Where was Hartley?
Fair enough, Scotland were simply outstanding ...but can you imagine Martin Johnson leaving the pitch when England need their leader the most
WELCOME to the club, Eddie. It is almost a rite of passage for British coaches to get turned over at least once in their careers by an inspired Scotland side at Murrayfield and that’s what happened good and proper last night. I’ve got the T-shirt as well.
The Six Nations has a life of its own, t hese big away matches against the Celts are one-offs when, despite all your best preparations, almost everything goes out the window and you must react to what happens in front of you. England failed to do that yesterday and that was the most disappointing thing of all the defeat.
Scotland were magnificent and showed conclusively t hat t he quality they displayed in defeat by New Zealand in November, and against a 14-man Australia, was not false or an illusion. Far from it, this was the validation that we have all been waiting for. Scotland are back in business.
When they get it absolutely right they can beat anybody and did they ever get it right yesterday. Their first-half display was stunning and then, crucially, they had the nous to play it slightly differently and tighter after the break to not allow England back in the game. Scotland showed great maturity.
It was one of their great performances in my book and I’m thrilled for Gregor Townsend. This will be huge confidence booster for the Scotland coach and totally justifies his approach. It is great to see a British coach putting down a marker amid all the Kiwis and Aussies, and Scotland playing like this helps bring the Six Nations to life
But what was that from England? I have no real explanation at the moment. The coach in me knows that you never make snap judgments on one poor performance and defeat. If you did that you would have written off Scotland three weeks ago when they got taken apart by Wales.
Individuals have poor matches and my gut feeling is that a lot of England’s players endured a collective bad day at the office. It can happen, especially when you are on a long run of success and have been winning matches that perhaps you could have lost, such as the Wales match last week. Eventually it catches up with you.
It might be no more complicated than that and I’m going to allow myself another detailed look at the match in the sober light of day before I make major conclusions.
But yesterday had a strange feeling from the off. England were rightly pre-match favourites but their attitude and intensity in the first half was just way off. It just wasn’t there. They froze and didn’t look prepared for what they found themselves confronted with.
Scotland weren’t just half a yard quicker in thought and deed, they were yards quicker. They seemed to be winning every individual battle on the park. Players such as Hamish Watson, who had been average in the first two games of the tournament, suddenly looked like a world-beater again.
Surely England must have prepared themselves for this over the last fortnight. Matches against Scotland at Murrayfeld are never straightforward even when the end result suggests they might have been. The Calcutta Cup is massive for Scotland — an FA Cup final if you like — so it has to be England’s FA Cup final as well when the two sides meet. You might be the better team but you have to back that up with the right mental approach.
England just didn’t match fire with fire in that first half, they didn’t hang tough, the pack didn’t take control — which looking at the line up had to be the plan — and everything started to unravel very quickly against a Scotland team who were completely amped up and looking for any sign of weakness. I wrote in my column yester- day morning that if England do everything properly they would win and I still stand by that. But they didn’t remotely do everything properly, they didn’t turn up for the first 40 minutes and although they improved after the break I never got the impression they were going to get back in the game.
Not for the first time my heart sank to see Dylan Hartley go off by pre-arrangement after 55 minutes with his team desperately needing some leadership and inspiration.
I can’t get my head around this finishing business. Can you imagine Lawrence Dallaglio or Martin Johnson going off at Murrayfield with 25 minutes to go when their team are in dire trouble?
And then there was that poor yellow card from Sam Underhill for his reckless no- arms tackle, taking England down to 14 men just when they needed one last final effort. These things are so costly in Test rugby
At the start of this season I said and wrote t hat England were going to have some bumps along the way this season, that the winning ways could not last for ever for a team who still hadn’t resolved some big selection issues and who weren’t really putting the opposition away.
Well yesterday was a major bump. Despite anticipating it, the reality still comes as a shock when it happens, and it changes everything. Almost overnight nobody will really fear England any more, they were so poor and Scotland were so good.
France, having got off the mark with a win over Italy, will now really fancy it against England in a fortnight’s time. That becomes a massive, difficult match and that is before you even contemplate the St Patrick’s Day game against Ireland at Twickenham.