Pleased as punch
Tonga found just one England player too hot to handle, writes Daniel Schofield
Manu Tuilagi celebrates with George Ford after scoring his second try during England’s 35-3 victory over Tonga at the Rugby World Cup in Japan, but the statement performance sought by head coach Eddie Jones in their opening match failed to materialise as his side struggled to subdue tactically astute opponents.
Eight years after taking an ill-fated dip in an Auckland harbour, Manu Tuilagi was again making a splash at a World Cup, this time for all the right reasons.
Certainly, Tonga felt his ripple effect as he scored two tries and almost single-handedly provided England’s gain-line impetus. At times, he seems to be carrying both Tongan defenders and England’s entire attacking template on his back. There are no shortage of big men in the Tongan ranks – Ben “the Wardrobe” Tameifuna is the heaviest player in the competition at 24 stone – but somehow Tuilagi makes other players shrink in contact to the point that he seems to be playing against an age-grade team.
His first try was a case in point. Taking a ball on after a blindside snipe by Ben Youngs, Tuilagi fixed the first Tongan player with a little stutter step before barrelling his way through three further defenders. When he is in this kind of mood, there is no scarier sight than Tuilagi on the charge with the scent of the whitewash in his flaring nostrils.
That irresistible power has always been Tuilagi’s calling card, but there is subtlety, too, to his game. For his second try, his hard running line fixed three Tongan players in midfield, creating an overlap that Elliot Daly smoothly exploited by feeding Jonny May on the left wing. Continuing his run, Tuilagi accepted his Leicester team-mate’s offload. “Manu’s increasingly getting close to his best,” Eddie Jones, the England head coach, said. “He’s training well and is in great physical nick.”
Siale Piutau, the Tongan captain, had the unenviable task of keeping Tuilagi in check, but admitted his team collectively failed to shut him down. “I think he was instrumental for them,” Piutau said. “We did analysis on their backs and we knew that they were going to go to him to give them the go-forward. He did that tonight. We tried to contain him, but when you have someone like Manu’s talent getting you over the gain-line it helps get their forwards into the game and they can play off that.”
That astute analysis is in itself a concern that England are becoming overly reliant on Tuilagi remaining in this destructive mood for the rest of the tournament. That was never going to be an issue yesterday after he faced Tonga’s war dance, the Sipi Tau, for the first time. “It’s a privilege to stand in front of the Tongan war dance. It was brilliant. It definitely fired us all up for that game. It definitely fired me up watching that. It’s an unbelievable experience.”
It was an emotional occasion, too, for No8 Billy Vunipola, playing against the team his father captained. The Tongan team had promised him a hot reception and they were as good as their word as flanker Zane Kapeli knocked him back with a hit that could be felt high up in the stands at the Sapporo Dome. Vunipola acknowledged the hit, which left Kapeli nursing a sore shoulder, with a knowing smile, while the Tongan bench celebrated it like a try. It seems no coincidence that in the next phase Tonga’s players went hunting for a turnover and forced a penalty for not releasing.
“It took me by surprise a bit,” Vunipola admitted. “I think the guy next to me was in a big gap but they put their marker down and they came out and got me. It was probably my fault as well. I told Fordy [George Ford] to give me the ball. I gave him the opportunity and he took it.”
Kapeli was far from the only player to leave their mark on Vunipola, who shared a spontaneous post-match prayer with his brethren. With Vunipola bottled up, it put even more emphasis on Tuilagi to breach the gain-line on a day when so many other parts of England’s attacking machine were caked in rust.
There is an inverse relationship between the quality of England’s performance and Jones’s description of it being “fantastic”. The head coach used that word a lot yesterday, which was indicative of a flat, error-strewn display. The only player who merited that adjective was Tuilagi.
This game will not live long in the memory of those who witnessed it and there was a steady stream of spectators heading for the exits in the final quarter. Ultimately, England harvested a bonus point, albeit with just a couple of minutes to spare. As Jones and several players pointed out, that is the only thing that matters. Yet it feels an opportunity missed to deliver a statement of intent for the tournament.
It should be remembered that Tonga has a population of 100,000, which is roughly equivalent to that of Scarborough. Eleven members
of the team that started played in the 92-3 demolition by the All Blacks just a couple of weeks ago. Many of their team are semiprofessional, such as Kapeli, who is an apprentice builder, and play for clubs as exotic as Papatoetoe in New Zealand, Silverstorm in Spain and Doncaster. They were also missing their two best players in Steve Mafi and Telusa Veainu to injury, while there are 22 Tongans representing other nations at this World Cup. If they played far above their natural station, England played below theirs.