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Mike Catt has backed Ryan Lamb to force his way into Martin Johnson's England plans after helping the London Irish No10 recover from a nightmare debut against Saracens at Twickenham.
Catt's long playing career brought World Cup triumph and major club honours — along with plenty of flak — giving the Irish backs coach an insight into the pressures that Lamb had to deal with following the 18-14 defeat on the opening day of the season, when the outside-half missed four relatively simple kicks at goal.
It appeared Irish had made the wrong call by signing Lamb after he was deemed surplus to requirements at Gloucester. But Catt ignored all the negative comments aimed at the 23-year-old and, after a clinical examination of what actually happened, he could see the pluses far outweighed the minuses.
Catt accentuated those positives and the results have been startling. Lamb now tops the scoring charts with 47 after helping Irish defeat Gloucester 40-10 and Leeds 56-7.
Irish are third in the Premiership, just one point behind pace-setters Wasps, and Sunday's clash at Reading puts Lamb up against Danny Cipriani, another England outside-half hoping to convince the doubters he can be a long-term replacement for Jonny Wilkinson.
Catt has no doubts that Lamb is capable of stepping up to Test level.
“Ryan has the skills to be an international player,” he said. “His distribution is world-class and I didn't realise that until he joined us.
“The battle with Cipriani will be really good and we have to front up against Wasps. This could be a great match.
“Every season we have improved and Chris Malone [who joined from Quins] is now fit to compete with Ryan for the No10 jersey and that is very important. Ryan is going to learn an awful lot from me and Chris.
“I spoke to Ryan after Twickenham and it reminded me of bad days I had at No10. To be honest, I don't believe it was the worst debut in the world as was suggested. Yes, he should have kicked those goals and we could have won but when you broke his game down into distribution, kicking from hand, defence, game management and the goal kicking, he only struggled in one area.
“Also, being new at the club, I expected the experienced guys around Ryan to help him out and that was something we addressed at half-time because people were too quiet.
“The reason I didn't get carried away is because it was only a factor in the first 40 minutes of the opening game.
“Against Gloucester and Leeds, the people around him were completely different and helped him massively.”
The Irish style of play and their ability to accumulate bonus points was a major factor in taking the club to the Premiership play-off final last season and now the challenge is to repeat that achievement. Opponents know they have to close them down or face waves of attack, even without injured England full-back Delon Armitage.
Wasps have kicked off the season in style. Cipriani has been getting the ball wide early and wing Tom Varndell has enjoyed a blistering start with five tries from three matches while their famed defence — masterminded by head coach Shaun Edwards — has been equally compact.
Irish lost nine games last season yet made the play-offs because they collected 16 bonus points, earned by scoring four tries or staying within seven points of the opposition in defeat.
Catt said: “It's all about playing for the full 80 minutes. The bonus point thing involves having the right mentality and to be in contention at the end of the season again we need to get those extra points on a regular basis.
“To score four tries against Wasps would be major achievement because their game is based on defence. It's their heart and soul. But Wasps are playing more expansively this season, which makes them very dangerous. They are really going for it.”
