Lancaster and Robshaw find perfect symphony amid doom and delirium
AT the centre of a national panic last November, Stuart Lancaster realised this was his life. He would spend every week between now and the end of the World Cup submerged in crisis or hoisted high towards the status of national hero.
Zipping between doom and delirium, the leader of English rugby in its most important year yet accepted his circumstances.
‘We’re going to have pressure on us when the World Cup comes around, irrespective of the results leading up to it. That’s the expectation of being the home nation, so we better get used to it.’
November was good practice for the bad days. England lost to New Zealand and South Africa in their first two matches of the autumn series, extending a losing sequence to five games.
That four of the defeats came against the New Zealanders appeared to count for nothing: everything to do with England is now filtered through the World Cup and, even 12 months out from the competition their failure to cope with two of the three southern hemisphere powers sent people scattering for predictions of disaster.
The slump was corrected with a win against Samoa but the skittish were only settled at the end of November when Australia were defeated. Less than three months later, the mood is buoyant again.
Their visit to Dublin is pitched as a likely Grand Slam decider and the comparisons to 2003 are inevitable, when Clive Woodward’s team mashed an Irish side away from home and won a title whose momentum sustained them all the way to the World Cup.
There is no room for balanced appraisals of Lancaster’s side: they are either teetering on the lip of a crisis or bounding towards immortal glory.
Meanwhile between the extremes a highly efficient team has emerged.
In his fourth Six Nations, Lancaster is interested in honing a side recognisably his; Mike Brown at full back, Dylan Hartley at hooker and Chris Robshaw in the back row are his leaders, and around them he has built a team committed to the reliable English rugby virtue of physical domination, but also capable of rapid attack.
The experimentation is at an end. Jonathan Joseph, Anthony Watson, George Ford and George Kruis have been the breakthrough stars of their first two Six Nations matches, but they have emerged due to injuries and they prove the talent available to an England coach remains extensive.
But other pragmatic selections have been made, notably the recalls of Danny Cipriani and Nick Easter, illustrating that Lancaster is now concerned with completing his project.
‘I think the cycle of the team has reached a point where the development bit stops. It’s about the winning,’ he said.
Their resources are staggering, second only to New Zealand’s.
Consider the players not in the team after fights for fitness or form, but who will be scrapping for attention for the next six months: Chris Ashton, Brad Barritt, Manu Tuilagi, Owen Farrell, Danny Care, Alex Corbisiero, David Wilson, Joe Launchbury, Courtney Lawes, Geoff Parling, Tom Wood and Ben Morgan.
Lancaster’s own thoroughness as a coach has been proven, with a record of 13 wins and four defeats from 17 Six Nations matches showing as much.
He took over in dire circumstances, and initially on a temporary basis, after the 2011 World Cup farrago.
He initiated an instant culture change, with the snarling insularity of the Martin Johnson era replaced by a commitment to integrity and honesty of effort that was so genuine it bordered on naïve at times.
There is a new hardness about the coach and his team in the past 12 months, though, and their development can be traced through the career of Chris Robshaw.
He has been Lancaster’s ncaster’s captain from the start but no player has had to o justify his place as often.
From the charge ge that he is too slow, to the claimlaim he is no a natural openside, , Robshaw has been under relentlessntless pressure. He was s identified as one of the problems blems with the team during the November panic, , and responded with a terrific performanceance against Australia. a.
Ireland have suffered Robshaw’s w’s inspiration before, e, as he led Englandd brilliantly at the breakdown whenn they won in Dublin two years s ago. His form is so good that Lancaster effectively confirmed him as s World Cup captain in earlier this month. This was a break with the coach’s previous policy of naming him skipper one block of matches ches at a time.
‘He has earned the respect of all the players and as a consequence he is leading them effectively,’ ’ explained Lancaster.
‘But he’s also got ot the strength of solidarity arity from the leaders around nd him as well. They back him up to the hilt.’
An important point in Robshaw’s career was his stand-off with Wales in the Millennium Stadium tunnel on Friday, February 6.
In a typically crude attempt at gamesmanship, the Welsh were delaying their arrival into a raucous stadium on opening night, hoping to let England draw the hostility of the Cardiff crowd.
Robshaw, supported by Brown, would not stir.
‘It wouldn’t have been a decision I’d have encouraged him to make back then,’ reflected Lancaster, when asked if Robshaw would have done it against Wales in 2012, the England coach’s first match as coach.
‘You take your time to find your feet. We have that confidence and belief now. There are a lot of players in the changing room who have played in big games, for their clubs, but also internationally.
‘That investment in the last two to three years is beginning to tell.
‘There is a fine line but I’d hate to think we come across as an arrogant team because I don’t think we are,’ said Lancaster.
‘But you want to show what you are about as a group and that possibly showed in that moment.
‘I’d like to think there is no arrogance in the team but growing confidence.’ The pressure is enormous but they arrive in Dublin with levels of belief to match it. England have not looked this formidable in a dozen years.
.