Odd little memories stand out crystal clear from the great mêlée of Saturday’s match, which was otherwise one long blur of flying bodies, boots and balls, reset scrums, rolling substitutions, red and yellow cards. One is from 25 minutes in, when Facundo Isa leapt to catch Ben Youngs’ box kick. Isa spilled the ball forward and it landed slap in the lap of Chris Robshaw. He puffed out his cheeks, punted it 30 yards downfield and set off in pursuit. Robshaw galumphed along like a happy labrador chasing a stick on a beach, passing tacklers as if he was dodging promenaders. It was a brilliantly exuberant bit of play and, when it was done, Robshaw of course buried himself neck deep in the nearest ruck.
“If ever there was a day we needed a dog,” Dylan Hartley said after the match, “it was today.” And, Hartley said, that dog had been Robshaw. “Head down, grafting, working, doing a lot of the dog work none of us see.”
Steve Borthwick, who played with Robshaw when the latter made his England debut in Argentina in 2009 and coaches him now, made a more flattering comparison before the match. He said last week that Robshaw reminds him of one of England’s great blindside flankers. “People used to talk about Richard Hill and how much work he did, how he just got on with it, the really important work, the stuff that people don’t necessarily see until it’s not been done. That’s what I see Chris doing.”
Twickenham has been in good voice all autumn because the crowd have had a lot to cheer about – but the loudest roar the 80,000 let loose on Saturday may well have been one that sounded round the ground when the stadium announcer said Robshaw had been picked as the man of the match.
This time last year Robshaw and his team were being booed during the World Cup. If the crowd love him now, it is not only because England are winning but because over the years they have seen Robshaw in both victory and defeat and they know that, whatever mistakes he has made along the way, he has never once stopped trying, never given anything less than everything he has to offer.
“Magnificent,” was Eddie Jones’s verdict of Robshaw on Saturday. “Again his work off the ball was exceptional.”
It was not long ago that Jones memorably described Robshaw as a player who “carries OK, tackles OK” but is not “outstandingly good in any area”. And he is right, Robshaw never was, never will be, England’s strongest, cleverest, quickest or most skilful forward. However, Jones still got it wrong when he said that he felt Robshaw lacked a “point of difference”. He has clearly realised as much since he started working with him because Robshaw has started 11 of England’s 12 games under Jones and missed only the one-off match against Wales before the summer tours.
It is Robshaw’s strength of character that marks him out. “He keeps getting better, that’s the thing that impresses me,” Jones said. “He’s the most professional player and the most diligent player. He works so hard at his game and he always wants to see ways he can get better.”
The very same qualities that Stuart Lancaster saw in Robshaw when he picked him to be England’s captain in 2012 are still serving him well now that Jones has demoted him back into the ranks.
Borthwick says Robshaw has been “phenomenal” in the past 12 months. “When you pull out examples of selfless play, the ones you want to show to everybody to say: ‘This is the kind of thing that epitomises us,’ inevitably Robshaw is involved,” Borthwick said. “That’s the type of player he is.”
Borthwick also points to the work Robshaw does away from the playing field. “The example he sets in training, in his preparation and the diligence of people learning, sat down at the computer learning and asking questions, he’s been phenomenal.”
Robshaw is 30. This is, in fact, his testimonial year at Harlequins, to mark his 10th year in professional rugby. Typically he is using it to raise funds for three favourite charities, Teenage Cancer Trust, Walking With The Wounded and Canine Partners, who provide trained dogs for people with disabilities.
Looking back on that match in Salta in 2009, Borthwick remembers his first impression of Robshaw being that he “seemed like a guy determined to have a great England career”.
Robshaw’s story has turned out much more complicated than that. It was three years before he even won another cap and then he ended up playing 42 matches as captain, a run that finished with two humiliating defeats during the group stages of the World Cup.
He never was a Churchillian leader but he is still the living epitome of one of the prime minister’s most famous lines: “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.” Robshaw has given freely of all four – and will carry on giving more until it is finally time for him to quit.
