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Phil Davies' Namibian plan to bolster Yorkshire's Championship survival bid
By Chris Jones
Former Namibian coach Phil Davies is set to ask key members of the African nation’s Test team to help him save Yorkshire Carnegie from another damaging relegation.
The former Premiership outfit are adrift at the bottom of the English Championship having hit serious financial problems that have left the club with a light-weight squad.
Having coached Namibia at the 2019 World Cup in Japan before taking up his new role as directors of rugby in Leeds, Davies is ready to look to his old African stomping ground to try and boost Carnegie’s survival bid.
“I can see us bringing in two or three from Namibia,” said Davies to RugbyPass. “We have a young squad and we need more depth and a specific skill set that is needed to keep us pushing forward.
“We have a small budget but maybe a few of the Namibian boys who went to the World Cup with me will come in.
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“Those guys would be good and it’s trying to find other guys actually who I’ve worked with and who understand the way we need to play so they can fit in quite seamlessly.
“We want to get to 30, 32 players so we can really start fighting. I can’t see us bringing in more than four, but we have to build the skills and confidence of the players here over the next few months.
“Every match for us is a cup final and we have to make sure we create a plan that gives this club a sustainable future because there is a lot of history over the last 20 years and we want to build on that. We have to do this in building blocks to get to where we want to be.”
Davies, who won the 2005 Powergen Cup when he was previously in charge of the club when it was known as Leeds Tykes, added: “I haven’t got a magic wand, but the attitude of the players and board has been great.”
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Latest Comments
Given rugby union's complicated history with apartheid, I don't think it would be appropriate to select a player who played for Tel Aviv, so its probably for the best that Borthwick's back 3 selections are pretty settled.
Beard looks like a great player, but he's yet another 13, when what we really need is a 12. I'm also concerned that he's a player who thrives in loose games, when he's given lots of space to run, which is what he'll get against Japan. So if Bortwick picks him he'll probably play really well, but that actually won't tell us anything about whether he's international standard or not. Wales in the 6N might be an even easier game than Japan, but its likely to be more structured, so would give Beard a tougher test.
It probably would be good to see Clark and Willis given a shot. England really need a better number 8 option than Dombrandt, and a solid 4th choice second row - I'm not sure if Clark is that yet, but he's young so good grow into the role. Unfortunately he's never played 6 before, but I don't think that's an issue given that Martin, Itoje, and Chessum all have a lot of game time there.
Go to commentsYeah defence is still an issue but a big turnaround in the quality of the attack and having a decent maul puts pressure on teams not to give away penalties close to their try lines. The ABs I thought lacked their killer instinct on the weekend, going for penalities rather than tries like they did. The Wallabies down to 14 men still went for the maul rather than trying to be conservative with a penalty and use some time and it totally turned the game back in their favour.
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