'We were a bit shaky towards the end': Marcus Smith's England view

Jake White has effectively decided that he would rather have a chance of success in one competition, at the expense of the other competition, than a near certainty of heroic failure in both. And he has implied that over time he plans to build enough depth to give the Bulls a chance in both the URC and Champions Cup simultaneously.

Not sure what is being proposed here that is supposedly a better plan.

He likely will select on the basis of win ratios. IRE and ENG won 4, SCOT won 2 and WAL won none. 6 Irish, 6 English, 3 Scottish seems about right for the starting 15.

Yeah, I think he’ll definitely bring Beirne to have as a utility lock/flanker. Doris’ discipline and leadership has maybe rocked a little this year but he’s still the best 8 in the game.

“Experience is strongly correlated with age, at least among the managers that I named”…

Slot and Arteta are among the youngest you named. They have the least experience as a manager (6 years each). Espírito Santo and Pep are the oldest and have the most (12 years + each). Pep is pushing 17 years experience, all at elite level. There are plenty around his age that won’t have the same level of experience. Plenty.

The younger breed you mentioned (Arteta in particular) may not coach at elite level beyond the next few years if they continue to not win trophies. Age and experience is not always a nice, steady gradient.

The only trend in English soccer is that managers don’t stay on as long with the same club. Due to the nature of the game and the assumed, immediate performance bounce of replacing them at the first sign of trouble. Knee-jerk style. Test rugby has no clear pattern of that.

Why would you dismiss a paradox? Contradictions are often revealing. Or is that too incoherent?

Kinghorn and Jack Willis have become world class at Toulouse. Players get better in France. REC nations have heaps of players in the ProD2, it shows.

Coaching Aussie would be more a pure coaching choice, finding a team which has a sympathy with the way you like to coach the game.

Americans value experience because their professional sports are all far older than rugby, it will just take us a while to catch up. Those Yoda guys are like gold dust.

But yeah they were cardboard caricatures of Moneyball guys who looked at their laptops and never went to games…

“The win rates are vitally important for this Lions tour”

I agree. But you can’t just select players on the basis of their individual win rates.

“Farrell is a straight forward, no nonsense type of guy. He’ll probably pick conservatively and with guys in their proven positions. He hasn’t the time for bolters or shock calls. Not with the touring schedule they have.”

Yes, I was thinking more England selections. For the Lions tour then if Doris and Tom Curry both start then Earl becomes a pretty viable option at 7. But if Doris ever gets injured, or Farrell wants either Chessum or Tadgh Beirne at 6, then Earl will move to 8.