Lack of leadership on and off the field
Well that’s it, Eddie Jones’ promise of a Grand Slam for England this season gone with his team failing at the first hurdle. Winning last year’s elongated Six nations and the autumn’s Nations Cup, even though not pretty, were supposed to have been the stepping stones in Eddie’s preparation for England’s next World Cup squad with this Six Nations’ Grand Slam win as a rehearsal for the real thing.
It’s true the virus has interrupted many sports, particularly at lower levels, but elite sport has continued with only slight disruptions to its playing programme. This includes the Premiership and should indicate that those players are at their peak.
The excuse of the Saracens players not playing and were therefore a ‘bit rusty’ has been made but this is clearly not true. Eddie Jones had his squad together for a week before the Scotland game and had been monitoring players before, so he surely would not have picked players who were under-performing?
Jones is right when he says it’s hard to understand why the players fail to raise themselves to the challenges faced in international rugby, particularly against the home nations who everyone knows are desperate to beat England no matter what.
England’s failures were magnified by Scotland’s composure in what was an impressive win against a team that on paper should have beaten them.
Watching the game it seemed obvious Scotland had studied England and had chosen a game plan, while England continued with the kick and chase game, giving what little possession they had back to the opposition and allowing Stuart Hogg to dictate where the game was played.
With all England’s players failing to focus, they needed some leadership but even the normally calm and collected Maro Itoje was running around like a headless chicken having probably his worst game in an England shirt.
All the while captain Owen Farrell, playing out of position, was trying so hard to get his own game right he failed to direct his team when they most needed it. I say out of position simply because he doesn’t currently always play flyhalf and never played fly-half in his early years. He always played centre until he joined Saracens where his father Andy, who was a coach there, moved Alex Goode from fly-half to full-back and replaced him with his son.
His importance to the England team as probably one of the best goal kickers in rugby at the moment cannot be overstated but nevertheless,
“I know how it feels to lose to Scotland... they will always remember it”
it may be time to play him in a less exposed position where he can play his own game without negatively impacting on the team’s performance.
Jones says he takes responsibility for the loss and rightly so, given it’s his job to prepare the best team to represent England which he has failed to do.
I would like to think that any players given the opportunity to play for their country wouldn’t need outside motivation but they may need a little guidance in the ways to win and that is the role of the head coach.
What seems strange, even if the on-field leaders had lost the plot, is that England failed to change tactics in the second half. Despite the fact Jones had ten minutes at halftime to organise a move to ‘plan B’ if there was one.
As for the players, I know how it feels to lose to Scotland, even though losing only once in the seven matches I played against them, and if they feel the same as I did, they will always remember it.
My game in 1990 was a Grand Slam decider and it still hurts, especially as ex Scotland coach, Jim Telfer, has said Tony Stanger never actually grounded the ball to score the try which won the match (you can see it on YouTube), but with no TMO in those days their Grand Slam win still stands.
Last Saturday wasn’t only a bad day for England’s team. Referee Matthew Carley spent more time coaching the French and Italian players than he did refereeing their game. He can be heard throughout the match constantly coaching the players at breakdowns, scrums and other areas of play.
He also missed many technical infringements not least allowing players in front of the kicker at a 22 metre drop-out, which he did on at least two occasions.
Then we had Wayne Barnes being told by his TMO, “If you wait a while I’ll find the TV angle that shows it was forward”.
I hate to say it as I’ll sound like one of the famous old farts, but back when I played referees made their own decisions, rightly or wrongly – as in that Scotland match in 1990. Only the captain could talk to the referee and the referee would never give you a warning or coach you. If he thought you broke the laws the first thing you heard was the whistle and if you questioned him, you got marched ten yards back. If a referee did that today, the team would be out of the stadium.
At the scrum it was left to the players to engage and wait for the ball, any unlawful binds or pushing before the ball came in were penalised without any warning issued and were strictly enforcethat ment which, in turn led to fewer resets.
With this week’s result virtually guaranteed the game wasn’t about the win but about the style and hopefully over the next few weeks we will see an improvement by England in both the way the games are played and officiated.
Although I agree there should be a hold on all relegation for this season, I cannot believe that the RFU Council have agreed to allow promotion to just one league, the Premiership.
The only time there has been a freeze on relegation before was in the first year of professionalism when there was also a freeze on promotion so as to keep the integrity of the league intact.
Failure to do the same this time could easily come back to haunt the union and its council when the game starts again – particularly if it is all just for the benefit of one club.