Eddie’s obsessed with his ‘finishers’. But it’s a nonsense
WHAT an absolutely shocking defeat by England, a game they should have won comfortably yet lost because of the mystifying nonsensical substitutions in the second half by Eddie Jones. Why is the game, and Jones particularly, obsessed with this concept of ‘finishers’? Please somebody enlighten me as I don’t understand it. Keep your best players on the park.
On the hour, England, after a really good third quarter, were winning 17-10. Marcus Smith had scored all 17 points and was scarcely out of breath. He was warming to his task nicely and as the England pack started to rumble Scotland were in for a torrid final 20 minutes.
He had made one mistake on a tricky afternoon, with wet conditions under foot and a slippery ball. He had just been a tad greedy and kicked long when England were looking for an attacking lineout, but apart from that he had impressed me hugely.
And then, unfathomably, the call comes from Jones up in the stands and England’s main man is off, to be replaced by George Ford. And the Harlequins fly-half was joined on the bench by a front row that was building up a head of steam and flanker Lewis Ludlam, who was going well in a game wellsuited to his temperament.
Rule No1 in sport: don’t fix what isn’t broken. These guys can go 80 minutes, they can go 100 minutes if necessary. Back them, let them do their thing. Only pull them off if they are falling and undermining the team effort.
If you pick Smith to start you back him all the way until the final whistle is blown. That’s what Quins do and that’s what England must do.
It went from bad to worse, the team completely unnerved by it all. We had the ridiculous tapping of the ball into touch by the leaping Luke Cowan-Dickie, which I thought absolutely was a penalty try and yellow card.
Then we had Joe Marler throwing in at a lineout with a terrible ball to the front — not straight and not five yards — then with three minutes to go there was a 40 metre penalty to draw the game.
It’s going to be a close tournament, leave Murrayfield with something, plus there would still have been two minutes left, perhaps one more attacking opportunity.
Ford was on the pitch and Elliot Daly had been banging them over from 60m in the warm-up, but with echoes of that World Cup pool match defeat against Wales in 2015 they went for touch instead.
It was a poor touch finder and then England predictably lost the lineout. The sad truth is that they had been losing the plot since Jones made his replacements.
I feel for the players. Man-on-man they were the better side and they have the makings of a great team but they had the rug taken from under their feet and were not good enough to react and adapt. After that. it span steadily out of control.
If I was them, if I was the senior group within the squad I would in the sober light of day this afternoon or tomorrow demand to know from Jones what the thinking was taking Marcus off in particular, but the replacements policy in general.
Even before England imploded the game had frustrated me a little. First, I’m still not sure what is really going on at the breakdown on occasions and the players, on both sides, looked bemused as well.
Kiwi Ben O’Keeffe is not a referee who takes them very often and
I’m afraid when you have got a showpiece game like this it really isn’t great to see the spectacle so diminished. Former referee Nigel Owens was in the comms box helping out and even he seemed confused at times, so what chance have the rest of us?
There were a couple of occasions also when the new drop-out under the posts came into play. To be honest it hasn’t seemed to be a feature in the Premiership but on a couple of occasions it seemed to punish the attacking team, which was England both times.
England needed to look at themselves, they had the best part of 70 per cent possession but made almost nothing of it.
They picked a fast, all-action team but there was too much tactical kicking with Daly, making a rare appearance at 13, ignoring a fouron-one situation with a needless kick through. With a wet greasy ball I can well imagine it was discussed before the game but England needed to be playing heads-up rugby.
England were in many ways dominant but at the same time weren’t always on the same hymn sheet. On one occasion, Scotland kicked deep into touch and Smith fielded it and clearly wanted to go quickly but there was nobody there, nobody had sprinted back to be in a position to receive a quick lineout.
England’s attention to detail just went in that final quarter. I’m a big Alex Dombrandt fan, I would have started him at No8. When he came on it had to be as a No8 with Sam Simmonds moving to flanker. England must start getting these basic calls right.
Again for the Scotland try they looked a little disorganised with Maro Itoje rushing out of the defensive line when he didn’t need to, and then the scramble defence not really working together to snuff out Darcy Graham and Ben White.
After the break, though, it all started to look much more promising. England took a grip and scored a cracking try from Smith as they took a seven point lead. The game was there for the taking and then it all went spectacularly pear-shaped. I’m still in shock if I’m honest.
If you pick Smith to start you back him until the final whistle