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The ‘calmness about him’ gamble England U20s are enjoying at No10
Topping Pool B after two matches at the Junior World Championship wasn’t how it was predicted to turn out for England in South Africa. They had fallen away last March in the U20s Six Nations when the going got tougher after an unbeaten February, they then lost head coach Alan Dickens to an offer from Leicester, and a shared series last month with Georgia further sounded the alarm bells.
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How good then that new boss Mark Mapletoft decided to stick with his calculated punt on Connor Slevin, the full-back he had known from his days in the Harlequins academy. He had been in the original Six Nations squad chosen last January as a 15 but wasn’t capped. Now, he has travelled to South Africa with the onerous challenge of making England tick as their starting No10.
It was on June 1 in Tbilisi when Mapletoft first trialled the positional switch, naming Slevin at out-half after he had started the opening match of their Georgian tour at full-back. England were beaten but the headline-grabbing loss didn’t the new head coach as he named Slevin as the No10 against Ireland and Fiji and has been richly rewarded.
The Harlequins youngster has taken to the task with aplomb, his classy contributions pivotal in the opening day 34-all draw in Paarl versus the Irish and again in Thursday’s 53-7 dismissal of Fijians in Stellenbosch. “I thought our half-backs were again excellent,” he enthused to RugbyPass in the aftermath.
“Nye Thomas controlled the game really well, offered a real threat on the ball, and Connor, every time he plays he seems to have a calmness about him which for a man who hasn’t really played an awful lot at fly-half is credit to him.”
All over on day two at the U20s Junior World Championship, England defeating Fiji 53-7 and taking the acclaim of the fans in Stellenbosch. #WorldRugbyU20s #ENGvFIJ pic.twitter.com/2XBk1cEHJD
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) June 29, 2023
What prompted Mapletoft to gamble on re-positioning Slevin? “Very good question. We have had a lot of injuries in that position across the country. Monty Bradbury unfortunately picked up a bad knee injury and he had played the games in the Six Nations.
“Sam Worsley came on against Ireland but unfortunately wasn’t able to be selected out here, and Sam Harris has played a lot at fly-half for Bath University but predominantly played full-back and then Sam has been struggling a little bit as well.
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“It was really a question of Louie (Johnson) and Connor taking on the load at 10 and both are terrific guys I have known through the underage teams. I have known Connor actually since he was 16 when was at the Quins academy. There is an awful lot of trust in those lads and they are repaying that now.”
England had the advantage last Thursday of playing in their pool’s later game and having seen Ireland do a number on Australia in the rain in Paarl, Mapletoft’s team knew then needed to run up a big score over in Stellenbosch against Fiji to enhance their points difference as that could well be how the pool winners are decided after next Tuesday’s final round of matches.
“We talked about that,” admitted Mapletoft about the points difference scenario. “The lads watched the game and it was fantastic from Ireland to stay in the fight and really squeeze that out in the end. They laid the gauntlet down, and we really enjoyed the game against them last weekend. It was a terrific game, one of the best I have seen so far, so credit to them and we had to match that.
“You can’t control what other people do, you can only look after your own performances and we will be doing our preparation and recovery ahead of Australia. It’s an incredible tournament, with some really surprising results in the South Africa, Italy, Argentina and Georgia pool. It flipped on its head from the first round.
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“We will certainly digest that over the next 24 hours, review that, see where we can improve and get ourselves dusted down for Australia. A very good game plan went to plan against Fiji. We got that right in terms of the conditions. We had done our prep with the lads who weren’t involved against Ireland, I had a good look at Fiji and we had that player ownership and leadership, came up with a simple game plan given the conditions and I thought it was a pretty clinical performance.
“It was wet, very greasy and I thought to play in the right areas of the field as consistently as we did and also some of our defence was terrific as was our set-piece was really on top by the end. That is what you need in those conditions.”
Comments on RugbyPass
Who got the benefits out of Schmidt, Lowe, Aki, and Gibson Park?
11 Go to commentsWhat’s new its a common occurrence, just the journos out there expecting a negative spin. The outcome will be beneficial to jordie and Leinster. The home grown lads hav got some experience to step up to and be more competitive, that or spend the 6 months keeping the bench warm.
11 Go to commentsI’m all for speeding up the game. But can we be certain that the slowness of the game contributed to fans walking out? I’m not so sure. Super rugby largely suffered from most fans only being able to, really, follow the games played in their own time zone. So at least a third of the fan base wasn’t engaged at any point in time. As a Saffer following SA teams in the URC - I now watch virtually every European game played on the weekend. In SR, I wouldn’t be bothered to follow the games being played on the other side of the world, at weird hours, if my team wasn’t playing. I now follow the whole tournament and not just the games in my time zone. Second, with New Zealand teams always winning. It’s like formula one. When one team dominates, people lose interest. After COVID, with SA leaving and Australia dipping in form, SR became an even greater one horse race. Thats why I think Japan’s league needs to get in the mix. The international flavor of those teams could make for a great spectacle. But surely if we believe that shaving seconds off lost time events in rugby is going to draw fans back, we should be shown some figures that supports this idea before we draw any major conclusions. Where are the stats that shows these changes have made that sort of impact? We’ve measured down to the average no. Of seconds per game. Where the measurement of the impact on the fanbase? Does a rugby “fan” who lost interest because of ball in play time suddenly have a revived interest because we’ve saved or brought back into play a matter of seconds or a few minutes each game? I doubt it. I don’t thinks it’s even a noticeable difference to be impactful. The 20 min red card idea. Agreed. Let’s give it a go. But I think it’s fairer that the player sent off is substituted and plays no further part in the game as a consequence.
1 Go to commentsThose are pretty good draws for the two top Aussie teams. I certainly wouldn't want my Chiefs to have a quarter final in Brisbane. None of the top teams will want the Crusaders.
1 Go to commentsHonestly, I am a bit lost here …. Ireland - RSA was (at least in my opinion) perhaps (from a purely technical / rugby-skills-show point of view) the pinnacle of the RWC2023 - almost flawless playing (putting aside the kicking of RSA which was the difference between the two teams), rugby at it’s very best …. if I were a Bok and after the game some Irish lads came around saying “see you in 5 weeks same place”, I definitely wouldn’t have thought of it as being in any way “arrogant”, rather a sort of jolly “if we both continue to play like this, no one could stop us” - besides, few of us fans would have, at that time, been surprised to see the same teams playing on 23 september and 28 october 2023 ….. well, we all know Ireland chose to hit a slump to keep the QF curse alive …..
135 Go to commentsThere’s value gleaned from having an All Black star running and training with your team. How many games he starts (or even where he plays in the backline) will be decided on a week by week basis based on the needs for that week. But the overall learning and growth for all concerned, I’d think, is massively beneficial. Especially for Irish players.
11 Go to commentsSon, whith just " raw athlete “ , you are able to beat “ better rugby players “ by 74 points…. May be England should recruit in athletics….
1 Go to commentsPffft. It’s not a one-way street bud and Irish teams don’t seem to have had an issue taking kiwi players previously.
11 Go to commentsParticularly great to have captain Scott Barrett back after going off last week for the Crusaders. Codie Taylor a real leader and mighty Tamaiti Williams join Fletcher Newell in the front row. Those 2 will make a big difference. Great bench with the likes of Tom Christie, Jamie Hannah etc who are playing well. Should be a great derby.
1 Go to commentsDoes a blitz defence not have a weekness against a well-placed grubber kick, perhaps angled cleverly. All the defence is up and the full-back can only cover so much ground. Thoughts?
28 Go to commentsWhile Iose is destructive in the Canes set-up, he is not big for an international 8 and could struggle against the top teams. With his speed, he could be developed into a seven but, as Ben points out, he doesn’t show a scavenging game with the Canes or make dominating tackles. Sotutu has shown a step up this year and attitude plus motivation seems to be the big areas of growth. Deserves another AB shot imo.
3 Go to commentsNaholo is my only question mark for this side. He wasn’t the only one who had a forgettable game against the Brumbies but he was passive, defensively poor and generally lacked energy. Needs to get a whole lot busier for me. I would have liked to see Sullivan on that wing with Higgins on the bench (if staying with a 6-2 as BeegMike points out on here!)
3 Go to commentsWell, I am sure that Eben said exactly what he meant to say, exactly how he meant to say it. Does he strike you as a man that doesn't know arrogance when he sees it. He should know it because he has shaken the arrogance out of many foes before.
135 Go to commentsPls get it into your thick arrogant heads that the final was played by two Southern Hemisphere teams. The best against the best and that Argentina was just unlucky otherwise non of the Northetn Hemisphere teams would have seen the light of day.
135 Go to commentsAs long as New Zealand youth are involved in sport they are passionate for, and are well supported, it’s all good. I love league as well as rugby. NRL clubs have long since scouted the First 15 competitions, the NH and Japan scout super rugby and NPC. It’s a miracle there’s any players left for the all blacks to pick from.
4 Go to commentsI'm a Bok fan, so I don't say this lightly, but he is one of my all time favourite players. I am really going to miss watching him play. Thanks for many great memories. You are a true legend of the game.
3 Go to commentsBest way to deal with all of this is to play another game.
135 Go to commentsIt’s 12-15 games Luke. Ringrose has barely played in 2024 and Henshaw and Keenan have also been out for spells in the same time period. There are always injuries and for younger players to play with the likes of Barrett will be great for them. It’s just looking for negatives where there are none.
11 Go to commentsAndy Goode pushing his own agenda with very dubious considerations on refereeing performances. Luke Pearce speaking a bit of French doesn’t make him a good and adequate referee for the Champions Cup final; his latest refereeing performance in particular was not so great.
4 Go to commentsJordie knows that he has to earn the right to put on the jersey, whatever that jersey might be.
11 Go to comments