Learning from Six Nations
History tells us that Wales are now a threat to the All Blacks at the World Cup. Winners of a Six Nations grand slam take that form with them. France reached the final in 1987, England were finalists in ’91, semifinalists in ’97 and winners in 2003. Remarkably, that was the last time a European team won the grand slam in a World Cup year.
You look at Wales’ players and wonder how such a squad could even threaten mighty New Zealand. Alun Wyn Jones, now 33, is still a mighty warrior and one of the best locks in the world. The back row is handy, Gareth Davies is a very good halfback, Jonathan Davies a fine centre and Liam Williams a clever and agile fullback of sharp temperament. And then you are starting to cast about like a fitting angler.
Are Wales really World Cup winners? Put it like this: their first and second-fives are Gareth Anscombe and Hadleigh Parkes. Those blokes couldn’t even hold down a starting spot in a struggling Blues side. That’s how highly rated they were in New Zealand.
So how can Wales win 14 matches in a row? Apart from luck, which all successful sports teams need, Wales are well coached. They are the ultimate team whose sum is greater than the parts. Little details, like halfback Davies rushing Owen Farrell and Jonny Sexton, who both lost the plot, made the difference. Little details like Wyn Jones’ influence with referees. Wales have worked at that. Watching the way that Wales squashed Ireland in what was supposed to be a tense grand-slam decider, you almost had to smile at the cheek of it. At times you thought you were watching a rerun of the Ireland v England game. Warren Gatland had studied that closely and taken several moves from the Eddie Jones playbook.
Anscombe pinned Ireland right from the kickoff, just as Farrell had done, although Anscombe went to the other side of the pitch where Wales were able to sweep Jacob Stockdale into touch. From the lineout, Wales drove on a couple of times, pulled up Ireland’s line, and Anscombe deftly chipped over the top for Parkes to score. Wales, like England, had exploited Ireland’s backfield defence.
Will Greenwood wrote of Gatland: ‘‘History will judge him one of the best coaches of all time.’’
A stretch perhaps, because Gatland’s teams have tended to narrow the game of rugby football rather than revolutionise it. But it is perfectly reasonable to look at what Gatland is doing with a team that has Anscombe and Parkes at 10 and 12, and compare those achievements with the wealth of resources that Steve Hansen has at his disposal and ask who is currently doing the better job.
Hansen didn’t make much of a fist of Wales. Graham Henry was the Great Redeemer but then he stuttered a little. With three grand slams during his tenure and a World Cup semifinal lost by a point in 2011 because of a man sent off and inferior goalkicking, then surely Gatland must be the Greatest Redeemer.
Gatland says: ‘‘I am excited for the World Cup because you get two or three months together and you can prepare like a club side . . . I can’t remember, as a coach, having lost these big games – whether it was at Wasps, on the Lions or in Six Nations matches – when it counted.’’
Well, just to mute that trumpet a bit. Gatland’s Wales have lost to South Africa (twice), Australia and France at the 2011 and 2015 World Cups. Wales have also had a very poor record against southern hemisphere sides under Gatland’s leadership. But then he has been working with quite a talent differential.
Eddie Jones has not been working with the same talent differential. England are the only northern hemisphere team that can come close to New Zealand and South Africa for quality of player, and yet they can’t finish games.
In the previous year England have scored a try during the opening four minutes against South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Ireland, France and Scotland. They were up 15-0 against the All Blacks, 24-3 and 12-0 against South Africa, 10-3 against Wales and 31-0 against Scotland. And yet they did not win a single one of those games.
England should be going to the World Cup having swept all before them, yet they choked. The big question is why are they choking.
Jones says: ‘‘It is 100 per cent mental. There’s no physical difference out there at all. It’s 100 per cent the way you think.’’
Jones, who has been offered the services of Uri Geller, says he has a psychologist ready to come in. The problem is, Jones has the diagnosis wrong. Yes, part of the problem is tactical inflexibility. But the bigger problem is physical, not mental. It was obvious after 50 minutes against Scotland that Ben Youngs had gone. His pass was like a wounded wood pigeon, putting his 10 in all sorts of trouble, and his cover defence was down to a slow jog. Inexplicably, Jones did not pull him off until well into the final 10 minutes. And so Scotland kept coming, just as Wales kept coming and the All Blacks kept coming. They clearly had more in the tank.
And that asks questions about how England are defending. If you have big men, as England do, and you are asking them incessantly to rush the opposition, then they will tire more quickly. They will be great for 30 minutes. Then their pack and inside backs will implode. And tired men make bad decisions, as Farrell has been doing lately.
Farrell said after the Scotland game: ‘‘I’d say it’s definitely mental. We saw in the first 20 minutes or so how good we were physically.’’
It is worrying when the analysis of your leader is so facile. In what proved the championship decider, Wales went through more than 30 phases because England had little left to give. Scotland also ran through them during the second half, as the cover defence splintered.
England were missing seven of their 15 Lions for most of the championship, and the return of Maro Itoje, Mako Vunipola and Courtney Lawes will be a huge boost to their resources. But they will be an irrelevance during the final stages of the World Cup unless Jones asks the right question – is the rush defence and high-tempo game exposing the big men during the final 15 minutes of the first half and the final 25 of the second half?
In analysing those periods, I took the matches against France, Wales, Scotland, New Zealand, Australia and the first two tests against South Africa. I did not include Ireland, because they are a low-tempo side, the third test against South Africa, when shadow teams played, nor Italy, who are markedly inferior.
During the first 25 minutes of those seven games England scored an astonishing 111 points against 17 conceded. In minutes 25-40 England scored 27 and conceded 66. In minutes 40-55 England scored 28 and conceded 28. And in minutes 55-80 England scored 32 and conceded 55.
So the pattern looks 111-17, 27-66, 28-28, 32-55. The two periods when they were fresh, England won 139-45. The two periods when fatigue had set in, England lost 59-121.
Come on Eddie, you do the math. England are like a heavyweight boxer throwing hundreds of punches during the opening three rounds. They are the ultimate rope-a-dope. England can and should be a threat at the World Cup. But at the moment they punch themselves out.
Graham Henry was the Great Redeemer but then he stuttered a little . . . surely Gatland must be the Greatest Redeemer.