I didn't see Mossop play but his stats show that he wasn't used as a front rower.
40 minutes, 4 hitups, 31 metres, 26 tackles.
That's only one hit up every 10 minutes.
Other English props:
T. Burgess: One hitup every 3.6 minutes
Hill: Hitup every 4.1 minutes
G. Burgess: Hitup every 5.1 minutes
Mossop's stats show he played more like a lock. Sam Burgess made a hitup every 7.3 minutes. Considering Big Sam played 80 minutes, this suggests that while Mossop was on the field, Sam Burgess joined the prop rotation. Or England played with two locks.
This is backed up by Mossop's defensive workrate:
Mossop: 0.73 attempted tackles per minute
Hill: 0.54 at/minute
G. Burgess: 0.50 at/minute
T. Burgess: 0.48 at/minute
S. Burgess: 0.45 at/minute
The other four English tight forwards all hovered around the standard prop workrate figure of an attempted tackle every two minutes, whereas Mossop was attempting almost three every four minutes; an increase of about 50% on the others.
It's pretty fair to say Lee Mossop isn't your out and out yardage prop. He is more of a worker (i.e. lock), in the mould of Lussick and Allgood, and I'd say we'll mostly be going with two of these on the field with one yardage monster (Mannah, Paulo). This is good for your defence, but means that if the prop doesn't get a quick play-the-ball you need to make your next hit up on one of the edges and hope to generate some ruck speed there. Hopefully Nathan Peats is able to help our tight forwards avoid being gang tackled.
We'll also be relying on our fullback and wingers to start our exit sets well.
