England’s mystique smashed... they could have finished fourth
THAT was much more than a reality check in Dublin on Saturday night, England were smashed from one to eight up front and Ireland won with something to spare. Despite the close looking 13-9 scoreline any other result would have been a complete travesty.
This against a team by the way that went into the game without key players such as Conor Murray and Rob Kearney and then lost Jamie Heaslip in the warm-up.
Make no mistake Saturday was a significant loss against a team that isn’t going to go away. Ireland will go on improving, have a strong U20 set-up feeding them and have a world class coach at the helm.
In passing it should be added that Andy Farrell did a magnificent job in organising the Ireland defence which never looked like leaking a try. There is quite a debate about the influence off ‘Rugby League’ coaches in Union but there in Dublin on Saturday we saw the very best of what they have to offer. Hopefully he can work the same trick for the Lions in New Zealand.
So England were well beaten and bear in mind also that England could easily have lost to France and Wales this season. They did very well to quarry out wins in both matches but the truth is that this year’s champions might just as easily have finished third or fourth in the table.
The bubble has burst, the run is over and that’s probably no bad thing because there is much work to do and defending the run, not having the license to experiment and perhaps lose here or there, can be inhibiting.
After two Six Nations and full three Test series in Australia I reckon Eddie Jones is at the end of Phase one with this England team and 18 wins out of 19 games is a record that nobody would have envisaged when he took over amidst the rubble of England’s 2015 World Cup campaign.
Now, starting with the summer tour to Argentina with a squad that will be shorn of Lions, sees the start of Phase Two. That will take England up to the summer of 2019 when they must start tapering about three months out and specifically prepare for the World Cup in Japan. England are in excellent shape as they tackle the next two years.
In Phase Two everybody considered and selected must potentially be a World Cup squad member. If they are going to be too old, not quite good enough, if their skillset doesn’t fit the requirements of the game Eddie wants England playing or if their faces simply don’t fit the parting of the ways must come fairly soon.
Can Dylan Hartley — a revelation and complete success as a captain — continue much longer as firstchoice hooker? How much longer will Dan Cole go on for? Will there be room for James Haskell and a fit-again Chris Robshaw — superb servants the both of them — in an England backrow that badly needs an injection of pace? How does Mike Brown fit into Eddie’s plans for RWC2019.
Where is the natural openside blessed with pace that England so badly need and what is Elliot Daly’s best position? And exactly how should Maro Itoje be deployed to best advantage in the coming years? Is there any room at all for the flawed but exceptionally talented Christian Wade?
England still haven’t got it right up front. They can completely outpower some packs — such as Scotland the other week — but against the very best they still look slow from 1 through to 8.
There is no real pace or tempo. Ireland showed them up badly in this respect — especially the two Ireland locks who had magnificent games — and I can guarantee you Steve Hansen and his New Zealand coaches will look at the England pack and lick their lips at the prospect of moving them
around the paddock at high speed for 80 minutes.
The good news is that apart from the mysterious lack of a natural seven England have a huge player base and all sorts of options to utilise as they move up to the next level.