'It's something England should be very excited about'
Following Northampton Saints' sensational 42-36 comeback win over Exeter Chiefs in the Gallagher Premiership on Saturday, Brian O'Driscoll believes the England scrum-half debate has been put to bed with Alex Mitchell's performance.
The 11-cap international started the match on the bench alongside a number of frontline Saints stars as the league leaders took on second-place Exeter at Sandy Park. The 26-year-old entered the action for the final half hour with his side trailing, but gathering momentum after initially going down 26-0. Within five minutes of playing he already had two assists to his name, including a sniping break to put Ollie Sleigtholme in for one of his three tries. Come full-time, he had three assists to his name, which included the match-winning try at the death.
Having not initially been in Steve Borthwick's World Cup squad, Mitchell looks to now have an insuperable grip on the No9 jersey. After replacing the injured Jack van Poortvliet just days before the tournament started, Mitchell finished the World Cup campaign as England's incumbent.
The state of play has changed significantly since August as well. Ben Youngs has now retired from Test rugby, the 37-year-old Danny Care may not feature in Borthwick's plans going forward, and Mitchell's competitors from the next generation of No9s, van Poortvliet and Raffi Quirke, are still injured. Ben Spencer may offer some competition, but he has not been part of the fold for a number of years now (not that that is a reflection of how he has played). Taking everything into consideration, Mitchell is all but guaranteed to start for England when their Six Nations campaign begins in February against Italy in Rome. But that should be the case on merit alone.
Speaking on TNT Sports following the epic Premiership clash in Devon, Ireland legend O'Driscoll feels the Saints star is by far and away England's standout scrum-half, and showered him in praise, saying England "should be very excited" about the way he is playing. He did add the caveat that England may not necessarily play the game that suits him, as was seen in France last year.
"If there were any question marks over who England's number one No9 was around World Cup time, well I think he's putting it to bed at the moment," O'Driscoll said.
"He came on on the 52nd minute and he immediately had a huge impact- be it around the variety to his game, his kick game was excellent, his variety was brilliant too, his passing game was spot on.
"He's got an eye for a gap, he doesn't need a second invitation. He runs that arc so well as many great scrum-halves have done. And then that acceleration capacity to be able to put his man outside him free is his point of difference and I think it's something that England should be very excited about. The question mark is whether they are going to play the game that suits this guy."
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Dont know if the Irish players said it or not, but lets all be honest with ourselves, and hopefully both the Irish and French have healed by now, the Media did jump the gun, be realistic, according to 90% of the media it was a France and Ireland final, and the media had 1 of them winning the world cup, not even mentioning the All blacks? Just remember world cups are different, Australia was not the most in form cricket tean in the last cricket world cup, but they have a nack of winning when it matters. I wont go into whether what Etzabeth is saying is true, all I am saying is that its very easy for a team to get ahead of themselves due to the media. Nothing wrong with it, the media got the springboks over confident against England and we nearly lost that one.
Go to commentsHey Finn, Well done to the Junior Wallabies…a win is a win but it was a wet and scrappy game. Would be interesting to hear your opinion on two things from watching the game at the Not So Sunny Coast Stadium. Firstly, what is your opinion on the rule change of being able to call The Mark from a kick off and what is the reason for the change? Secondly, your thoughts on the lack of action for the high tackle on the SA fullback. I understand the TMO ruled that he had fallen into the tackle and the tackler didn’t have time to adjust but it was clearly shoulder on head and the Aussie 11 had not made any attempt to adjust his tackle height leading into the tackle. In my opinion he was never going to get his tackle technique correct to complete a safe tackle. If that tackle was made at a more senior and more scrutinised level would we have seen the same result?
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