A masterclass full of intent, desire and commitment

WHAT a performance by England. They completely dominated the All Blacks and fully earned their place in the Rugby World Cup final this Saturday. They were on it from the get-go. They faced down the haka with an arrowhead formation and then produced a blistering start, scoring a try after 90 seconds and never letting up in their intensity for the next 78 minutes. They out-performed the All Blacks in every facet of the game and the scoreline actually didn’t tell the whole story; England had two tries ruled out by the TMO, Jonny May also got reined in after an interception and they gifted New Zealand their try from an overthrow at a lineout. It should have been a lot more comfortable for England than it was. The big players really stepped up when it mattered; Maro Itoje, Owen Farrell and Manu Tuilagi were fantastic but their team-mates weren’t far behind as well. Tom Curry and Sam Underhill were immense in defence and both dominated the contact, with England securing 16 turnovers in the game — a remarkable number when you consider how good the All Blacks are normally in that area. It was a masterclass of intent, desire, commitment and tackle technique which gave England the platform for their domination. This allowed George Ford and Farrell to control things with ease and the selection of Ford was emphatically vindicated with a class performance. This performance from England was a million miles away from what we saw in the second half at Twickenham in March when Scotland were running riot; it was full of intensity, quality and precision and they look like a completely different team, they look like world champions. Which is more than what the other semi-final produced. As it is, England are now red-hot favourites.