Which Warriors could have been Lions?

Having seen the underwhelming response to the Lions squad I decided to look at the Warrior Lions.

Euan Murray

The obvious first choice potential Lion.  At 32 Euan is considered to be at his peak, though some may argue he is past his best, his Worcester performances this season certainly would not suggest this.
Murray made his Scotland debut back in 2005 and has since gone on to play 53 games for his country.
His 10 premiership and 3 cup appearances for Worcester predominately as the starting tight head.

Murray has missed out to Matt Stevens.  Stevens is younger and heavier than Murray but he is also less experienced, shorter and has a history of drug taking.  Stevens is considered to be able to play loose and tight head and therefore seen as more of a squad player than Murray.

You could argue that if Mullan & Murray had been picked, if only for non test games, you would have a front row pairing that know how to scrum together.

Matt Mullan

Though he only has 1 full international cap the soon to be former Warrior loose head has had another great season.  Matt has fallen foul of injury many times over his career but having put in 20 appearances this season and only suffering a training day "freak accident" injury, hopefully that is all behind him.  As a Worcester prop he has been amazing and I am sure he will do the same for Wasps from next season.

Unfortunately for Matt there are many players in front of him for England duty, let alone Lions duty.  All you have to say is Cian Healy and you can see why Mullan would not be selected.  Their stats are pretty close; only a year in age, an inch in height and they weigh in the same, but the big difference is Mullan has 1 England cap vs Healy with 39 Ireland caps.

Maybe a couple of injury free rugby at Wasps will give Mullan his chance to play for England.  He will still be less than 30 years old for the next Lions tour!

Ed Shervington

Is Dylan Hartley really playing better than Ed?

The facts are that Hartley is younger, taller, heavier and vastly more experienced than Ed but does that matter?  I guess it does.  Ed does not seem to have had a sniff at international rugby and with 35 premiership caps vs Hartley's 90 it would appear he is some way behind.

It is very rare that Mr. Hill would let Ed or Aleki play a full 80 minutes of rugby. 2011/12 season Ed only played a full 80 minutes once and this season it has only happened twice.  Though our former head coach must value Ed to have given him a new contract and planned to start next season with just him and Ollie Hayes as first team choices until November.

Unfortunately for Ed I think international rugby has passed him by but fortunately for us Worcester Warriors are where he remains.

James Percival

I hardly need to write a justification for this selection.  The man has been fantastic for Worcester again this season.  He has already picked up the only prize that maters - Fans Player of Season 2012/13 but should he have also picked up some tickets to join the lions tour?

Comparing the giant lock to Geoff Parling - Percy is 6'5"weighs 257ib is 29 and 81 premiership caps but no international test caps.  Parling is 6'6" weighs 251lb is 29 and has 131 premiership caps with 17 international caps.  As a Warrior though they cannot be compared.  In every sense Percy wears his heart on his sleeve and plays every game as if it is his last.  He has played 25 games for us this season and up until the Sarries game he had played every single minute of premiership rugby this season! 

I'm not sure how serious it was, but there was even talk of him qualifying for Wales.  Judging by the Lions squad this may well have been a tactic to aid his progress into the touring side?!

For me the Warriors captain is head and shoulders above any other player in the premiership and should been on the plane to Australia.

Andy Goode

If only he had maintained his fitness.  There could be so many arguments for taking him.  Though there are many that say he is a great 10 at club level but never made the step up to international rugby.

In all honesty though, to get in the team he would have to do better than another legendary 10 that missed the cut - Johnny Wilkinson.  The numbers just do not add up.

England

Andy Goode - 17 Caps 107 points

Johnny Wilkinson - 91 Caps 1179 points

As a club player Goode has been outstanding though

Premiership

Andy Goode - 188 Caps 1834 points

Johnny Wilkinson - 138 Caps 1489 points

Goode is the second highest all time scorer in the premiership and currently holds the accolade of highest points scorer ever for both Tigers and Warriors.

As I said above, if only he kept his fitness going this season.  It may be coincidence but ever since it was announced that he was signing for Wasps he seems to have got slower, less interested and less committed.  Understandable maybe, but tarnishes the end of his Warriors career and any chance of becoming the 3rd 10 on the tour to Australia.

Chris Pennell

I covered Chris' career in some detail back in January 2013 and since then he seems to have only got better!

There are no premiership based full backs in the touring squad.  Halfpenny, Hogg and Kearney take the places.  Brown didn't make it as a "utility back".  So far England seemed to have looked past Pennell for home nation caps, so why should he play for the Lions?  This season Chris has made it to the landmark of 100 points in 100 games for Worcester having played 23 of those games this season.  His performance at the last home game of the season summed up his season.  Great running with ball in hand, great defence, performed well under high ball and added some real attacking flair.  Maybe a few more performances like that would get the international selectors looking more closely at him.  Maybe, Worcester playing a more consistent and attacking game will help also!

In his way for the Lions is Halfpenny, player of the championship in this years Six Nations and a target for every premiership and French team playing in the Heineken Cup, so to be fair Chris would struggle to keep him out of the Lions tour,  but as no other premiership player or England player made the tour, maybe there is nothing stopping him being called up for England or at least the Saxons next season.

Reality

Do I really think that any of the Worcester players should have been named in the Lions touring squad - maybe not.  Do I think any of them could have been called up - no chance.  Until we work our way out of the bottom 4 premiership sides and give our players chance to shine they have no real chance of selection.  Not through poor performance or not being good enough, purely through not being in the spot light for the right reasons.  It is hard enough to get into their home nations team let alone the Lions team! 

The Actual Lions

Full-backs: L Halfpenny, S Hogg, R Kearney
Wings: G North, A Cuthbert, T Bowe, S Maitland
Centres: B O'Driscoll, M Tuilagi, J Roberts, J Davies
Fly-halves: J Sexton, O Farrell
Scrum-halves: C Murray, M Phillips, B Youngs
Props: G Jenkins, C Healy, M Vunipola, A Jones, D Cole, M Stevens
Hookers: D Hartley, R Hibbard, T Youngs
Locks: I Evans, R Gray, AW Jones, P O'Connell, G Parling
Back row: T Croft, T Faletau, J Heaslip, D Lydiate, S O'Brien, J Tipuric, S Warburton (capt).

Position Profile - Hooker

After the recent article by @AJBails I thought it was a good time to start taking a look at the key positions within the Warriors squad, starting with Hooker. 

When you Google "Hooker" it returns:

Which doesn't really go anyway to help this blog, so I decided to put in a more detailed search "Hooker Rugby".  This didn't really help either so I decided to read a book.

A Hooker - The player who lines up between the props, coordinates the engagement of the pack and is in theory responsible for winning the ball at the scrum by "Hooking" Though in reality this happens very little in the modern game, the position is still seen as a key decision maker, not only do they control the 100's of kilo's behind them in a scum they are responsible for the restart - Line Out.  I didn't bother Googling this term as I figured lots of finishing websites would result, which would play havoc with my internet viewing at a later date seeing fishing adverts all over the cookie filled internet sites I tend to frequent.  Suffice to say the line out is key, as whenever the ball is kicked or carried off the pitch it is the chosen method of restart.

So, our hooker is a key part of the team at set piece and in loose play.  Over the years we have had some good hookers to chose from but for this article I will concentrate on the current and future wearers of the #2 shirt: Ed Shervington and Ollie Hayes.  If you would like to read about Warriors new boy Gus Creevy please take a look HERE 

Aleki Lutui is one of the highest capped Worcester Warriors players in the history of the club.  Born in Tofoa the 34 year old has played 186 games W/D/L 88/10/88.  He has not signed a new Warriors contract for 2013/14 having signed a 2 year deal with Edinburgh. 

That leaves the club with Ed Shervington and Ollie Hayes, both having signed contract extension in 2013.  It is expected that Gus Creevy will arrive at the club around the end of November following his International commitments.  So we have an easy choice at #2 and #16 

Ollie Hayes

Born in Bath in 1990 now standing at 1,83m and weighing in at 105Kg Ollie was signed by Richard Hill from his former club Bristol and has been the "hot prospect" for the last couple of seasons.

Picture: Ollie putting in a tackle on Aleki in his days as a Bristol player.

During the Warriors Championship season Ollie was a regular starter for Bristol and played against us a couple of times.  The later coming in the 81 - 13 Sixways thrashing of Bristol. Ollie's first official run out for Worcester was for the Cavaliers against Exeter United.  As a debut it went very well only making 2 mistakes at the line out in what was a match full of hand bags.  This game sticks in my mind as it was the game that former Warriors 7 Tom Leech had a "coming together" with now Warrior Prop John Andress. 

I think it is fair to say Ollie enjoyed his debut more than Andress did, a broken nose and a defeat for his Exeter United side to his soon to be employers.

Ollie has since gone on to make 14 appearances for Worcester scoring 2 tries and being involved in 7 team victories.  As 3rd choice hooker he is reliant on injuries and players being rested, which after November 2012 hasn't really happened at the club and therefore has played very little rugby in the run up to the end of the season.  

A self proclaimed "Cube Head" Ollie has settled in well at the club and become an integral member of the senior set-up.  His desire to play first team rugby and progress as the owner of the #2 shirt has seen him spend many hours on the training field and in the gym "bulking not sulking" which he will hope results in a regular first team place for 2013/2014.

Ed Shervington

Welsh born 1,80m 110Kg Ed Shervington is 28 years old and has played 65 games for Worcester.

Ed previously played for Neath and Gloucester.  Having played for Welsh age groups at U18, U19 and U21 levels Ed made his move from Ospreys following the 2009/2010 season ready for our drive to get promotion from the Championship.

A very strong and versatile player, I remember once seeing Ed play at #2 for the first half of a game to then spend the second half as a flanker.  Not only did he hold his own in this position he went on to score a brilliant try demonstrating is ability in open play.  A very steady thrower and an exceptionally strong athlete Ed is an extremely reliable and capable premiership hooker always adding power at the breakdown.

Any frequent visitors to the David Lloyd complex at Sixways will know this already, but Ed is an exceptional athlete, putting in a massive number of gym hours both improving his already impressive strength and helping his fellow team mates and back room staff.

One peculiarity of the Hooker stats at Worcester is that the win loss ration for all 3 current players is 50/50.

So what can we expect for next season?  We have 3 very capable rugby playing hookers available, though at the moment it would appear only 2 will be in contention for the first couple of months of the Premiership season.  There would appear to be not much difference between Ed and Ollie in terms of pace, strength and throwing but it is clear that Ed has much more experience of top flight rugby and has been preferred ahead of Ollie in the race for the shirt so regularly held by Aleki Lutui.

This season our line out has been criticised many times and be it through coaching, poor throwing or the limited use of our line out legend Craig Gillies, this is an area of our game that must improve under Dean Ryan next season.

Can we compare our hooker options to those of previous world rugby greats such as; Mario Ledesma, Sean Fitzpatrick or John Smit? Their lack of international honours would say not, though Augustin Creevy, deemed our first choice hooker for next season does have 22 caps for his native Argentina.  

Next season our realistic aim should be to achieve a slot in the middle 4 of the premiership in which case we will be battling with the likes of Exeter, Bath and Gloucester.  Do our options compare to theirs?  Exeter have 5 EQ hookers, including Jack Yeandle & Chris Whitehead.  Bath are equally endowed with EQ players utilising Rob Webber and Ross Batty.  Gloucester on the other hand call on Australian Huia Edmonds and EQ Darren Dawidiuk.  Looking at our nearest premiership rivals I would say that Gus, Ed and Ollie can more than hold their own and I may even be so bold as to say we have greater strength and depth in this key position than the teams we want to be out performing in the league.

Looking further up the table and this seasons title contenders are complimented by names such as Brits, Smit, Chuter, Youngs and Hartley.  Can we compete with these guys? Possibly not next season but who knows fo rthe season after that.  Although age can certainly bring experience and rugby knowledge we already bring pace, strength and offloads.

Though the words conjured up by a Google search for "Hooker" return as 'strumpet', 'street walker' or 'trollop'  Worcester Warriors have 3 options at hooker for next season that whip-up images of talent, youthful experience, physicality, scrum power, pace and skill, which will exceed the teams around us and start to compete with those above.