WHEELS FALL OFF EDDIE’S CHARIOT
It’s a crisis now as England stagnate and lose swagger
NEVER mind the quest for future prosperity. Never mind the World Cup for now. All that should play second fiddle to the pressing task of winning Test matches, but England have lost that precious balance.
The present tense matters. The Six Nations matters. Ireland seized their Grand Slam at Twickenham as a glorious illustration of how they are keeping short- term targets in mind while taking care of the bigger picture.
Joe Schmidt’s side have cornered the European market when it comes to achieving success and progress at the same time, with a squad full of rookie talent claiming the northern hemisphere’s ultimate prize.
That had been the English habit under Eddie Jones but they have mislaid it. Three championship defeats in a row and fifth place in the table is the worst England return since the Eighties.
And the line on the development graph, which was on a steadily upward curve, is hurtling down wards again. It looks like a crisis.
National captains past and present tried to make sense of it all, amid the shockwaves of another setback.
As the Irish players and staff staged a St Patrick’s Day party in their changing room, the hosts were in inquest mode nearby.
‘We’re extremely disappointed with how this year has gone, especially to lose three games and to lose at home for the first time in two years,’ said Chris Robshaw. ‘It hurts massively. It is a difficult thing to take, to see someone pick up a trophy on your pitch.
‘But there’s no need to panic. We’ve not suddenly become a bad team overnight. We’ve just slipped off a little bit. Confidence is such a massive thing in sport. I wouldn’t say we lack confidence, but we probably don’t have that swagger we had two years ago. We need to find a way to get that back and need to learn how to win again.’
England solved some problems that had afflicted them in Paris the week before but the upshot was that they simply found themselves undermined by other faults in their game. The tendency to give away avoidable penalties was the primary issue, as current captain Dylan Hartley acknowledged.
‘There were two deficiencies in our campaign that we can openly talk about — the breakdown and discipline,’ Hartley said.
Referring to his side’s penalty count, the hooker said, ‘The breakdown was a lot better, a lot sharper, but when you get into double figures in discipline, it’s hurting us. We gave a good Ireland team chances and they took them well.
‘Last week in France, it was team discipline — three offside penalties. Today it was more individual. But still the same message, it’s not good enough.’
Hartley echoed Jones in claiming that it had been a ‘great’ tournament for England in their quest for lessons and improvements. That is to suggest that the future always matters more than the present, which should not be the case.
But the skipper’s argument about the timing of these stumbles made sense. Better now than in Japan late next year. There is time to orchestrate a new revival, but that in itself does not make it a formality.
Saturday’s party line was that England are ‘not a million miles away’. True, but the nine-point margin of Ireland’s victory did not come close to encapsulating their supremacy in most facets of the game. The other English mantra is that they are enduring the ups and downs of an inevitable rollercoaster ride.
‘When we started this journey we were ranked eighth in the world, and we had a rapid rise, and we earned that,’ Hartley said. ‘With that comes a target on your back. Everyone’s excited about playing us. Other teams are getting better and we’ve got to do the same.’ Hartley is right; other teams have improved. The trouble is, that has happened while England have stood still and stagnated — regressed even, in various ways.
The driving maul functioned better on Saturday, but without the marauding Billy Vunipola to galvanise it, the wider attack lacked fluency and cohesion. Again. This time, England protected their possession better, but couldn’t do enough with it for long periods. They hammered away with gusto, but Andy Farrell’s Ireland defence held firm on the whole. The need to bring in a specialist attack coach appears increasingly urgent.
There was no lack of fervent commitment. The likes of Robshaw, James Haskell and Kyle Sinckler kept pounding the ramparts, without much reward to show for giving body and soul to the cause. Unfortunately for Jones and England, there was further proof that Maro Itoje is some way off his Lions levels. The Saracens lock was repeatedly turned back on or behind the gainline.
In contrast, Ireland kept making headway and good decisions. Tadhg Furlong was monstrous and magnificent, the prop’s pass in the run-up to CJ Stander’s try was a deft masterpiece befitting an outside back.
Jacob Stockdale was clinical when his scoring chance came. Iain Henderson put in a heavyduty shift up front, while Dan Leavy and James Ryan both enhanced their soaring status. Schmidt has the Irish dancing to his ultra-meticulous tune, aided and abetted by Farrell. They will go to Australia in June as standardbearers for the north, believing they can whitewash the Wallabies. Five months later, the All Blacks’ visit to Dublin is the red-letter date in this year’s calendar.
Meanwhile, England’s next assignment looms as a dangerous one. South Africa have vast potential and a new head coach. Ellis Park in Johannesburg — venue for the series opener — is not the sort of place visiting teams go to end losing streaks. It will be a highaltitude, high-stakes occasion for Eddie Jones’ men. They will need to regain their lost swagger and remember how to win there, in order to swiftly curtail this crisis.