Powell is a liability

[orfeo]

says all I have to say on this guy

[LeRouxIsPHat]

I actually thought he had a good first half tbh.I thought Stuart Barnes was exaggerating how bad his ball protection was in the hope of sounding intelligent about realising that the Bok backrow would rob the ball off him

[ceemec]

says all I have to say on this guy

Well, I suppose this is the point of these matches. We can see who is not playing well and eliminate them. If someone has one or two poor showings in a row then we can rule them out. Several people fulfilled that criteria today. Worsley, Powell and Williams have probably seen any hope of being in the test 22 gone up in smoke.

[TrapperChamonix]

says all I have to say on this guy

Well, I suppose this is the point of these matches. We can see who is not playing well and eliminate them. If someone has one or two poor showings in a row then we can rule them out. Several people fulfilled that criteria today. Worsley, Powell and Williams have probably seen any hope of being in the test 22 gone up in smoke.

I'd agree with that.

Also disappointed that so much was thrown to no 2 or else Powell took so much out of the ball, it didn't give much quick go forward to Fitzgerald and Earls.

I thought Ferris (sinbinning aside) was the only one to push his claim forward for the tests

[Oldschool]

Absolutelty and Worsely is not a 7.

[rex banner]

Powell for me isolates himself in contact situations and takes the wrong body position to present the ball back quickly and give his support a target to go for. He is also just a bit predictable.....get ball run straight....look for contact.

[Leinsterman]

Powell for me isolates himself in contact situations and takes the wrong body position to present the ball back quickly and give his support a target to go for. He is also just a bit predictable.....get ball run straight....look for contact.

He's utterly awful. A very poor bosh merchant who loses the ball far too much in contact for a supposed international 8.
Carrying one-handed with the ball held to your chest when going into contact is asking for trouble.

[Comer Toes]

Powell and Worsley were poor. So frustrating seeing them going so high and direct into contact, nightmare to recycle. Ford not much better. Several others had a dodgy last 25 mins, Williams obviously one of those. Have to say that while the Lions were not as clinical at the breakdown as they should have been, Barnes let the Cheetahs away with murder, Brussow throwing the ball back on his knees for all to see was particularly glaring. I thought the Irish guys did ok, Earls and Fitz had their moments but as to be expected looked ropey on defensive structure. DOC has probably not done enough to challenge Hines/ Wyn Jones however. Fitz will now get his shot on the wing provided he hasn't picked up an injury. Overall, I feel a tad sorry for the players today, they were done a bit of a disservice by the management in terms of the selection - lack of balance in forwards and in backs and failure to address it as game went on (e.g. bringing on D'Arce sooner).

Positives: POC probably best player, Earls somewhat redeemed himself, Ellis had a decent first 60, Ferris decent, Hook did well, Fitz as test 11 still a runner, propping test slots both very tight

Negatives: Worsley, Powell, Ford, DOC not good enough for test 22, breakdown issues - Lions are struggling to adapt to extra couple of seconds refs are allowing to compete for ball compared to HEC

[thecoolfreak]

Powell for me isolates himself in contact situations and takes the wrong body position to present the ball back quickly and give his support a target to go for. He is also just a bit predictable.....get ball run straight....look for contact.

I have been saying this since the AI's when he came onto the scene. I took me a while to win my brother over to my way of thinking but he's finally coming round. The guy is a one trick pony and not even a very good one at that.

[tackle-bag]

Following today we have a much better idea of the test side, quite simply because so many people have played their way out of contention.

Powell is a headless chicken and has to bear a massive amount of the responsibility for the tightness of that game at the end - he doesn't hold onto the ball properly in contact, his presentation is atrocious, he runs away from support so spends most of his time isolated and his selfishness when standing at inside centre stultified the possibility of any creative back-play outside him. Jamie is now guaranteed to start at number 8.

Ferris, aside from his sin-binning which was quite harsh (his tackle was superb and he seemed to be trapped on the wrong side - could have done more to move though), was excellent. He is also now nailed on for a Test spot.

Ford is a fat waste of space who can't throw straight and contributes nothing in the loose. Rees is equally poor. If Best had been called up, it would be between himself and Mears for the number 2 shirt.

DOC is only still in contention for the 2nd row spot because everyone else has been so average. I'm becoming more convinced that Croft may yet start there beside POC.

Byrne was very quiet and the 15 jersey isn't nailed onto his back just yet. Rob needs a big performance against the Sharks though.

Williams looks likely to lose the number 11 shirt to either Monye or Fitz. He's clearly nowhere near his best this season and players need to be selected on form.

[Paudy]

Any chance of highlights appearing anywhere lads? I'll probably have to download the whole game but don't feel too enthusiastic about watchin it!

Powell in general has been massively over-hyped, his atitude sucks, talkin himself up with "nobody will put me down" and "I will beat the first tackler every time type vibes", Heaslip doesn't exactly go looking for ground either but is much more intellegent with using his power to stay upright and shunt the tackler away from the ball, buying the crucial seconds for the support that powell doesnt even think about, Powell just does what he wants and expects his forwards to clear out first every time, a very flawed tactic given how competitive the breakdown is at the moment.

[keith6]

this guy was terrible have the team nothing every time he got the ball he looked like losing it in contact .ford was not much better but at least he was honest with what he did mears is sure to start now .very lucky to win 5 more minutes and we would have lost. powell was like a dead weight around this team

[Paudy]

He's a brick in teh worst possible sense!

[ronk]

Powell was weak overall but did ok, obviously he's miles behind Heaslip. It was tough on the back 3 with so little ball making it out there. I liked luke, he's now nailed on for the 22. Earls showed real talent for his try but went missing a little. Hook did a lot for his chances while I thought Ellis was a bit rubbish. Ferris wasinpressive at times but to me he seemed to drift out of the game. I suspect the badly balanced backrow was partly to blame. It's worrying in the front row. If Sheridan doesn't exploit his upper hand in the scrums then he's a waste.

[thecoolfreak]

Powell was weak overall but did ok, obviously he's miles behind Heaslip. It was tough on the back 3 with so little ball making it out there. I liked luke, he's now nailed on for the 22. Earls showed real talent for his try but went missing a little. Hook did a lot for his chances while I thought Ellis was a bit rubbish. Ferris wasinpressive at times but to me he seemed to drift out of the game. I suspect the badly balanced backrow was partly to blame. It's worrying in the front row. If Sheridan doesn't exploit his upper hand in the scrums then he's a waste.

The front row has been performing very well. Jenkins was brilliant the other night and Sheridan hasn't been too bad. Vickery had one of the best games of his career on Wednesday and Murray isn't playing too badly either. Also I thought Ellis was good enough, one or two bad passes but overall he had a good game

[ronk]

It's great to have someone like Jenkins. He does so much more than scrummage. Sheridan didn't do enough in my book.

[LeRouxIsPHat]

It's great to have someone like Jenkins. He does so much more than scrummage. Sheridan didn't do enough in my book.

I agree.I tracked Sheridan towards the end of the first half and it confirmed why i don't rate him.It started with a lineout and the Lions went across the pitch and back. There was about 7 or 8 rucks and Sheridan hit ONE! And the person he "cleared out" was at the side of the ruck doing nothing and by the the time he'd arrived at the last one the ball had already been turned over.

[hugonaut]

Interesting to see how different people saw the match: it'd be a great experiment to organise 15 of the forum members to 'player-cam' a Lions player each for the Sharks game and really examine how each individual performs.

I would never have noticed Sheridan's being off the pace if LeRouxIsPhat hadn't mentioned it: you're sometimes not aware when specific players aren't putting it in as you're too caught up in the match. You can tell when there's no-one at a ruck, and you [eh, I mean I] just generally start shouting, "Where the f*ck is the support? WHERE THE F*CK IS THE SUPPORT?"

Is anybody on for doing that? Could make for an interesting analysis of the game.

[LeRouxIsPHat]

Interesting to see how different people saw the match: it'd be a great experiment to organise 15 of the forum members to 'player-cam' a Lions player each for the Sharks game and really examine how each individual performs.

I would never have noticed Sheridan's being off the pace if LeRouxIsPhat hadn't mentioned it: you're sometimes not aware when specific players aren't putting it in as you're too caught up in the match. You can tell when there's no-one at a ruck, and you [eh, I mean I] just generally start shouting, "Where the f*ck is the support? WHERE THE F*CK IS THE SUPPORT?"

Is anybody on for doing that? Could make for an interesting analysis of the game.

Nice idea and i'm more than willing for others to put in the work and for me to reap the benefits! I'm probably being a bit too harsh on Sheridan because in fairness to him he did do some good things as well like his scrummaging and he also carried more than usual but I just don't want him anywhere near the test team and think is hugely overrated.

[Terraceman]

In relation to clearing out Cian Healy would be ideal. He is very mobile and is simply class at clearing out.Questions about his scrummaging of course but he was not exposed in the final. Looks like the breakdown could be a huge problem in the test matches and he could make a huge difference.

Serious lack of quality hookers, it seems like it's Mears place to loose.