: Mon Nov 17, 2008 12:12 am
It's about time we stopped bagging individual players. Senior and Gleeson were and still are clearly the best British centres at the moment. The fact that they are both way behind their opponents is another matter entirely. Senior at his best a few years ago was probably the minimum standard you'd want in an international centre. Both are very poor defensively.
Similarly Wellens. Best English full back in SL? Yes, entirely. International class? Absolutely nowhere near. And on it goes...you can have the same debate about every single back and the answer when you put club loyalties aside would be the same - up there in SL, out of their depth internationally.
The forwards have also been found out at this world cup. Every man and his dog has been busy slating the outside backs' defence - which has been pretty dire. But watch the way the Australian forwards get involved in attack and defence and you'll see a big difference in quality.
That hasn't changed from the last Tri Nations - lots of English forwards could look at their stats and say to themselves that they didn't miss many tackles and made yards. Completely ignoring the fact that they didn't even get near enough to 'miss' some tackles as they were lazy covering or simply didn't read the play at all, and that they hadn't acted as a decoy all night, simply expecting the backs to somehow conjure up overlaps from nothing.
The problems in SL/English players are more fundamental than just a lack of athletes/quality in the backs. The forwards were in many ways even more disappointing because I think it IS where our 'strength' is relative to others.
Basically we have some individually talented players playing regularly in a p*ss weak competition. It really shouldn't surprise anyone if those same players struggle to play to a higher standard with any kind of regularity - both within the 80 minutes of a game and for more than one game.
The players are talented enough that if they all play to their best we can squeak the odd win against NZ and even Aus if they play badly, but I really think that the fact we didn't manage to do that this time round is a good thing if people are forced to accept the facts.
he gets of the plane I doubt he will play for England again especially after his girlfriend gets hold of him. 
