Month: May 2015

Manu Tuilagi – The Loss of the Final Piece of the Jigsaw Puzzle

May 17, 2015 — Leave a comment

Over the last six months or more I have been pleasantly surprised by the optimism of  so many of my customers. Virtually to a man they have predicted that England will at least reach the semi-finals of this year’s Rugby World Cup and probably half think we will become World champions again.

I have thought for many months that there are two problems with the England squad which suggest to me that such optimism is heartwarming but a bit misplaced.

Having followed the World Cup since 1987 I have noticed that time and time again world champions win with a settled side. Their players have played together dozens and dozens of times. Have a look at the England team that won us the World Cup in 2003 for example. Key units like front rows and back threes have been decided on months, if not years, in advance and players know each other’s game and the team strategies inside out.

Whilst we have an excellent squad now, and I think we pretty much know the best two players in each position, injuries to so many players have prevented that essential continuity happening and we have left it rather too late for the best combinations to gell.

And boy have we had too many injuries to too many key players. Besides Tuilagi there is Wilson, Cole, Launchbury, Parling, Lawes, Morgan, Woods, the Vunipola brothers, Farrell, Barritt, Nowell and Brown who between them must have had close to three years off injured in the last twelve months. Such a spate of injuries to so many frontline players makes it so much more difficult for the coach to play his first choices together and find out what works and the extent of these injuries makes me wonder how people can be so optimistic.

And secondly there is the problem of who to pair at centre which for me was the final piece of the jigsaw puzzle that needed putting in place.

Before this week’s announcement that Manu Tuilagi won’t be going to this year’s World Cup, I thought that only the pairing of he and Jonathan Joseph would give us a realistic chance of progressing all the way to the Final. Now, I have to say that the options available to partner Joseph just don’t look anywhere near as attractive. Or that the selectors have to throw caution to the wind and try and blood someone new to the position which I sincerely hope they do give serious consideration to.

Now don’t get me wrong we do have several  centres who can do a job.

The man in possession, Luther Burrell was for me the weak link in England’s backline during this year’s Six Nations and obviously still has much to learn but he has the heart of a lion, gives 100% and has never really let the side down.

Brad Barritt can fit back in and do the job he does better than  any other centre in England but his being the link between George Ford and Joseph rather compromises England’s attacking options. Being as hard as nails is a great plus but we need guile and out of the box vision to bring our back three and Joseph into the game more.

If Exeter had made it through to the play-offs Henry Slade would have had at least two more games to impress the selectors but now his chances are more limited. He would however be my outside bet for the inside centre birth and may well get selected as fly half ahead of Stephen Myler which again I would prefer and that would give the selectors the option to try him there but time is against him.

Billy Twelvetrees has definitely had his moments in an England shirt and I am pretty sure he will be in the final squad but he was never going to be my first choice due to his inconsistency.

And then it gets a bit darker.

If I was a betting man I would put money on Owen Farrell starting at inside centre for the first match of the World Cup. I just cannot get out of my head the thought that having your dad as one of the selectors really does influence selection. Think first amongst equals rather than favouritism.

Until injured I watched him play in most, if not all of his matches for England and could not believe how much better George Ford was when he got his chance. When I saw him at centre he did a decent job but his overall lack of vision in both positions makes me think that at best he should be second choice and hopefully make his mark from the bench.

He is still young, has been on a very steep learning curve and should become world class by the next world cup but with his lack of match practice through injury this year and his limitations I really don’t think he is the solution.

Others have talked about Kyle Eastmond. He is as gifted as pretty much anyone qualified to play for England and at club level plays between Ford and Joseph, but his newness to Union still shows and being roughly the same size as Ford you can see why many worry if someone like Jamie Roberts decided to target either of them. I think I hold a minority view and that he should be persevered with.

I have also noted that George Ford barely missed a tackle all 6 Nations and having read pretty much every match report concerning Bath this season and I can’t remember anyone saying the Ford/Eastmond pairing weakened the side defensively. but then my memory is not my strong point.

So, of all the regular inside centres Eastmond would have been my first choice but the chances of that happening at this year’s World Cup are near to non-existent.

Sam Burgess is a non-starter as he has started playing club rugby at flanker and has made much more of a success of that position than he did at centre by all accounts. Wonderful talent that he is, this World Cup has come round too soon and when the present England Captain plays on one flank and Lancaster’s other golden boy is pencilled in for the other flank the chances recede into the far distance.

Moreover someone like James Haskell is a much better bet on the bench as he can and has the experience of covering all three back row positions.

Then finally there is a chance that Danny Cipriani will be given the opportunity to play No.12 and rise to the occasion. He has the talent, not a little experience and I suspect that his personality is such that if he were entrusted with a new role as a centre he would grab it with both hands. He must realise that George Ford is likely to keep him out of the fly half spot for the foreseeable future. How important a second receiver is in the selectors’ plans I know not  but Cipriani would be my left field choice.

And there is a distinct possibility that, excluding injuries, Ford, Cipriani, Farrell and Slade will be picked for the final squad, ostensibly as fly halves, with Barritt, Burrell, Twelvetrees and Joseph as the centres.

I suspect we will be none the wiser as to whether the selectors will play safe for some time to come.

There is a squad of  up to 50 England players to be announced this Wednesday, 20th May for training purposes only and I would be staggered if any of the names mentioned here were excluded unless they were injured.

Whether we win the World Cup this year or not, in four years not only will we still have the likes of Ford and Farrell still in their prime, but also a certain Manu Tuilagi who hopefully will also be in the mix and still in his prime.

Accurately Predicting The 2015 British General Election Three Months In Advance

May 14, 2015 — Leave a comment

On the 7th of February 2015 I uploaded an article to this blog  in which I predicted exactly three months before the General Election that the Conservative Party would win, gaining a slender majority.

Here is the link should you wish to read it –

Predicting the 2015 UK General Election three months in advance.

I went as far as predicting how many seats each party would win and briefly stated why they would do so.

Whilst I managed to predict to within three seats how many the Conservatives would win I came slightly unstuck when I failed to appreciate just how big a swing there would be towards the SNP.

For me the Scottish referendum made the average Scot  realise that they could be ably represented by their own party and not have to put their fate into the hands of Labour or the Liberal Democrats. I predicted the SNP to gain a couple of dozen seats when in fact they gained about four dozen. This I put down to the excellent display the SNP put up during the televised debates in the few weeks preceding the election and it was something I did not foresee.

I realised that if the Conservatives only held one seat in Scotland it would be the Liberal Democrats and Labour who would suffer most at the hands of the SNP. Hence my predictions for both of these parties were a little skewed and I miscalculated by twenty seats between them.

The Liberal Democrats were slaughtered in this election and not just because of losses to the SNP. I picked up that many of their supporters outside of Scotland had abandoned them because they  were perceived to have failed pretty much completely as part of the coalition government and lost their identity in the process.

As for Labour let’s just say nice guys finish last. OK Ed came second but he was seen as being simply too nice and too many people perceived that The Labour Party just did not have the policies that would draw voters to them and away from any other party.

The fates of UKIP and the Green Party were so much harder to determine. I thought both parties would win millions of votes but as to how many seats I thought it very difficult to judge. I made the decision that the problem with the Green Party was that they were still perceived as being rather amateur and unprepared for an election letting alone being part of a coalition. (That radio interview was an absolute body blow).  I said they would win no seats and they won but one.

So what about the actual winners – why the Conservative party? Choosing the lesser of two evils and better the devil you know than the devil you don’t sum up a few million voters’ perceptions in my opinion. Millions more thought the Conservatives were the only party that could be trusted with the economy. And which other party was seen to have the potential to acquit itself at international level?

Most depressingly of all though, quality of life did not seem to be as important as quantities of money for even more millions. I suspect they voted Conservative in this election because they were the only party likely to put pounds back into pockets.

Whether there will ever come a day when politics is about policies that reduce stress in individuals’ lives, or encourage happiness and contentedness and focus on quality of life I don’t know but I am not holding my breath.

There are two very interesting statistics concerning this election which I think are worth commenting on briefly.

Firstly the Liberal Democrats and the SNP combined won 64 seats with 12.6% of the vote. UKIP on the other hand won but one seat with 12.6% on the vote. I thought that UKIP would win ten seats so whilst I was quite a long way off as far as the number of seats won I did pick up on they fact they would win millions of votes. That’s one in eight of the votes cast should any of you think they will be going away any time soon.

The second interesting statistic is that two-thirds of the electorate turned out to vote. Which is more than at the previous election.

I did wonder what effect Russell Brand would have on turnout after his earlier pronouncements but it would seem he was largely ignored and rightly so. I think David Cameron did his chance of being re-elected no harm at all when he called Brand a joke and said he was not going to meet him. I suspect we have not heard the last of Russell Brand as a political commentator for all his back-peddling after the election.

In my next blog are my predictions about what may happen in British politics between now and the next election which might be much sooner than 2020. Just need to find someone to draw me a Venn diagram………..