Leicester !
If you are watching the Semi-Final, hopefully you are seeing the same as me. It is a microcosm of exactly why England struggle at International level. The difference in how the two sides play is staggering. How many times do you see Ellis waiting over the ball at the breakdown, the eventual ball is agonisingly slow. The Scarlets on the other hand are whipping the ball away from the tackle area as quickly as possible, keeping pace in their game and giving themselves a regular chance of breaking a rapidly re-organising defence.
Leicester might well go onto win, partly due to the Scarlets lack of precision, but also the dominance that their pack has. But you can clearly see that the model might well work at club level, but as soon as a side can compete with the forwards as they do at International level , Leicester, and read here England, produce such slow ball that the backs have no chance.
If England are to climb back up on the International ladder, then they need to understand that you have to be able to recycle quick ball to give yourself the chance to attack defences, not just rely on the superiority of your forwards.
I am biased and I hope Leicester win, but it has been fascinating to see a side who contain so many of our International forwards highlighting so obviously why we struggle at the top level.
5 comments:
Well Tigers won so I'm happy!
Agree about slow ball, but in their defence they did play the EDF final less than a week ago so I suspect their were a few players looking for a bit of a rest :-)
Underlines the old maxim, forwards win matches, backs decide the margin.
Pfft!
Everyone knows that the REAL competition is in the European Challenge Cup.
Especially when Saracens are playing in it!!!
I guess the competition is over then ;-)
Watching the Tigers performance over the last couple of matches I was struck by their unquenchable will to win. The contested every kick, every contact, every line-out and scrum. The tackles and defense were absolutley immense. The attitude of the players was everything you would expect from a professional player. Why then don't we see this when they pull on a England shirt? Does it require the tight-knit bunker mentality of a club team to achieve this, or does it require a team coach to instill it?
By "unquenchable will" I of course me their indefatigable desire to succeed, not a very thirsty Will Carling!
I know my prediction of scarlets winning the competition turned out to be utter bollox, but I really thought wasps were going to get beaten in both semi final vs munster and the final when they got into this position before. Not sure id write them off just yet. Still lmao at cohens she man bitch slap of dalaglio after that ruck. Hilarious !!!
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