I have heard people arguing who is the best 10 faz vs ford vs cips. I have never heard any one ever argue that heinz is any where near even being 3/4th choice 9 let alone 2nd. Who is uncapped at 32.
Bizarre to say the least.
I’ve heard fuck all about Navidi recently. Don’t need him getting injured.
Alun Wyn will become our most capped player of all time (when you include Lions caps). Bow and pay your respects to the GOAT
WC warm up game this sunday. Can you spot the difference in the line ups? I would have thought eddie and warren would have been on the phone and agreed on some thing?
England: Daly; McConnochie, Slade, Francis, Watson; Ford, Heinz; Genge, Cowan-Dickie, Cole, Launchbury, Ewels, Curry, Underhill, B Vunipola.
Replacements: Singleton, Marler, Williams, Kruis, Ludlam, Youngs, Marchant, Cokanasiga.
Wales: L Williams; North, J Davies, Parkes, Adams; Anscombe, G Davies; Smith, Owens, Francis, Beard, Wyn Jones, Wainwright, Tipuric, Moriarty.
Replacements: Dee, Jones, Lewis, Ball, Shingler, T Williams, Biggar, Watkin.
England team picked to play at tempo and keep the ball in play it looks like, much like how the squad is shaping up before the World Cup. Obviously feeling we'll be playing on some hard and fast tracks.
That's all well and good but is it realistic to expect English players to play like that in what I assume will be stifling humidity in Japan? I'm not so sure.
Remains to be seen, they have been doing a lot of conditioning work in the last few weeks in humid conditions.
Obviously decided though that the emphasis needs to be on mobile players in what will be harder and faster conditions, which is why the likes of Hughes, Te'o etc have been cut, no way back for the likes of Robshaw or Brown, and people like Singleton, Ludlam, Marchant right in contention.
You'd hope Eddie Jones knows all about Japanese conditions and what will be needed......
Very true. I've no doubt Jones knows the conditions. I just wonder whether the English lot will cope with it. That said I assume they'll be over there for a couple of weeks beforehand to aclimitise etc. So maybe it won't be such a factor.
If we lose any of these warm up games against England and Ireland I’m not counting them towards our 14 game winning run.
Obviously if we win I will.
What about against England B ?
Same rules.
Joking aside, you’re at home and all but we should be beating this England team.
Our training camps in Switzerland where they sleep at high altitude and train at low altitude has done us well since the build up to the 2011 WC so I fancy us to be a bit fitter too.
Having said that I’d expect both teams to utilise all of their bench early on in the 2nd half and you’ve got some very good players there. You’ve got a lot of talent full stop. One of the most talented set of individuals you’ve had, imo.
We did a WC warm up match at Twickenham in the build up to 2015 didn’t we? I seem to remember a narrow loss so maybe I’ll go for a narrow 3 point win this time.
Though, tbh, obviously I’d be lying if I said I don’t care about the result as it’s Wales/England, but really I just want to see a good performance and no injuries.
Looking forward to see if Shingler can get his form back prior to his long off, too.
Still gutted about Tobi.
These games are nothing more than a phoney war. Purely for fitness, combinations and dare I say it, even at times, putting the opposition slightly off the scent!
I barely take an interest