We’re losing our mojo, admit Irish
Let’s find out how to win without him
IRELAND coach Joe Schmidt admitted that Johnny Sexton and Conor Murray are angry and grumpy over their personal form after this tetchy victory. The Irish overturned a 16-12 half-time deficit for an unconvincing bonus-point win, and Schmidt conceded that his Lions half-backs are battling to regain their confidence. ‘I think Johnny was a bit angry when he came off,’ said Schmidt. ‘And Conor is frustrated. He’s grumpy and then there’s a real danger that you start trying too hard. ‘You then tend to create pressure on yourself and you don’t play well.’ Edoardo Padovani and Luca Morisi crossed for tries that stunned Ireland and had Conor O’Shea’s Italy leading at the break. Quinn Roux and Jacob Stockdale scored for Ireland in an extremely below-par first half, before Keith Earls and Murray sneaked in after the break to seal the try bonus. Schmidt insisted Sexton’s latest war wound, a minor thigh problem, would not hinder the Leinster playmaker for long, even though it stopped him from goal-kicking. ‘Johnny just got a bump when the same guy got him twice in a row,’ said Schmidt. ‘It just looked like he was looking for him, and fair play to him, he got him.’ Italy boss O’Shea lamented another loss but insisted the Azzurri are building. ‘We’re pretty gutted about it but we’ll keep on moving,’ he said.
WHAT a magic Test match that was. I have rarely seen a better one in terms of intensity, so hats off to everybody involved.
But every England supporter will be thinking: ‘What happened here?’ I am disappointed at England’s approach.
As I mentioned in the buildup, the wider context of this game is huge, especially with Wales a potential quarter-final opponent for England at the World Cup.
It’s certainly not all doom and gloom, far from it, as England were brilliant against Ireland and France, and have an excellent team with a squad of players the envy of most in the world but their key rivals will look at them and know they’re beatable.
As Warren Gatland noted, Wales have forgotten how to lose but the reverse is true of England, I don’t know if they know how to win these tight games when it goes to the wire.
FARRELL FALTERED
ENGLAND didn’t really fire a shot and had little to offer in attack. I said before the game that Owen Farrell would be pivotal, and Wales stopped him.
They shut him out firstly with an astonishingly low penalty count, conceding just three all match. And, really, it should have been two as the decision by Jaco Peyper to penalise Justin Tipuric for a no-arms tackle on Billy Vunipola in the second minute was ludicrous.
It was a textbook tackle on a big guy — the TMO Simon McDowall needs a red card for that; they should be showing schoolboys the incident as the perfect example of low tackling.
Elliot Daly missed that kick and Farrell only had two more shots, one when Kyle Sinckler won a scrum penalty and the other in the second half after a Tom Curry turnover. If you don’t give a kicker like Farrell any shots at goal then one weapon is immediately taken away. He was taken out of the game completely by top-class coaching and players who thought correctly under pressure. They gave him nothing.
England got carried away with how well their kicking game went against Ireland and France, booting too much ball away to three Welsh players who are good in the air, especially Liam Williams.
Farrell sat so deep in the pocket the whole game and was clearly delivering a kicking game-plan — it didn’t look like he wanted to engage the Welsh defence. The Manu Tuilagi-Henry Slade combination, which was a positive in the first two games, was hardly used.
The captain had a poor game, but it was poor tactics too.
That is where the England coaches Eddie Jones, John Mitchell and Scott Wisemantel have to look in the mirror. Wales stopped Farrell but so did England with their limited and predictable tactics.
In football terms, England looked like they were going for a 0-0 away draw; they were so defensive-minded. They’ll hate how predictable they were.
I know I keep mentioning it but right on half-time it was screaming out for a drop goal. England were 10-3 up, right in front of the posts and should have gone 13-3 ahead — but Farrell kicked badly to Jack Nowell.
I would rest or bench Farrell for Italy now, as England need to learn to win without him, and let George Ford captain the team and start at fly-half.
It would have been better to do that having beaten Wales, but now that they are not Grand Slamming, it is all about preparing for the World Cup.
TERRY, TUILAGI AND BRYNGLAS TUNNELS
IT was a strange week with far too much media unrelated to what was an enormous game.
I’m a Chelsea season-ticket holder so rate John Terry as a player and leader but thought it was a weird call to bring him into camp in such an important week, especially given that his international record was hardly historic.
And then there was the story of Manu Tuilagi going off to France. I made it very clear to my players in 2003 that if anyone talked about moves or retirement plans for after the World Cup then they wouldn’t go.
If I were Eddie I would have been annoyed. They’re trying to beat Wales on Saturday and everyone’s talking about Tuilagi going to France. Don’t think for one minute that the other players ignore that sort of stuff.
And then deciding to travel down on the Friday afternoon instead of going to Cardiff earlier was a distraction too. Gatland joked that England might get stuck in traffic at the Brynglas tunnels and they took four hours to drive over, arriving at 5pm the day before the game. Those were three small things that infiltrate your psyche.
SUPERSTAR SINCKLER
KYLE SINCKLER is the find of this season, and an absolute superstar. He and Tom Curry were the two massive positives from the game, but possibly Sinckler’s fitness is the reason he starts to make bad decisions later in games. He has been involved in incidents in all three games now, so I would sit him down, show him those and just ask him to learn from them. You must not take the edge off this kid but he has to learn how to handle these moments. It might be that he gets a bit fatigued and his brain goes a little bit. I like Sinckler a lot, he is absolutely the man to start at tighthead, so would not make a drama out of his temperament. If anything, give him more responsibility — players like him respond to that. The more concerning thing is how England played tactically on Saturday and I’m sure Eddie will be the first to admit that he got it totally wrong. Onwards and upwards.