England’s headquarters at Pennyhill Park will be the least comfortable five-star hotel in the land this week as Stuart Lancaster and his coaches go about picking the positives from the defeat against the All Blacks – they were hard to find – while putting the World Cup roadshow back on track.
Wisdom was that England needed three wins this autumn to show they are moving in the right direction. Two was just about the pass mark but after the goings-on in Dublin on Saturday night England have to nail the Boks and to do otherwise would suddenly make Australia, and even Samoa, potential banana skins.
So what can we take from England’s defeat? Well, Jonny May’s try was remarkable and wonderful, and Kyle Eastmond’s lovely floated pass was everything England had expected from the Bath centre. It opened the All Black line to Mike Brown but unfortunately the Harlequins full-back’s hands let him down.
After that? Not much really. New Zealand scored rather too easily through Aaron Cruden; it was a try but Nigel Owens might have asked the TMO for a look first. And then the rain. When it swept across Twickenham the first reaction was it would help the home team. Not so.
More than once the All Blacks have lost World Cups because of a lack of experience, not understanding that circumstances can change games as much as fine individual performances. Not now. There are plenty with more than 100 caps in this squad and one of them was water boy on Saturday. Dan Carter was all smiles in the rain and presumably ready to make his first start in a year at Murrayfield this weekend.
Conventional wisdom is that you don’t kick to the All Blacks. After all the Springboks beat them by curbing their instincts to hoof the ball and Australia came close. However, conventional wisdom gets turned on its head when the heavens open as they did at Twickenham and it becomes impossible to run from your own 22. The ball had to go long and it didn’t.
New Zealand kept up the pressure by doing the simple things well without making mistakes. From midfield out to touch and back again, short passes, nothing dropped, nothing fumbled. They have the skills.
England just heaped problems on themselves. The restarts were a shambles; when you don’t get the ball back by kicking short, then go long and at least make the opposition kick themselves or earn their yards the hard way. Either that or the box kicks must be pinpoint precise. And why throw (kick) away the trump cards?
The All Blacks do many things superbly but defending a driven maul isn’t one of them. They don’t like it so it is precisely what you give them. But unless Owens was in Danny Care’s ear telling him “Use it, use” as he often is, you don’t box kick your advantage away when the opposition is so compelling ball in hand and could have drawn further ahead.
Why was Sam Whitelock’s “try” disallowed? Care had hooked the ball back until it was on the England line which took offside out of the equation and it is a myth that downward pressure is needed for a try to be awarded. You just need contact. How we finished up with a five-metre scrum for a knock-on is hard to figure. It’s either a penalty or a try.
Even when down to 14 men, New Zealand “won” the sin-bin period. In horrendous conditions they were ruthless. England couldn’t get out of their own 22 and when they did get their hands on the ball it was kicked badly, either straight into touch or into areas of the field which invited the Blacks to run the ball back and heap more and more pressure on the home side.
England lost sight of the basics; New Zealand didn’t. They had the experience to understand something different was needed and they tailored their game perfectly. As conditions worsened so their skills seemed to improve.
Around Twickenham on Saturday night the faithful were pinning their hopes on some of Owens’ questionable decisions. Closer to the heart of the matter, among some of those guys who are back in camp at Pennyhill this week, there was an admission that England just weren’t good enough and have to get a whole lot better by Saturday.
The only good news is that Jonny Sexton did individually to the Boks what the Blacks did collectively to England. And only showers are forecast for Twickenham.
