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[2023 Six Nations] England Squad

Geordiefalcon said:
On a similar line....I'm seeing an awful lot of people banging the drum for Freddie Steward to move to 12?

Anyone else seen this.. and whats your thoughts?
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I think it would be really dumb. The thing that makes Steward special is his aerial game. That gets nullified if he’s at 12.

There’s no reason he can’t fill a 12-like role in attack while still playing 15.
 
Geordiefalcon said:
On a similar line....I'm seeing an awful lot of people banging the drum for Freddie Steward to move to 12?

Anyone else seen this.. and whats your thoughts?
Click to expand...
Its what always happens in England.
Is he big? Is he a back? Ergo, he should play 12.

Same calls were made for Tim Simpson back in the day, it was tried with Banahan, same calls have been made about Cokanasiga... it was inevitable they'd be made about Steward too
 
Ragey Erasmus said:
Plus he quite often came into the centre to run a hard hitting centres line. He's the most powerful of our wingers and seems to be a guy who fully utilises it.
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I don’t really see it that way. You sometimes see him make ground in heavy traffic with a powerful hand off but I don’t actually see him as a particularly aggressive runner. At full pelt I’d expect him to break more tackles and make more ground than he does.

Others have rightly questioned his defence and his aerial game isn’t what you’d expect for a big guy. Some good offloading but the only thing we can say for sure is that he remains either unfulfilled potential or overhyped. If he can fulfil his potential he could bring something a bit different and I would love to see him succeed.

More to the winger role than tries of course, but his international tries smack a bit of flat track bully. Granted he’s had injuries etc but right now his record isn’t one of influencing big games.

AIs: One each against Jap, Aus and Arg

RWC warm ups: 1 against Wal, 2 in that hammering of Ire

RWC: 2 v USA

Summer tours: 2 v USA, 2 v Canada

6N: None
 
Old Hooker said:
I don’t really see it that way. You sometimes see him make ground in heavy traffic with a powerful hand off but I don’t actually see him as a particularly aggressive runner. At full pelt I’d expect him to break more tackles and make more ground than he does.

Others have rightly questioned his defence and his aerial game isn’t what you’d expect for a big guy. Some good offloading but the only thing we can say for sure is that he remains either unfulfilled potential or overhyped. If he can fulfil his potential he could bring something a bit different and I would love to see him succeed.

More to the winger role than tries of course, but his international tries smack a bit of flat track bully. Granted he’s had injuries etc but right now his record isn’t one of influencing big games.

AIs: One each against Jap, Aus and Arg

RWC warm ups: 1 against Wal, 2 in that hammering of Ire

RWC: 2 v USA

Summer tours: 2 v USA, 2 v Canada

6N: None
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2022 we had 0 winger tries with no Cokansiga. I don't think Cokanasiga was necessarily the problem. Also he only got 10 minutes against Wales and played the full game in the thrashing of Italy, where any tries he got would have been discounted anyway by the metric you are using. In what way is that a fair way to judge him? He's played a grand total of 90 minutes in the 6N. It's not his fault if the majority of his games have been against poor opposition.

2023-03-29_09h29_53.png

Those are his international games. Only the Feb and March 2019 were 6N games, with the loss to Wales being only 10 mins. Which good sides has he played outside that? You dismissed him against Australia, Japan, Ireland and Wales outside the 6N so what does that leave?
 
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Ragey Erasmus said:
2022 we had 0 winger tries with no Cokansiga. I don't think Cokanasiga was necessarily the problem. Also he only got 10 minutes against Wales and played the full game in the thrashing of Italy, where any tries he got would have been discounted anyway by the metric you are using. In what way is that a fair way to judge him? He's played a grand total of 90 minutes in the 6N. It's not his fault if the majority of his games have been against poor opposition.

View attachment 16521

Those are his international games. Only the Feb and March 2019 were 6N games, with the loss to Wales being only 10 mins. Which good sides has he played outside that? You dismissed him against Australia, Japan, Ireland and Wales outside the 6N so what does that leave?
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I think I’m arguing more with @Geordiefalcon who said Coka is proven. I don’t think he is. He can have very good moments, but his weaknesses can be evident at club level let alone the international stage.

I’m not dismissing him, but his game is a work in progress. His international career has been stop start, largely but not exclusively due to injury. His try ratio is very good, but you’d expect it to have been pretty similar for any other winger who’d played in those same games.

Be interesting to see what view Borthwick takes over time.
 
Yeah, I'm not anticipating an announcement, just funny how the timings worked out
 
TRF_Olyy said:
They're bringing in Ian Peel from Saracens at the end of the season I think (not sure if it's confirmed or just rumours?) - not much time to gel pre-RWC
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McCall now dismissing reports that Peel will join the England coaching team.
 
If Launchbury was back at a UK club, is he still good enough to play lock for England do we feel? Haven’t caught much of him in recent times but is a player I hugely respected.
 
TopTen2003 said:
If Launchbury was back at a UK club, is he still good enough to play lock for England do we feel? Haven’t caught much of him in recent times but is a player I hugely respected.
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I think the only real honest answer is that no one knows, but it’s absolutely worth getting him in the RWC camp to find out.
 
I read a theory in the paper the other day that Itoje tends to produce his best rugby when paired with a heavier duty lock such as Launch or Kruis. I can see the logic in that and he and Kruis certainly worked well although part of that would be club understanding.
 

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