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I just don't think he cares who the captain is. The bigger problem is his back row defence at the moment On field the water carriers indicate what all the decisions are anyway.

No captain was announced. This was the press conference today

He played the WC with no match fitness just over a year after doing his ACL. He still doesn't have much match fitness, as he's only played a few games in early 2024, but at least he should be fully recovered from the injury

Bristol and England A

Have I missed Lynagh's name?

I reckon this squad is starting to get there. On their day, and fitness dependent, we have 6 players who could be world class (Skelton, Kerevi, Bell, TT, Ikitau, Valetini), a wild card who hopefully slots in there too (Sua'ali'i). A couple more players who are clearly test class with upwards...

Edmed is probably the third 10, so meh, the other three guys are probably key to our best chance of beating the Lions. I hope all three of them dominate.

Looks like Geoff Parkes has a book coming out. He was embedded in the Rebels all year, which is both great luck for his journalism, but also explains why he was always so close to the Rebels side of the story. It's coming out end of the month. Will likely give it a read

I reckon we will see Wright captain the A team to get back some match fitness, then rotate in to one of the tests at the back end of the tour. This will mean we are no closer to understanding where he lies in Schmidt's plans (other than using his non-top-up offer as a clue)

He will have rock solid secure future for the rest of his life out of the Panthers, and league old boy network too if he doesn't burn those bridges. The Clearys are getting to royalty stage of existence

I would have guessed it's more a contracting thing? But rather than potential, what are the actual differences between this years U19 and last year u18s generally. Is there a lot of movement between the teams?

How much of a change is there in each of the teams between 18s and 19s?

They should take him as a non-playing player/assistant coach/64th member of the squad

In the context of the Pooper, McMahon and Gill barely change the equation, Paul was injured the whole time and Mumm, Houston and McCalman are good players, but a bit meh....would they have improved our chances more than just having our two best players on the field? I think we probably just end...

Not sure the likes of Palu, Timani, Higgenbotham, Hanigan or Mumm would have stood up either

Fardy was always a genuine lineout option and even called the lineout at Wallaby level (regularly at Super Rugby level). He was a far better lineout operator than Valetini is.

Fardy came on off the bench at second row for a game somewhere in there, maybe a 2016 Bled? Our scrum just disintegrated. He was nowhere near good enough to start at second row internationally, especially over a 100 gamer, set piece specialist like Simmons

https://tier2rugby.blogspot.com/2024/10/players-from-tier-2-nations-playing-in.html?m=1 Pretty interesting list. There's a lot more players from Tier 2 nations in the NH comps than I expected

Of all the possible test matches I could watch, Australia v England at Twickenham is the one I least look forward to. We will inevitably lose, not because England are good, but because they relentlessly target where we are not good

It's pretty likely Scotland will have run into injury/depth issues after four tests in a row as well (acknowledging they should be able to rest some against Portugal). They don't have the depth to deal with that.