FAST AND FURIOUS
England must play with speed to win the 6 Nations . . . but have they picked a team to attack?
AS the anticipation builds for the start of the RBS 6 Nations, the key message for English rugby comes from an unlikely source — Anfield. The highquality, high-tempo Merseyside derby rammed home a simple lesson about elite sport: the hardest thing to defend against is speed.
What struck me watching that compelling spectacle was the pace of play from both teams, zipping the ball around with such skill and control. The same principle is true in rugby: if you attack at a blistering pace, use the full width of the pitch and offer a degree of unpredictability in what you do, you can beat anyone.
After the 2003 World Cup, Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers came to visit me at Pennyhill Park. He was assistant coach at Watford and wanted to talk about coaching, to discuss ideas that would lend themselves across sports. We talked about organisation, the art of possession, movement patterns, fluidity and positioning of the team. We both shared the philosophy that we would rather lose a game trying to win than lose trying not to be beaten.
England can learn a lesson from how Liverpool play. They are in dazzling form because of the speed and accuracy with which they move the ball. For flat-out pace there are faster players than Luis Suarez and Daniel Sturridge in the Premier League, but there is nobody quicker at shifting the ball into space. The whole team had clearly totally understood this system.
Rugby can learn another lesson from football here. In football, analysis largely and rightly centres on how the team play, formation and tactics, but rugby is far too focused on the selection of individuals. There is so much fuss surrounding England’s inexperience, but no focus on how we are going to play.
We are halfway through the World Cup cycle, with 20 games until England kick off the home tournament. I would like to see a significant shift in game plan. The big goal of this 6 Nations must be to play rugby of a quality to win the World Cup — and that means exciting rugby, with an emphasis on speed. The message for Paris must be pace, width and unpredictability, particularly against a team under pressure and with an untested fly-half in Jules Plisson.
England’s back line in the autumn was very rigid. I would like to see more fluidity in our game, with players interchanging their positions — why not swap wingers for 10 minutes to see if they have better luck on the other side?
It would also be great to see some radical formations at the set-piece to really ask questions and unsettle the opposition. I can’t remember the last time something made me sit up and think: ‘What on earth are they doing here?’ Watching Coutinho of Liverpool,
Let’s move the ball into space like Liverpool
Oscar at Chelsea and Wayne Rooney at United has heightened my appreciation of the ‘playmaker’ role.
In international rugby, Quade Cooper of Australia is the ultimate playmaker, an athlete with the creative eye and imagination to make decisions based on what’s in front of him. My concern is that we’re not allowing our playmakers to come to the fore.
Danny Care at his best for Harlequins shows these skills and it will be up to him and Billy Twelvetrees to try to show these credentials tomorrow. But I can’t help but think of Anthony Watson and Danny Cipriani, two natural playmakers who won’t be in Paris.
This is England’s first game of significance on the road since they were demolished in Cardiff and Owen Farrell and Mike Brown are the only players left from that back line. Have England learned that you have to play faster than the opposition when playing the top sides away from home?
Lancaster has made a considerable number of changes to the back line. That is not a problem in itself because stability comes from the game plan, not from consistent personnel. But you do not make changes unless the players coming in are categorically better.
Debutant winger Jack Nowell has not scored a try in the Aviva Premiership this season — so is he picked for his defensive qualities and his kick-chase? If you are picking a team to attack, then Watson has that unpredictable quality. I am very surprised to see Ben Youngs dropped from the squad. Once you have seen a player such as Youngs playing well on the international stage there has to be a compelling reason to drop him — an injury or complete lack of form. Youngs is the best candidate to get England playing with speed and ambition.
It is a massive error not to have a specialist fly-half on the bench. If Owen Farrell gets injured in the first five minutes, you have a game of Test rugby without a specialist in that pivotal position. Alex Goode can fill in at 10, but he’s not playing there for Saracens. I would like to see George Ford given a chance to put England on the attack.
If you’re trying to play the Liverpool way, there are two key things to look at: your back row, especially seven and eight, and inside centre.
I am a big fan of Chris Robshaw, but he is at his best with an attacking game plan and there are also questions over whether Billy Vunipola has the pace to beat the world’s best back-row forwards. He is a big, powerful man but I would like to see Billy really working on his out-and-out speed.
We are still trying to find the right player at inside centre. It’s not a battering-ram position, he needs to be a kicker, a thinker and a distributor — so the pressure is on Billy Twelvetrees. A rugby league mentality seems to have crept into England’s play. They use a strong pack of forwards to get the ball going forward but then kick downfield to chase and harry for territory.
I can see Andy Farrell playing exactly the same role my defensive coach, Phil Larder, did in the England set-up. Farrell is a fine coach and, if I was in charge tomorrow, I would want him in my team. But when the pressure is on, rugby league players and coaches often turn to what they know — and that is picking teams to defend first and attack second.
To be the best rugby union team in the world, you must pick teams to attack first and defend second. The codes are different and require a different approach: in union you can keep the ball for ever if you don’t make mistakes; in league you only get three or four chances to attack before having to kick the
ball away. Conservative selection with a defensive way of playing cannot win you a World Cup.
England scored one try per match during last year’s 6 Nations (Wales scored double) and they did not manage a single try on the road. Why? The way England are playing — kick, chase, tackle, harry — is down to the coaches rather than the individual players. Mike Catt is
Attacking plan would suit Robshaw best
England’s attack coach but is yet to make the mark I know he’s capable of on this team. He is the ultimate team player, a brilliant rugby brain and needs to really step up to the plate as a coach — just as he did as a player.
The French clubs have pulverised English packs this season. I was lucky with England because we had Leicester and Wasps dominating the European games, but the French players will have a swagger in the warm-up tomorrow after their Heineken Cup collisions.
They will look to squeeze the English pack and take them on up front, so let’s avoid the head- on confrontation and play with zip and purpose.