Johnno on under-fire Brian Ashton

Hello there. It's Johnno here again with some thoughts on England's upcoming World Cup Pool A game with Samoa, but firstly a few words on the coach Brian Ashton.

He's only had a very short time with the team but when you take a job you know what you're getting into and at World Cup time people will want to know why this has happened.

If you play a team that's better than you, with more experience, skill and control and they get the better of you that's one thing. But England haven't played anywhere near as well as they can, that's the disappointing thing.

If that was as good those players can be, fine, but it's not. We know they can be a lot better. When you're coaching and you're not getting anywhere near the potential of your team, that's disappointing.

We can still beat some of the best teams in the world but we have to start worrying about our performance. Forget about qualification or anything else, just start the game well.

We started the South Africa game and were 10 points down within 10 minutes and that'a a very, very difficult thing to come back from in a big game against a team like that when you're short of confidence. We need to keep the tempo of the game high and control the ball.

Looking at the line-up Ashton has selected against Samoa, it's a whole new midfield from the South Africa game. They've almost ripped it up and started again. Samoa are not facing the most physical England midfield I've ever seen but it's a pretty skilful one.

When he came on against South Africa Andy Gommersall was far sharper round the base of the breakdown, so you expected that change to happen. Joe Worsley's athleticism has got him in. I'm surprised Lewis Moody isn't starting in the back row. I thought he might fit into the back row somewhere, maybe Martin Corry go to the second row.

It's a bit of a shame for Danny Hipkiss not getting a go at 13. It's good to see George Chuter get a start. Olly Barkley is now playing 12, which he wasn't brought on the tour to do. England have struggled at 12 for the last couple of years so it will be interesting to see how he goes.

It really typifies what England have been through in the last few years - going from one game to the other with vastly different players. There has been no continuity in any of the key positions. They're not sure what their best team is.

The Samoans' endurance is not their strength so the last 30 minutes is when you can start taking advantage of that. We really need to start very, very quickly and aggressively and not let Samoa get early points on us.

I'll be back on Thursday as we build up to Saturday's crunch Samoa game. Catch up with you then.

Comments

[Elaine]

I have recently got to know the game of rugby after becoming a season ticket holder for our local club and watching the internationals from 2003 when England won the world cup, we as a rugby nation have lost the spark and flare that made us different to other nations teams. When Brian Ashton took over the England squad it was always known that this world cup would be a training ground for a newly built team and so far that is not evident, still playing semi or fully retired players in a sqaud that should have completely new blood. No offence but they have had their day and now it is the turn of new and younger talent, and there is plenty of that in this country but no one is giving them a chance. Why is Hipkiss not playing. Why is Brian Ashton not building a team from scratch. Get rid of the team that won in 2003 and literally build up from the bottom, its the only way to do it and if we are to stand a chance in the next world cup then in my opinion the less unknown players in this country should be given a chance to prove their worth.

[zion]

http://dineropopular.blogspot.com/

[Carl Smiter]

I have to agree that after four years we are still no nearer to finding that magic formula - Am I the only person to blatantly see that Farrell - Tait - Noon - Worsley - Lund - Sackey and Sheridan are not International players, good clubmen but not internationals, so if I can see that why can't the coaches. we should be baseing our playing philosophy on either the Leicester / Wasps model (probably the Wasps as we don't have a Samoan winger) - good drift defence and up in the opposition faces looking for turnover ball. Rugby is a fairly simple game, pretty much won in the mind before the game is started.
PS. I spoke to a current Currie Cup player last week who thought it was hilarious that most of there post 28 year old players are actively looking to come over here to top up there pensions - Happy days...