Stroppy Youngs shows just how much team are suffering
Anybody who has ever come across Ben Youngs on the rugby circuit will know him as a thoroughly decent and helpful bloke who usually takes the slings of outrageous fortune in his stride so his truculent and truncated interview with Sky touchline correspondent Gail Davis after the match yesterday was really quite alarming.
Youngs is much better than that and in fairness the Tigers scrum-half apologised on Twitter soon after his little tantrum, but what it shows surely is how profoundly disappointed and disgusted England are at preand with themselves mainly.
Davis copped Youngs’ displeasure – although trooper that she is recovered to bowl Eddie Jones a few bouncers a few minutes later – but really the anger is entirely internal. And one suspects it might be the tip of the iceberg for the England squad in general.
Youngs’ short temper and feigned indifference and denial is the kind people utter – in sport and in the real world – when they just can’t compute what’s going on and explain the mistakes they keep making. Again and again. England currently seem bored and angry at their own incompetence.
Which is all a tad worrying because England need a clear mind and a sense of perspective to tunnel themselves out of this ever-deepening hole they are digging. A siege mentality only works to an extent. There comes a minute when you must consciously lift the siege and adopt a much more positive mindset and that’s the mindset England must somehow create in camp this week.
Cape Town is one of the great rugby destinations and hopefully, even at the end of a long season, they can find the inspiration somewhere. Can I suggest a team run ashore in Camps Bay or some other world class venue tonight followed by the best, and last, five days training of a hideously long season.
During that run ashore hopefully England can get to the bottom of what has been narking Youngs, and I suspect many others, for so long.
First, these lighting starts folsent, lowed by an hour or more of mediocrity or much worse? For reasons unknown, England have suddenly adopted the persona of a 20-20 slogger trying to get to grips with Test cricket. And failing miserably.
England have been lacking the patience and maturity to play the long game, it’s been frantic anxious stuff from start to finish and suddenly – for those who have never accepted the importance of Dylan Hartley to the squad – the penny drops as to the important role their absent skipper played in the squad’s dynamic.
England are lacking on the leadership front. The clench fisted Owen Farrell leads physically and one day might make a sensational England captain but he has not yet learned how to detach himself from the fray make cool, calculated decisions.
On the contrary he is still at the heart of most flash points and angrily talks to the referee like he used to address them – uninvited – as a complaining trooper in the trenches.
He can’t do that anymore, he’s the England captain, he needs to build a rapport with the ref and play the official along gently. He got flustered yesterday, turned down kicks at goal either side of half-time, that could have steadied the ship and made all the difference in what should have been a much closer game.
What happened to the dropped goal option that might also have pegged South Africa back a little, brought a little time and given the Boks something to fret over? Does nobody
even mention the dropped goal these days? Have they been banned?
England’s discipline remains miserably poor and their ability to cough up needless penalties baffling.
What exactly did Nathan Hughes think he was doing with that oh so obvious hand reaching though the ruck? Of course it was a yellow card and Mako Vunipola – enduring his least effective game of the season – was lucky not to get the second yellow of the series with his mindless slap of Pieter Steph du Toit.
This is U14B stuff, it’s ludicrous and frankly pathetic that some of England’s premier rugby professionals think they might get away with such nonsense. Yes, it’s a manifestation of their anger inside but they are letting colleagues and their team down. They know this only too well and that promotes a kind of simmering self loathing. We have been here so many times before. England’s penalty count has always been way too high. They don’t learn and it gnaws away at them. For many – especially those involved in the 2015 World Cup – I sense a dangerous groundhog day resignation beginning to set in. The dream all went sour then and it feels like the new dream is beginning to morph horribly into a nightmare. RWC2019 promised redemption but not if they continue down this road. England need to stop the rot right now.