Martin Devlin warns that England are the team the All Blacks have to watch out for next year.
MARTY DEVLIN, A BROADCASTER WHO HAS NEVER SAT ON A FENCE IN HIS LIFE, GETS A FEW THINGS OFF HIS CHEST.
Beware the Poms. That’s my RWC warning for our All Blacks next year. As much as our attention should and will be on our traditional Rugby Championship rivals, beware the home team and prepare to play them in a winner- take- all knock- out contest.
And, despite it still being a year or more away, don’t for a second even pretend you haven’t had the odd thought about this tournament already yourself.
With a fully fit Manu Tuilagi, the most dominant midfield back in world rugby, given quality ball, England are now as damaging with ball- in- hand as any international backline. Perhaps the only thing they lack is big match experience.’
England at Twickenham in 2015 will be as formidable a foe as any we’ve faced - if anything, the recent three- test series we played against them should serve as only more of a warning about the potential threat they’ll most definitely be.
The English tourists were easily the best June visitors we’d seen here since that compulsory international window was first introduced. Stuart Lancaster has restored much more than just discipline and pride back into England’s rugby: these guys can actually play.
They do all the things you’d expect of a competitive England side - tackle hard; be effective at set- piece; drive well; know how to cleverly slow the game down and chew up the clock; possess a consistent goal- kicker; make few mistakes and until recently about the same number of linebreaks.
But that is what has demonstrably changed. With a fully fit Manu Tuilagi, the most dominant midfield back in world rugby, given quality ball, England are now as damaging with ball- in- hand as any international backline. Perhaps the only thing they lack is big match experience.
In rugby terms, those three quality, hard- fought June tests are among the best learning any team could get.
The other factor, alongside home advantage, they’ll bring to next year’s RWC, is confidence. To beat our All Blacks you must totally believe you actually can - and the truth is, when it comes to the big moments, very few countries genuinely do. England though are one side who does. One win in 2012 shouldn’t ordinarily be enough to puff such confident chests but, for two reasons:
1) The last 20 minutes of that match were where they physically over- ran us.
2) That game again proved that in a one- off contest, anything can happen.
Winning a Rugby World Cup, as hopefully we’ve learned, isn’t necessarily about being consistently the best team in the world. It’s about beating everyone you get to play at THAT tournament.
There’s no question that in terms of overall test rugby, yes, we are the best. But as RWC history shows, we’ve yet to master the lessons learned at a World Cup outside New Zealand.
Now’s not quite the right time to set the record straight, now’s the time though to start effectively planning how exactly we are going to achieve it.
So... beware the Poms at next year’s tournament. Because whoever wins is more than probably going to have to beat England, on their home turf, somewhere along the way...