The Scotland team that ran amok at Twickenham on Saturday with a swashbuckling display of high tempo, aggressive and possession focused rugby earned an historic return on their substantial investment with a first win on English soil since 1983. Two years ago, they had got tantalisingly close with a Lazarus-esque second half performance that pulled them back from the brink of a heavy defeat and almost got them to the verge of victory. This time there was no mistake. Despite their relative impotence in countering the Scottish march to glory there was, at least, a touch of the Rourke’s Drift spirit about England in the way that they managed to keep the Scotland score count down but ultimately, they had no literal or metaphorical defence. Where Scotland were fluid, inventive and dynamic England were brittle, static and one dimensional.
The facts were stark. Scotland had substantially more possession and territory, made more passes, gained more metres, invented the phrase line break, because it was clearly one missing from the English lexicon, and most interesting of all, kicked more than England with a differential of 43 to 35 out of the hand.
But therein lies the occasional problem with stats in that they can only set the context of what goes on in a game and not reveal some of the more subtle ebbs and flows. Scotland may have kicked more but it was how effective those kicks were that is not recorded anywhere apart from within the deep recesses of my pained English memory. Russell and Hogg may sound a bit like an upmarket estate agent but when it came to the strategic kicking battle, they established ownership of the majority of the Twickenham turf. The only crumb of comfort for English fans was that at least 70,000 had avoided paying to watch it live and all of us at least had the comfort of a sofa to hide behind.
But of course, once you get the facts out of the way then the rest of it all comes down to opinion and this is where the armchair fan can have, and does have, a justifiable field day. It’s not always easy to analyse a contest which involves a lot of moving parts, many of which were blue and well-oiled and others clearly rustier, but to me there were three things wrong with England on Saturday: selection, game plan and execution and if you were to say that execution, game plan and selection were the three things right with Scotland then you have a neat palindromic summary that explains the result.
In his post-match interview, Eddie Jones suggested that lack of possession was the key to England’s defeat, but this was merely magical misdirection from a canny coach who knows the interviewer is on the clock and the ITV advert break is hurtling closer. Jones’ diagnosis was wrong because lack of possession wasn’t the cause of England’s malaise but rather the symptom. It’s like complaining that you have got a cough when you smoke sixty a day. What he really meant was that the plan to give Scotland possession in the hope that they would lose it didn’t work. It’s a negative plan and one that quickly falls apart once it becomes clear that the opposition aren’t fulfilling their end of the bargain. Where’s Plan B when the writing’s on the wall? England should have changed tack quickly as prevention is much more preferable than cure especially when you realise the supplies of sticking plasters are running low. The failure to do this however, led to a pandemic of panic within the English ranks personified most sharply by the normally dependable Jonny May treating the high ball as it if was the hottest of hot potatoes on a road trip from Hotsville, Tennessee. It was that bad that only a ridiculous metaphor should apply.
That said, plotting the way through the Six Nations, the greatest tournament on earth, is akin to a game of chess but it does feel that after Saturday Eddie Jones has managed to checkmate himself when it comes to selecting the team for the visit of the Italians. Either way he can’t win. Does he give the Saracens players another game to build match fitness or does he admit that the performance reflected a game plan so lifeless that he needs to administer intensive care to both his rugby ideology and the tortured souls of the English fans? In other words, switching to a ‘keep the ball and score’ strategy based around Robson or Randall at scrum half, Ford at 10 pulling the strings for an explosive wing partnership of May and Odogwu and applying the radical concept of playing players in their natural positions. In that way, Watson moves to full back, the centres stay where they are, the Jackal-meister General Jack Willis comes into the back row alongside Curry with the ‘man hewn from Cumbrian granite’, Mark Wilson, moving to Number 8. As for the engine room I would suggest changing up the front row but give the two locks another run out. Johnny Hill could do with more England game time and Itoje was the one bright spark although he still needs to address his penalty count.
It will never happen but if we are to see one change I do hope it is at 9. What England lacked, and has lacked for a long time save for what now appears to be the anomalous World Cup semi final victory against the All Blacks, is better decision making and faster delivery from scrum half. If we are to cure England of the ailment that afflicted then on Saturday then we have to deal with patient zero. Don’t get me wrong I loved Ben Youngs when he broke onto the scene in 2010. He was quick, his pass had zip and he heralded an exciting new era but now I can barely remember an England game when I thought he played well. I have a full respect for him as a solid pro who has made the most of his opportunities but even he must feel that he’s been an outpatient in the England camp too long.
As the fictional Tony D’Amato famously said in one of the best team talks ever involving an oval shaped ball, ‘You find out life’s this game of inches, so is football. Because in either game – life or football – the margin for error is so small. I mean, one half a step too late or too early and inches we need are everywhere around us. They’re in every break of the game, every minute, every second. On this team we fight for that inch. On this team we tear ourselves and everyone else around us to pieces for that inch. We claw with our fingernails for that inch. Because we know when we add up all those inches that’s gonna make the f****** difference between WINNING and LOSING, between LIVING and DYING!’.
Scotland identified those inches whereas England’s players were miles off the pace.
Filthy Rig 