Hartley For England Captain

Dylan Hartley goes off with England leading NZ. England lose.

Dylan Hartley goes off with England leading France. England lose.

What more needs to be said?

Clearly his strength of will and leadership capacity keeps England's mish-mash mob gelled into a world beating unit. Without him, they crumble.

that england make unneeded substitutes?

Don't agree with that, Hartley is number1 hooker, but Robshaw is a great captain.

Youngs must go though, once again he failed with his throwing. England have a great chance to close out the match, lineout on French 5 m line. Forwards driving the French all game and what does he do, overthrows again.

His loose play is great, but the scrummage went wonky when he came on, with others to be fair, but a hookers primary job is to hook, scrimmage and throw the ball into the lineout. If you can't do any one of them to international standard then you don't belong there.

Webber has to be given his chance!

36 and Burrell, Manu, when he gets back are a good defensive set up, we need a true utility back on the bench, not Barritt as he is a centre only. May could do the job when Yarde is fit.

Psychologically cant put game to bed?
Fitness not up to scratch?
Fatigued?
Weak bench?

Ignoring the obvious joke here, Hartley has been much better recently for England than ever before, and but for the fact that Robshaw is playing well you might have a point

He cant hook mind

Looseheaded wrote:Psychologically cant put game to bed?
Fitness not up to scratch?
Fatigued?
Weak bench?

Pyschologically England are fine, this is the first close game they have lost for a while.

Fitness and fatigue wise, I find it hard to see how anyone watching that game could fail to see that England were fitter and stronger at the end.

Weak bench - maybe, although perhaps the way it was used was the real problem.

The fact that we had opportunities to throw away victories against France in Paris after being 16-3 down, and the current NZ team (anywhere and under any circumstances ) is the important thing to my mind!

Hartley great player, but I don't want him as England captain. Yes Youngs is a lion, but if hes not consistently nailing his throws, don't pick him. Tigers fans, hows your lineout been this year?

Youngs set pieces haven't been great in the last 2 games but this game was lost in the first half not the 2nd.

Wi11 wrote:

Looseheaded wrote:Psychologically cant put game to bed?
Fitness not up to scratch?
Fatigued?
Weak bench?

Pyschologically England are fine, this is the first close game they have lost for a while.

Fitness and fatigue wise, I find it hard to see how anyone watching that game could fail to see that England were fitter and stronger at the end.

Weak bench - maybe, although perhaps the way it was used was the real problem.

The fact that we had opportunities to throw away victories against France in Paris after being 16-3 down, and the current NZ team (anywhere and under any circumstances ) is the important thing to my mind!

Nope, it's the second one in a row.

One step at a time Ge. At least Farrell proved you wrong (again) about not playing flat.

IIRC Youngs is at 91% in the Premieship, which I believe is the best. Rugby is about team work Hartley playing with his club team mate calling gives confidence, Hartley has had problems in the England setup in the past.

flankertye wrote:Hartley great player, but I don't want him as England captain. Yes Youngs is a lion, but if hes not consistently nailing his throws, don't pick him. Tigers fans, hows your lineout been this year?

Very near the top of the pile in the aviva but people seem to think a line out is all about a single player. I know youngs needs to improve on his throwing mind.

No 7&1/2 wrote:One step at a time Ge. At least Farrell proved you wrong (again) about not playing flat.

He didn't play flat. He ran to the line twice. Once Brian Moore noticed it and fawned over it with frothy mouthed glee. But predominantly he was aligned deep, either kicking or alternating his distribution to the ever-predictable-player-running-loop-in-mid-field-behind-decoy-line, or to the actual players ready to crash into the midfield.

I wouldn't mind this. I'd still play Robshaw but I can't see any harm in letting Hartley lead. He's a very influential player anyway and it might mean he gets to play the full 80!

And he played well GE. Sad you can't notice that but I suppose your depth perception with the one eye can't help?!  

I actually would really enjoy Hartley leading the team. He appears to be a very natural leader. When subbed, he stopped Tom Youngs and had a few words. Now unless he said "try not to f up any lineouts" i think that shows real passion and natural leadership.

Hartley is also in my fantasy league team so again good reason to see him play all 80 mins as yappy says

obviously i assume GE is going to chip in with a punchline about Hartley being a kiwi at some point?

in spite of that (him being a kiwi), i still wouldnt mind Hartley captaining the side.

GE is right in that Farrell was sometimes too deep but he's improving.

I'm touched that you think Eng-NZ was close, but from an England supporter's point of view it wasn't very close, the final 20 minutes showcased NZ's comfortable superiority at executing moves under pressure. Fair play. This time round England were clearly the better team in the last 20 but lost due to one excellent score which came out of nothing. It's not easy for the heart to take but the head says today was another small step forward.

GloriousEmpire wrote:

Wi11 wrote:

Pyschologically England are fine, this is the first close game they have lost for a while.

Nope, it's the second one in a row.

And yeah, it's not psychological. In this case France scored one (ONE) good try against the run of play late on. Sometimes that just happens, and it's why (in my local at least) no-one was comfortable even when England were 5 points up and dominating the game. Sometimes flukes / lucky bounces / moments of genius happen. Yes, England failed to kill off the game, but 9 times out of 10 France wouldn't have conjured that late try. So although it is gutting, it doesn't mean England are chokers.

In fact, to be generous, I would suggest recent England teams have won a few games (Ireland, Italy and Aus last year spring to mind) that they didn't deserve to. I think the lack of natural cutting edge is the main issue, not some imagined psychological problems.

I thought we saw signs of cutting edge and potential for more next match.

flankertye wrote:Hartley great player, but I don't want him as England captain. Yes Youngs is a lion, but if hes not consistently nailing his throws, don't pick him. Tigers fans, hows your lineout been this year?

Not sure of the exact figures flankertye but our line-out has just over a 90% success rate and Cockerill has stated in an interview that Youngs' throwing percentage has been highest of our hookers which means he will be over that percentage. Pretty good to be fair, especially when you consider that Parling and Croft have both been out for much of the season.

Haven't been on here for a few days but on the question this thread asks about Hartley as a possible captain I believe Robshaw remains a better options. Today one of things that hampered us throughout the game was Frances forwards constantly slowing down ball at the rucks. When we were in defence Robshaw was the one England player who matched the France backrow in that regard I thought. He also carried more effectively than he has in the past for us. He lead from the front as ever and deserves the armband at the moment IMO.

Bottom line I thought we actually played quite well against a French side which played fairly well. An early injury to May hurt us with Goode being caught out of position and woefully short of pace on the wing - not his fault explicitly as we were asking for a back being out of place with the bench selected.

We can argue that France got lucky with two tries but by the same justifications we got lucky with Robshaw's try against Australia and few of us mentioned that!

Put simply France were the better side in the first half and England were better in second half. However France were far more clinical when England were poor than England were when France were poor*.

Contrary to many opinions I don't view this game as the end of the line for this side though and still believe that trust in the youngsters in the backs will pay dividends far more than returning to the old guard in the long run.

* Apologies for a very poorly formed sentence there and also for the lack of eloquence throughout. It's late and I may have had a post 6N drowning of my sorrows!

You think you have problems at 2   We have Ross 'Cant Hook, Cant Throw' Ford at 2. He has amassed 72 caps inc. some as captain. Still waiting for a good game tbh.

Hartley doesn't need to be captain. He played great and was a strong contributor. I would leave him alone and consider him if Robshaw can't go. No need to change captain now.

doctor_grey wrote:Hartley doesn't need to be captain.  He played great and was a strong contributor.  I would leave him alone and consider him if Robshaw can't go.  No need to change captain now.

Agreed. There's no harm in having a number of leaders out there. With Robshaw, Hartley and Wood in there you've got a number of players with leadership material. It's not merely down to the captain to rally the troops.

It's all these needless substitutions that's the problem. Why take care off...why take lawes off. .etc.