England World Cup Squad

Who should be in and who should not? Who has the form, and who has just reputation?
Is Ashton going to pick a side purley to compete in this World Cup, or will he pick a side that he thinks will be competitive, but will gain valuable experience to challenge and hopefully win in four years time??
My personal view is that he should go for the latter. There has been too much uphieval in selection in the last three years for England to be in a position to win this World Cup, and there has been too much fighting between the clubs and the RFU for the squad to have had a realistic chance of success. Not excuses, just facts.
Younger players have also been over looked for too long, as World Cup winners were givne chance after chance after chance to show that they still had it!
So let's look forward, let's be brave and plan for four and a half years time.
With that in mind, it leads to some very interesting selection choices;
Balshaw?? Forget it. He was, and I underline was, a very talented attacking player, some years ago. Not anymore, and his body and maybe even his heart has given up the ghost.
Simpson-Daniel? As above sadly. Talented but far far too injury prone.
Full Back should still be Josh Lewsey. Ashton has said he will only consider him as a wing, which basically just leaves him Morgan as full back. Well I believe Lewsey is much better than him.
On the Wings I would go with Robinson, Strettle, Cueto and Sackey.
Centres would be Tait, Tindall (as I belive he will be fit!!), Catt and Barkley.
No 10 - Wilkinson, Flood, Geraghty ( and I do think Hodgson will be fit also)
Scrum half has to be Gommersall, Richards and not Perry!
Tight Head prop - **** knows !!! But I am told Stevens and Sheridan
Loose head prop - as above with Vickery and White
Hookers - Chuter, Regan and Mears
Locks - Palmer, Corry, Shaw and Borthwick. I thinkk Shaw is a great player, and has been for a while.
Number 6 - Worsley and Moody
Number 7 - Rees and Lund
Number 8 - Now here is a selection!!! Dallaglio, Haskell, Ward-Smith and Easter?? Youth and pace, or experience and guile?? Can Lawrence really do it and International level anymore? And if so for how long in a game because it will not be a full one? Will Ward-Smith be fit??
I watched Spies run, and was so grateful that I was just watching!! The power and pace around in the NZ, Boks and French back row is awesome. Lawrence does not have that anymore. BUT, and it is a big BUT, he has belief, he has experience and could be vital to a squad, as long as there is a strong enough captain to tell him to wind his neck in when necessary and to focus him on the team and not the Lwarence Dallaglio story.
So all that said I would change my back row and go for;
Number 6 - Worlsey and Haskell
Number 7 - Rees and Lund
Number 8 - Ward-Smith and Dallaglio

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WEBSITE

Hopefully some of you will notice the massive change to the website and the ability it now has as a networking site.
There are plenty more changes on the way, such as a video wall and crucial bits of information coming your way.
It should be great and I am very hopeful that it will become the place to find old rugby team mates, as well as the place to stay in touch with existing ones.
Please pass the word out to as many mates as you can / you have!!
Obvioulsy in my case that is bugger all, hence my plea to you lot!!!
Let me know your thoughts on the site, and as it developes over the next few weeks, I would love to hear ideas of what we should include.
By the way, to the Kiwi contingent, I saw Zinny today and he was looking good and in great form (apart from the 50 0dd stitches in his head!) I told him about my great blog on poaching players and he hit me, ******* hard!! Thought you would like that !!!

NZ whingeing !!!!

Graham Henry has launched an attack on the poaching of his players by Northern Hemisphere clubs!! Shocking !!!
It's bad for NZ, bad for player development and I could not be bothered to read his other whinges!!!
Strange that NZ did not complain, and have never complained as they systematically poached the best players from Tonga, Fiji and Samoa, for years and years and years and years!!!
That of course was perfectly acceptable to the NZ RFU !!!
So now the tables have been turned on them, I suggest they shut up and get over themselves!!! Bunch of ******* whingers !!!!

Jerry Guscott

Big debate as to whether Tait is big enough, strong enough, powerful enough to play centre at International level. I personally thought he did a great job in SA, and believe with the right balance of players around him, that he could be very effective. It got me thinking whether Jerry Guscott would be strong enough to play and be effective in todays game?? I think the honest answer is that he has only recently developed anough bulk to make the grade !!!

SA Lessons learnt

I see Jake White has already come out and claimed the psychological high ground after the Test series that the Boks have just easily won. I find that quite interesting, as well as being absolute bollocks!
Firstly why bother going on about the psychological edge so quickly after the series has finished, unless you are worried about it??! Reverse psychology and all that.
If the Boks believe they have now dealt a mortal blow to England, and now have supreme confidence regarding the World Cup, why bother saying anything? Certainly such a long way out from the crucial game?
Bizarely I think old Jake is just a little shook up!!! i know that might sound crazy, but I honestly think the second Test shocked the Boks. I know that at the end that ran away with it and scored 7 tries etc etc, but it was the nature of the fifty minutes that England competed in that shocked them.
Come the World Cup in France there will be no altitude, no virus ( I hope) and a pool of an extra forty odd players to pick from. That worries old Jake, I can tell!
The crucial bit for me was that England's defence in the second Test looked highly effective for those fifty minutes. They had worked out the Boks attack channels, and they had closed them down fairly comfortably, with the fourth team!
There is no getting away from the score line, and I am not trying to, but sometimes you have to look far deeper than that, and in this instance i do think England will take more out of this test series than Jakie boy!
They got to play against the Boks World Cup side for starters, the coaches got to see their patterns, got to see their behaviour, the metal and their weaknesses. The Boks, and old Jake got to look and experience England's third / fourth team. They got no insight into the England pack and their line out drills, their scrum strength, or their defensive alignments and re-organisation. They got to look and experience none of that, but at the same time they had to declare their own hand in all those areas.
That is needling our Jake!
Because when all is said and done, his Boks did not look hugely inventive, subtle or intelligent. Being brutally honest they relied on England running out of energy, and they relied on just battering them!
I do not believe that will be a winning formula against England's first team, and little old Jake knows that!
Don't get me wrong, the Boks will improve massively over the Tri-Nations, and I do think they are a good bet for the World Cup. But at this moment in time it has amused me that Jake is blowing his psychological trumpet so early!! Someone should have told him only worried men blow too soon!!!

Zulu or England V South Africa!!??

I have just noticed, that you can either watch Zulu, on Sky movies classic, or England V South Africa on Sky sports!!!
Think I might just flick between the two !!!

The task facing England

Rourke's Drift !!??
Not sure if it entirely appropriate, but it will be fairly close!!
A few problems though, firstly it was a Welsh regiment!! And secondly this will be against South Africa, not the Zulus!! But apart from that!!!
I would think the feeling within the England changing room will be fairly similar!! Wave after wave of first choice, fresh, fit, virus free Boks coming at them for eighty minutes!! Heaven !!!
Let's see who fronts up. The prize will be a World Cup spot, and I think Tait, Easter, Wilkinson and even Gomersall might have bagged one each. Today they need to do the same, and Flood, Lund and Alex Brown could do the same.
It should be interesting if uncomfortable viewing.
I do remember (and sadly yes this is one of those, back in my day stories!!) playing against the Boks at Loftus. We had been having a shocking tour, we had lost our three Saturday matches, had received the most arrogant and condescending 'bad luck' speech from Francois Pienaar in our own changing room the week before, and we the Loftus crowd were expecting us to be massacred!!
Mandella was there, it was awesome to meet him, my greatest rugby memory, and we then went to stuff them, with Tim Rodber having an incredible game. One of the most vivid memories is watching the stands emptying twenty minutes before the end, and the stunned silence in the ground.
Oh to hear that again today!!