In an ideal world, most back rows have a player who is generally recognised by people as a 7. The skillset associated is so very useful that the ideal team will pretty much always have someone who has it. However, there are other ways to get that your skillsets in and ideal worlds are so rare that I feel you see very few traditional 6/7/8 combos these days. Debatably Wales were the only team in the tournament playing that model.
Certainly, as already mentioned, the lack of a standard openside was not the issue that day.
Oh. Yeah. Centres. Meh. Pick two, let the pack win. Simples.
What I would say is that Joseph's probably not getting anywhere. It's a shame, he has talent, but Lancaster has a clear preference for big centres so Joseph, Eastmond, Trinder, Daly... are all probably out of luck. Its one of the reasons I'm really in favour of Daly at full-back...
He can't kick all that accurately but I have seen him kick when he was younger and he had a pretty decent boot on him. What he does have is power and pace he is a lot quicker than he looks and he can throw must people out of the way. 21 England games at centre and 11 tries is nothing to be sniffed at and he does the job he is asked to do get over the line and score tries. I say Burrell stays at the moment and that makes Tuilagi add passing and kicking to his game.
