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Newcastle Falcons: Why are England ignoring us?
By Chris Jones
Newcastle head coach Dave Walder believes the club are continuing to be ignored by England’s coaches, a view confirmed by the fact none of the England management will be at tonight’s home game with Northampton.
Fans are being allowed back into Kingston Park following the easing of lockdown restrictions with 1,750 scheduled to be present but head coach Eddie Jones and fellow coaches John Mitchell and Matt Proudfoot won’t be included.
Falcons captain Mark Wilson is the only squad member to have been recognised by Jones and his coaches leaving Walder to lament the lack of interest in a squad including test centre Luther Burrell and try-scoring hooker George McGuigan.
Walder said: “I hope they are looking at our guys and we haven’t seen the England coaches up here for a while. There are a few guys putting their hands up and George McGuigan has been outstanding all season, Sean Robinson has also been excellent and we know about Will Welch who has 250 appearances and don’t get that number without being a good player. Luther still had England ambitions along with Adam Radwan.
“It would good to see the England coaches here watching or communicating with us. It would be brilliant to have a few of our guys named in the squads. I see on the TV that Eddie and his coaching staff go to other games and I don’t know if the level of communications if any more robust than with us. Our players have to keep performing and if we get asked about the player then we will recommend them. I know that Jamie Noon used to feel pressure when he was watched by Clive Woodward who was the England head coach at the time but having the carrot there is really important.
“Anyone playing professional rugby wants to perform at the highest level. “
Walder confirmed that veteran England No10 Toby Flood is still battling back from a dislocated finger following a knee injury.” He still thinks like a young man but Floody is getting older and taking time to get back. He is training as often as he can.”
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Latest Comments
Skelton may be brought back for the Wallabies so that would be the only reason that may hinder Wilson. Easily the form, most skilful and game IQ of any Oz 8. Valentini’s best and favourite position is 6, but lineouts may be an issue with Skelton, Valentini and Wilson. Will be interesting what Schmidt goes for but for me Wilson should be picked on form. Schmidt rewards work rate, skill and consistency. All that glitters every so often won’t be in contention. Greely is one of those players that has a knack of making the right decision. A coach is going to love him because he knows week in week out he’s going to get the job done. The second try Greely wasn’t the guy who made the initial break it was Flook, Greely was at the bottom of the ruck when Flook was off along the sideline. Greely got up and made the effort to catch up with play but also read the play nicely and hit the pass from Campbell at pace and then held the pass beautifully to Ryan.
Go to commentsSharks deserved to be far further back by the last quarter. Their tackling was awful, their set pieces were disappointing, their defensive organization was poor (especially on the Kok side of the D line), they kept making unnecessary errors, and they never looked like cracking the Clermont defense during those first 60m. Masuku kept them in touch, with some help from the Clermont generosity on penalty opportunities. Agree with the writer of this article. It was belligerence, and ability to raise their pressure game just enough, that turned the last quarter into a Bok-style shutout. Clermont have a reputation of not playing the full 80m, and there was a bit of that for sure. But, quite often when the intensity of a team drops off in the last quarter credit is due to the opponent for tiring them out. At 60m, with the Kok try, you thought that just maybe the game was on. At 70m, with the Mapimpi contribution, one felt that Clermont were fading, while facing a team that would maintain the pressure game through the final whistle. Good win in the end, but the Sharks are still playing way below their potential. And with their resources, and a coach that has had enough time to figure things out, they are running out of excuses.
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