Jeremy Guscott: Lancaster needs a wing man to drive home his bombers

I’ll argue all day long that the key ability in a winger is that when you give them a try-scoring opportunity, they must take it. If you have a genuine elite finisher who runs in every half-chance that comes their way, then you will probably overlook if they miss the occasional tackle, or high ball.
The two wingers who are really singing and dancing at the moment are the Wasps pair, Tom Varndell and Christian Wade. Varndell, who is top of the Premiership try charts this season with nine, has already had the limelight and exposure briefly with England, winning four caps between 2005 and 2008. The difficulty for him is that anyone who played for England from 2003 until Martin Johnson’s resignation as manager in 2011 does not have much of a CV. It was a period in which there was no standout performer in any position, let alone wing.
Wade is this raw talent. He has speed, and he’s hungry, and although he has to learn his trade, his pace and ability to jink will genuinely scare defenders. Wade, who has scored five tries this season, had a sniff with England last summer, and if he and Varndell keep up the high strike rate they will be hard to ignore.
Charlie Sharples was just above Wade in Stuart Lancaster’s pecking order, until he also lost out when the England head coach opted for a full-back in one of the wing positions during the autumn series.
Against a kicking team like South Africa it’s not hard to understand why Lancaster would choose a second full-back, but picking Mike Brown as a winger is a selection decision that will hurt a lot of specialist finishers. The danger is that Lancaster picks his side after looking at the opposition and doing a risk assessment, rather than looking at how he can move his side on as an attacking force.
Brown and Ben Foden are almost on a par as full-backs, and now Alex Goode is also in the frame the selection of the back three has become problematic. There is the potential for Lancaster to get himself in a similar mess to the one that England football managers fell into by always picking Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard in the same midfield.
Foden is as fast as many wingers, so you could have him and Chris Ashton, and then Brown or Goode at No.15, although it would still leave specialist wingers a bit bemused. Sharples, for instance, is a far better winger than Brown, and if the Harlequins full-back continues at wing then at some stage he will be exposed.
Sharples will be wondering what he’s done to deserve being dropped, with Brown being brought in during the autumn to do a job that Lancaster didn’t believe the Gloucester wing could do. That’s got to mess with you mentally.
Brown has real ability as a broken field runner with the priceless talent to slip the first two tackles, and he is great under the high ball, whether defending it or attacking it. He also has a massive boot and defends quite well – but he lacks out and out pace.
Tom Biggs is another genuine wing being talked about, but he will struggle to get international recognition because he plays in a Bath team that doesn’t score many tries. He’s a supporters’ favourite because he gives everything every time he plays, and he’s instantly recognisable because of his long blond hair. He’s also a consistent performer who is really rapid, and is a bloodhound when it comes to sniffing out opportunities. However, Bath have  scored only 14 tries this season – and three of those came against Exeter – and he won’t be able to prove whether he has international credentials unless he sees more ball.
Then there’s the Saracens pairing of Ashton and David Strettle. Ashton has had a confidence boost from getting on the end of Manu Tuilagi‘s break to score against New Zealand, and that keeps him ahead of his rivals with the Six Nations approaching. Strettle is out of favour, but he has not played a bad match for England, and he made a good impression on his debut in a bad defeat at Croke Park. But leaving Harlequins for Saracens was a strange move at the time he did it, unless he wanted more practice at chasing kicks, and initially it was not the best for his England chances.
However, after watching Saracens dismantle my team, Bath, last weekend, it could be that those chances have improved. I honestly never thought I’d be writing a column praising a team like Saracens, but it’s time to give credit where credit is due.
Sarries didn’t dominate the game in territory or possession, but it went horribly wrong for Bath at the lineout, with 67 per cent success compared to Saracens 100 per cent, and Bath turned the ball over 14 times to Saracens eight. But where Saracens really made their mark was by making almost double the meters with ball in hand, carrying 67 times and making 183m, while Bath did 82 carries for 109 meters.
The Saracens try was also a work of art. It started with off-the-top ball from a lineout just outsides Bath’s 22m line. Charlie Hodgson got the ball running with Strettle inside him, and Kelly Brown outside.  The problem is the Bath defence went up as an arrowhead, with Stephen Donald in front too far and going too quickly. Michael Claassens, inside him, was caught between taking Hodgson or Strettle, and did neither.
This saw Hodgson slip past them both then side-step Stuart Hooper, who looked as though he’d dropped a £50 note and was desperate to find it rather than tackle. He hardly moved. Strettle supported Hodgson on his right and took the pass, tried to beat Nick Abendanon and was just about tackled – but Richard Wigglesworth was in support and  slid over to score.
In the heavy rain and waterlogged pitch it was a beautiful try. Hodgson finished off his man of the match performance with five penalties and a conversion, 17 points.
Sarries average 4.9 penalties a match, that’s nearly 15 points, and it’s a great base to have. Old man Hodgson taught Bath a lesson in game management,  dictating the tempo of game.
Saracens are the tightest team in the league when it comes to conceding points. The opposition on average score only 14.6 points, but they score 20.6, so we can see why they are winning. They don’t play the most attractive rugby – they’ve scored only 10 tries in the Premiership this season, four of which came against London Irish in the first game –  and have conceded only nine.
That’s why, when you buy wingers with the pace and nose for the line like Ashton and Strettle, it’s hard to work out why Saracens use them mainly as kick chasers. In the Premiership, Ashton has scored three tries this season. Strettle has none.
Sarries are a good team. If they apply the same commitment to attack as they do to their defensive strategies they will become a complete team. However, you have to applaud their stubbornness to keep doing the same, rain or sun. They are competing strongly in the Premiership and Heineken Cup, and it seems they are happy to keep winning ugly and taking very few risks.
Their outlook is that if they win one of those trophies, it will have been worth it.