Clock now ticking for Lancaster
It is a myth that World Cup winners leave it late. they show. they announce. they reveal. Not years in advance, maybe, but not as the last grain of sand drips from the hourglass either.
time is running out for stuart Lancaster and his men. this, a chance to defeat the world champions in their final meeting before the 2015 World Cup, ended in defeat. south Africa, the next opponents, have not been beaten since 2006. Very soon Lancaster will have his last game against Australia before facing them at the World Cup group stage. then it is the six Nations and the final chance to leave a footprint on Wales, who are also World Cup opponents. this is urgent business.
the calendar lies. World Cup is not, as is frequently stated, a year away. Prior to the big kick- off, Lancaster has 80 minutes to prove his point to Australia, the same for Wales. Zero for the All Blacks now. if England were to meet steve Hansen’s team at the World Cup, their most recent memories would include conceding a try in the 22nd phase of play, and losing a 10-minute spell 3-0 to 14 men. No outcome is guaranteed by historical precedent, but New Zealand would have the psychological advantage. Dominating and winning against England would feel familiar to them.
World Cup winners often produce a calling card. the summer before England brought home the Webb Ellis Cup in 2003, they travelled to the southern Hemisphere and played like it belonged in their hands. they beat New Zealand in Wellington and Australia in Melbourne – the first time an England team had won on Australian soil. they arrived as Grand slam champions, too.
New Zealand were similarly relentless going into the 2011 tournament. Even south Africa, winners from left field in 2007, had served notice of their potential. they were the only team to beat the All Blacks in 2006, and won 24-15 at twickenham. their margin of victory over Uruguay in 2005, 134-3, was a world record.
so Lancaster, despite another weekend of taking the positives, needs more than honour in defeat. the tightness of the score flattered the hosts. Yes, there were opportunities squandered, not least by a Mike Brown fumble, but only an inexplicably missed penalty by Beau Barrett stopped the All Blacks’ 14 winning their passage of play 6-0, and in the same period they were repelled no more than a yard from the posts. England could not escape from their 22 in that time, let alone capitalise on numerical superiority.
it was this segment that brought back memories of what a World Cup winning team looks like. in 2003, pre-ennoblement Clive Woodward went south, against the better judgment of many, to prepare for the World Cup in Australia. it was pessimistically presumed England would get sorted out, probably Jonny Wilkinson too, and the entire episode would be a catastrophe. Woodward was adamant. He thought England had the best team in the world and wanted to prove this prior to the competition. He didn’t want a World Cup meeting with Australia to also have to double up as a first victory down there. And he was right. England beat New Zealand, beat Australia and Wilkinson remained intact. When they faced Australia in sydney in the final roughly four months later it was not as underdogs, but as recent winners over course and distance. they played as a team who had already shown world champion potential.
AND that is what New Zealand demonstrated on saturday. the threepoint win with reduced numbers in horrid, wet conditions? that contained an echo of Woodward’s team in Wellington. England had gone down to 13 players. it should have been the end of them but they held on and Wilkinson kicked a penalty shortly before the cavalry arrived.
it was one of the moments when all but the most one- eyed Kiwi caught a glimpse of the future. it was champion form, World Cupwinning form. England did not have to take the positives or hide behind management speak that night. their boldest statement was the scoreline; its supporting logic etched on the field of play.
that was the difference at twickenham on saturday. England were still in game management mode in the post-match press conference, New Zealand’s most eloquent sentences had long been delivered.
Lancaster (right) has considerable mitigation, not least that he was taking on the world champions with 11 players out injured. Yet only a minority of the missing would have started, and he might have rotten luck 11 months from now, too. New Zealand won the World Cup without Dan Carter, or his understudy, Colin slade at fly-half, and the third choice, Aaron Cruden, came off through injury after 34 minutes in the final. the best teams find a way of overcoming adversity: world champions, certainly.
We have been down this road before, and recently. it was only last summer that Roy Hodgson sent the best prepared England football team in World Cup history to Brazil, and came home having had his hubris well and truly exposed. England’s rugby camp is inclined to similar claims.
Upgraded training headquarters, a new performance centre and Desso pitch, altitude training booked for next summer and sports scientists imported at significant expense. Naturally, somebody from the world of cycling is also involved – in this case Matt Parker, who helped Bradley Wiggins become the first British winner of the tour de France.
What does this prove? that sport in England has money. it can throw giant investment at projects such as winning the 2015 Rugby World Cup, it can splurge on the best preparation and like any other vast corporate entity it knows how to make precisely the right statements to cover any failings or inefficiencies. so in defeat, England’s hierarchy spoke very well, of margins and positives and the many months between now and their date with destiny. Yet at some time in the coming months, England have to start playing like World Cup winners. they have to lay down markers, intimidate and disconcert, as future world champions do. What can be guaranteed? Nothing. those 10 minutes in Wellington did not make Woodward a certain World Cup winner. But, from there, the rest of the world thought he might be: and that is half the battle won.