My old mate Buck knows a thing or two about Rugby Union. He reckons our captain has long been the weakest link because he isn't a natural open side flanker and we get killed at the breakdown. According to him, we have the best open side flanker in world rugby in Steffan Armitage but we don't pick him because he plays in France. We also bottled it and picked a safe option in Farrell at 10 when push came to shove, abandoning all we had worked on with Ford at 10 in the last year. Plus I am a better scrum half than Ben Youngs - he takes three steps before he passes it and we lose time and space. That's what Buck says anyway.
My old mate Buck knows a thing or two about Rugby Union. He reckons our captain has long been the weakest link because he isn't a natural open side flanker and we get killed at the breakdown. According to him, we have the best open side flanker in world rugby in Steffan Armitage but we don't pick him because he plays in France. We also bottled it and picked a safe option in Farrell at 10 when push came to shove, abandoning all we had worked on with Ford at 10 in the last year. Plus I am a better scrum half than Ben Youngs - he takes three steps before he passes it and we lose time and space. That's what Buck says anyway.
I posted on here just before the Wales game that Gareth Chilcott had said pretty much what you say. A deserved exit.
More muddled thinking in the team chosen to play against Uruguay. Burgess bizarrely left out. This north west of England convert from RL lacks only one ingredient that would make him a world class RU player - experience. So we play him in the two biggest games we've had in years before he is ready and then leave him out in a meaningless game against second rate opposition at Old Trafford when he could have taken something from it to move on with. I imagine he feels a bit used and abused. We've also left Jonathan Joseph - our stand out back - out of the starting XV because Lancaster 'wants to have a look at' a Farrell/Slade centre pairing. That will be the fifteenth centre pairing he has started with in the last four years. It's a shame he hadn't settled on his best one a few weeks ago. My mate Buck had a bit of sympathy with Lancaster after the Aussie game despite some apparent howlers, but now he thinks he has lost the plot completely.
More muddled thinking in the team chosen to play against Uruguay. Burgess bizarrely left out. This north west of England convert from RL lacks only one ingredient that would make him a world class RU player - experience. So we play him in the two biggest games we've had in years before he is ready and then leave him out in a meaningless game against second rate opposition at Old Trafford when he could have taken something from it to move on with. I imagine he feels a bit used and abused. We've also left Jonathan Joseph - our stand out back - out of the starting XV because Lancaster 'wants to have a look at' a Farrell/Slade centre pairing. That will be the fifteenth centre pairing he has started with in the last four years. It's a shame he hadn't settled on his best one a few weeks ago. My mate Buck had a bit of sympathy with Lancaster after the Aussie game despite some apparent howlers, but now he thinks he has lost the plot completely.
Very fair points. I only bring the guillotine out on rare occasions but it is clear to me that Lancaster was (is) out of his depth and bottled it. He must go immediately after the Uruguay non-event.
