Fletcher: England must overcome tactical flaws

ENGLAND must overcome their tactical deficit to fully match New Zealand says former Red Rose U18s boss John Fletcher.

Fletcher, who was fired by the RFU’s international player development boss Dean Ryan in June, insists that strategically, physically and also in terms of their skills, England’s top players are a match for any of the world’s best.

However, he believes England are falling short tactically – as evidenced during the last World Cup and the recent series loss in South Africa, where winning positions were lost due to England’s inability to manage pressure situations.

Fletcher, who spent ten years at the RFU prior to his brutal culling, told The

Rugby Paper: “I feel English rugby can do more around preparing players tactically.

“The English system is really strong strategically around plans going into the week; physically we’re really strong and we have players who are very, very skilful. But it’s the bit in the middle where we’re weaker than other sides.

“It’s around: What’s this game giving us? What are the opportunities? What collectively as a team can we work out to win games?

“That’s probably the area of the English game people needed to work on. That’s my sense, that’s what we were trying really hard to do at age-group level around developing more tactically aware players who made good decisions.

“We used to call it ‘beat the game’ and I still think we’ve got work to do there.”

Ryan has cited ‘polarised’ opinions between those coaching the U18s and U20s as the reason behind his decision to bin Fletcher and fellow agegroup coaches Peter Walton and Russell Earnshaw.

While Fletcher, 47, accepts Ryan’s right to make those decisions, he believes English rugby’s overt focus on set-piece domination continues to leave players tactically short-changed when the heat comes on against sides like New Zealand.

Fletcher added: “The Kiwis are as strong as us strategically and they’re skilful and very adaptable, but tactically they’re more able – and in their mindset as well. They’ve got a confidence that eventually it will come good, whereas we’ve got a mindset where we’re pretty quick to tighten things up.

“In the Southern Hemisphere they would see the set-piece as a way to get into their running game and there’s a different emphasis around it.

“There’s no right or wrong way, it’s just in the context of your environment. However, I think the international game is a bit more around using the setpiece as a way of restarting the game – and that’s where England must adapt.”

Fletcher, meanwhile, has picked up the pieces after his sacking by launching The Magic Academy – an information-sharing platform aimed at connecting coaches in rugby and other sports in order to enhance player experiences.

He explained: “Leaving the RFU wasn’t the plan and I didn’t leave on my terms, but they wanted to move in a different direction and you can’t hold hard feelings.

“We tried to create an environment at age-group level where players could try stuff and feel safe around doing that. My aim with The Magic Academy now is to do something similar and there are no limits to what people can do.”

Details of John Fletcher’s new project are at: www.themagicacademy.co.uk