Proud Pig
Tom Lawton (22)
Firstly, JS at outside centre is abject stupidity in my opinion.
Len is one of the few world class players we have and his best position is 13.
Don't move him to make way for a guy we have no way of knowing if he understands the defensive reads required in the defensively hardest position on the field.
Our defense was shown to be our biggest weakness in the earlier tests why make it weaker.
If you want to play JS play him at 12 where the defensive reads are going to be much easier particularly if we continue with the passive defense that we used.
Secondly, if we start with Skelton because of his size and ball carrying ability we need a strong lineout operator at 6.
If we go with Valetini, McReight and Wilson as the back row England will position Martin on Skelton's second row partner to disrupt at every lineout.
This will allow Itoje and Cunningham-South to have a field day at the line out.
Marcus Smith will already kick a lot but if they have obvious ascendency at the lineout we will be playing most of the game down our end as he will just boot for the line everytime England get the ball.
If Skelton starts then Williams has to start at 6 as we need a second jumper in the starting line up to assist either Frost or LSL (Lukhan Salakaia-Loto).
Finally, I think Slipper's best days are now behind him and with him and AAA coming off the bench we may well be giving up a bit of an advantage to England with Fin Baxter coming off the bench.
He is young and covers a lot of ground so where I think AAA and Slipper will manage Cole well I think they could struggle with Baxter's athleticism.
We have to have AAA on the bench as no one knows how long Tupou will last but I would have Kailea and Pollard there for their improved athleticism over Slipper and Faessler.
Len is one of the few world class players we have and his best position is 13.
Don't move him to make way for a guy we have no way of knowing if he understands the defensive reads required in the defensively hardest position on the field.
Our defense was shown to be our biggest weakness in the earlier tests why make it weaker.
If you want to play JS play him at 12 where the defensive reads are going to be much easier particularly if we continue with the passive defense that we used.
Secondly, if we start with Skelton because of his size and ball carrying ability we need a strong lineout operator at 6.
If we go with Valetini, McReight and Wilson as the back row England will position Martin on Skelton's second row partner to disrupt at every lineout.
This will allow Itoje and Cunningham-South to have a field day at the line out.
Marcus Smith will already kick a lot but if they have obvious ascendency at the lineout we will be playing most of the game down our end as he will just boot for the line everytime England get the ball.
If Skelton starts then Williams has to start at 6 as we need a second jumper in the starting line up to assist either Frost or LSL (Lukhan Salakaia-Loto).
Finally, I think Slipper's best days are now behind him and with him and AAA coming off the bench we may well be giving up a bit of an advantage to England with Fin Baxter coming off the bench.
He is young and covers a lot of ground so where I think AAA and Slipper will manage Cole well I think they could struggle with Baxter's athleticism.
We have to have AAA on the bench as no one knows how long Tupou will last but I would have Kailea and Pollard there for their improved athleticism over Slipper and Faessler.
