Twickenham thrashing is a World Cup reality check
Limited England are just also-rans
DAYS before this humiliation, Ellis Genge was speaking about England’s predicament when he said: ‘It’s when you’ve not necessarily hit rock bottom, but you’re not performing as well as you can’.
Now the situation has changed for the worse. This is rock bottom. France might as well have taken the Twickenham pitch home with them as they did more than enough to claim ownership rights and their hapless, eclipsed hosts could do nothing about it.
Let’s just clear something up right away. England can’t win the World Cup this year. No chance. It’s coming round fast and they are miles off the global pace. Realistically, all they can hope for is to avoid an early exit and start building for the future.
What a bleak prospect for the world’s richest and best-resourced rugby nation.
If Steve Borthwick’s team play anything like this in the autumn, they will lose to Argentina — again — and could find themselves in danger against their second pool opponents, Japan, in Nice.
Even if they manage to navigate through the round-robin stage, they will surely reach a cliff edge soon after.
On Saturday night, social media was awash with old pictures of a laughing Eddie Jones. Which he could be in October, at his former team’s expense.
It is hardly a wild leap of the imagination to see Borthwick (below) and England losing their opener against Argentina, forcing them into the path of Jones’ Wallabies in the quarter-finals, back in Marseille. Having been allowed by the RFU to head home and plot against them on behalf of his native Australia, it would be just like Jones to harness the power of Will Skelton, Samu Kerevi and Taniela Tupou to achieve a revenge result.
And that’s if England qualify from their pool, which does not appear a given at this juncture. Even in the easier half of the imbalanced World Cup draw, the Red Rose could wilt. Failure to reach the knock-out phase is unthinkable and fatal — just ask Stuart Lancaster. Failure to reach a semi-final, via such a helpful route, wouldn’t be good enough either. For the third successive year, England are staggering towards a Six Nations return of three defeats from five games. If that ugly scenario comes to pass, as is all but inevitable, RFU chief executive Bill Sweeney should be facing renewed pressure from the union’s chairman (if anyone can find him) and the rest of his board. He is presiding over an era of multidimensional chaos and disarray. Without a stunning transformation in the next five days, England face oblivion in Dublin. Perhaps being cast as cannon fodder for the Irish will stir up a powerful mood of defiance in the Red Rose camp but, on the latest evidence it would be a shock if they even salvage honour in defeat, such is the scale of the crisis engulfing them.
France reached a stunning performance peak at Twickenham, led by the revitalised Gregory Alldritt, Charles Ollivon, captain Antoine Dupont, try-scoring lock Thibaud Flament and the midfield alliance of Jonathan Danty and Gael Fickou.
The visitors were magnificent, but England were nowhere. They were passive and they were pulverised. It was a shocking sight to behold.
Limited targets were not met; not by a long shot. England have talked about base layers of fight and clarity and re-connecting with their public. Well, they surrendered meekly and the home defence was often absent without leave. France’s marauding back-rowers had the run of the place. Was it a chronic system failure or a question of attitude? Kevin Sinfield is still finding his feet in the national set-up but is already under siege.
Clarity? There was no sign of it. England had no shape or sense of purpose. On the back foot, they didn’t function at all, apart from a tiny sliver of the second half when Alex Mitchell added tempo and Freddie Steward scored.
As for re-connecting with the fans... there were murmurs of dissent during the early kicktennis phase, then frustrations grew louder until a last-quarter walk-out. When the final whistle put England out of their misery, the boos were jarringly loud.
The last time that happened, the head coach lost his job. For now, there is none of that jeopardy as Borthwick is still in the early stages of his mission, but there is no sign of a bounce effect.
The party line is that it will take a long time to achieve any tangible progress, but is that really inevitable?
Under Fabien Galthie, France have won 28 of 35 Tests. After being Six Nations runners-up twice, they won a Grand Slam last year. They have played once against each of New Zealand and South Africa, and beaten them both. There was an instant impact when Galthie took charge, just as there was when Jones was appointed by the RFU and guided England to a world-record run of Test wins.
On Saturday, England were all spills and no thrills in the rain, while France made light of the difficult conditions to score seven tries. This was a Gallic masterpiece to shatter their era of Twickenham torment. At the end, hordes of their fans danced in the sodden stands.
So where does Borthwick go from here? Dublin on St Patrick’s weekend has the look of a looming English nightmare. They need more than a pass mark at the set-piece and a decent hour from Steward, which is all there was against the French.
In the shadow of the mighty
Alldritt, Alex Dombrandt had the look of someone who doesn’t believe he belongs in such exalted company. As for Jack van Poortvliet, it is alarming to see how much his game has declined since the tour of Australia last summer, when he was outstanding. Mitchell added vital energy at scrum-half and should start against Ireland.
Selection surgery is surely on the cards this week with Dublin in mind. England desperately need a spark and they need power, which might open the door for Manu Tuilagi to return, just weeks after it seemed as if his championship — and possibly even his Test career — could be over.
To think that all the build-up had been dominated by the decision to pick Marcus Smith over Owen Farrell. That just didn’t matter. This French team are miles ahead of England.
Whoever was at the helm, the ship was on fire and sinking, all the way to rock bottom. It could be some time before it is afloat again.