Shields, in theory, is just the sort of Player that we need in our pack. Great leadership, big physical presence, smart ball player. But, so far has been injured or away with England and struggled to settle into a rhythm.
However, we play best when we have YY and Willis at 7 and 6. Shields isn’t an 8, so it’s tricky to see where he fits in. Where we have a more physical, potentially tighter game in prospect I’d potentially say we shift Willis to 7 and put Shields to 6 (aka a Plan B which we typically don’t tend to have) with YY on the bench to cover Back Row.
But, would ultimately prefer we play to our strengths and have a couple of disruptive, fetchers on the pitch causing havoc at the breakdown like yesterday.