Experiences like this build momentum and confidence
SOMETIMES you just have to win ugly. From the moment Elliot Daly got sent off after just five minutes and England went down to 14 men it was always going to be a dogfight, a match that just needed winning and to a certain extent style went out of the window.
England had to be dogged and pragmatic and they achieved that pretty well. In fact, although you never wish to be playing shorthanded for so long, to win in such circumstances is one of those experiences that can actually help build momentum and confidence.
England’s reward is a chance to close out a brilliant, uplifting, unbeaten 2016 with another win against the old enemy Australia. After the disappointments of 2015 you couldn’t script it much better and it should be an absolute humdinger.
The narrative of the game was determined by the Daly sending off and there can be no complaints. It was a clear red, a reckless challenge. He neither made a genuine challenge for the ball or hit the brakes and withdrew from any sort of contact until after Senatore had come back to earth.
Instead, he just ploughed on and took the Puma No8 out dangerously in the air. It was senseless, the first occasion an England back has ever been sent off.
I’m a big Daly fan, I like his all-round skillset, and he has a big future but he needs to draw a few lessons from this. He wasn’t unlucky. That was a cast iron red.
Some are arguing his lack of experience at wing and chasing box kicks is a big factor in terms of timing the challenge and spatial awareness, but no matter where you play, you must be able to chase high kicks without getting red carded.
He will be hurting, it must be a horrible moment being sent off in front of a packed Twickenham, but hopefully the pain of a lesson hard earned will make Daly a better player. If you are going to have a player sent off, a wing is possibly the position that causes least damage and disruption. It doesn’t overly affect the forward effort or midfield defence and the opposition can’t automatically cash in, they have to keep playing proper clever rugby.
Initially the Pumas failed dismally at that. They gave away silly penalties, didn’t play the territory game well and England kept the scoreboard ticking over with three penalties before the bonus of a penalty try when Orlando was exposed on the wing and couldn’t resist the deliberate knock on.
But then England began to struggle. The Pumas laid siege under the posts with a series of scrums and not only scored but England coughed up a yellow card and, in the blink of an eye either side of half-time, conceded two tries. The second was a well-worked effort as 13-man England just couldn’t plug the holes.
AT JUST 16-14 up it was a dangerous moment for England but they did well to push on and close the game out. Argentina were disappointing, as they have been all Autumn, and when you couple that with one of the poorest Springbok sides in recent history, I question those preaching about the supremacy of southern hemisphere rugby.
Yes, New Zealand are outstanding but England, Ireland and Scotland are showing up well and Italy bagged a win over the Boks.
So onwards to Australia at Twickenham when not only can England finish the year with a perfect 100 per cent record but can equal their best-ever run of 14 straight wins. How many people would have predicted that at the end of the World Cup?
That record is held by our squad leading into the 2003 World Cup and could have been more. We’d reached 14 and faced a double header against France by way of a World Cup warm-up.
I got on well with Bernard Laporte and we were keen to use all the players in our long squad before making the final cut. We agreed to pick our “second XV” in Marseille and France would do likewise at Twickenham. In the event we lost 17-16 at the Velodrome with Paul Grayson just missing a late dropped goal attempt while we won the return 45-14.
Records are not the be all and end all but I would love England to equal our record and surpass it during the opening Six Nations game against France in February.