Nick Cain: Blood these youngsters to revive the Rose

 Matt KvesicStuart Lancaster and Conor O'Shea have been attempting the defence of 's 2015 World Cup realm this week by side-stepping the ruins of a failed campaign. While head coach Lancaster said he backed himself to coach at international level successfully, and felt there was no need for an overhaul of his set-up despite his team's pool stage exit, rugby director O'Shea made an impassioned defence of his club's England captain, Chris Robshaw.
O'Shea, who was one of the Rob Andrew-approved panel of consultants which advocated Lancaster's appointment as England head coach in 2012, said that in his view Robshaw should be retained as England captain, and openside, despite the World Cup disaster. He suggested that when the incumbent England No.7 returns to Harlequins after Lancaster's squad disbands following the dead-zone match against Uruguay, he will prove his detractors wrong.
“What does Chris need to do now? I'm sure there will be loads of scrutiny, opinion, loads of ‘change 15 players' blah, blah, blah,”O'Shea said. He added, “But he just needs to play well for Quins, he needs to be successful, and then everything will look after itself. That's what got him to where he was, and that's what will keep him where he is.”
O'Shea has every right to his opinion, even though it is almost certainly not one shared by the broad-spectrum of England fans deeply disenchanted with the way that the host nation was dumped out of the tournament after successive Twickenham defeats by and .
Some of them will also take more than a passing interest in the selection conundrum coming down the track towards O'Shea at The Stoop, following a ringing endorsement of Robshaw, which, ironically, puts more pressure rather than less on the player. Rather than taking the low-profile route, and letting the dust settle with the possibility that the England captain reverts to the blindside role he played with distinction at Harlequins during the Dean Richards era,  it has highlighted the three-way tussle for the openside shirt between Robshaw and the club's young turks, Jack Clifford and Luke Wallace.
Jack CliffordClifford, above, the 2013 England junior world champion captain, is being touted already as the next Red Rose openside flanker by some pundits, including Premiership coaches, who suggest that the forthcoming campaign would not be too soon to blood him.
Having played No.8 for the England U20s, Clifford's progress in his first two seasons in the senior game were disrupted by hamstring and knee injuries, and he was loaned subsequently to Ealing Trailfinders and , as well as a brief stint with the England squad. However, last season Clifford came to prominence after enjoying his first full season for Harlequins, with many of his 24 matches at openside during Robshaw's national squad absences, and he finished in style by scoring a try in an England XVs 70-point rout of the Barbarians at Twickenham in May.
Clifford appears to be to the manner born at No.7 because he is not only fast enough to threaten as a carrier and support runner, but he has enough power at a compact 6ft 3ins (1.93m) and 15st 7lbs (100kg) to be a thorough nuisance at the breakdown.
Certainly the 22-year-old has caught the eye of Richards, the Newcastle rugby director and former Quins boss, who also spoke highly of his own openside and captain, Will Welch, at Wednesday's Premiership launch: “Jack Clifford, and guys like that, are outstanding footballers and will be around and wear an England shirt in the not too distant future – and wear it for a long time – and have the potential to be world-class players.”
Whether Harlequins can continue to develop Clifford as a potential Test openside, while also keeping Robshaw and Wallace happy, will examine O'Shea's skills in selection and diplomacy to the full over the next few months.
With the focus now firmly on opensides in the wake of the demolition job done on the England backrow at the breakdown by Australia's twin-threat of David Pocock and Michael Hooper, the Gloucester rugby director, David Humphreys, says Matt Kvesic will be determined not to be supplanted as the heir to Robshaw's shirt.
Humphreys says that Kvesic, top, 23, who won two England caps on the 2013 tour of Argentina but was cut from the squad after the Denver training camp, has made big strides under the tutelage of  Laurie Fisher, Gloucester's former Brumbies head coach. Fisher is a renowned breakdown specialist having schooled the likes of Wallaby No.7s George Smith, Pocock, and Hooper, as well as 's Julian Salvi.
Humphreys says:  “Laurie is a massive fan of ‘Kev' (Kvesic), and he believes he is the best openside in the traditional Pocock/Hooper Australian mould in England. We all say that the openside has to be the fittest player on the pitch – certainly in the mould that Kev is. He is not just a scavenging openside, he's a very dynamic player who has the ability to link and pass. He has the potential to be the very best.”
The former Ireland fly-half adds: “Matt was unlucky early last season because a couple of injuries didn't help him get into the flow, but as the season went on he got stronger and stronger..
“Matt needs to play on a regular basis to get up to match pace – he's quick over the ground, a really strong tackler and has massive legs which help him to be strong over the ball. When he gets locked-in he's very hard to move. He's a really talented player, and we've got huge expectations of what he'll do for Gloucester, let alone England.”
Asked if he is surprised Kvesic (6ft 1ins, 16st 7lbs) didn't get more of a World Cup look-in, despite his tact, Humphreys frustration comes through.
“Stuart kept us very well informed of where our players were within the group, and although we knew he was very close, we also knew that he was not at the top of the selection process. You can argue the merits of each of the players, but certainly I believe that Matt Kvesic could have gone to the World Cup and made a huge impact because that's the quality of the player he is. He is an international rugby player, and will at some stage establish himself as an international seven.”
 Dave EwersAnother coach who feels many of his players got short shrift from the 2015 World Cup selection process is Exeter Chiefs coach Rob Baxter. Staying with the backrow theme, Baxter – who coached the England forwards during their 2013 series win in Argentina – says that if England were looking to go route one against Wales and Australia they needed to look no further than Chiefs heavy-duty blindside/No.8 Dave Ewers, above, who is 6ft 4ins and 19st.
Baxter says: “If England decide that the way you beat Wales and Australia is an out-and-out power game, then a Dave Ewers on the side of that scrum at 120kg, who can power a scrum forward and get you hard yards, is your ideal guy. But I think Stuart felt comfortable with the options available to him, and he was loath to make a change there. But if you're going to look at building a power back five, then Dave is one of the candidates.”
He continues, “Competition for the ball can be crucial, but sometimes Dave can get over it five times a game, and you can't move him. The breakdown is not always the domain of the seven, but what you saw from Australia against England was the intelligence of the sevens (Pocock and Hooper) not to compete at every breakdown. They understood which one to compete for, and their percentage success rate was so high because the ones they selected they went hard for.”
With the Saracens blindside/lock Maro Itoje (6ft 5ins, 18st) – who was a junior world champion the year after Clifford in 2014 – also making rapid headway last season as the most exciting No.6 in the Premiership, Lancaster was not short of options to inject some dynamism into a one-paced England backrow.
The same was true of a front row in which the England props failed to make much yardage as carriers, and the return from injury of the 23-year-old Bath tight-head, Henry Thomas (6ft 1ins, 18st 8lbs), offers an antidote to the lack of impact.
Baxter is also clear about his dismay at being overlooked at outside-centre when Jonathan Joseph was ruled out by injury ahead of the Wales match, with the whole England midfield trio being recast when one straight swap at 13 would have fixed the problem.
“I was a champion of Henry Slade being included in the England squad, and certainly when they made changes they should have gone to him before they went to the -Brad Barritt combination. The opportunity arose then, and that was the whole point of Henry being in the squad.
“That's where he played in the warm-up game against France, and played exceptionally well – that was the chance to say, ‘we've put the guy in the squad, we put him there for a reason, and now is the chance to back that decision and go with it (against Wales)'.”
Baxter added: “Jack Nowell's the most unfortunate player, because he didn't actually do anything wrong. I think they can both feel a little unfortunate that the World Cup's come and gone and they didn't have much involvement in it.”
Defenders of the status quo, like O'Shea,  argue that everything is rosy in the England garden and allude to a knee-jerk reaction advocating the replacement of all of England's starting 15. No such call has been made, however the judicious introduction of a handful of players of the calibre of Slade, Clifford, Kvesic, Ewers, Itoje and Thomas – which would mean an overhaul of about a third of the starting fifteen – could bring a transformation.
These young players can provide the injection of the energy and thrust going into the Six Nations that England needed so desperately against Wales and Australia.

Leave a Comment