Northern Edition

Select Edition

Northern Northern
Southern Southern
Global Global
New Zealand New Zealand
France France

England fans question Ashton's selection ahead of Nowell

By Josh Raisey
Eddie Jones and Chris Ashton. (Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images)

After such an impressive performance last weekend, England have made very few changes to the team that will face France this Sunday.

ADVERTISEMENT

Courtney Lawes came into the starting XV to replace the injured Maro Itoje, while Chris Ashton starts ahead of Jack Nowell, who has dropped to the bench.

This change on the wing has raised a few eyebrows amongst England fans on Twitter, as many cannot see what the Exeter man did to lose his starting place.

In a game where there were no bad performers against Ireland last weekend, Nowell had a great match and did what he was expected to do. The winger was often seen coming off his wing throughout the game and was a nuisance in the midfield. While Ashton is certainly a good replacement, this decision has still surprised a lot of the fans.

Continue reading below…
Watch: Dan Cole speaks about scrum battle ahead of Six Nations game against France

Video Spacer

Some have speculated that it is Ashton’s ties with France that may give him that slight tactical nouse, while also being an intimidating factor to the French team after a brilliant stint with Toulon, where he scored a record haul of tries in one season in the Top 14.

But many still feel that the Sale man is better suited to the ‘finisher’ role in the team over Nowell, but have conceded that this may be part of Eddie Jones’ mind games.

ADVERTISEMENT

Meanwhile, the selection of Dan Cole and Ben Moon on the bench for England has gone down well amongst the fans, as the two scrummaging specialists will be able to negate an extremely powerful French pack in the latter stages of the match. France’s scrum started to get the upper hand over Wales towards the end of their match last week, and Jones will be aware of that.

However, it is the option to drop Nowell to the bench that has confused the fans the most.

This is what the fans had to say:

https://twitter.com/domspicer/status/1093820199835484160

https://twitter.com/allrugby87/status/1093822444958146562

https://twitter.com/liamions/status/1093822199813812224

ADVERTISEMENT

Video Spacer
ADVERTISEMENT

LIVE

{{item.title}}

Trending on RugbyPass

Comments

0 Comments
Be the first to comment...

Join free and tell us what you really think!

Sign up for free
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest Features

Comments on RugbyPass

N
Nickers 5 minutes ago
The changes Scott Robertson must make to address All Blacks’ bench woes

Hopefully Robertson and co aren't applying this type of thinking to their selections, although some of their moves this year have suggested that might be the case.


The first half of Foster's tenure, when he was surrounded by coaches who were not up to the task, was disastrous due to this type of reactionary chopping and changing. No clear plan of the direction of travel or what needs to be built to get there. Just constant tinkering. A player gets dropped one week, on the bench the next, back to starting the next, dropped for the next week again. Add in injuries and other variations of this selection pattern, combined with vastly different game plans from one week to the next and it's no wonder the team isn't clicking on attack and are making incredibly basic errors on both sides of the ball.


When Schmidt and Ryan got involved selections became far more consistent and the game plan far simpler and the dividends were instant, and they accepted bad performances as part of building towards the world cup. They were able to distinguish between bad plans and bad execution and by the time the finals rolled around they were playing their best rugby as a team.


Chopping and changing the team each week sends the signal that you don't really know what you are doing or why, and you are just reacting to what happened last week, selecting a team to replay the previous game rather than preparing for the next one and building for the future.

9 Go to comments
TRENDING
TRENDING The unique life of an All Black whose mum is the team’s nutritionist The unique life of an All Black whose mum is the team’s nutritionist
Search