Don’t even think about dropping captain Dylan!
PERHAPS it’s just because we’ve had a fallow week and we all like to keep debating and enjoying the Six Nations so much but I’ve been a little alarmed at talk of England making a whole raft of changes for the Italy game and even switching captaincy mid tournament and replacing Dylan Hartley with Owen Farrell.
Stop right there. England are on a massive roll and the momentum is with them but in the cold light of day so far in the 2017 Six Nations they have won two games they could easily have lost. They have scraped through both by the skin of their teeth. There’s a stack of work to do.
We have discussed at length the reasons why they keep winning — confidence, coolness under pressure, making good decisions and much improved fitness — and long may that continue.
But let’s not be blind to the fact that for considerable passages of play England have been pretty average by their own high standards. There is room to improve in every single department.
England need to produce a proper 80-minute performance and absolutely batter Italy from pillar to post. That’s the last thing the Italians want to hear but this is Championship rugby and there can be no room for sentiment.
The Italians, I trust, will be pretty psyched up themselves after their extremely disappointing performance against Ireland, as poor as they have ever been in the Six Nations. They badly need to make some sort of statement as well.
So I would be very keen for England not to ‘mess around’ too much. More than 80,000 fans will be paying good money to see the real England and the bottom line in sport is that you never take liberties with any team or any challenge.
There is a very long way to go in this tournament for England, with the most difficult of all finishes, an away game at Ireland, and England need to keep their foot firmly on the accelerator. In fact, they need to go up a few gears.
England need to set a few simple targets. First, I would like them exceed Ireland’s score of 63-10 and given that Italy will be better than they were in Rome that will be quite a task. I want to see the backs really go to work and England start putting some fluent movements together behind the scrum.
Three England tries in the first two games is a very poor return and frankly not good enough. In particular, I want to see a set-piece score of the quality of Liam Williams’ delightful try against England last week.
England should try to ‘nil’ Italy, keep the penalty count down to record low and the only ‘gimmicky’ thing I would aim for is a mission statement to kick one drop goal per half, my old hobby horse.
George Ford and Owen Farrell need to have the mechanics of dropping goals in their muscle memory. One day, almost certainly a World Cup semi-final or final — or who knows even a Six Nations decider against Ireland in Dublin next month — they might need to produce just such a kick. Practice makes perfect. Rather than make wholesale squad changes, these are actually the kind of games when units can finally come together and click and absolutely nobody in what we are calling the England first XV in the first two games will be happy being stood down for Italy, I can assure you.
Coming off the fallow week, fatigue is not a problem, there is no need to ‘rest’ anybody and the only changes I would remotely consider would be introducing a couple of the previously walking wounded into proceedings if they are demonstrably 100 per cent fit in training this week and can strengthen the side.
The back row is an area of flux anyway at present, with no selections nailed down and if the medics say that James Haskell is fit to resume starting duties that’s exactly what he should do on the openside.
I read that Billy Vunipola is very close to match fitness, rather ahead of time. Like Haskell he is actually the first choice in his position and if fit will want to resume at No8 but, having worked so hard in rehab, if there is any doubt, he should wait another week.
Brother Mako looked in good trim for Saracens at Gloucester on Friday night after his knee injury and is much closer to match fitness but Joe Marler has been one of England’s standouts so far so I see no need for him to rush back to Test duty in a starting role
Ditto Anthony Watson on the wing, who for me is technically England’s first choice, although Elliot Daly and Jack Nowell are beginning to make that a really tricky area of selection. As for Hartley, his record for England under Eddie Jones as the starting captain is an astonishing 15 out of 15 in the last 14 months or so. He is the England captain for the Six Nations and he should continue to start and lead the team.
To these eyes what he needs is more rugby not less. He’s not playing particularly badly but he is still clearly working up to full match fitness. What he needs now is a full 80-minute work out against Italy.
Why try to fix what ain’t broken?