Agony for England as Underhill try is ruled out to spare the Kiwis
EDDIE JONES asked for a Hollywood movie and he ended up with a classic heartbreak story. In the end, it was a tale of narrow defeat. A Twickenham tear-jerker that was decided by a matter of inches.
Sam Underhill thought he had scored the winning try after 76 minutes, before referee Jerome Garces interrupted the joyous celebrations to rule out the matchwinning score. Courtney Lawes was adjudged offside when he charged down TJ Perenara’s kick and English guts were wrenched.
‘Sometimes the game loves you, sometimes it doesn’t,’ said Jones.
Ultimately, everything went to script. The All Blacks kept hold of their top billing — 84 victories in 94 Tests under Steve Hansen.
No one gave England a hope in hell and they will take belief from their performance. They played on their terms – and it remained that way for an hour.
Start fast? Tick. England scored inside two minutes. Ben Te’o, Kyle Sinckler, Maro Itoje and Underhill carrying hard off the scrum, sucking in black-shirted defenders, to create space on the right wing.
It is four years since Chris Ashton last started a Test for his country but, with one minute 54 seconds on the clock, he took Ben Youngs’ long pass to slide over for the opening try –
Twickenham was stunned. The All Black aura was reduced to 15 soggy black jerseys.
England played better in the rain, with Te’o putting the ball up his jumper, while Red Rose play-makers peppered Damian McKenzie with difficult kicks.
Owen Farrell missed his first conversion but, after 10 minutes, he moved his side eight points ahead with a drop goal.
Under pressure from Brad Shields, Sam Whitelock knocked on at a lineout and England turned their territory into points.
Ardie Savea was stripped in the tackle, Beauden Barrett was caught offside and Aaron Smith kicked the ball straight into touch. So much for the quick Kiwi execution.
Blood streamed down Underhill’s cheek but he tackled like a man possessed. Jones has 10 games until he names his World Cup squad and the flanker delivered the game of his life.
The scoreboard kept ticking over. England’s backs piled in and Dylan Hartley touched down to make the score an unlikely 15-0 for the home side. It was their best 30 minutes of rugby of the Jones era.
Determined to score before halftime, New Zealand launched a 23phase attack and won a penalty in front of the posts.
Their decision to scrum rather than take three points whiffed of arrogance, but Ryan Crotty ran a hard line, before McKenzie cut a line off Barrett’s inside shoulder to score the only Kiwi try.
Barrett kicked another penalty before half-time and suddenly, under grey skies, the complexion changed. ‘They are the best in the world and we will get a lot of reward for the work we’ve done,’ said Jones.
‘They had 800 caps. We had 400 caps. We have to work harder.’
Jamie George replaced Hartley at half-time and, subsequently, England’s lineout began to fall to pieces. Like a fly in a bottle, McKenzie broke the line early on but Savea knocked on with the try line in sight. Rieko Ioane failed to gather a pass on his wing but, following Farrell’s earlier lead, Barrett kicked his first drop goal in 72 Tests.
England lost five lineouts on the head and momentum swung to the visitors. Farrell turned down a kick at goal and the gamble backfired, with Sinckler knocking the ball on as his side went for the jugular from the lineout. England’s killer edge deserted them.
Even the most basic statisticians had worked out that New Zealand have a knack of winning games in the final quarter. They had an aggregate score of 141-42 in the final quarter of games in 2018 and, lo and behold, Barrett kicked his side ahead for the first time on the stroke of the hour.
‘I thought we played the final 20 exceptionally well,’ said Jones. ‘If you look at any sort of metrics in the last 20, we won that final 20. We’ll take enormous confidence from that. The All Blacks, sorry New Zealand, generally run away from teams in that area and they couldn’t.’
Jones threw on his own ‘finishers’, but England fluffed their lines. They applied pressure in the right areas but their execution was not good enough. Underhill turned Barrett inside out to score spectacularly down the left wing, but Garces intervened to ruin the fairytale finish.