A game England DARE NOT LOSE
THIS is England’s Bushtucker Trial, a game to decide whether the autumn campaign is a hit or a miss.
Add the scalp of Australia to the get-out-of-jail win over South Africa and their noble loss to New Zealand and it goes down as a decent series.
Lose to a Wallabies team as poor as I can remember, the week after being taken apart for 50 minutes by Japan, and the early gains of November will be viewed as a false dawn.
The gloss removed, their All Blacks performance dismissed as a one-off rather than the launch pad for a genuine assault on the World Cup.
It is a concern that a week after emptying themselves against the best team in the world – or are New Zealand now second best? – the drop-off against Japan (albeit with a number of changes) was enormous.
England need a commanding win to set the record straight. They need to make Twickenham roar with an internallymotivated performance which says to Australia, ‘There’s nothing for you here, you might as well be on the beach’.
This has to be a springboard into the Six Nations as that is all that stands between us and the World Cup. The next time England face southern hemisphere opposition is in Japan.
What I want most to see against the Aussies is a standout display from England’s fullback. Elliot Daly has started the last six Tests at 15 and has looked edgy – like somebody who has all the skills to play the position but none of the body of work.
The problem is he does not play there for his club, so is thinking his way through games, which means he is fractionally out of position quite a lot.
Daly needs to focus on the basics of fullback play. Like Mike Brown before him, dominate the air, be secure under the high ball and if anyone breaks the line, knock them over.
If he does all of that then his own attributes will naturally flow into the game. If he doesn’t I will ask, again, how on earth Alex Goode is nowhere near the team.
In terms of instinctive ability to put himself into the game at the right time, Alex is as good as there is. He also has a telepathic understanding with his fly-half, one Owen Farrell.