ENGLAND’S LATE AGONY
Underhill try ruled out at the death to spare Kiwis
EDDIE JONES asked for a Hollywood movie and he got a classic heartbreak story.
In the end, it was a tale of narrow defeat. A Twickenham tear-jerker that was decided by a matter of inches.
Sam Underhill thought he had scored the winning try after 76 minutes, before referee Jerome Garces interrupted the joyous celebrations to rule out the score because Courtney Lawes was adjudged offside when he charged down TJ Perenara’s kick.
‘Sometimes the game loves you, sometimes it doesn’t,’ said Jones.
Ultimately, everything went to script. The All Blacks kept hold of their top billing — 84 victories in 94 Tests under Steve Hansen — and England r e mained t he e a ger understudy.
‘Roll up for the execution!’ heckled Kiwi fans at ticket touts outside Twickenham before kick-off.
No one gave England a hope in hell and they will surely take belief from their performance.
Weather conditions were similar to the famous night in Wellington last year, when the Lions beat the All Blacks in torrential rain.
The sound of Swing Low drowned out the Kiwi war dance and once the Haka was finished, England’s players got into a huddle and made their opponents wait for kick off.
Owen Farrell landed his kick-off on Brodie Retallick and the Kiwis knocked the ball on in the very first play.
‘Get in their faces,’ said the handful of Englishmen who have been there and done it.
Start fast? Tick. England scored inside two minutes.
Ben Te’o, Kyle Sinckler, Maro Itoje and Underhill carried hard off the scrum, sucking in defenders, to create space on the right wing. It is four years since Chris Ashton last started a Test for his country but, with one minute 54 seconds on the clock, he took Ben Youngs’s long pass to slide over for the opening try.
Twickenham was stunned. The All Black aura was reduced to 15 soggy black jerseys.
‘Get to Shieldsy,’ shouted the Kiwi defenders as they tried to rattle England’s Kiwi f l anker Brad Shields. It fell on deaf ears. England played better in the rain, with Te’o putting the ball up his jumper, while playmakers peppered Damian McKenzie with difficult kicks.
Farrell missed his first conversion but moved his side eight points ahead with a drop goal after 10 minutes. Under pressure from Shields, Sam Whitelock knocked on at a lineout and England turned their territory into points. Ardie Savea was stripped in the tackle, Beauden Barrett was caught offside and Aaron Smith kicked the ball straight into touch. So much for the quick Kiwi execution.
Blood streamed down Underhill’s cheek but he tackled like a man possessed. Jones has 10 games until he names his World Cup squad and the flanker delivered the performance of his life here.
The scoreboard kept ticking. Itoje claimed a lineout. The maul crabbed sideways but gathered momentum. England’s backs piled in and Dylan Hartley touched down to make the score 15-0. It was England’s best 30 minutes of rugby in the Jones era.
Soon after, Sonny Bill Williams l eft t he f i eld t hrough i njury. Another good omen? Not quite.
His replacement, Ryan Crotty, made an instant impact. Determined to score before half time, New Zealand launched a 23-phase attack and won a penalty in front of the posts.
Their decision to scrum rather than take three points whiffed of arrogance, but Crotty ran a hard line before McKenzie cut from Barrett’s inside shoulder to score the only Kiwi try.
Barrett kicked another penalty before half time and suddenly,
under grey skies, the complexion changed.
‘They are the best in the world and we will get a lot of reward for the work we’ve done,’ said Jones. ‘They had 800 caps. We had 400 caps. We have to work harder.’
Jamie George replaced Hartley at half time and England’s lineout fell to pieces.
McKenzie broke the line but Savea knocked on with the try line in sight. Rieko Ioane failed to gather a pass on his wing before Barrett kicked his first drop goal in 72 Tests.
England lost five lineouts on the head as Farrell turned down a kick at goal and the gamble backfired, with Sinckler knocking the ball on as his side went for the jugular from the lineout. England’s killer edge deserted them.
It is an obvious statistic that New Zealand have a knack of winning games in the final quarter. They had an aggregate score of 141-42 in that period of games in 2018 and, sure enough, Barrett kicked his side ahead for the first time on the stroke of the hour.
‘I thought we played the final 20 exceptionally well,’ said Jones. ‘If you look at any sort of metrics, we won that final 20. We’ll take enormous confidence from that.
‘The All Blacks, sorry New Zealand, generally run away from teams in that area and they couldn’t. They couldn’t break us. If we’d kept going for another five minutes, we would’ve got them.’
Jones threw on his own finishers and England applied pressure, but t heir execution was not good enough. Underhill turned Barrett inside out to score spectacularly down the left wing but Garces intervened to ruin the fairy tale.