All Black Harry Plummer ends World Cup hopes with Top 14 deal

Also, unlike Australia or England, both of which are also in rebuild phases, the current Wales team is not exactly full of household names. The household names have moved on, and he has a relatively junior crew left. For a sense of that, compare the Wales (starting 15) caps against Australia (279) with the equivalent Springbok caps against England (767).

So Gatland is doing his thing, a gradual build of a team that can execute consistently well, and he is doing so with an inexperienced team. IMV Gatland should be given plenty of time to get this working.

You can have head contact and not have serious injury. Which is what the penalties are for - to discourage high and dangerous hits so that they don’t occur and result in head injuries. Discourage the behavior.

I don't think this is going to happen and personally, I don't believe it should. The whole new Enhanced Player Squad (EPS) contracts can only be awarded to EQPs signed to Premiership teams (not sure about Championship sides). The Prem clubs are not going to be agreeable to any changes that see their best players heading off to France/Japan etc. Personally, I believe the Prem should be ring-fenced further with even tighter restrictions on the number of foreign players clubs can have on their books. If the RFU are serious about development pathways, then the Prem and Championship should be establish as the best nurseries for developing emerging EQP.

2. SB and coaching team must improve their coaching, selection and impact/substitutions.

Completely agree. Really disappointed that we're unlikely to see more of the England A/U20 cohort against Japan this week. Seems a perfect opportunity to get some of them on off the bench for 20-mins or so. The disparity between the starting 15 and the bench has been one of the biggest issues this Autumn.

3. England need to change their captain, young props to be given game time, inside centre to be introduced along with a younger fast fullback.

Another hot topic atm., though I'm not sure who you'd replace him with. Someone, somewhere mentioned making George Ford captain, but that creates a whole other set of issues regarding you-know-who. Agree about looking at some alternative 12/13 options. Can't see Borthwick drifting too far from Furbank at FB with Steward covering for high-kicking opposition.

Hope so.

Los pumas. 1 point.

🟥

Its a trivial observation to say that scoring more points and preventing more points against you would result in better outcomes. And points difference does not mean much either, as it is generally less than 5 points with top teams. Usain Bolt would win the 100m sprint by 200 milliseconds (approximately two blinks of an eye), but that doesn't mean the others could easily beat him.

Also, these kinds of analyses tend to talk about how the team in question would just need to do X, Y and Z to win, but assume that opponents don't make any changes themselves. This is nonsense, as it is always the case that both teams go away with a list of work-ons. If we're going to think about what would have happened if team A had made that tackle, kicked that goal or avoided that penalty, the n let's think about what would have happened if team B had passed to that overlap, avoided that card, or executed that lineout maul.

There are lots of things that England can focus on for improvement, but for me the main observation is that they have not been able to raise their game when it matters. Playing your best game when it counts is what makes champions, and England have not shown that. And, for me, that's a coaching thing.

I expected Borthwick to build a basics-first, conservative culture, minimizing mistakes, staying in the game, and squeezing out wins against fancier opponents and game plans. It's not that he isn't building something, but it has taken disappointingly long, not least if you compare it to Australia since Schmidt took over, or SA after Rassie took over.

But JW thinks all SH players only ever go to Europe for the money which is facile to the nth degree.🤣

Though I’m in the glass half full camp, one area I am concerned about is whether England’s overall strategy i.e. Borthwick’s assertion that the game plan is to ‘move the ball’ coupled with a (ragged) blitz defense are incompatible in that this approach places to great an aerobic demand on the players.

Moving the ball implies attacking quickly through the backs to find the edge or sprinting onto grubbers. Blitzing then adds further aerobic demands on the backs with constant shuttle runs when not in possession. Together, players are at a near constant state of plyometric capacity and which in my opinion, is why we’re seeing a performance drop off in the final quarter.