Northern Edition

Select Edition

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

'We are fortunate': Where Wayne Barnes has really stood out helping England at training this week

(Photo by Stu Forster/Getty Images)

England this week moved to solve their Guinness Six Nations penalty-conceding problems by inviting Test level referees Wayne Barnes and Matthew Carley along to their training base in London ahead of next Saturday’s round four clash with France at Twickenham.

ADVERTISEMENT

Eddie Jones’ struggling English players conceded a combined total of 41 penalties in their three February matches, ruining their championship title defence with defeats to Scotland and Wales and an unimpressive win over hapless Italy.

England were due to be officiated this weekend by South African referee Jaco Peyper, but the pandemic resulted in a reshuffle which will now see Andrew Brace, last December’s Autumn Nations Cup final referee, take charge of this repeat Le Crunch fixture.

Video Spacer

Mitsubishi Motor-Vation Launch Video

Video Spacer

Mitsubishi Motor-Vation Launch Video

In an effort to help England clean up their act, Barnes and Carley – who respectively refereed this year’s Wales-Ireland and Italy-France games in Cardiff and Rome – have visited The Lensbury to get them up to speed on the sport’s latest hotspots and iron out some kinks in their performances.

Attack coach Simon Amor has dubbed the duo’s involvement as very useful in the lead-up to the visit by the Grand Slam-chasing French to London. “We are really fortunate to have two of the best referees in the world in with us this week,” he said.

“It has been really useful in terms of having conversations with the players and on the pitch with our training, getting some proper referees in there to really have a look at that area. It has been a good experience. There have been good questions from the players, one-to-one conversations, team conversations as well. Wayne was very good at explaining how he prepares for a game and what he looks for as well so we can understand that. It has been a really good process.

“All we can do is our best in terms of educating players and keep them growing and learning. None of the errors or penalties the guys give away are deliberate. They are trying to do their absolute best and we really want to play with physicality and intensity and be right on the edge and sometimes we tipped over it. It’s a good process for individual players, the team and the coaches.”

ADVERTISEMENT

Switching to his own area of expertise, Amor claimed he was encouraged by how England attacked last time out in Cardiff even though they were ultimately defeated 40-24 by the table-topping Wales. “It was an encouraging performance.

“Where we were with Scotland we were well below our best, an improvement against Italy and then really pleased with how we found some of the opportunities to get on some inside shoulders, attack some of the gaps, keep the ball alive… that was really good (against Wales). 

“The ability for the backs to connect with the forwards was better. We still missed a good couple of opportunities there so it is still something that we can get a lot better on but the connections between forwards and backs, finding gaps, finding shoulders, a much more decisive intent with the carry through, it was a lot better.”

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

A
AM 41 minutes ago
'Freelancer' Izaia Perese shows the need for true inclusivity in Australian rugby

That's Cron's job though. Australia has had one of the most penalised scrums in international rugby for a long time. Just look at the scrum win loss percentage and scrum penalties. That is your evidence. AA has been the starter during that period. Pretty simple analysis. That Australia has had a poor scrum for a long time is hardly news. If bell and thor are not on the field they are woeful. So you are just plain wrong. They have very little time for the lions so doing the same old things that dont work is not going to get them there.


Ainsley is better than our next best tighthead options and has been playing well at scrum time for Lyon in the most competitive comp in the world. Superstar player? No. But better than the next best options. So that is a good enough guide. The scrummaging in the Prem is pretty good too so there is Sio's proof. Same analysis for him. Certainly better in both cases than Super, where the brumbies had the worst win loss and scrum pen in Super. Who plays there? Ohh yes... And the level of scrummaging in Super is well below the URC, prem and France with the SA teams out.


Nongorr is truly woeful. He's 130kg and gets shoved about. That just should not be happening at that weight for a specialist prop who has always played rugby cf pone with leauge. He has had enough time to develop at 23. You'd be better off with Pone who is at least good around the field for the moment and sending Nongorr on exchange to France or England to see if they can improve him with better coaching as happened with Skelton and Meafou. He isn't going to develop in time in super if he has it at all.


Latu is a better scrummaging hooker than BPA and Nasser. and he's the best aussie player over the ball at ruck time. McReight's super jackling percentage hasnt converted to international level but latu consistently does it at heniken level, which is similar to test level in the big games. With good coaching at La Rochelle he's much improved though still has the odd shocker. He should start the November games.

72 Go to comments
LONG READ
LONG READ Seven stars set to light up the Autumn Nations Series Seven stars set to light up the Autumn Nations Series
Search