Decided I'm going to take a page out of Lehmann's book and blame the pitch. Obviously doctored to favour the home side.
Seems iniquitous to single out one player, but Burrell can't make the same squad as Barritt and Burgess, surely? He's a work in progress, but Slade brings a lot more to the party.
It's interesting that last week we had Goode and Slade to support Farrell in playmaking, whereas this week (with what little ball we've had) it's all been on Ford.
Yeah, I don't have a problem if Lancaster wants to play a big physical player in the centres, but we don't need to take three of them.
Don't panic, don't panic Big Brad will be back, despite being injured, gumming up our attack and only tackling with his face he is the saviour!!
2 playmakers in the back line again? Burrell and JJ may sound balanced on paper - one lump to draw the defence and one silky runner to exploit the gaps - but Burrell's not that good at drawing defenders and JJ lacks the kicking game and vision of Cips or Slade, so the options are much more limited. Contraversially, I think if we'd seen Burgess and Slade play 5 games together we'd be calling for them as the centre partnership.
Cips never really had a chance, up against some very entrenched players and a previous history with Lancaster. Not too worried about him not making it, will be more annoyed if Slade doesn't make it and our centres our Barritt - limited in attack but seems to glue the defence together Burgess - who knows, still think he'll be a better 6 Burrell - doesn't add up to the sum of his parts JJ - great
Barrit even if he only offers defence isn't a liability on offence because he just shovels the ball on and rarely makes a handling error. At least when I have seen him. Not every guy in the team needs to offer something offensively. As long as one of your centres does you will be ok. I know you blokes don't look up to the wallabies so will preface this with a fwiw, the Australians just Play a solid guy at 12 when they could be playing Beale if they wanted to. I prsonally don't think Conrad smith offers much in terms of scoring points either.
You can't really just shovel it on though. I agree that Smith isn't much at making line breaks but he makes up for that in terms of knowing when to throw a pass to his outsides and knowing when to come inside. But, yeah, you need to think of your backline as a combination rather than as just individuals.
England Squad: Props: Kieran Brookes (Northampton Saints, 10 caps) Dan Cole (Leicester Tigers, 51 caps) Joe Marler (Harlequins, 32 caps) Mako Vunipola (Saracens, 22 caps) David Wilson (Bath Rugby, 43 caps) Hookers: Jamie George (Saracens, 1 cap) Rob Webber (Bath Rugby, 13 caps) Tom Youngs (Leicester Tigers, 23 caps) Second rows: George Kruis (Saracens, 8 caps) Joe Launchbury (Wasps, 23 caps) Courtney Lawes (Northampton Saints, 39 caps) Geoff Parling (Exeter Chiefs, 24 caps) Back rows: James Haskell (Wasps, 60 caps) Ben Morgan (Gloucester Rugby, 28 caps) Chris Robshaw (captain, Harlequins, 38 caps) Billy Vunipola (Saracens, 18 caps) Tom Wood (Northampton Saints, 37 caps) Scrum halves: Danny Care (Harlequins, 52 caps) Richard Wigglesworth (Saracens, 22 caps) Ben Youngs (Leicester Tigers, 48 caps) Fly halves: Owen Farrell (Saracens, 30 caps) George Ford (Bath Rugby, 12 caps) Centres: Brad Barritt (Saracens, 22 caps) Sam Burgess (Bath Rugby, 1 cap) Jonathan Joseph (Bath Rugby, 12 caps) Henry Slade (Exeter Chiefs, 1 cap) Back three: Mike Brown (Harlequins, 38 caps) Alex Goode (Saracens, 18 caps) Jonny May (Gloucester Rugby, 15 caps) Jack Nowell (Exeter Chiefs, 9 caps) Anthony Watson (Bath Rugby, 10 caps)