Richard Bath remains convinced England are kidding themselves if they think they are closing the gap with New Zealand.
RICHARD BATH IS AN AWARD-WINNING WRITER BASED IN THE UK.
WHEN ENGLAND WERE in the throes of that gilded run under Eddie Jones, when they won 24 of their first 25 games, put together a world record-equalling run of 18 wins and won back-to-back Six Nations, it seemed like nothing could go wrong.
In fact, according to your average John Bull, the only thing that was missing was the chance to play the All Blacks because, should that happen, there could only be one winner. And, according to most English fans, it wouldn’t be the Kiwis.
Back then, there was a tsunami of hyperbole around the England team. Nor was the big talk confined to the fans. “Everything we are doing now is about coming up with a game to beat New Zealand and to make them uncomfortable – you can and hopefully will see that [against the All Blacks] in 2018,” said Eddie Jones in October 2016 after England had just beaten the Wallabies three times in succession to go nine matches unbeaten.
The hubris was infectious. Before England’s run came shuddering to a halt during this year’s Six Nations, former England and British Lions centre Will Greenwood said that: “It is more important that England beat the All Blacks than win the Six Nations,” as if it were a choice.
In the event, England lost three of this year’s Six Nations games and finished fifth, their worst ever position in the tournament.
Until they beat South Africa in the dead-rubber final match of their three-match series this summer, they had lost five matches in succession. The wheels haven’t come off, but they are definitely loose.
As so often happens, as the success that masked behind-thescenes disagreements has evaporated, so the niggle and
EVERYTHING WE ARE DOING NOW IS ABOUT COMING UP WITH A GAME TO BEAT NEW ZEALAND AND TO MAKE THEM UNCOMFORTABLE – YOU CAN AND HOPEFULLY WILL SEE THAT [AGAINST THE ALL BLACKS] IN 2018.’ EDDIE JONES
dissent have leaked into the public arena been amplified.
One such example was the recent announcement that Joe Marler had quit international rugby with immediate effect at the ripe old age of 28.
Marler, who impressed with the British Lions in New Zealand last year, has 59 caps to his name, but his decision to quit, “to spend more time with his family” in World Cup year has rightly been seen as a negative judgement on the England set-up.
Bear in mind that Marler – a shoe-in for the squad for Japan – is a professional who stood to make £500,000 (NZ$1 million) from England’s World Cup campaign.
Nor is Marler’s departure a lone straw in the wind. Where once there was a quiet drumbeat of club coaches complaining about the injuries inflicted on their players in training while on England duty, it now became a deafening din.
Owen Farrell returned from England’s summer tour complaining of exhaustion, but at least he is now able to play.
One of the latest in a worryingly long line of players to be injured in Jones’ training sessions is Ellis Genge, Leicester’s talented 23-year-old loose-head, who was crocked in South Africa and is out until 2019 with a knee injury.
Some players have voted with their feet. Leicester pair Manu Tuilagi and Ben Youngs were apparently both carrying “niggles” which forced them to stand down from Jones’ latest training camp, yet miraculously recovered to play for their club against bottom team Sale Sharks just a couple of days later.
The list of coaches who have publically admitted to their fury at Jones’ training regime is now longer than those who have held their counsel.
Nor is Jones showing any signs of changing his approach: his most recent England training session was so brutal and prolonged that
Wasps felt unable to field three key players – Elliot Daly, Nathan Hughes and Dan Robson – for their next game against Newcastle Falcons.
Nor were the Falcons too impressed. “We don’t go into England camp that often, it’s a short amount of time you have to put your hand up,” said Falcons flanker Mark Wilson.
“But if we trained at our clubs at the level we train at international camps, we would never last, you’d have boys dropping all over the place.”
There are also major question marks over Jones’ squad selection policy. These tend to centre on Danny Cipriani, who has been the form No 10 in England and was outstanding in England’s third test win over the Springboks (contrasting strongly with George Ford in the two tests defeat to SA), but who was left out of Jones’ most recent training squad.
The contention by many is that where Jones was a swashbuckling cavalier with Japan, he has turned into a conservative roundhead with England.
“I don’t think it is the case [that we don’t trust creative players],” countered England’s new attack coach, Australian Scott Wisemantel, when talking about Cipriani. “We know we have to score tries to beat teams like New Zealand because you can’t contain them.”
There are also wider concerns about selection. Exeter and Saracens are comfortably England’s best sides, so their meagre representation with England inevitably raises questions about Jones’s assertion that the England squad and team are picked on form.
As Andy Goode, the consistently outstanding Saracens fullback who was yet again overlooked for a Jones squad, tweeted: “So Eddie Jones has said England Rugby squad is picked on form. Exeter Chiefs P4 W4 L0 - 3 players selected. Harlequins P4 W1 L3 - 6 players selected - Do the Maths?”
While all areas of selection have their discussion points, there is, however, one area where there is a spectacular lack of consensus. And it is the most important area of all: the back-row.
The back-row and the breakdown has been England’s Achilles’ heel, and is the single biggest reason for their recent derailment.
Their horror show run of results began at Murrayfield when Jones fielded a back-row of Chris Robshaw, Courtney Lawes and Nathan Hughes – a blindside playing at openside, a second-row playing at blindside and an unfit player just returning from injury playing at No 8.
With no conventional openside to do the dirty work on the floor, Scotland – and in particular streetwise skipper John Barclay – ate them alive at the breakdown, which proved decisive.
France and Ireland took note, and when Jones played a similarly unbalanced back-row devoid of a specialist openside, they too conquered England.
It didn’t help that the Premiership is refereed differently to the Pro14 (in which Irish, Scottish, Welsh and Italian clubs play) and to a lesser extent to France’s Top 14.
In the Pro14 in particular, referees allow a genuine contest for the ball at the breakdown, which contrasts with the Premiership, where the breakdown is much more attritional.
England’s players struggled to cope with refereeing interpretations at the breakdown, much to their cost.
Nor is there an easy selectorial solution now that Jones has finally accepted that England, even when Billy Vunipola is fit, can no longer bludgeon their way to domination up front.
Indeed, their complete disarray in the back-row was underlined by the indecent haste with which Jones grasped at Brad Shields almost as soon as the poor bloke stepped off the plane.
But the real problem is the dire shortage of specialist No 7s. The most obvious candidate, Sam Underhill, was (surprise, surprise) injured in training with England last season and missed the summer tour.
And while Sale’s Tom Curry showed encouraging signs in South Africa, he only turned 20 days before the first test at Ellis Park.
The problems are stacking up for Jones, and with the World Cup now less than a year away and the first of England’s 13 tests before they face Tonga in Sapporo just weeks away, the day of reckoning is approaching fast.
Their match against South Africa at Twickenham on November 3 is followed in successive weeks by games against the All Blacks, Japan and Australia.
If they harbour serious hopes of winning the World Cup in a year’s time on rock-hard foreign soil in stifling heat after their players have been through a ruinously tough domestic season, they need to win at least three of those games and win them convincingly.
There was always something comically self-delusional in the opinion that England were as good as the All Blacks but just hadn’t had a chance to prove it.
If you strip out the hype and concentrate on the facts – as this column did when predicting England’s Six Nations travails at the beginning of the year – then the differences between England and the All Blacks are laid bare.
Sure, they both went on a run of a record 18 wins, but in winning those 18 games the All Blacks scored 751 points while England racked up just 621 points.
New Zealand’s average margin of victory was 27.6 points compared with England’s 17.8.
They scored 104 tries compared with England 72, and conceded 252 points to England’s 300. And bear in mind that 10 of the matches in New Zealand’s 18-match winning streak were played away from home, while 11 of England’s games were played at Twickenham.
If you throw in the number of times NZ beat nations ranked in the top four, and factor in the margins of those wins, then you can only come to one conclusion.
If Jones is to change that narrative and make England into credible World Cup challengers with a hope in hell of beating Steve Hansen’s boys, his side need to do more than simply get back to winning ways: they also need to field a settled and balanced side that can play with conviction, an identifiable pattern of play and an ability to both dominate the breakdown and score tries.
On all counts at the moment, they are struggling. It’s going to be an interesting year.