Northern Edition

Select Edition

Northern Northern
Southern Southern
Global Global
New Zealand New Zealand
France France

The England prediction Lee Blackett has made about Alfie Barbeary

Alfie Barbeary runs out at The Rec for Bath (Photo by Patrick Khachfe/Onside Images

Lee Blackett has tipped Alfie Barbeary to make a breakthrough with Steve Borthwick’s England this season. Test head coach Borthwick and Richard Hill were at The Rec last Saturday to scout the Bath No8, the RPA’s U23 player of the month for November, and he went on to impress in his team’s 37-14 Investec Champions Cup win over Bath.

ADVERTISEMENT

The recently-turned 23-year-old has had a difficult run in his fledgling career, with serious injuries hampering his progress as well as the trauma of seeing Wasps go bust 14 months ago and fall out of the Gallagher Premiership.

Barbeary was soon snapped by Johann van Grann and he has since been joined at Bath by Blackett, his former Wasps boss who spent the remainder of the 2022/23 season at Scarlets before linking up at The Rec with a side that is now flying in the league, reaching second place before the current two-week break for the opening Champions Cup rounds.

Video Spacer

Jacques Nienaber on evolution and why he left international rugby

Former Springbok coach Jacques Nienaber has given his first Leinster press conference and at it spoke about how big a role family played in his decision to leave Test rugby. He also spoke about evolution and how it will take a while to get things right at Leinster.

Video Spacer

Jacques Nienaber on evolution and why he left international rugby

Former Springbok coach Jacques Nienaber has given his first Leinster press conference and at it spoke about how big a role family played in his decision to leave Test rugby. He also spoke about evolution and how it will take a while to get things right at Leinster.

That campaign will see Bath travel to Cardiff on Saturday night and ahead of that fixture, Blackett has sung the praises of Barbeary, the No8 who has scored three tries in his eight appearances this term.

Appearing on The Evening Standard Rugby Podcast, the Bath assistant told Lawrence Dallaglio and co: “I’m really happy (for Alfie). He is someone who I have known since he was like 16.

“With the amount of highs and lows he has had already within his career and the injuries, there has never been a doubt about his potential. Alfie is going to get better and better each week. He looks sharper and sharper. He is finally getting over that knee injury.

ADVERTISEMENT

“He is an outstanding ball carrier. He really is. He is quicker than people think. He is really powerful. If he had been fit now since he had come through him and played regularly, he 100 percent would have played for his country. It is injuries that probably held him back.

“The big challenge for players is making sure they play really well, and especially in the big games. And there’s nothing bigger than the Champions Cup at the moment,” continued Blackett, who claimed that head coach van Grann was keen on having as many England-qualified player as possible in the Bath starting XV.

“If you look at the Bath team (that started) last weekend 13 out of the 15 were English-qualified and the other two were Finn Russell and Cam Redpath. That’s the big thing for this club, for the coaches that are working here. If you look at the World Cup, we obviously had a few away there, but how many consistently started every single game for the club? We probably had five.

“For us to be successful as a club, obviously, it is what we do on the field for Bath, but also seeing our guys and having that many people that are English qualified. How many people can we get starting regularly (for England)?

ADVERTISEMENT

“If you want to try and achieve things and win things, if you look at history you probably need six starting internationals within your side.

“And if you want to do it like Saracens did for years, Leicester did before them and Wasps, of those dynasties, you probably need 10 or so starting internationals within your side. So, we have got loads of potential, loads of guys on the fringes.”

ADVERTISEMENT

LIVE

{{item.title}}

Trending on RugbyPass

Comments

0 Comments
Be the first to comment...

Join free and tell us what you really think!

Sign up for free
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest Features

Comments on RugbyPass

H
Hellhound 14 minutes ago
France put World Cup pain behind them with unbeaten run in November

France is starting to look like they are finally over their WC headache, although they were lucky that NZ had a very bad game. The Argies as usual is one game good, the next bad. If they can sort that out and be more consistent, they could become contenders for the WC.


NZ, Argentina (if they are more consistent), and now the Wallabies too is in an upward curve (can they be consistent?), as well as Fiji(as inconsistent as Argentina) looks like possible contenders. The Boks will be as usual a huge threat to defend their title. Things are looking up for the South, so the North should rightfully beware of the Southern Hemisphere threat.


With the French looking dangerous, the English with their close runs (mostly a mindset problem) and the Scottish seems to be the NH main contenders. The Irish is good, but not excellent anymore. They are more overbearing and with their glory days mostly gone with old players hanging on by a thread, by 2027 if they don't start adding in the younger players, they won't make it past yet another WC Quarter final. The problem is that their youngsters, while good is nothing special.


That is just 8 teams without the Irish that can become real WC contenders. Lots of hickups to be sorted still for these teams, excluding the Boks to become a threat. Make no mistake, the top Tier is much closer than people realise and the 2027 WC will be a really great WC, possibly the best contended WC ever.

1 Go to comments
LONG READ
LONG READ 'Steve Borthwick hung his troops out to dry - he should take some blame' 'Steve Borthwick hung his troops out to dry - he should take some blame'
Search