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Sydenham by birth. Selhurst by the Grace of God.

that is bloody brilliant

All you egg chasers have far more in depth tactical Knowledge than me, I am a football player that occasionally plays rugby, knows the rules, and can have a good game at second row.

However all the flack Lancaster is getting seems a bit unfair.

Look at it from a football view point and you may get what I'm saying, Pardew makes some iffy subs at times (Mutch for Wilf, leaving Jedi out, playing Yannick up top instead of Gayle etc etc. And yet Pards get no s*** what so ever, because in the main he has been brilliant for Palace.

In the main Lancaster has been brilliant for England, I know the subs he made were "odd" but he must've done it for a reason, if I remember rightly Wales had already started turning the screw before he made the changes.

As for the Kick at goal that never was to suggest that is Lancasters fault is plain daft, he was miles away in seats, Rob Shaw was on the pitch and it was his choice, at that minute in time it was his choice, he needed to make a comand decision and he f***ed it up.

He kicks for goal, we maybe get three points but whatever the Welsh have to kick back to us and a draw was a very likely result with that much time left.

You can prepare the players as best you can, but when they cross the line of chalk you can do no more, look at that dick that took the penalty from Gareth Barry and then smashed it at the keeper ?

I know there was more to the game and Englands failure than one descion by Rob Shaw, but that was the catalyst for Wales to win. Do you really think Lancasters advice with minutes left on the clock, with a kickable penalty, level on points, would be to go for a set peice ?????? I think not

The Captain has to take this one.

"It's not the bullet that's got my name on it that concerns me; it's all them other ones flyin' around marked 'To Whom It May Concern.'"

Blatant euphemism.

Not to those of us who predicted that this line-up would fail to beat Wales. Since an awful lot of people saw it coming, the criticism seems entirely reasonable. As I said last week, if you spend four years training, to use your football analogy, to play 4-4-2 but you bottle it three days before the game and ask your players to suddenly play 3-5-1, the criticism that ensues isn't going to be unfair. What's the point of spending 48 months preparing a tactic you're going to abandon the day it actually counts?

In the main, Lancaster has done a very competent job of dragging us out of the post 2011 gutter. But all his work to date has been groundwork for the World Cup and, effectively, for the Wales and Australia games (the two that matter.) And right now, he has a record of Won 0 Lost 1. That's a harsh way of looking at it I know but it's what it boils down to. Remember the way that SCW in 2003 never, ever, took his eyes off the prize and the way he planned to get there? That's why we won the World Cup,

All too many coaches these days make a raft of substitutions around the hour mark almost just to remind us how clever they are. If there was any rhyme or reason to the changes on Saturday, it wasn't evident to most people I've spoken to. The real problem wasn't so much the fact of making substitutions, but that he didn't replace like for like. He swapped a quick, sniping 9 for a slow, static one. He swapped a conservative out half for a creative one. He left on the poorer of his midfielders and took off the better one on the day. Thus, he drained all the momentum we had gained up to the hour mark.

No, they hadn't. The game changed when Youngs came off. That was the pivotal moment.

It IS Lancaster's fault. It was the third time Robshaw had made the same call (and the third time it failed.) Why, after the first two times, did Lancaster not pull Robshaw aside and tell him "in this situation, never, ever again." Although the captain clearly shares responsibility, players are supposed to execute the coaches instructions on the pitch. Clearly, Lancaster had not addressed previous failures of judgment in his preparation. So he takes responsibility for that.

Agree. See my point above. They were not properly prepared. Lancaster had had two warnings that Robshaw was inclined to make poor decisions at the key moment of a game, and he had clearly not addressed the issue.

There was. The decision to kick in the first place was immediately exacerbated by an even poorer decision, if that's possible. To throw to 2. That made it vastly easier for the Welsh to bundle the ball into touch. At least if you're going to go for the lineout, throw to 6 or 7 and give yourself a chance to set a platform properly to score. Apparently, Lancaster hadn't coached them in that basic thinking either. Yet England won the World Cup in 2003 precisely because on the key play, they threw to the back of the line.

Lancaster evidently didn't give any advice. Likely, though, Robshaw would have taken the points. I'm not sure what this proves, other than the captain doesn't trust his kickers. As Faz has alluded to.

Edited by sydtheeagle (29 Sep 2015 2.28pm)

Sydenham by birth. Selhurst by the Grace of God.

Brian Moore made a good point this morning, most people including him wanted rid of SCW after the 99 world cup. That didn't turn out too bad