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The England Rugby EPS squad announcement day is always a big day,
after weeks of anticipation and players sticking their hands up for selection the
4 men at the helm of our elite game make their choices and announce them to the
world’s media. Yesterday Stuart announced the 33 man squad for the QBE
Internationals at QBE’s Head Office and following the live broadcast he spoke
openly to the press regarding the decisions
that he and his team had made giving us a true insight into their decision making.
“We select
the side on objective data so the effectiveness at the breakdown, the skill
execution, your tackles that you make, your clearout effectiveness so they are
all objectively measured. But then there is a subjective analysis that we do
every week, we all sit down and we and we have criteria for every position and
we score every player. It's a big guide to how we select the team.”
The word consistency was mentioned a lot throughout the announcement,
it is clearly a huge focus and rightly so for our Elite Coaching Staff;
“Some players
have had standout games. It's then backing that up a standout game with another
standout game and then another. Not a standout game then one that is 7 out of
10. To be the best it's not about the flash stuff, it's actually about skill
execution and everything done at a very high level. And if we take Jonny Wilkinson
as the benchmark, he didn't get everything right all the time and it wasn't
always flash, but he was incredibly consistent in everything he did.”
There was also a fair amount of discussion regarding the wing men,
with an abundance of riches on our Aviva Premiership wings there were always
going to be players that missed out. Stuart assured the players and indeed confirmed
to us all that those that weren’t initially selected aren’t left out in the
cold;
"It's
not a long way back for him [Chris Ashton] at all. Neither is it for Christian
Wade, David Strettle or Anthony Watson. They are the other four we had a good
debate about. The message to those [wings] not selected is consistency, it is
all the little things you look for. Our players have to be very, very good at
everything and have two stand-out qualities as well. It could be a
Christian Wade pace, a Watson step, a Roko power through the line, Nowell’s
ability to get through first defender, or Jonny May’s out-and-out gas.
The other piece of the jigsaw is the ability to be good at everything
else. Ruck effectiveness, ability under the high ball, defensive alignment,
kicking game, everything.”
There are 7 Bath players in the 33 man squad the
potential of picking a ‘club unit’ was highlighted and put to Stuart;
“We have
never selected that way in the past. We have never felt that because Toby Flood
plays at 10 we had to pick Ben Young at 9. We back ourselves and the players to
adapt to different players. We have been together in development now for two
and a half years so I would be disappointed if we had to go to that.”
With so much natural talent
housed in the squad it was interesting to hear the team share their position on
a question regarding a pure focus on precision and execution versus playing with flair and instinct which naturally brings a lower level of precision;
“When we first started a couple of years ago, we always went
on execution, just so they understood that continuity and not turning the ball
over is an important part of the game. Once they understand that now we are
talking about decision-making, so we want them to be able to express themselves
but we want them to be able to make the right decision first. The decision is
therefore judged more so now, because they expect the execution to be right
themselves. They will self-police that. The decision of why a pass or a kick is
made is vitally important because we want to do the right thing, that might be
to be running the ball from our 5m line and scoring a 95m try, that’s how you
judge your players and get the performance you want.”
The overall message from the England team was
clear, consistency is king and it is evident for us all to see from their
selection decisions and justifications that they are demanding a lot from our
country’s elite players. Now, in 2014 to be in with a shot of playing for your
country you have to truly be world class, on all fronts, week in and week out and deliver more than ever before due to the competition around you. After one
final European hoorah it is time for the coaching team to get their hands on
their players and that is something they can’t wait to do before the colossal
task of hosting the best of the Southern Hemisphere at home in just over 2
weeks time.
