Blood is spilt, blows are taken and Jones’ manhood is violated
These are unpredictable times for Six Nations rugby. Nobody could have forecast for example that Joe Marler would grab the joystick of Alun Wyn Jones – an uninvited fondle which shocked Wales’s captain and might see the England prop cited not by the game’s blazers so much as monitors of unwanted contact.
A 33-30 win for England, a late red card for Manu Tuilagi for a dangerous “no arms” tackle and a reminder that England-Wales games will always be raw and bloodthirsty, however much the sport’s administrators kid themselves that the game is a giant commercial oilfield just waiting to be opened up. England conceded too many points for this to be a rebirth victory but at least they entertained their followers until a late slew of points from Wales dampened Twickenham’s spirits.
This was the strangest Six Nations contest in recent memory: a personal hygiene seminar with blood and gore, as a coronavirus-truncated tournament stumbles to an unsatisfying end.
With England’s game in Italy postponed and not certain to take place at all, the curtain fell discordantly on a campaign in which coach Eddie Jones sought to renew his authority and England hoped for a quick burial for their World Cup final defeat. The moving-on has been chaotic, but at the end England were in possession of the quaint Triple Crown and Jones was claiming: “We’re a better team now than we were at the World Cup.”
All modern rugby’s talking points were squeezed into an old-school kind of battle in which both sides looked desperate to escape the age of multiple TV camera angles and citings and have a proper punch-up.
Concussion and dangerous tackling showed up to the party, as they always do, with Jonny May accidentally caught under a high ball in the sixth minute, staying down for a long time, playing on and then coming off for a head injury assessment, which he failed. Why was the assessment not made before he rejoined the action?
Then came the melee on England’s line, the Marler grope, which Jones was clearly unhappy about, more recidivism from Owen Farrell, England’s captain, with high tackling, and a head-to-head tackle by Hadleigh Parkes on Tuilagi. George North elicits particular concern every time he steps on a pitch, and when Tuilagi struck him shoulder to shoulder when the winger had already been tackled a red card was a fitting punishment, even if the tackler missed his victim’s head and Jones thought the dismissal “absolute rubbish”. North has had six concussions in his career.
The two embraced after Tuilagi had been dismissed but the recklessness and lateness of the challenge showed how hard it is for players at this level to control their urges. An England fan near us jumped out of his seat to condemn the red card. Maybe he should have asked how Tuilagi’s tackle looked to people outside the sport. Or perhaps he would reply that those people are irrelevant (participation levels, in 20 years, will settle the argument).
Technically, Marler could receive a low-end ban of 12 weeks for touching Jones’s wedding tackle and Jones said it was “frustrating” the incident had not been picked up by the television match official.
Asterisks keep attaching themselves to England. Their World Cup run featured a hurricane-related cancellation against France and their 2020 Six Nations campaign has petered out with the “postponement” of their match in Rome. Nothing is straightforward in rugby just now. Take for example Mako Vunipola “self-isolating” after a trip to Tonga and missing this game but turning out instead for Saracens on the same day.
The Six Nations may be deluding itself by thinking it can combine a pay-TV bonanza with increased growth and visibility, but the players never cease to commit, to leave everything on the pitch. This, more than the camaraderie off the field, is the competition’s greatest virtue. In England’s asterisk-ridden, premature Six Nations finale, blood was spilt, blows taken and administered, a Triple Crown wrapped up and Welsh manhood violated by a prop who specialises in finding ways not to take it too seriously.
England’s tour of Japan may go the way of their city break in Rome. But at least their competitive season ended with signs that they were not broken by the hammering they took from South Africa in the country they hope to revisit this summer. Jones is back to winning ways. England’s recurring story is one of promise and potential. What they must do is stop flattering to deceive.