If, as you seem to advocate, England reverting to R1, aren’t you likely to become predictable & thus making them easier to read? Do you think the SH are going to simply let themselves be overpowered? They’ll likely flood the breakdown & deny England ball & also put numbers around the fringes in midfield to stop you.

If England persist with an all round game, then they surely become more UNPREDICTABLE & therefore more of a threat. They can play it tight or open as needs dictate (that’s the hard part, deciding what to do when), esp with Danny Cip @ fly?!

Personally, I hope they take yr advice.

Yeow! Defensive or what?

The ‘smashing’ you talk of didn’t, as correctly you put it, ‘necessarily equate to victory’. Darn right.

You read too much into subs. The ABs started slowly (don’t ask me why), as they did per the last Irish tour, with the forwards lacking cohesion, but they fixed things & by the end the pack out mauled England, held up in the scrum & had the better of the lineout. The scrum subs can only get better, otherwise they wouldn’t be there. Methinks you suffer from the 1 or 2 swallow syndrome. As aforementioned, you read too much too soon into this sub stuff. see how they pan out this season before writing them off.

And it wasn’t a joke. It’s castigation for yr claiming unearned reflected glory. You, as Ritchie Benaud once alluded to, weren’t on the pitch. Or are you a lemming?

Poor form old bean.

And alas, the gossip section of the Mail turned me down, so unfortunately my unique brand of “debate” is unlikely to gain any traction whatsoever. Depressing.

As we all know, winning a scrum for the last 20 mins doesn’t necessarily equate to victory when the opposition are far more clinical in everything they do. Any other questions or can you retire to the gossip section of the Mail now where your unique brand of “debate” is likely to gain more traction?

Did I miss summat here?

‘… our sub tight five was smashing theirs’.

Didn’t ‘yr’ (were you on the paddock?) lot just lose a series 3 zip?!

Re: Wade v Watson; at least we can all agree that no one else has done anything at this point to stop either of those two getting a shot in Autumn. If Wade gets the start then I’ll cross my fingers he holds up and we just get the lightening in a bottle side to his game! (Wasps fan btw, just a cautious one!)

Could do a lot worse than Yarde, Faz, Burrrel, Manu, Wade, Brown with Cips and Watson on the bench if its attack you’re after!

Or have I just sparked off both the centra debate and the Cips debate in one go! haha. Just to set my stance (Wasps fan remember) I’ve always been a Cips fan – his ankle injury was crushing – and with a seemingly more mature head on his shoulders he shoudl be nailed on No.2 as far as I’m concerned. With that bench you also have the option to take off a centre, shift Faz out and bring in Cips if you want to spread the game.

I remember the game against Leinster in the Amlin maybe last year. They targeted Wade with kicks and big runners down his channel. They did get a fair amount of joy from it, but pretty much every time they got it wrong, he tore them apart.

I’m not implying he will certainly be able to do that at international level, but he has spent his career playing in a generally weak (for what they are used to) Wasps side. In an international set-up, he could do great things.

(if Tightheads can ever be a ‘pleasant surprise’!)

On high balls to Wade, teams try it, but I’ve seen him damn near leap over people. He knows his height will be targeted, so he’s learnt to jump really high. He won’t be winning clean ball, but no one else will be either.