Borthwick seems very risk averse, zero chance he'll play Smith at FB, although I don't see that as necessarily a big risk. Stewart might be better under the high ball, but that's one small component of playing FB. How many tries has he leaked because he lacks pace and gets stepped easily?
I did watch an interview with Lawrence Dallaglio and he made a few valid points re SB - mainly that he's inherited a complete mess. He was saying Eddie Jones went through 22(?) assistant coaches during his tenure, not much stability, confusion as to how they should play and lacking confidence. Did make sense. Although I think Borthwicks issue seems to be he has a very blinkered/rigid approach to how he is coaching the team. There doesn't seem to be a plan B, no adaptability, blundering on blindly with the same game plan even when it's apparent it's not working. Odd.
As I was saying a few weeks ago, I wonder if the England players are being over-coached, they've become robots. Zone A you kick long, Zone B you box kick, doesn't matter what the opposition are doing, even if their defence is all over the shop, you don't run the ball in Zone A period. They almost have to have a reset, go back to basics, have a simple game plan, but essentially play what's in front of them.
As Tindall was saying in the same panel interview, the All Blacks don't play a complicated game. They're not doing triple switches and what not. Guys running short off the ruck for a few phases, recycling the ball quickly, suck in the defence, then hands. If they're feeling sharp, they might chuck in a miss-pass. Not rocket-science. They may run it from their own 22, but that's because they've seen opportunities, not because that's part of their game plan.
I did watch an interview with Lawrence Dallaglio and he made a few valid points re SB - mainly that he's inherited a complete mess. He was saying Eddie Jones went through 22(?) assistant coaches during his tenure, not much stability, confusion as to how they should play and lacking confidence. Did make sense. Although I think Borthwicks issue seems to be he has a very blinkered/rigid approach to how he is coaching the team. There doesn't seem to be a plan B, no adaptability, blundering on blindly with the same game plan even when it's apparent it's not working. Odd.
As I was saying a few weeks ago, I wonder if the England players are being over-coached, they've become robots. Zone A you kick long, Zone B you box kick, doesn't matter what the opposition are doing, even if their defence is all over the shop, you don't run the ball in Zone A period. They almost have to have a reset, go back to basics, have a simple game plan, but essentially play what's in front of them.
As Tindall was saying in the same panel interview, the All Blacks don't play a complicated game. They're not doing triple switches and what not. Guys running short off the ruck for a few phases, recycling the ball quickly, suck in the defence, then hands. If they're feeling sharp, they might chuck in a miss-pass. Not rocket-science. They may run it from their own 22, but that's because they've seen opportunities, not because that's part of their game plan.
