He really makes it sound like he's never seen any of these players before. And I did actually laugh at him mentioning Fin Smith and Charlie Atkinson at the same time as Marcus Smith and Joe Simmonds.

Not at all surprised that Ford - Eddie's favourite villain - is in line for the chop. Poor guy. The one time he's allowed to showcase his skills he has a great game, then gets asked to just kick the leather off it in the next match.

No sign of any acknowledgement that Billy was a huge waste of space either.

Didn't he just talk about lack of options in certain key positions?



"There's never an equal flow of talent coming through. You get periods where you get great nines coming through, great tens coming through, great back-rowers, and then for some reason there is a dearth, and no-one seems to know why.

"We've just got to make do with what we have, try and find the best ones and nurture them, and give them the right sort of development so when they do play for England they go and play 50 caps."

A difficult person to respect...

He really makes it sound like he's never seen any of these players before. And I did actually laugh at him mentioning Fin Smith and Charlie Atkinson at the same time as Marcus Smith and Joe Simmonds.

Teenagers are easier to influence, and after the George Martin call up I wouldn’t rule out him picking more Academy players.

His clear lack of respect for the Club structure just doesn’t work. It highlights to me that Eddie’s working in the wrong system, at the very least we need a Northern Hemisphere coach.

He's so full of it. He's had plenty of opportunities to try some of these players out. We've played Italy twice and Georgia within the last 6 months or so.

Exactly, look what Wales did - blooded new players in the Autumn and took the hit from their performance, results, media. But then reverted to full strength in the six nations knowing which players he could count on if needed like Sheedy, Botham etc.