[j'nuh]

Ben Youngs/Mike Phillips make me think of someone who cannot be assed to go open a gate, so they just run straight through it.

Sniping is great, some wonderful tries can be scored that way. But scrum-halves, even Phillips, are tiny in comparison to the flankers and locks patrolling the breakdown area. Getting hit by one isn't going to help your team at all. So if you're gonna snipe, bloody put some effort into making the other team run around a bit. Don't snipe at a solid wall of defenders, preparing on the gain line. Take the game through a few phases, get your backs running, break the gain line and then snipe at a retreating defence.

And this is why Youngs/Phillips are pretty bad. They have very little awareness of when to do what. Plus their phase play is pretty pedestrian. I'd definitely take a player with an odd sliced box kick or the odd pass-to-nobody if it meant they knew how to build momentum.

 

[Peat]

I'd have to argue pretty strongly with the idea that Youngs or Philips are bad players. If nothing else, you do have as much presence in elite rugby as those guys do if you're bad. There's a lot of guys judging them on the Lions tests, and ignoring the majority of their careers.

I don't think Ben Youngs always looks for the snipe and never for the pass. I have seen Ben Youngs go for prolonged phases of play never looking for the snipe - or only look for it as a dummy prior to giving it to a forward runner. Danny Care is more of a pick and go addict if you ask me and the HEC statistics. I think Youngs could speed up his pass, but it's not slow enough to make him a bad player. Where his weakness lies is that when he's just going through the phases, he looks a little pre-programmed. He doesn't respond well to surprises - look at how indecisive he gets when he looks up and his runners aren't there. I'd question his instincts, his decision making. But then, he's the youngest player we're talking about.

I still like Youngs a lot as a player and will stick up for him. A lot of the problems disappear if you let him play his instinctual game - which is looking for runners around the fringes. The better his partnership with his fly-half, the stronger he plays, and if his pack gets on top then he gets the runners he wants. He hasn't really played with a dominant pack for a long time at international level. There's a very short list of scrum-halves who look good when their pack doesn't, and none of the English players are on it.

I've probably said this before, but I do think we go on about scrum-half far too much, because when the pack gets on top all of them perform, and when the pack doesn't none of them really get going, and a player who can ignore that isn't available. That said, Joe Simpson has had more practice of it than the other contenders, so maybe we should give him a go!

 

[j'nuh]

I'm more of the opinion that we don't consider scrum-halves enough, simply because the only pacemaker in the team is the scrum-half. The scrum-half decides precisely how fast the game goes. Yeah, some flankers/8s carry faster or a backline has faster moves, but it is down to the scrum-half on every single play to decide how the next play will go. When to recycle quickly and when the team is too out-of-position to recycle. Contrast this to the fly-half being the main backline decision-maker: when to kick, when to attack, when to pass down the line.

A scrum-half with strong phase control will be a great aid to a forward pack. In other words, scrum-halves need to help forwards get dominance. eg, the scrum-half that is able to get the ball to forward carriers so they have a bigger chance of breaking the gain line is the one that is gonna generate more room for themselves on the next phase.

I genuinely believe that the Lions were stronger in most positions, and it was the quality difference between Genia and the B&I scrum-halves that kept Australia close in the first two tests.

 

[ratsapprentice]

I was interested, so I compared some stats from a couple of SH's:

Those are the average numbers from the last 10 starts they have made at international level.
If they were subbed off, then I figured out the number they would have posted had they played the whole 80.

 

[Peat]

Youngs kicked more than any of the other main English scrum-halves in the Heineken as well. I'd suggest its far more of a feature in his game than most other scrum-halves.

j'nuh, a scrum-half can only clear the ball away as quickly as presented. That is the major source of how quickly you play the game imo. Genia is a master and was a big standout, but credit to his pack for getting the ball out so cleanly, and a slight look of askance at the Lions who didn't do much about slowing it down. Mindyou, a lot of the Ozzie success imo came from Genia attacking the fringes and passing to a big runner. That's what created the momentum a lot of the time. Could we replicate that? It's really rare we see English guys attacking a pass from the scrum-half at that pace.

 

[j'nuh]

Changing it into percentages so it's easier to compare

K/P/R (%):

Genia - 7/85/8
Youngs - 14/82/4
Smith - 8/87/5

This doesn't tell the full picture either. But it's pretty interesting regardless.

re: Peat. I think you misunderstood me. I'm trying to say that if the ball isn't being presented quickly enough, it's often the fault of the scrum-half on the previous plays. If the ball becomes stale, there are many methods of generating momentum. Tight carries, a pod of runners, dummy running, midfield crashing (we've got Tuilagi available for this) etc. The scrum-half needs to employ the momentum-generating strategy and then with momentum, presentation comes easy.

This is because, if you generate momentum, you hit the gainline. Because of this, defenders have to track backwards. This does two things: it opens up holes to snipe, and it makes contesting the ball harder*, making presentation easier.

* This happens because hitting the gainline topples the defender backwards. They'll struggle to get back to their feet to contest. It also means further defenders have to track back around the ruck before contesting, making it difficult to slow or steal. It also gives your support some room to clear out the ruck zone.

All in all, momentum is cyclical. If you have momentum and execute it well enough, you build more momentum. If you don't have momentum, you need a strategy to start the cycle. England's strategy is to kick the ball away. <_<

 

[Peat]

Again, I disagree. If a scrum-half doesn't have runners who can challenge the gainline, or guys hitting the ball at pace - if he doesn't have the very basic components - it doesn't matter too much what he chooses to do. Look at that England team again. There was a very obvious lack of ball carriers, and we've got very few runners who commit to taking the ball at speed. We only had - hah, have - one real gainline breaker in the backs.

There's only so much he can do if not enough guys are committed to the rucks as well. Another weakness after the first few games.

I do not wish to dismiss the scrum-half's role in producing quick ball. But his ability to do some relies on some even deeper fundamentals that I did not think were there. Lets see what happens with a pack containing Corbs and Morgan, with Vunipola and Attwood to call on.

As for kicking, we kicked 139 times in the Six Nations. France kicked more, Scotland kicked the same, Italy kicked the least with 127 kicks. 27.8 kicks a game for us. New Zealand kicked the ball 28 times or more in 4 of their 6 RC games. Their average is 24.6*. Our kicking game is not overused - badly used maybe, but we aren't kicking outrageously more than the rest of the world.

 

[ratsapprentice]

I agree with both of you to be honest. I think it's a bit of both.
We do have good ball carriers, but we also have players in crucial positions who should be good ball carriers, but aren't.

Two prime examples are Cole and Robshaw.
Dan Cole is one of my favorite players, he is world class. But his ball carrying isn't what it should be.
He started all of the 6N matches, playing for 376 minutes. Davey Wilson played for a grand total of 24 minutes.
Cole made 17 metres in 10 carries. Wilson made 9 metres in 2 carries.
The stats bear out in the premiership too, where Wilson made more than double the metres Cole did.

The main problem with Cole is that he almost always loses momentum in the tackle, or he goes to ground almost before he is even tackled.
The same goes for Chris Robshaw, he makes very few metres (compared with both 6's and 7's) and loses momentum with his carries.

This is not necessarily a problem if you are managing to build momentum without these guys.
And let's face it, for both of them, work rate is their main attribute.
You just need to select your team knowing you will need very good ball carriers elsewhere to counteract their weakness.

The general lack of momentum from ball carriers, and Youngs' encroachment/late delivery is what's stifling their attempts to build momentum.

 

[Peat]

Youngs' delivery isn't a problem for Leicester. There's been many games where it's not been a problem for England. It should be cleaner, but... I still support Youngs as England's number 1 scrum-half in theory.

Also, Robshaw has been repeatedly doing the hard yards, and it's impacting his stats. He's not part of the problem here, not imo.

 

[ratsapprentice]

Also, Robshaw has been repeatedly doing the hard yards, and it's impacting his stats. He's not part of the problem here, not imo.

I'm not saying he is, really.
Having two players who are poor ball carriers (and they are, imo) shouldn't matter all that much if you have other players who can make yards and generate momentum.
Which we didn't have when Morgan was injured. This is all compounded by our relatively lightweight pack, which Lancaster is obviously looking to remedy.

Youngs' delivery isn't a problem against domestic defenses, it can be against a fast pressing international one from what I've seen.
He still takes a second or two (or a yard or two) before getting the ball away, no matter how fast the defense comes up.