WHY DID YOU TAKE HIM OFF?
Jones faces serious questions after Smith substitution backfires. He is so intent on proving his point, he makes the wrong decision
THE gale that had buffeted spectators walking around Murrayfield before the game had eased and the torrential rain that had skittered and skipped across the stadium car parks had abated by the time this enthralling Calcutta Cup clash rolled into its second half. It felt, at last, as if it were a fitting stage for Marcus Smith.
And Smith strode on to it. England were narrowly behind at that point but Ben Youngs marshalled play from the back of a driving maul as it marauded towards the Scotland line and picked the perfect moment to feed Smith. The fly-half timed his run to perfection and pushed off his right foot to sprint in between two defenders and dive over the try-line.
He had already kicked three penalties and would go on to kick a fourth, scoring all of England’s 17 points as they tried to wrest the trophy back from Scotland, avenge last year’s defeat at Twickenham and get their 2022 Six Nations campaign off to a flying start.
Smith celebrated with gusto. The try was more vindication as he attempts to justify the label of England’s bright new hope as they head towards next year’s World Cup. He had done most things well in an attritional game and shown maturity beyond his years with his play-making. He was getting better and better.
But 10 minutes later, as it seemed Smith had won the battle of the brilliant fly-halves with Finn Russell, England coach Eddie Jones took him off. And England never quite seemed the same again. ‘Why take Marcus Smith off?’ former Wales great Jonathan Davies wrote on Twitter and legions of England fans agreed with him. ‘I would have liked to see Smith stay on,’ said England’s World Cup winning captain Martin Johnson.
Two minutes after Smith was taken off, England’s 17-10 lead evaporated when Scotland were awarded a penalty try. George Ford, Smith’s replacement, struggled to make an impact and the stage was left for Russell to kick a clutch penalty eight minutes from the end to put Scotland 20-17 ahead. England could not muster the inspiration to recover. The inspiration was sitting on the bench.
‘I thought George Ford could lift the game,’ replied Jones when he was asked afterwards why Smith had been taken off. But he was already looking defensive.
Jones seems to take it personally when a player is praised by the public and the media. He pushes back against the praise. It seems to offend him. He takes it as a challenge. And he makes it a point of principle to try to turn back the tide. And that is how it seemed with Smith’s withdrawal at such a critical stage of the match. Jones was trying to prove a point. That this is a 23-man game. That the ‘closers’ or the ‘finishers’, or whatever absurd name he bestows on the substitutes, are just as good as the first XV. Too often his cussedness gets in the way. He is so intent on proving his point, he makes the wrong decision. He cannot quite bring himself to put his faith in Smith because everyone else likes him. It has to be his project. It has to be Eddie against the world. At Murrayfield, at least, that attitude backfired. There is a strong case to be made that withdrawing Smith cost England the game and a shot at the Grand Slam and the Triple Crown.
Maybe with the World Cup so close, it is too late for Jones’ position to come under threat before then. But England finished fifth in the Six Nations last year and now their new campaign has been born under a bad sign. They face a difficult away trip to Paris next month and they know that Ireland are in a rich vein of form. Things are looking far from rosy.
It is important to remember, of course, that stalwarts of the side such as Owen Farrell, Courtney Lawes, Anthony Watson and Jonny May were all absent through injury. But their trouble was an opportunity for their replacements.
Jones had picked the most inexperienced Six Nations team of his time in charge of England. Tom Curry was made England’s youngest captain since Will Carling in 1988 and there were seven players in the starting XV with fewer than 10 caps. At the heart of this move towards youth, though, was Smith.
Smith may only be 22 and this may only have been his sixth cap for his country but even though Jones is innately suspicious of the media and public fascination with him, the Harlequins fly-half is already being touted as the key to the new England, the creative force who can lead the country into the tournament in France next year.
He was the subject of a host of paeans in the build-up to the match. ‘The try Freddie Steward scored against Australia in November,’ former England fly-half Stuart Barnes wrote, ‘was a direct result of England operating at a pace rarely witnessed since the World Cup. The weight on Smith’s rightto-left pass was delicious, more than anything England tried and failed to achieve in last year’s Six Nations.’
Another former England fly-half, Danny Cipriani, expressed similar sentiments. ‘Although Smith is younger than Finn Russell,’ Cipriani wrote, ‘he’s overcome every hurdle put in front of him. He’s won the Premiership, played for the Lions and won a clean sweep with England in the autumn. His temperament is phenomenal and he’s accelerated tremendously over the last couple of years.’
Smith put the game’s first points on the board with a low, slapped penalty that weaved and wobbled between the posts after 17 minutes but England were immediately pegged back by Ben White’s try.
Smith kicked another penalty to
bring England within a point but then fluffed a fleeting opportunity to help his team into the lead. He spotted Henry Slade free on the right wing and tried to chip a pass into his path but he misjudged it and the ball flew over Slade’s head and into touch. To make things worse, Russell lined up a long kick in the last action of the first half and lofted it unerringly between the posts.
England had dominated much of the half but Scotland went in to the interval four points ahead.
‘You’re a proper team if you’re down on all the stats at half-time but you go in in front,’ said England’s World Cup winning scrum-half, Matt Dawson.
Then Smith scored his try and it seemed briefly as if he would be England’s match-winner. Eddie Jones, though, had other ideas.