Elusive Joseph proves he has the talent to be Guscott’s heir and game’s next superstar
England outside centre was at his jet-heeled finest with a hat-trick that shows just how bright his future is
Jonathan Joseph’s father, Ivan, is a kindly, restless soul, who has entertained visions of sporting greatness for his boy from the cradle. By the time the baby was a week old, a pamphlet documenting paternal ambitions comprised the words ‘England rugby player’.
Last night, after a hat-trick of Joseph tries and an international career bubbling at one of the higher gas marks, the family could reflect that life moves in mysterious ways.
For Joseph is no ordinary Test player, but potentially the most consummate outside centre England have had since Jeremy Guscott. He was at his jet-heeled finest throughout this merciless marmalising of Scotland, weaving mayhem in midfield and finishing his three tries with a lissom movement that emphasised his background as one of the best young tennis players in Berkshire.
A Lions shoo-in? You had better believe it. Joseph’s is a style that hinges upon far more than power alone. Each of his scores here offered exquisite combinations of speed, balance and vision. Plus, he displayed that subtle peripheral awareness, that capacity for spotting and swerving through channels apparently invisible to others, which Guscott always possessed. At 25, he holds all the gifts that could make him a superstar to stay.
Joseph’s restlessness at missing the win over Italy merely heightened his destructive force upon his return. His own display, which married devastating flourishes in attack with faultless work rate in defence, was England’s in miniature: relentless without being flashy, not to mention desperate to prove a point.
Huw Jones will be having nightmares about a charging Joseph for weeks. Three times he missed the deft angles of his opposite number at 13, and three times England plundered ruthlessly.
The symmetry in all of this was that the pair used to be contemporaries at school, at Millfield in Somerset. This was supposed to have been a poignant reunion, but Joseph’s pyrotechnics ensured any such sentiment was kicked emphatically into touch.
Joseph lingered a while after the final whistle, striding into the stands to see his parents and pose for photographs clasping the Calcutta Cup.
Touchingly, he gave his winner’s medal to Ivan, whose face was wreathed in the widest of smiles. Ivan has long worked as a chemical engineer for BP, but since his childhood in Carriacou, a thinly-populated island in the Grenadines, he has found that rugby trumps all his other passions. A skilful fly-half in his prime for Northampton, he has regarded his son’s rise as a consummation of all the dreams he once harboured for himself.
Not so long ago, England liked their 13s to be wrecking balls. Just think of Manu Tuilagi, the poster boy of the triumph against New Zealand in 2012, who was three stone heavier than Joseph. But his successor shows the benefit of having been exposed in his life to a multitude of different disciplines, including athletics and even dance. This was a masterclass to reinforce the adage in rugby that there is no substitute for pace, especially when enhanced by Joseph’s nimbleness of footwork.
The one department where Joseph has struggled is in his psychological resilience. It is striking that when he first pitched up at Bisham Abbey as a tennis prospect he scored nine out of 10 for fitness and agility, but a mere two for mental strength. That early verdict has stalked him, with Joseph finding himself dropped after his first cap against South Africa five years ago amid suspicions that he was too laid-back to make the grade.
At both London Irish and Bath, he worked closely with Neal Hatley to eradicate that weakness from his make-up. Hatley, in what cannot be passed off as coincidence, is now a member of Eddie Jones’s backroom team.
It was perplexing, on reflection, how anybody had thought this contest with Scotland would be close. This was a day when England decisively laid to rest the idea that there was any vying for supremacy at the summit of northern-hemisphere rugby. The chasm in quality was so vast it was embarrassing.
What, then, about Jones’s tetchy pre-match press conference? Pure kidology. For a man supposed to have suffered a dead leg in collision with Jones’s dog, Owen Farrell was remarkably laserlike with the boot, reducing even the most daunting kicks to gentle target practice.
Jones’s side now find themselves elevated to the rarest of pedestals, sitting prettily alongside the All Blacks as the only teams to have accomplished an 18-match winning sequence. The burning question, all the way to the 2019 World Cup, will be whether they deserve the superlatives their records invite. In terms of parallels with England’s World Cup winners of 2003, Jones’s side still do not wholly convince, as any straight comparison between the starting XV against Scotland and the one who faced Australia in a World Cup final would attest. Jack Nowell over Jason Robinson on the right wing? Hardly. George Ford at fly-half, or Jonny Wilkinson? It is not even a debate. Plus, there are doubts over Jones’s first-choice flankers, with both Maro Itoje and James Haskell being played out of position. If England have serious designs upon usurping New Zealand, they are still missing a back row. Still, there can be no underselling the scale of the statement that they issued here. Sternly questioned after that ragged showing against Italy, not least about their knowledge of a ruck, they struck back with a ferocity that could inflict lasting scars upon the young Scottish opposition. We will not have a definitive gauge of their pedigree as world beaters until late 2018, when they at last face Steve Hansen’s All Blacks. But at full cry, and with a restored Joseph flying at defences like a missile, England are truly a sight to behold.