England’s leadership is another problem that has been cited too often to mention, so what should be done about it? Change the captain perhaps.
We’ve been debating this one for some time, and there are lots of different opinions – we will be watching the results very closely, so please do cast your vote.
Feel free to leave your rationale in the comments box below.
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I think Croft plays the right ‘go forward’ style which Englands’ forwards seem to have forgotten how to play. With him leading from the front the rest will have no choice but to follow. While we’re at it,lets get rid of this ‘ guard / bodyguard’ static bull and get back to playing rugby as it was intended.
Don’t see a stand-out captain amongst them. But you pick your best available 15 and then choose a skipper. Borthwick doesn’t make the starting 15, although possibly the bench. My England 2nd row would be Shaw & Kennedy. Maybe Kennedy could grow into the captaincy but I can’t see how he could walk into it from day 1. I agree with all the previous contributors who stress how important it is to have a captain who can work on the referee about what’s going on in the front row. That’s Borthwick’s biggest weakness; he just doesn’t do it. Back row should be Croft, Moody & Haskell:- but I don’t see a captain there. Hodgson? At least he’d be close enough to the referee all the time. I’ve captained a team from no 9 before and it does give you an advantage over the other side’s skipper (unless he’s a no 9 too!)
Borthwick is so off the pace he should have been dropped from the Eps, the only reason he is still in the Eps is because Rees is injured and the Leicester coaches don’t want to pair Kennedy with Shaw so the line-out will work which has always been the better option since the year dot!!
One thing — among the thousands of others — that worries me is Andrew and Johnson’s excuse that 40% of their players were injured this autumn. They imply that the natural state of things is that all players are fit and available, and that everything will be fine when things return to that state. With any luck, Armitage, Tindall, Sheridan and the like will be back for the Six Nations — but who knows who else will be injured by then? The IRB clearly aren’t interested in making any sensible changes, and the accountants aren’t going to declutter the fixture list by getting rid of ridiculous competitions like the Anglo-Welsh and Challenge cups, or extra Test matches that don’t really mean anything. I suspect that we’ll see more first-choice England players moving to France, or possibly even further abroad, in the next couple of years just so that they can keep playing into their 30s.
So Moody might be playing well at the moment — although he’s not “keeping Rees out of the side”, Bazza, injury is — but the odds are against him staying fit all the way through the Six Nations. If this is going to be the way of things in the modern game, at least in England, then the England manager’s job is always going to be to cobble together 22 players from whoever is still standing. Another reason why a rotating captaincy makes the most sense.
Maybe it’s time to revisit the rationale for having a captain who is selected for all of a series of games i.e. 6N?
As the squad, let alone the team changes with injuries, tactics, opposition etc. why not follow the system of picking the team and then selecting the captain for the game?
I actually voted for Nick Easter despite him not captaining Harlequins.
The best thing for any rugby team is stability particularly in the key positions.
The England selectors have, for whatever reasons, chopped and changed and now need to settle their squad by picking genuine leaders in the key positions.
One wag suggested Lewis Moody as skipper – with his injury record and propensity for getting yellow carded – you’re having a laugh!
Steve Borthwick has shown an ability to hold a team of “less injured than others” together over the autumn series. Why should he not be selected for the captains role for the six nations?