We need to fix our SCRUM
Wales and Australia will be licking their lips after that, says prop Cole
ENGLAND’s frustrated forwards will spend this week attempting to fix their misfiring scrum following another alarmingly disjointed performance against Fiji which prop Dan Cole said would leave Pool A opponents ‘licking their lips’.
The England scrummage, traditionally one of the most destructive in the world, completely failed to fire in three warm-up games before the tournament and again failed to convince during Friday night’s World Cup opener against a Fijian eight not noted for their set-piece excellence.
One put-in conceded against the head five metres from England’s line led directly to a first-half try for Fiji winger Nemani Nadolo, while two more penalties awarded by referee Jaco Peyper confirmed England’s set-piece is now in real danger of becoming their Achilles heel.
Tight-head prop Cole yesterday said England’s players ‘switched off mentally’ when conceding against the head while coach Stuart Lancaster indicated his players can expect a tough week of training to fix the problems.
‘We’ve got to be better mentally and we probably switched off, focusing more on the outcome of getting the ball out and clearing our lines than actually the set-piece itself,’ Cole said of conceding the 29th minute scrum against the head.
‘Credit to Fiji, any team in that situation five metres out from the line, the risk-reward means you’ll chance your arm to get the turnover and they did. We have to understand that’s an area they’d go for us and Wales and Australia will be licking their lips. We understand we’ve got to be better.’
England at least appear to have fixed some of the lineout issues that caused them problems in the warmups, recovering from one lost throwin early in the game to provide a reasonable platform.
‘Breakdowns, scrum and lineout is the forwards’ bread and butter and we’ve got some work to do to improve,’ Lancaster said.
England’s de-powered scrum remains their single biggest issue. The problems began in their opening warm-up game against France and got worse in the return fixture in Paris, where the substandard Stade de France pitch was blamed for their failure to get a footing.
On Friday night there could be no such excuses as Twickenham’s world-class ‘Desso’ pitch provided the surest of footing.
The uninspiring display against Fiji showed scrum coach Graham Rowntree has been unable to fix an area in England’s game which was seen as their strength.
With first-choice hooker Dylan Hartley out of the squad on disciplinary grounds, much of the attention has focused on his replacement Tom Youngs from Leicester, whose work around the field is outstanding but who lacks the technical excellence of his Northampton rival.
‘I prefer Youngs,’ said Cole when asked if he would chose to pack down with Hartley or his Leicester team-mate. ‘I think we work well together at the club. Yes, he’s shorter and might have a bit less ballast, but technically he’s very good. Because he came from centre, he didn’t have any bad habits. He worked hard with the forwards coaches at Leices- ter. He’s one of the most powerful guys. Tom Youngs all the way.’
England have so far opted for the athletic but relatively lightweight combination of Courtney Lawes and Geoff Parling in the second row, with Joe Launchbury on the bench.
Bath heavyweight Dave Attwood missed out. Cole added: ‘Would I love a 150kg, 6ft 10in lock behind me who’ll make me look really good? Yes. But you’ve got to work with what you’ve got. Geoff and Courtney — we played with a similar second row in the Six Nations and
they’ve done a great job. And they’re doing a great job. We had that one bad scrum on our line, but I think the rest of the time they were in there pushing. The second row is not all about size.’ With England’s bench — including props Mako Vunipola and Kieran Brookes and lock Launchbury — making such a telling contribution to Friday’s bonus-point win, England will consider making changes to their front five to face Wales on Saturday. ‘We’re still a strong team and the same team as a year ago when we took apart some great teams. We’ve got confidence in our scrum and we’ll know it will go well. We look at our scrum as a weapon in this tournament. We want to use it to impose ourselves on other teams.
‘In September we set a target to be the best pack in the world.’