6 Nations Team of the Tournament
I don’t normally feature opinion pieces but a team of the tournament seems to be the done thing about this time of the year so I’m going to be a bit self indulgent for a change and decided to put together a composite six nations side (and I’ll try and justify my selections with a bit of reasoning). I must stress this isn’t based on stats or much scientific evidence, instead it’s based on my...
England 2014: Where are England’s ball carriers?
View image | gettyimages.com 12 months is a long time in Rugby Union and it’s not that uncommon to see a well oiled machine start to stutter and splutter. England, whilst not awful, have gone from one of the strongest attacking teams in the Six Nations to a team searching for a spark. Additionally in the four weeks of the Autumn internationals they went from a team looking to put away the SH giants and set out their stall ahead...
Attack Analysis – Bath Rugby
As mentioned in the Kyle Eastmond, Analysis of a Try article, Bath have always been an attractive side to watch, but since Mike Ford took over steering the ship I really feel they have taken this to another level. George Ford, seems to have been the missing link for Bath, and it’s interesting to see how much he has pushed on since leaving Leicester. He brings a flat gain line game with ball in hand and assured...
New Zealand vs England – Focus on Englands Defensive Woes
Alas it was not to be, 3-0 to New Zealand. Expected? Maybe so, but England must have hoped for a test win. They showed a lot of encouraging signs but for all their endeavor they still came up significantly short. Combative yes, competitive, yes, but for about 30-40 minutes of the test series New Zealand tore England apart with attacking Rugby that exposed huge flaws in their game. Defence has been a big part of England's...
Shooting Stars – Saracens Defensive System
Last week as part of our article on the quarter final between Saracens and Clermont I mentioned the amount of plaudits the Saracens defence had received and i wanted to come back and have a quick look at why it’s been getting so much attention. Lots of focus has been placed on the ferociousness of individual hits and the “Wolfpack” mentality they have made a key component in their defence system. In the Clermont game...
Kicking the Habit – The need for tactical Kicking
After their demolition of ASM Clermont Auvergne a lot of the focus has been on Saracens defensive system. Understandably so, and we’ll focus on that later on this week, but something that was equally telling for me in predicting the outcome of the game was their ability to dominate the kicking game. We all know big games can turn on very little things, and one of those occurred about 4 minutes into the game. Saracens...
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