English summer rugby

[Peat]

That Wales team was lucky to be in the SF - Ireland rather than Australia in the QF - and were never going to win the tournament. Nor were Australia. It was New Zealand's to lose - just like it was England's in 2003 - because experience and familiarity matter. Yes, each side had a few bolters breaking in at the last moment, but the majority of the side had been together for a long time and it told. It made a difference. In an ideal world we'd have the same thing going into 2015. If we are making that tournament our absolute priority, then we should be striving to create that - which means locking down the squad as much as possible now and picking players who will hit their peak then.

I do not want to advocate a 2015 at all costs mentality. There are serious downsides, which ratsapprentice points out, which we've all lived through as England fans. But if people are using "Develop for 2015" as an argument then, imo, that actually favours Flood. It certainly doesn't go against him. And the argument "We can always switch back to him if they don't make it" is a really poor one. It's poor in general, but really poor if we've talking about developing a team.

I don't think Burns is as good as Flood right now. There's a pretty big difference in terms of defence and Flood has been through more pressure situations, albeit not always successfully. I trust Flood to do the right thing more. I certainly don't think Farrell is as good. Both have the potential to be as good, but Flood's the only guy who's shown he can be a top fly-half when given the tools he needs - I think a lot of you are seriously underrating him. If I'm playing tomorrow, I back my best fly-half that day. That guy is Flood. It should be up to Farrell and Burns to prove otherwise, both in the AP and with international chances they get. I do not believe either man has done it yet, although I know Lancaster disagrees. And, really, for his purposes, he may be right. Personally, I'd build a team around Youngs/Flood having a real crack at the fringes repeatedly - our strongest pairing playing their strongest game. Lancaster believes otherwise, with mixed results, which is fair enough - but he should probably get rid of Youngs as well if that's his plan.

Also, side-note, this idea that George Ford hated it at Leicester and it was destroying his confidence is really weird considering he's been in and around the first team since 16 and had plenty of chances to leave before then. I think he wasn't that good because we overhyped him and had false expectations - and I think he left because his dad offered him a first team place elsewhere, and he has a wee bit of entitlement.

 

[Don't Skip Leg Day]

You really want all 3 FH's in the squad. Farrell and Burns WILL get better as they are both young and should be gathering caps where as Flood is the backup and it he gathers a bit of form will put pressure on these two which is needed.

Put it this way having Farrell and Burns in the squad should do......Farrell learns more of Burns attacking threat....Burns deveolps a better defencive game.

I just hope the style that england play is improved becasue i saw more attacking threat in 1 game with the lions than however many sarries and england boring matches!

 

[Patchey]

I don't think Burns is as good as Flood right now. There's a pretty big difference in terms of defence and Flood has been through more pressure situations, albeit not always successfully. I trust Flood to do the right thing more. I certainly don't think Farrell is as good. Both have the potential to be as good, but Flood's the only guy who's shown he can be a top fly-half when given the tools he needs - I think a lot of you are seriously underrating him. If I'm playing tomorrow, I back my best fly-half that day. That guy is Flood. It should be up to Farrell and Burns to prove otherwise, both in the AP and with international chances they get. I do not believe either man has done it yet, although I know Lancaster disagrees. And, really, for his purposes, he may be right. Personally, I'd build a team around Youngs/Flood having a real crack at the fringes repeatedly - our strongest pairing playing their strongest game. Lancaster believes otherwise, with mixed results, which is fair enough - but he should probably get rid of Youngs as well if that's his plan.

Also, side-note, this idea that George Ford hated it at Leicester and it was destroying his confidence is really weird considering he's been in and around the first team since 16 and had plenty of chances to leave before then. I think he wasn't that good because we overhyped him and had false expectations - and I think he left because his dad offered him a first team place elsewhere, and he has a wee bit of entitlement.

I was at Twickenham for the England/Italy Six Nations game this year where Flood started due to Farrell being injured. The most frustrating part of the whole experience was that, in the backs, he was our best player. I lost count of the number of times those little shimmying breaks he does so well got him over the gain line only for no one to be on his shoulder for the offload and for the forwards to be too slow getting to the breakdown, resulting in either a turnover or painfully slow ball. I'm not quite as keen on Flood as you but that experience made me think much more kindly upon him and less kindly on whatever tactical system had the other fourteen players wearing white not realising they needed to act in support. I still favour Burns as England's starting 10 come 2015 but think Flood really shouldn't be written off. His issue is either adapting his personal game to what England want from him or convincing the England management that they should adapt to him. Of course normally you'd expect the style of play of your fly half to dictate what the rest of the backs do but as the Italy game showed, that doesn't seem to be the case here.

I have to disagree regarding Ford though, it seems to me that Leicester/Cockrill's attitude towards him has always been rather negative, similar to the way Twelvetrees was regarded during his time there. Best example of this for me comes not during this season, when his form has really dropped, but at the end of his breakthrough season. In the run up to the Quins/Tigers Premiership final it was fairly common knowledge that Flood was injured and probably wouldn't make it into the match day squad. Some PR blunder lead to the England medical team, who'd been monitoring him in regards to the upcoming South Africa tour, making this information semi-official. While the Leicester management were rightly p*ssed that information regarding their selection has effectively been leaked I remember thinking it odd that they were so negative. Rather than a statement along the lines of 'We're working on Toby's fittness but its no big deal because we can replace him with an ex-JWC Finalist whose had a cracking season and is being talk of as a dead certainty for future England honours' the, 'Toby will play because he is our best fly half and we play our best players in finals' vibe Tigers gave out was a terrible indictment of their feelings towards Ford (in my view at least). Shortly afterwards Tigers negotiated Ford not going away with England so he could have a full pre-season and bulk up, only for him to spectacularly stay in the same shape. Obviously none of us are in the Leicester camp but it seemed to me that they were never really entirely happy with having Ford on their books. If the way Twelvetrees has flourished since leaving is anything to go by then moving to Bath will do Ford (and therefore England) a lot of good.

 

[ratsapprentice]

I was at Twickenham for the England/Italy Six Nations game this year where Flood started due to Farrell being injured.

Urgh.... "give it to Manu-ball"

I don't know why you're so sure it was Ford being a brat, Peat?
There have been plenty of other examples of players simply not fitting into the environment at Leicester.
Twelvetrees being a prominent recent example.
I don't find it hard to believe that some people simply don't like working with Cockerill...

There's nothing to rule out out your explanation however, so the proof (may be) in the pudding.

 

[Peat]

Ah here, I didn't say he was a brat. What I mean is that Ford reckons he should be a Premiership starter, and has left Leicester because that's not happening, and I'd find that a more understandable point of view if he'd made a genuine argument for being a Premiership starter in his chances this season. He had a lot of them, I forget how many games he started but he had a good run at the start of the season, and he didn't take his chance. He's not willing to serve his apprenticeship - and to a certain extent, good on him! Fair play to him for backing himself. But, equally, he's left a great club for producing internationals to a place with a patchy record at the moment, and maybe a bit of patience and "Well, I'm not good enough, which means I need to learn and fight" would have been the better path. We'll never know. But I do think that is the main reason he left. First team rugby. And I think it's the main reason Twelvetrees left too.

To me, this is the simplest explanation and therefore probably the correct one. Neither were getting it, both were offered it. If there had been talks of trouble in their previous long association with Leicester, or they'd mouthed off when leaving a la Castro, I might believe different. But there hasn't been. That said, I am in no ways sure - and there's no doubt Cockerill probably does pee off some people. I certainly believe that Cockerill believed in him though, Leicester have given Ford a rake of gametime and backed him more heavily than just about any other youngster in their recent history, which to me says more than the quotes. That said, maybe the quotes did affect him, although I think he's a wee bit soft if they did.

And Patchy, I completely agree with you on England/Flood adaption. Flood is at his strongest attacking the gainline and either making a break himself, or finding a support runner. If there's no support runners, his game's not going to work. And, much as I like Flood, if we're not going to play that game, I wouldn't pick him.

 

[Patchey]

I think the difference between Twelvetrees and Ford is that Twelvetrees had an incredible season at Leicester and never got the reward in terms of consistent game time. Ford played well for a season and got more game time as a result but then didn't perform as well as hoped. In both player's positions its understandable taking a offer from another club who are offering you more game time but of the two Twelvetrees was probably more justified seeing as Leicester didn't seem to want him to be anything other than cover for 10/12. That being said Tigers signed a new fly half (possibly two?) for next season before Ford confirmed the move so maybe he felt his game time was going to be at risk if he stayed.

The thing we are, in a way, ignoring here is that England don't seem capable of having more than one or two good fly halves as a time. Obviously you're always going to have your number one choice but it seems for a country with so many players and more importantly, so many domestic sides, we can't turn potential at age group level into professional performances. To take New Zealand as an example, while DC has obviously been their number one choice at fly half for years they have, off the top of my head, also churned out Nick Evans, Stephen Donald, Colin Slade, Aaron Cruden and most recently Beauden Barret in the time Carter has been an All Black (and indeed Carter was developed as a player while Spencer was playing ten right?). All of those players, with the exception of Donald, would get into the match day squad or starting for England at the moment. Obviously New Zealand have an incredible rugby pedigree and the sport is taken much more seriously on a national level there than over here. However I think it would be lazy to just say 'well they turn out so many good players because that is what New Zealand does'. Is there any reason England can't have three or four international standard fly halves at any given time? We've just won the JWC having been finalists two years before and are consistently the best Northern Hemisphere team at age group level and our domestic teams perform (mostly) better than Welsh, Scottish or Irish sides. Is it really too much to ask that we have more than Freddie Burns to truly get excited about in the number ten jersey?


(Wow, that turned into a rant really quickly...)

 

[Peat]

Ford's move was known about on the forums a long time before it was announced officially - I think due to legal reasons - and probably known to Leicester even earlier. I feel fairly safe in saying signings were made after he'd moved on and not before.

 

[Patchey]

Ford's move was known about on the forums a long time before it was announced officially - I think due to legal reasons - and probably known to Leicester even earlier. I feel fairly safe in saying signings were made after he'd moved on and not before.

I stand corrected, I thought the transfer speculation was sparked by the new signings, not the other way around. Thanks.

 

[ratsapprentice]

Is the number of foreign FH's affecting our ability to produce more players capable of playing there internationally?

By my count, 5 of the 12 prem teams had foreigners as their first choice last season.

 

[j'nuh]

That Wales team was lucky to be in the SF - Ireland rather than Australia in the QF - and were never going to win the tournament. Nor were Australia. It was New Zealand's to lose - just like it was England's in 2003 - because experience and familiarity matter. Yes, each side had a few bolters breaking in at the last moment, but the majority of the side had been together for a long time and it told. It made a difference. In an ideal world we'd have the same thing going into 2015. If we are making that tournament our absolute priority, then we should be striving to create that - which means locking down the squad as much as possible now and picking players who will hit their peak then.

The Wales team thoroughly deserved the semi final. They lost to SA by only one point in the pools, beating Samoa by 7. They beat Ireland by 12 in the quarters. They should have won the semi. Retrospectively, losing by one point when down to 14 players? Wales had to win had they kept their captain. As for the final, all that experience and quality and NZ still scrapped for their lives. France came within a penalty of winning the damn tournament. France. I think it just goes to show that world cups cannot be predicted on whose it is to lose. There was no notable gulf in quality from the experienced and quality NZ of the final, and the Wales of the semis.

There was a notable gulf between these teams and bloody England. England played the long game too far out. They resisted starting or even playing Tuilagi until the damn tournament came around. They also shouldn't have stuck with: Wilko, Stevens, Deacon, Moody (when Wood was in awesome form as a 7), Wigglesworth, Banahan, Haskell, Hape for all those years.

Do you remember what happened? England had a system that they had in place for years. The system fell apart during the tournament. We scraped past Georgia, Scotland and Argentina in the pools. It was very clearly a game plan that wasn't going to do anything memorable in the knockouts. So we put in place our plan B. We ditched Tindall and Hape halfway through the tournament (when it should have been done a year or two in advance) and played Flood off Wilko plus Tuilagi.

I still remember everyone criticising MJ for not using Allen or Barritt in advance of the tournament. So what I'm trying to say is, we're setting ourselves up for failure if we just say "this is the team for the next two years".

I don't think Burns is as good as Flood right now. There's a pretty big difference in terms of defence and Flood has been through more pressure situations, albeit not always successfully. I trust Flood to do the right thing more. I certainly don't think Farrell is as good. Both have the potential to be as good, but Flood's the only guy who's shown he can be a top fly-half when given the tools he needs - I think a lot of you are seriously underrating him. If I'm playing tomorrow, I back my best fly-half that day. That guy is Flood. It should be up to Farrell and Burns to prove otherwise, both in the AP and with international chances they get. I do not believe either man has done it yet, although I know Lancaster disagrees. And, really, for his purposes, he may be right. Personally, I'd build a team around Youngs/Flood having a real crack at the fringes repeatedly - our strongest pairing playing their strongest game. Lancaster believes otherwise, with mixed results, which is fair enough - but he should probably get rid of Youngs as well if that's his plan.

I think this is where we disagree. If there is any difference in quality between the two, it is slight, and with the rate at which Freddie is improving, he will be the better of the two in 2015. I would personally say that Burns is better right now. You can hide a player's defensive game. But Freddie is leagues ahead of Toby in running the ball and distributing.

A good reason to want Freddie is that he represents a risk. We can't win by playing the kicking percentages and game control. Without knowing the stats, I'd imagine Australia have been the most successful team vs. the All Blacks. Maybe we need to play like Australia (but with a solid scrum to boot) and take some risks to try and beat better teams.

Is the number of foreign FH's affecting our ability to produce more players capable of playing there internationally?

By my count, 5 of the 12 prem teams had foreigners as their first choice last season.

Well, 7 out of 12 didn't have foreigners then, and that's more flyhalves than there are clubs of every other nation except for France!

Besides, we don't really have the quality to fill any more than 7 places.

Flood-Burns-Farrell-Ford-Slade represents some good present and possible future competition. Also, has anyone ever considered Ben Botica? He lived in England for eight years as a child, he could be an option?

 

[TRF_Olyy]

Botica could definitely be a good option at 10 - would leave a slightly sour taste in the mouth at first but he's very very talented.


We're forgetting though:

 

[Aristodemus]

Looking at 2015 I think we are in decent shape myself, but right now we are at a crossroads. What we need is to play an attacking style, which we haven't under Lancaster, and pick players who fit that style. Farrell and Barritt at 10/12 won't create tries against half decent opposition and then we rely on our forwards winning an arm wrestle. As I said before I think Farrell would be good for the bench so I wouldn't ditch him entirely but Barritt I would. Burns, Twelvetrees, Tuilagi is going to cause huge problems and more importantly score tries and make breaks. I think defensively they can all do a good job too. Goode at fullback this 6N was a poor joke by Lancaster too, Brown earned his shot over and over whilst he was Foden's bridesmaid then he gets stuck on the wing in place of Goode. If we are to compete for the WC we need to go out and win games not hope we don't lose, we have the players for it.

 

[Patchey]

Botica could definitely be a good option at 10 - would leave a slightly sour taste in the mouth at first but he's very very talented.


We're forgetting though:

Beautiful photoshoping. What kind of competition for the 10 shirt is Cips going to face at Sale this year? He needs some serious game time to get back in the EPS.

As I have nothing better to do with my time, here is a break down of the 'depth' at 10 we currently have:

Burns: The one with the potential. Seriously hyped but, if we're honest, hasn't been tested against a full strength, top quality test side (baring five minutes at the end of the NZ game).

Farrell: The one currently in the shirt. Seen as a cool head and reliable pair of hands. A serious analysis of his performances, especially in the latter half of this season, shows that his much talked about composure isn't quite as solid as the pundits like to tell us. Still kicks like a metronome and showed some signs of improvement on attack with the Lions though.

Flood: The frustrating one. As we've discussed, could be a real leader for England come 2015. The problem with him is that he either doesn't bring his club level performances to the international stage or England aren't set up tactically to use his best game.

Ford: Had the hype, has now lost it to Burns. A good season at Bath and maybe a touring place next summer could change that. Needs to bulk up as his current build is just begging for the opposition back row to run down his channel all day.

Cippriani: The outside bet. If he manages to string a few games together and starts tackling players the same way he stops buses he might come back into contention. Not likely to be back in the fold come 2015.

Steenson: England qualified on residence. Stuart Barnes keeps chatting about how he'd be great for England, therefore he would not be great for England...

Botica: A really left field choice. Qualified for England, Wales and New Zealand and would be welcome in all three. Showing bags of natural talent and learning from a true world class 10 in the form of Nick Evans at Quins. Screw what the rest of the world thinks, we should make him an offer. Can also player twelve.

Slade: Too young now but aside from his ridiculous kicking style was impressive at the JWC. Not exactly 2015 material though.


Have I missed anyone?

 

[ratsapprentice]

Burns: (baring five minutes at the end of the NZ game).

20 minutes and 6 points thank you very much.


I don't think you can argue against Ford based on his physical attributes and not say the same for Burns.
Both need to get bigger.

 

[j'nuh]

Have I missed anyone?

Myle-

Wait, no, I think you got them all.

Cannot wait for this season. I think HC exposure will really help the England claims for Burns, Twelvetrees, May and Kvesic (and Sharples?).

 

[Patchey]

20 minutes and 6 points thank you very much.

Oh alright! Was it really that long? I was so excited about being in a position to beat the All Blacks I left reality for a short space of time.

Myle-

Wait, no, I think you got them all.

+1

 

[TRF_Olyy]

Beautiful photoshoping. What kind of competition for the 10 shirt is Cips going to face at Sale this year? He needs some serious game time to get back in the EPS.

He's up against MacLeod and Ford the elder.
No idea what the pecking order will be. Minus ford I would've said cippers first choice with Macleod rotating in, but no idea how Ford will perform/fit in.


Sent from my GT-I9305 using Rugby Forum mobile app

 

[Patchey]

I though Joe Ford was a fullback at Leeds? At any rate I hope Sale have a better season in general from a Cips/England point of view.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

He's a 10 who also plays 15, like Tommy Bell when he was at Leeds/Sale (and now Wasps).

Sent from my GT-I9305 using Rugby Forum mobile app

 

[Peat]

Ok, third time of asking on this post...

I am not advocating a locked-down squad. It would give us the best chance of 2015 if we got it right, but there's too big a possibility of getting it wrong, and it creates problems after the tournament. Ideally, you get a team/squad that locks itself in for a long period of time, but that hasn't happened yet, and it has to happen naturally. Also, a look at the winning World Cup teams show that while there's a lot of familiarity and experience in there, there's also a lot of new faces who break in shortly before in great form.

But some people seem to be suggesting locking in Burns and Farrell to give them time to develop for 2015. And, if we are going to lock in, I'd rather lock in players who will be hitting what is a peak age and level of experience for most players than players who might have matured into fine internationals and done their apprenticeship by then. Which is Flood rather than Burns and Farrell.

And I think j'nuh is very much underrating how much experience - both in terms of individual experience, and in terms of working together - matters in rugby. I do not think it is the be-all and end-all, but it clearly makes a huge difference. I would say that Wales' appearance in the semi-final was both deserved and lucky. They beat the teams they had to beat playing good rugby - but does anyone seriously believe they would have got there if forced to play Australia in the quarter-final? The history books suggest it would have been very unlikely. I don't believe they would have, and the logical conclusion is that they were lucky not to play them. And as I don't believe they would have beaten New Zealand or South Africa either, the logical conclusion is they were never going to win it. J'nuh reckons the closeness of the semi-final and the final suggests the teams were on a very close level. I disagree. Those sort of matches are often very close, closer than strength on paper would indicate, it's dues to the nerves and intensity of the occasion, but if one side consistently wins the tight games and the other consistently loses them, then I do not see the teams as being close to each other. New Zealand consistently won the tight games around them. Wales have been consistently losing tight games to the Sanzar teams. And one of the reasons teams win or lose tight games is experience, which translates into the know-how and confidence to deal with the pressure and not make silly mistakes. Not everyone has to be experienced - the team NZ used in the final is probably one of the least experienced and cohesive teams that won it - but there has to be a core, which NZ had in spades. The Welsh did not have it, and I do not believe we are going to have it either.

I also have to challenge his representation of Johnson's World Cup, which I find severely flawed. I don't think we played the long game - if anything, we made an abrupt change at the last moment - and there were a lot of changes in the 18 months preceding. Cole, Youngs, Ashton and Foden all only really only came into the reckoning in the 2010 Six Nations. Palmer cam back in along with Lawes and Hape in the 2010 Summer tour. I'm not saying Hape was a good thing, but he wasn't a long standing thing. That's 5 members of the team who'd only really been part of it for 18 months tops - not including Lawes or Hape as they didn't really start many World Cup games. In the warm-ups there were more changes - Wigglesworth and Stevens were only reintroduced at this point, Tuilagi got his first games, and we switched from Flood to Wilkinson and Hartley to Thompson, changing two guys who'd been starting for pretty much the last year prior to that.

I would describe that as a pretty major list of changes, with the switch from Flood to Wilkinson also changing our style. It's not a particularly conservative list of changes either. Incidentally, to expand on the Tuilagi point, he was 19 and halfway through his first senior season during the 2011 Six Nations. If he'd made 20 senior appearances, it was barely. Criticizing England for not playing him at that point is somewhat absurd. He started 2 of the World Cup warm-up matches and every World Cup match. So, he had played before, Hape was replaced from the start of that tournament, and it is very difficult to say how he could have been played any earlier. So no, I don't think we had a settled team or style, and I think if we had stuck to our guns on that we'd have probably done better.


As for fly-half - we have plenty of prospects, but I'm not sanguine, as wrecking fly-half prospects seems to be what we do best. Take Cipriani. Olyy should be laughed out of the door for suggesting him at this stage. But one of he, Lamb and Geraghty should have been international class. Neither Wilkinson or Hodgson truly reached their potential - Wilkinson due to injury, Hodgson due to the shadow of Wilkinson and a crap pack. For all I rate him, I think Flood is about to fall into the same bracket as Hodgson, just with more injury problems. Farrell? The jury is out, some fine days and traits but plenty to improve on. Burns? Awaiting trial. I think he's a really good player, one of the few English fly-halves who can both create and control, but we don't know for sure yet. Was a bit too sloppy in Argentina for my liking. Slade, Ford, far too early to say really. Both have a lot of potential, a lot of things to work on, and really they need to nail down starting Premiership berths and show stuff there before we start talking about them imo. As for Botica, he would interest me, but his defence is appalling. Who knows, maybe Cips will make a come back... but to go back to the cohesion thing, it's not all on the pitch. We saw in 2011. Would Cipriani be welcome back in team England?


But - to ramble on - in terms of selections next Autumn, next spring, and so on, I hope there is no set goal in mind other than the result tomorrow and a better team next week. As things stand, we do not have a team with the experience or quality to win the World Cup and I do not think we have the prospects who will change that within the next two years. So I'd like to concentrate on winning games and forcing youngsters to work very hard on their game to break into the England set-up. Too many players came in partially formed and don't really seem to kick on. I would like to see them being forced to round out their games at their clubs. In this sense, I approve of the slowness with which Christian Wade is being introduced, and the extent to which Lancaster is forcing him to iron out weaknesses. Freddie Burns is another where this approach seems to be working.

I would also like us to look hard at style of play. This is not the first time Lancaster's promised "Bah gum lad, ah'll give 'em a proper lickin' in attack". Didn't happen before, not really. Part of it's due to quality of player and injury. But I also think that with the safety first mentality, players are too slow to look for opportunities. There is also a serious problem in terms of the style England are aiming for, and the style that suits the players we've got. The backline is incredibly confused. Youngs and Farrell seem to be looking for space out wide, but we have no distributors in the middle or finishers on the wing (save for Tom Croft ). Barritt and Tuilagi can charge hard on the gainline, but lack support runners - as Flood did in his most recent game. Brown and Ashton are at their best coming making surprise runs into the centre, but don't really seem to be making them. It's a bit of a mess.

Me, I'd like to see us take a step back. Select some players who are either heads above the rest, or select a style of player we have in spades, and build around that. That is what should provide our best team after all. Which, for me, would be Tuilagi and the sniping scrum-half - and I suppose I should include Ashton, Lancaster being the madman he is. Which suggests a team that runs support lines to people attacking around the fringes far, far more often than currently happens. Tuilagi is either the threat that prevents them from getting too narrow to counter this, or the weapon by which we punish them once they've got narrow and are on the back foot. Which neatly brings me back to Toby Flood, who is very good at attacking the fringes and using support runners. Freddie Burns could probably play this game too, Slade looks like he'd enjoy it.

Alternately... we start promoting our very fast wingers, play our best distributing scrum-half - Dickson at a guess - play a fly-half with good distribution whose running fixes people - Burns - and rely on the guys out wide to do the damage, with a hyper athletic pack supporting them. Unfortunately, I think we'd need a smarter 13 to play that game - it's a shame neither Twelvetrees or Eastmond plays there.

I suppose option 3 is to build around Farrell, which means a second playmaker is urgently needed. Although, really, Farrell's best hope of building a good attacking game at international level is to study the tapes of Wilkinson and Flood really hard - both worked very hard on their step and short passing - and spend a lot of time with a good sprint coach. Farrell would need an absolutely nails pack more than the other too, which is unfortunate, as we don't have one yet.

But anything really, as long as all the pieces fit. Which they have not done yet.