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Author Topic: Nick Evans to England: select 'devastating' Mike Brown  (Read 1024 times)

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Rocker

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Hard to argue with much of that.

Neil Quinnock

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I love Brownie and he showed good form for Quins towards the end of the season, but I still don't think Eddie will take him, despite press comment from his club coach. I think Daly and Watson will be EJ's picks.

TomBuckQuin

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My worry is that Eddie will assume he's covered at 15 given that Daly, Watson, Nowell are all going to be in the squad. You'd hope that Eddie is smart enough to realise that in the knockout stages of a WC you don't want to be fannying around switching Watson or Nowell from wing to full back to "cover" in the case of a Daly injury. Somehow, I'm not convinced Eddie is much of a cover-all-bases chap.

So yeah, I'd expect to see those three 14.5s at the WC and would be very (pleasantly) surprised if Brownie goes. And what an international send-off it would be for him - he definitely deserves it.
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Lyndo76

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I would love Mike Brown to go to the WC but think Eddie will stick to his guns with the options he has (even if I think Mike still has a good role to play, albeit probably not as a starter). shame though, would be a great finish to his England career

poorfour

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I am almost certain that Brown and Care will go. Eddie knows that he can't win an RWC without scrum half and fullback cover, and he has literally no-one else with any depth of international experience in those positions.

Robshaw has more of a fight for his place, but has the form and experience to put his case across. Kyle is a certainty, and Joe will go if Eddie can persuade him.
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Everyone’s a Quinner

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I am almost certain that Brown and Care will go. Eddie knows that he can't win an RWC without scrum half and fullback cover, and he has literally no-one else with any depth of international experience in those positions.

Robshaw has more of a fight for his place, but has the form and experience to put his case across. Kyle is a certainty, and Joe will go if Eddie can persuade him.

Very much areed.

I spoke to meet Jonny Wilkinson at Pennyhill in November last year and when I asked him if he knew what was going on with Mike he said he believes Eddy knows what Mike Brown has and he wanted to try out other people in the meantime from November and during the Six Nations to see who else could do the job as good as Brown for England it need be. He still thinks Brown is Eddie Jones’s man for 15.

Care and Brown should go.

JammyGit

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I'm almost certain that Eddie doesn't believe in wrapping people in cotton wool - if you're not in the squad, it's not because he's protecting you. Brown is gone, Eddie is willing to sacrifice the nuts and bolts of a good 15 in order to have what other players can do with the ball.

Quins Head

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Yes I think so e give EJ to much credit I do fear for Browns place have been saying it for a while

poorfour

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He wasn't protecting Brown or Care by dropping them - he was trying to ensure he had a second option.

Since Goode was dropped, no-one else had played fullback for any length of time. Jones was starting Daly repeatedly - despite his weaknesses - to give him time to adapt to the role. Brown isn't a good bench option, and since he wasn't going to start there's not much point having him in the XXIII, but he was around the training squad presumably to help Daly.

Likewise, Eddie had only really had Youngs, Wigglesworth and Care in the squad throughout his tenure and didn't have a back up option with any international experience. Since he insisted on only having 2 scrum halves in camp, dropping Care allowed him to look at the alternatives, even though he didn't give them much game time.

But in the RWC, you need at least two players who have been proven to be able to play each position, and ideally three given England's tough schedule. At fullback, neither Nowell nor Watson have played the position internationally, though Watson showed some promise in the Lions warm-up games. Unless he wants to recall Goode (which would delight Stuart Barnes but worry everybody else), his only experienced options are Brown and Daly.

At scrum half, Youngs will only just be coming back from injury, Robson and Spencer have almost zero experience at that level. Wigglesworth and Care are likely to make the training squad at the very least.

Eddie is idiosyncratic, but he's also been to multiple RWCs and coached one winning team, one finalist and a Japan team that outperformed all expectations. He has his flaws but he knows how to manage an RWC tournament, and betting on having one experienced option in a specialist position is not part of doing that.
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DOK

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Eddie is, by all accounts, brutally honest about what he wants from players. It sounds like he's told Brown what he really would like to see him doing and Brown has responded. Whether it's enough, only EJ knows, but I think Brown is getting more and more difficult to ignore.

Bolly-Quin

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The Nick Evans piece contains this:-

Quote
Brown finished the regular Premiership season as the top offloading player in England and even made more yards in attack (1188) than Saracens Alex Goode (1167)...A key indicator of where Brown figures will be the make-up of the England squad to face the Barbarians on 2 June . That squad – which will be overseen by Jim Mallinder not Jones – will be made up almost entirely of players who will miss out on World Cup training squad selection.

Perhaps his absence in Englands squad ( https://www.englandrugby.com/news/england-name-squad-for-barbarians/ ) means he might be in EJ's mind for the WC squad. Also, Care?

 

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