asajoseph wrote:
Irish gunner wrote:
- O'Brien
- Warburton
- Heaslip/Felatau
Croft on the bench. No point keeping him for the line-out if we never go past the first jumper.
EDIT: Never going to happen, but I'd stick Croft in at 7 actually and put Warburton on the bench.
And win our rucks with 5 men?
Not being funny, and there are a lot of important moving parts in every game, but at least 50% of the reason that the northern hemisphere has been dominated by the southern for I don't know how long is that the teams down there secure the ball at the breakdown a second or two faster than we do.
We have bigger, faster runners in our backline than the wallabies, but if we can't secure good ball for them, we won't be able to send them hard and fast against the Australians for 90 minutes like we should. That means getting our back row to the breakdown and securing the ball as quickly as possible, and protecting the fringes of the scrum.
And I get the argument for Croft in the line out, but to be honest, I think getting the throw right is far more important & Youngs has looked pretty good in that department all tour. Parling becomes your key man in the middle of the line, and he's excellent in the air, and Jones & Warburton in front & behind are solid. The importance of Croft there is far outweighed by the crucial area at the rucks, for me.
O'Brien does great work at the breakdown, and my reasoning for Croft at 7 was mobility really. I'm undecided on 8 though, I like Heaslip a lot, not sure if he should start the next test though. The Croft at 7 suggestion will never happen though, so my test backrow would be:
O'Brien, Heaslip (?), Warburton
This tour could do with a David wallace (of about 5 years ago) at 7, perfect blend of graft and ball-carrying. He was my favourite flanker ever too, I modeled my game on him when I played rugby seriously.
I think that Australia will really come at us in the next test, I'd go for power in the pack and play some ugly rugby for the first 60, then bring on guys like Croft, Faletau, and Tuilagi. With kickers like Halfpenny and Sexton, plus a solid line-out we can afford to do that.
As much as I like Phillips I wouldn't mind replacing him either, his distribution has been a bit slow imo. He's been more of a problem than our speed at the breakdown I think. Someone like Stringer or Dwayne Peel would be good. I don't follow rugby enough anymore to be able to suggest a replacement though.
