TRU's Rugby Stock Watch - Week 11

The second week of the autumn internationals rolled around this weekend, with England and Wales both looking for much-improved performances, and Scotland and Ireland keen to build on very impressive outings last week.

With the rust supposedly being shaken off by the northern hemisphere sides, there was plenty for Stuart Lancaster, Warren Gatland, Joe Schmidt and Vern Cotter to think about this weekend and we take a look in this week’s Stock Report.

Stock Rising

Luke Cowan-Dickie, Exeter Chiefs and England
Although Joe Marler, Dave Wilson and Ben Morgan all pressed claims, England’s overall performance and growing dissatisfaction with their autumn so far meant that this spot had to go to one of the Aviva Premiership’s standout performers this weekend.
Cowan-Dickie, recently recovered from injury, got the Chiefs off to the perfect start at Franklin’s Gardens on Friday night with an early try, before helping the lay the foundations for an extremely important away win. He threw accurately at the lineout against a side very good at disrupting, even sans Courtney Lawes, and proved to be a force defensively, showing he is more than ready to step up from the age-grade level where he so excelled.
Rumours of a Dylan Hartley move to Montpellier may come to nothing, but there is usually no smoke without fire. If Hartley were to move post-RWC, it would open up a starting spot in the England XV. Rob Webber and Tom Youngs would be favoured to fill it, but if Cowan-Dickie can remain injury-free for the rest of the season and continue to develop his significant potential, do not be surprised to see him make a charge for it, should it open up.

Liam Williams, Scarlets and Wales
Williams helped himself to a big game in the absence of Leigh Halfpenny, making the most of some very aimless Fijian kicking. He cantered to an eye-watering 207 metres with ball in hand and 11 defenders beaten, proving himself to be the incisive, attacking threat that some Welsh fans have been crying out for at full-back.
One very good performance against an at times defensively unorganised Fijian side will not see Williams usurp Halfpenny’s throne, but it certainly brings him closer to it. Working against Williams is the fact that many see him as a liability, picking up cards with alarming regularity, as well as sometimes being too aggressive and/or ambitious when looking to make something happen. If he can clean these areas of his game up, Halfpenny will have a real battle on his hands.

Ian Madigan, Leinster and Ireland
The quality of the opposition Madigan went up against, Georgia, has to be taken into consideration, but it was an accomplished and polished performance from the versatile fly-half. He contributed 19 points to his side’s effort, glided past defenders on numerous occasions and was as a resolute in defence as he has ever looked.
The real question is whether or not Schmidt will trust him enough to throw him in against Australia this weekend, especially with the pairing of Robbie Henshaw and Jared Payne looking comfortable in their win over South Africa. His ability to play fly-half, inside centre and full-back seem to make him the perfect bench option, but turning in performances like this one will continue to test Schmidt’s resolve.

Rob Harley, Glasgow Warriors and Scotland
The flanker put in a dogged performance against New Zealand, showing the grit and determination that has already made him one of Vern Cotter’s favoured men. Harley contributed significantly defensively and at the set-piece, but even more impressively, managed to get under the All Blacks’ skin. Harley was at the centre of most of the flash points in the game, goading New Zealand into action, but maintaining a cool enough head to keep himself out of trouble.
There is no shortage of skilled back rowers and/or potential leaders in and around the Scotland squad, but Harley may be a sleeper worth keeping an eye on when the Scotland captaincy next becomes available. He leads by example, can rile up the opposition and all the while maintaining his own composure, three very valuable and often underrated talents for any captain.

Other Risers – Tommy Seymour, Stuart Hogg, Justin Tipuric, Ben Morgan, Joe Marler, Tom Stephenson, Ben Foden, Luke Wallace, Jack Nowell, Kyle Sinckler, Dave Kilcoyne, Dave Foley, Simon Zebo, Christian Wade, Nathan Hughes.

Stock Falling

Billy Vunipola, Saracens and England
Vunipola just beats out Owen Farrell for this spot, whose recent injury provides mitigating circumstances for his form, but the powerful back rower potentially lost his England starting berth this weekend. The dynamism he has to break tackles and gallop on for big gains has been sorely missing from his game of late and it was his withdrawal and the introduction of Ben Morgan that really got England firing on Saturday.
There’s no doubting the tremendous potential of Vunipola, but he looks flat at the moment. Whether he has been overworked or just in a bit of a slump is hard to say, but if Morgan starts against Samoa as expected and impresses, Vunipola could find himself on the bench come England’s desperation match with Australia.

Rhys Priestland, Scarlets and Wales
An inclusion no one wants to see after he was acrimoniously booed by ‘fans’ at the Millennium Stadium when brought on against Australia, but Priestland missed the opportunity to show them all just how wrong they were. He wasn’t helped by playing in a Welsh team that looked very flat against Fiji, but his kicking, both at goal and tactical, was poor, whilst his channel was targeted with success by the powerful Fijian ball carriers.
With Dan Biggar’s injury not as bad as first feared, Gareth Anscombe en route and young stars like Sam Davies and Rhys Patchell ever-improving, it seems like Priestland’s days in the red of Wales may be limited to this autumn, at least for the foreseeable future.  

Geoff Cross, London Irish and Scotland
Cross replaced Euan Murray at the 30 minute mark and proceeded to be given a torrid time by New Zealand loosehead Joe Moody, who had been doing a good job on Murray prior to his injury-enforced withdrawal, too. Cross was not alone in his struggles, the Scottish scrum was under pressure from New Zealand for most of the game, but he certainly stood out as having under-performed.
In fairness to the Scot however, he did redeem himself slightly late on against Wyatt Crockett, catching the All Black cold and getting the better of him on a couple of occasions.

Other Fallers – Owen Farrell, Danny Care, Chris Robshaw, Dan Lydiate, Matt Kvesic.