ENGLAND UNEARTH PRECIOUS METTLE
Calcutta Cup demons exorcised
AS THE dust was still settling on their finest World Cup victory for a generation, England’s players savoured a triumph which proved they had banished their Calcutta Cup demons.
Under the roof of the Oita Dome in Saturday’s absorbing quarterfinal, Eddie Jones’ team proved that they have belatedly added crisis-management to their repertoire.
This time, when the pressure came, they didn’t panic. This time, there was unity and composure. This time, they held the line and rallied. They didn’t unravel.
It was a success founded on mental resilience, defensive commitment and all manner of earthy qualities.
England ended up putting 40 points on the Wallabies, but their victory came down to so many nuts-and-bolts factors.
It came down to Tom Curry’s relentless dynamism and ferocity. It came down to Sam Underhill’s 20 sledgehammer tackles and Kyle Sinckler overcoming adversity and wind-up tactics to score his first Test try and produce the steal of his life.
The ghosts of the collapse against Scotland were chased out of town. Back in March, a Calcutta Cup procession turned into a calamity as England went from 31-0 up to a 38-31 deficit at Twickenham, before a late George Ford try rescued a draw. Jones admitted that the Six Nations finale exposed glaring flaws which had to be addressed. He brought in sports psychologists. Their input has had the desired effect.
So this time, when Australia surged to within a point after halftime, England’s nerve held and they swiftly regained the initiative on the way to a seventh successive defeat of the Wallabies, and a first World Cup semi-final since 2007.
Jones’ players were quick to identify the underlying cause of such an emphatic result.
Asked about the collective ability to stay level-headed in the face of a fightback, hooker Jamie George said: ‘It’s something we’ve been working on for a long time. It pains me to say it, but you rewind to that Scotland game. When games get close, we’ve been criticised in the past; after that Wales game away, too.
‘The most impressive thing for me is how we’ve revolutionised that. We have talked about it. We’ve been in different scenarios and we’ve been challenged a lot in the warm-up games.
‘I feel like, in terms of the mindset and mentality side of things when games get tough, we look like a completely different team from the one that drew with Scotland and lost to Wales in the Six Nations.
‘We’ve had a lot of meetings, looked back and thought about why it has happened — what we would do if we had that time again?
‘The composure we had under the posts when the Aussies brought it back to 17-16 was the impressive thing for me. Everyone was clear, very focused, very calm.
‘A lot of it has been driven within the group. Psychologists have come in, but all they’re trying to do is to get us talking about it.’
Leicester scrum-half Ben Youngs echoed those sentiments about the mental progression, adding: ‘What I am most pleased about is the fact that the game got tight, they put us under pressure and everything that we rehearsed and practised and sat in meetings about how we handle it and how we get a grip on it, we were able to do.
‘Look back at South Africa in 2018 and Scotland in the Six Nations. There have been times when we’ve been under the cosh and allowed cheap points. Against Australia, all the hard work we had done paid off.’
Youngs also suggested that the months together in training camps over the summer had forged strong bonds which meant England held the line when the Wallabies were threatening to pull off a shock turnaround.
‘We’ve got that club feel and that showed,’ he said. ‘That bit when they were really challenging our line and coming in waves, it was a tremendous defensive effort.’
That effort was led by the rookie flankers. The vaunted Australian pairing known as ‘Pooper’ — David Pocock and captain Michael Hooper — were utterly eclipsed by the English tyros.
Curry is just 21 and he was magnificent. His all-action performance made him a worthy man of the match. Underhill was a prime contender for that award, too, and the back-row alliance continues to galvanise England.
Off the field, team-mates relentlessly mock the two quirky characters. But when it comes to game-time, they are in awe.
Youngs said: ‘I had lunch with Curry. I said: “How are you feeling?”. He said: “I am excited. I am playing against someone I idolised”. I said: “You’ll be fine, you can show him how the new breed are”.
‘He was phenomenal. So was Sam. What a fantastic day for those two to test themselves against David and Hooper — who are tremendous players — and come out on top.’
Anthony Watson, whose late, interception try twisted the knife in Australian wounds, also paid tribute to Curry, adding: ‘I’m ridiculously impressed. He’s been unbelievable. He gets a lot of stick.
‘He’s a very awkward character, but when he plays like that, he can do whatever he wants!’
Watson hailed Bath colleague Underhill’s tackling as ‘freakish’. In a different sense, it was an impressive occasion for the captain.
Owen Farrell was off-colour in England’s last game against Argentina. After switching him back to fly-half, Jones revealed that he urged his skipper to focus more on his own game.
The instructions were heeded. Farrell rediscovered his authority as a playmaker and was on target with all eight shots.
‘I am not surprised, because that is just how he is and who he is,’ said Youngs. ‘I even thought the other week when he missed a load: “That’s all right because he’ll bang them all over next week”.
‘He conducted the team unbelievably well and, as for the kicking, he loves that pressure really. He did a great job.’
He wasn’t alone. It was a great job all round. England faced their first serious problem of this campaign and they solved it. Now an even tougher challenge awaits.