NOW IT’S ALL KICKING OFF
You’re always offside, say Scotland Your scrum’s illegal, say England
CALCUTTA CUP diplomacy was briefly abandoned yesterday as Scotland cast doubt on the legality of England’s defence, just as their own scrum was coming under similar scrutiny south of the border. After naming an unchanged side for Saturday’s encounter with the NatWest 6 Nations title holders at Murrayfield, Gregor Townsend praised the calibre of the visitors. However, Scotland’s head coach interrupted his tributes to suggest that Eddie Jones’ side might have been managing to bend the laws with their aggressive defensive work.
A major aspect of recent English success has been the pressure they apply by charging off the line to close down opponents’ space and time on the ball. But Townsend made it clear that, in his view, they have been operating from offside positions.
‘It’s definitely something we have highlighted to our players,’ he said. ‘It will be interesting to see whether they stay onside.
‘We watched the game last year and we’ve watched their games over the last few weeks and to generate that line speed, especially off first phase, you have to make sure you stay 10 metres back off lineouts before the ball is delivered and you don’t get beyond the back foot of the ruck in phase play. If they are able to do that and still generate line speed then we have to deal with that with the way we structure our attack.
‘You’d need to look at their last few games to see whether they do come offside. That’s down to the refereeing team this week to see if it does happen.’
This latest instalment of the Calcutta Cup rivalry will be refereed by Nigel Owens, and Townsend confirmed that he would meet the Welshman tomorrow.
Such claims about the opposition have become a staple in the build-up to modern Tests, and sure enough, Scottish complaints about England’s defence were matched by talk in the champions’ camp about the legality of Townsend’s scrum.
During the Scots’ victory over France in their last match, footage clearly showed their New Zealand- born prop Simon Berghan repeatedly dropping to his knees under pressure in the set piece. Neal Hatley, England’s scrum coach, expressed confidence that Owens and his fellow officials would spot any such activity on Saturday.
‘Nigel’s a bloody good ref,’ he said. ‘We’re not going to say, “Can you go and stand on that side to make sure he stays off his knees?”. The process will involve people like Dan Cole and Harry Williams.
‘We have to engage well and if he’s got a tendency to drop, you’ve got to force him down to his knees to make it clear to the ref. We’ll put the onus on what we’re going to be doing, not what they’re going to be doing.’
At the championship launch event last month, Jones mischievously described Scotland as one of the ‘darlings’ of European rugby union, only to suggest that they could be a ‘side to side’ team. His comments followed last year’s non- contest at Twickenham, when England tore the Scots apart to win 61-21 and shatter suggestions that the visitors were capable of an upset.
Townsend insisted that he took Jones’ pointed remarks as a compliment, before adding: ‘You have to go forward in rugby. There are different ways of doing that. If you go side to side you won’t go forwards. I wouldn’t say that is something we like doing.’
The party line from the English camp is about treating this as just another game, but the Scots are willing to concede that this rivalry matters more than most to them.
‘ It does have extra,’ said Townsend. ‘I grew up watching these games in the late Eighties and early Nineties and I saw all the passion that was involved. I was lucky enough to play in a few and it’s certainly the fixture that brings more focus and more edge. You understand how much it means to the public.
‘In 2000, we had lost every game, but we won the final game against England and it was such a huge boost to the country. The other four defeats seemed to be forgotten, so we know what it means to our supporters and what it means to our players. We can see that in how they’ve trained this week.’
Jones names his team this morning with Nathan Hughes at No 8 in place of the injured Sam Simmonds in an otherwise unchanged starting XV.