Lorenzo
Colin Windon (37)
Last 3-4 pages pretty much arguing over back positions (same arguments rehashed mostly) and barely a murmur about our completely insipid forward performance where the whole pack pretty much was man-shamed all night. And that was just the breakdowns / tackles. The set piece was rubbish, scrum only slightly less so than lineout.
By all means shake up the backs (some need a rest, some are injured) but we'll be counting big numbers against us next week if the forwards produce that type of display again.
Just sayin'.
I dare say most people watch the ball when watching the game live/for the first time. Watching the ball can give you a reasonable (though nowhere near complete) understanding of how the backs performed - individually. Doesn't really tell you about how the forwards performed (individually), besides that the lineout sucked.
I don't think anyone thinks the forwards performed well last night, but it's harder to comment on the performance of individual forwards after only one viewing.
Personally, I have accepted that our forwards will be generally be outplayed and try to think about making up for that elsewhere. It's happened in probably 80% of the tests I've watched so I figure its always going to be a thing.
To address your point though: you don't pick a guy who can't kick to move your side downfield with the boot. It's stupid and a major coaching error. A pro coach like MC should be better with shit like that. Even though our forwards were dominated, we made errors in selection and execution that made things worse for reasons unrelated to forward play. Surely those things warrant discussion.