The change England need to leave teams 'quaking in their boots'
Legendary Ireland and Lions midfielder Brian O'Driscoll has claimed that Eddie Jones’ current England team doesn’t have opposition sides quaking in their boots and must consider bringing in Adam Radwan rather than picking the likes of Joe Marchant. The English host the Irish next Saturday at Twickenham in what is effectively a round four Guinness Six Nations title eliminator as they each seek to close the gap on leaders France.
England struggled to see out their round three win last weekend over Wales, a 17-point advantage shaved to just four when the final whistle eventually blew in London, and the caginess of that second-half display has sparked questions about how genuinely effective their attack is in Jones’ seventh Six Nations campaign in charge.
Last week’s late withdrawal of midfielder Manu Tuilagi from the starting lineup resulted in the promotion of replacement Elliot Daly to start and the selection of Joe Marchant on the bench. However, O’Driscoll has suggested Jones isn’t getting his best England players on the pitch as he claimed that Radwan would be a better choice as a sub to put fear into Wales rather than have Marchant as the replacement winger.
O’Driscoll was talking about England during a guest appearance on the Lawrence Dallaglio Rugby Podcast. The 2003 World Cup winner posed the question to the Irishman would it be nice to pick a twelve for England who plays twelve quite regularly every week rather than have Henry Slade switch in from outside centre following the withdrawal of the hamstrung Tuilagi.
The reply was interesting with O’Driscoll shifting the focus away from the midfield and he instead dwelt on the England bench selection of Marchant ahead of Radwan, a scorer of four tries in his two Test starts. The Newcastle winger was only a fringe part of the Six Nations squads for last month's three games despite the absence of the injured Jonny May, Jones instead picking Marchant, Max Malins and Jack Nowell to start.
“Listen, lots of the time I will disagree with Eddie Jones but I must say with regard to sometimes crowbar players into particular positions I understand why with the methodology around it, it’s to do with getting as much X-factor or quality in your team irrespective of what their positions are. You have got to remember as well numbers on jerseys are largely just for first phase.
“Thereafter there are lots of roving roles, there is lots of ability to pop up in different positions so it is about getting your best players out there. I still am not sure they have done that. Would I be as afraid of someone like Joe Marchant as I would be of Radwan coming on? No I wouldn’t.
“That’s not to say that he is not a very nice, efficient player, a very good club player and a reasonably good international player, but if you get the ball to someone like Adam Radwan with space he is going to cause you serious headaches.
“You want (opposition) players to be nervous on the pitch as often as possible and I just don’t know if this current English team at the moment, certainly the one that played at the weekend (against Wales), have many teams quaking in their boots. I just don’t know if they would.”
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Nah, that just needs some more variation. Chip kicks, grubber stabs, all those. Will Jordan showed a pretty good reason why the rush was bad for his link up with BB.
If you have an overlap on a rush defense, they naturally cover out and out and leave a huge gap near the ruck.
It also helps if both teams play the same rules. ARs set the offside line 1m past where the last mans feet were😅
Go to commentsYeah nar, should work for sure. I was just asking why would you do it that way?
It could be achieved by outsourcing all your IP and players to New Zealand, Japan, and America, with a big Super competition between those countries raking it in with all of Australia's best talent to help them at a club level. When there is enough of a following and players coming through internally, and from other international countries (starting out like Australia/without a pro scene), for these high profile clubs to compete without a heavy australian base, then RA could use all the money they'd saved over the decades to turn things around at home and fund 4 super sides of their own that would be good enough to compete.
That sounds like a great model to reset the game in Aus. Take a couple of decades to invest in youth and community networks before trying to become professional again. I just suggest most aussies would be a bit more optimistic they can make it work without the two decades without any pro club rugby bit.
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