Hartley - will he get us out of a jam?

[ChrisR]

I'd like to hear what Eddie Jones has to say. Any references?

 

[SimonSmith]

not exactly. I got the impression that SL started off his selection process by weeding out the players he didn't see as totally sound, and then making the best team he could from the rest of them,.


a better starting point for a coach is perhaps to work out what's the best team you could have, and then work with the players to coach their attitude character and behaviour.


every successful team I've ever been involved in has contained one or two aggressive dicks who - frankly- no one particularly liked and could be a liability - but also the team had someone - captain, coach or teacher, who was able to work with the material they had, and could coach the disparate characters to create a team that trusted eachother on the pitch and worked together to play good rugby. That's a great coach. I am hoping EJ will be able to pull this off.

Let's take a look at a random coach. Call him Clive. Or Wayne.

There's a world in which they believe that the really good players - the ones that win you big trophies, the size of the World Cup - are character driven as much as they are rugby talented.

Clive picks rough tough players with a real edge to them - but ones who very rarely cross the line that Mr Hartley has, and certainly not to the same degree. Wayne has a lot of talent at his disposal, and makes character a central part of his team ethos. Both Wayne Clive win the World Cup.

If Hartley had any other kind of job, he'd have been fired by now. I look at all the excuses put forward by people supporting this decision, and it strikes me as being a) wildly optimistic, b) contrary to all available evidence and c) contrary to the values of the sport.

Let's take a quick look at how bad a boy Dylan has been: Gouging; biting; calling the referee a cheat; headbutting; elbowing.
He has, of course, been YCed for England, and had the biting been seen, would have been RCed for England.

It's an interesting choice. Had the SRU done this, I'd have written in protest. This is an indictment of England (and secondarily a helluva statement about the lack of captaincy options at your disposal)

 

[Rich_NL]

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/jan/25/dylan-hartley-england-captain-eddie-jones


“You just have to hope and pray [disciplinary trouble]’s not going to happen. We all make mistakes as young people but people mature. Life changes, priorities change.

Dylan can lead the side with the sort of attitude we want. We want a team with an uncompromising feel about it. We need to change English rugby and get back to what the rest of the world fears about English rugby and that’s their forward play."

He wants to put more fight than dependability/reliability into England, it seems. You saw SL's preference for the latter at the expense of unpredictable playmakers like Hartley and Cipriani.

 

[crossref]

He wants to put more fight than dependability/reliability into England, it seems. You saw SL's preference for the latter at the expense of unpredictable playmakers like Hartley and Cipriani.

similarly I am hoping for the return of Danny Care.

 

[ChrisR]

From: www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/interna...r-dylan-hartley-being-sent-off-in-six-nations

British bookmakers are offering odds of 16/1 that new England captain Dylan Hartley will be sent off during the looming Six Nations.

The New Zealand-born hooker has been named captain by new England coach Eddie Jones who has ignored Hartley disastrous and lengthy record of ill-discipline that totals 54 weeks in bans.

The bookies agree with a large rugby sentiment that Hartley is a disaster waiting to happen.

Is England so bereft of talent? When this goes south the fallout will be poisonous. Was England's requirement for character their downfall? I don't think so.

 

[Rushforth]

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/...n-hartley-is-a-good-man-and-right-for-the-job

"Your track record does not matter. There might be a few people with stiff collars who will get a little bit upset, but that is the nature of the game.

"Dyls is a good man, a good player, you know he will give 100 per cent and I could not care less what he has done before."

 

[Lee Lifeson-Peart]

Whayhey!

I've just got the Hartley and jam joke!:biggrin:

 

[RobLev]

Let's take a look at a random coach. Call him Clive. Or Wayne.

There's a world in which they believe that the really good players - the ones that win you big trophies, the size of the World Cup - are character driven as much as they are rugby talented.

Clive picks rough tough players with a real edge to them - but ones who very rarely cross the line that Mr Hartley has, and certainly not to the same degree. Wayne has a lot of talent at his disposal, and makes character a central part of his team ethos. Both Wayne Clive win the World Cup...

Messrs Marshall (punch), Leslie (throat stamp), McRae (stamp, ban) White (punch) and Russell (punch) might beg to differ on whether Clive's chosen one ever crossed the line that Hartley has crossed. In the meantime, Mr Ferris is congratulating himself on avoiding being cited for his fish-hooking foul which led to Mr Hartley's international biting citing.

 

[Ricardowensleydale]

I think the Army does something similar; ie if you're behaving like a dick, they may try giving him some responsibility.

How come Hartley isn't a Field Marshall?

 

[Phil E]

Martin Johnson wasn't exactly a saint.

 

[irishref]

Out of a jam and into a marmalade?

 

[SimonSmith]

Messrs Marshall (punch), Leslie (throat stamp), McRae (stamp, ban) White (punch) and Russell (punch) might beg to differ on whether Clive's chosen one ever crossed the line that Hartley has crossed. In the meantime, Mr Ferris is congratulating himself on avoiding being cited for his fish-hooking foul which led to Mr Hartley's international biting citing.

The gouging, alone, should have been enough to disqualify him.
What you qualify as a "biting citing" is more accurately reflected as "8 week ban".

And when Johnson WAS sent down, "the RFU panel, who took into account the player's 'extremely good' disciplinary record during a career which has seen him win 58 England caps and skipper the British Lions."

 

[Ian_Cook]

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/jan/25/dylan-hartley-england-captain-eddie-jones


“You just have to hope and pray [disciplinary trouble]’s not going to happen. We all make mistakes as young people but people mature.

Well,he hasn't. Quite the opposite in fact... he been cited/RC six times in is carreer

2006/7
2011/12
2012/13 (twice)
2014/15 (twice)

To me that reads like he's getting worse not better!

 

[RobLev]

The gouging, alone, should have been enough to disqualify him.

A point of view with which I have some sympathy - but:

What you qualify as a "biting citing" is more accurately reflected as "8 week ban".

If we're talking about discipline and likelihood of re-offending, it's irrelevant. No player at the bottom of a ruck feeling an oppo player trying to tear his cheek off would do anything other than bite the finger doing it. That's why Ferris did it, and then went off to the referee with his poor finger.

And when Johnson WAS sent down, "the RFU panel, who took into account the player's 'extremely good' disciplinary record during a career which has seen him win 58 England caps and skipper the British Lions."

Which shows just how selectively blind an RFU panel could be when judging the England captain.

Even on the offences themselves, he was being treated with kid-gloves. Both dropping the knee on and stamping McRae are each worth a RC; as was punching Julian White. With 3 RC offences in the same match, there's no way that a 7-week ban should have been imposed even if he'd been the Archangel Gabriel before then. With his record already - he'd escaped a citing for punching Marshall because he took an internal seven-day suspension instead, and escaped a citing for stamping on John Leslie's throat because he was YC'd and they couldn't cite something that had been dealt with by the ref in those days - he definitely hadn't been. What's the tariff for those 3 offences - in the same match - nowadays?

Edit: Answering my own question - 8 weeks, assuming LE entry point. But the offences were deliberate, and McRae was injured and unable to play for weeks with broken ribs. That's mid-range for all three, minimum? That's now up to 18 weeks... And if you assess them as top end, that's 29 weeks upwards.

 

[Dixie]

one thing that does worry me is his position, in the front row. It's very much the trend nowadays to sub your front row players off the field with twenty minutes to go ... and those last 20 minutes are when things happen, and when you most need a captain. DH is going to have to last eighty minutes.

Which (along with his inability to throw in) may be why Tom Youngs was left out - or perhaps EJ just anticipated that Youngs would get cited.

Whayhey!

I've just got the Hartley and jam joke!:biggrin:

Thank God someone did! I thought I was going to have to post a picture of a racially-offensive rag doll playing a saxophone.

 

[crossref]

Dylan Hartley is not from that side of the family -- he hails from the Fly Fishing Hartleys.

 

[Lee Lifeson-Peart]

Thank God someone did! I thought I was going to have to post a picture of a racially-offensive rag doll playing a saxophone.

Hopefully Dylan will be more successful than Ian Robertson the only other Rugby player/jam (or is it just marmalade?) combo that immediately springs to mind. Wikipedia tells me Robbo won the Calcutta cup in 1970 - a boiled fruit and sugar omen perhaps? Time will tell.

 

[Crucial]

You bemoan the era when "...but isn't that the Lancaster era that we just left behind, where character and behaviour are valued over winning?" That suggests you value and anticipate an era where winning is valued more than charater and behaviour.

If so, we have different values.

I don't think that the two things are mutually exclusive.

Lancaster was no doubt trying to emulate the All Blacks 'better people make better players' mantra. It does take a while to filter into place though. Not because you have to slowly weed out the players that don't fit, but because to change an ingrained culture (such as one of over use of alcohol, cliques, kangaroo courts etc) players have to learn new behaviours. You can't flick a switch.
It took the ABs years to really entrench this attitude within the team.
'Better people' doesn't mean perfect people either. It means that if you do slip up you accept what you have done, face the consequences and work harder to regain trust. If you fail to take those steps then you don't fit.

 

[Stuartg]

Whayhey!

I've just got the Hartley and jam joke!:biggrin:

Does the penny always drop by farthings for you?

 

[Ricardowensleydale]

Hopefully Dylan will be more successful than Ian Robertson the only other Rugby player/jam (or is it just marmalade?) combo that immediately springs to mind.

There has to be a peanut butter joke in there somewhere.