Re: Te'o and Shields. (small thread)
There's lots of chat about their selection being questionable based on form (Shields) or time played for club (Te'o). However, I often compare this to the example of England cricket under Duncan Fletcher.
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There's lots of chat about their selection being questionable based on form (Shields) or time played for club (Te'o). However, I often compare this to the example of England cricket under Duncan Fletcher.
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Fletcher would take a view that someone is either test class or not, and if they were test class they were in and in they stayed. The most obvious example was Michael Vaughan who was averaging a shithouse 25 with the bat for Yorkshire when he was first called up /
This was because Fletcher believed he was test class based on a number of factors. A player then knows they are in the squad, that they will be given the chance to perform and that their temporary form is less relevant and squad ethos is built with regular call-ups /
EJ appears to be very much in this wheelhouse with most of his squad, hence his continued ignoring of Armand and Cipriani (mostly) who he clearly believes are not test class. You can disagree with this opinion/approach, but it does not lack logic the way that some are stating /
It is also possible to always play well for your country while simultaneously not performing that well for your club, Will Greenwood is an obvious example of this.
