Farrell unfortunately matches the media hyped version of Jonny, but not the less hyped facets of his game, and this is where he limits the entire backline as Jonny never did.

Can’t find anything to disagree with in this either. You are right

Of course a fly-half should be able to tackle and not be a complete turnstile but it certainly isn’t the first criteria you should be looking at

Did you mean Barritt outside him

I’d go further than say it’s become the default way to talk about Jonny, I think it’s coloured the debates in general about 10s to the extent that some fans now seem to think that if their 10 isn’t a hard tackling machine then he’s not up to the job e.g. people use this as a defence of Farrel when the subject of his apparent lack of ability to get the backs moving or to make something himself comes up. To me being a great defensive 10 isn’t a mitigating factor for being crap at being an actual 10 much like being great in the loose isn’t any good when you can’t scrummage as a prop.

I’ll add here that Farrel is used as an example due to the apparent lack of ability to do this for England. I’ve seen him do it for the Lions so he does seem capable, I have no idea why he doesn’t do it for England. Maybe he see’s Farrel outside him and is so shocked by having this skill-less roadblock on an international rugby pitch he’s shocked into immediately shoveling the ball on to him?

Of course there’s more to his game than that. He’s no spring chicken, yet his club, Heineken Cup champions who could afford to buy any fly-half in the world, choose instead to keep on extending his contract.

You don’t need any more affirmation of his quality than that.

People talk about his tackling and his kicking, and completely forget that throughout his career he has also had the ability to be a brilliant all round 10. I accept that now he sits far deeper and plays differently, but no one will ever convince me that 2003 vintage Jonny Wilkinson was not a fantastic attacking 10.

Of course they can’t be made of balsa wood like ROG was, but all I really expect is for them to hold their own in the backline. If my ten finds himself needing to make an inordinate number of tackles I’d be worried that it indicates my 6/7 are off showboating somewhere and that my 10 isn’t going to have any energy left to actually pull some moves.

No tries scored in that Toulon game, all penalty kicks, little penetration and the Toulon 10 was a tackling machine. I think those things are related. Tackling is very, very tiring.

One plays in France
One plays in France and is regrettably too old to be a factor in England’s long-term plans
One will probably be on the bench
One has only just come back from very long-term injury

I’d love to see what Armitage can do at international level, but the criteria has been made absolutely plain and if he wants to play for England, he’ll need to come back to the Premiership

England aren’t exactly short of quality 8s or flankers either.

Anyway, I agree with Tweet, Pienaar all the way for this one – the most influential player on the list.