Lancaster sees progress from England
Stuart Lancaster now has a better idea of the strengths and weaknesses of his England squad
England head coach Stuart Lancaster believes his team have made good progress on their South Africa tour but he remains far from satisfied.
Lancaster is motivated by a desire to win every game and, despite battling performances in all three Tests against the Springboks, his side fell short of that objective. But with the series lost after defeats in Durban and Johannesburg, they ended on a positive note by claiming a creditable 14-14 draw in the final Test at Port Elizabeth's Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium.
Lancaster, in his first assignment since being appointed full-time, feels he has learned much but is already plotting the way forward with a new elite performance squad to be named early next month. He said: "It has been a fantastic opportunity to take a wider group of players and work with them."
He added: "That has been the real benefit of the tour, getting a real understanding of the strengths and areas we need to look at to go forward.
"We should be getting to a point as a team where we are competitive and winning every game has got to be the mindset.
"We have now got a team of young players and experienced players coming through together in an environment they enjoy and the culture is strong. I think it augurs well for the future.
"But we didn't win the first two Tests and we drew the third - that ultimately means disappointment from my point of view.
"But there are a lot of positives we can take.
"In the last Test we could have used every excuse not to put in a performance but we didn't.
"We rolled our sleeves up and fought to the end. We possibly could have edged it at the end."
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The game plan has not changed since WCup: Plan A.... get the ball to Tuilagi and he will crash through and score. If that doesn't work, Plan B... get the ball to Tuilagi and he will crash through and score. It used to be Tindall now its Big T.
Doesn't anyone do the arithmetic: it has not worked N times, but is still in the script
No guile, no clever running,no dummied kicks and dart. No-one has a decent side step: [ever heard of James Simpson Daniel? He can and can come off his wing, and can defend] The "lovely off-load" is greeted as if recently invented. Compare the close passing of the AB's against Ireland. Then of course, despite the best example of Rob Kearney, (apart from Foden, most of the time)... Kick it back to them, espec. Habana , Muliaina,they will not know what to do with it, will they? Roger Skinner
Quite what they spend their time on in training is a mystery to me, or do they spend the whole time on defencive drills maybe. In attack we seem to have little or no idea and its much worse when farrell is playing, ever seen saracens play (yawn).
Some of our club matches can only be described as like rugby but slower. Played 3 lost 2 drawn 1 really isn't that great Mr Lancaster and if Morne Steyn didn't have a mare it would have been lost 3.
I have no idea how things might improve hopefully Lancaster has the answers.
@alan kyle
who are wales ??? they beat england because we had a definate try dissallowed thats why !!!
the year before that england stuffed them at cardiff arms park when we were on a downer ,
england have moved forward so much since wales had a lucky win at twickkers this year ,,
oh and we beat france at there own yard as well ,,,,remember !!!!!
come on england boys your starting to look the real deal ........
