Back-to-back grand slams take some winning. The last time England managed the feat was in 1992, the heyday of Will Carling, Peter Winterbottom, Dean Richards, Jeremy Guscott, Rory Underwood et al, which shows the exalted company Dylan Hartley’s team are trying to join. If they do defeat Ireland on Saturday to complete a second successive full house, their achievement will stand history’s definitive test.
Even a quarter of a century later, the class of ’92 can still recall every little detail of their fabled campaign. They had great players but, then as now, were bruised by previous failure, most recently their 1991 World Cup final defeat to Australia. Their newly appointed coach, Dick Best, was certainly feeling the pressure before the championship. “I thought: Jesus, the only difference from last year is me,” Best says. “If we don’t win another grand slam, guess who they’ll point the finger at?”
That nagging thought was still troubling Best as he stood up to address the squad for the first time. These were the days when senior players still assembled in the Roebuck pub just up from the Petersham hotel in Richmond on the Wednesday night before a Test and Best was worried some would not share the desire of the manager, Geoff Cooke, and himself for a more all-court game.
“Before I started talking I did a quick bit of mental maths,” he says. “It felt like there were about 800-900 caps in the room – and that was just the forwards. They’d got to a World Cup final by playing in a certain way but I felt we needed a bit more up our sleeves in order to win things. Will Carling was loving it until Brian Moore stood up and said: ‘Why?’ He basically said if something wasn’t broken there was no need to fix it. I replied it might not be broken but it wasn’t clinching us big games like the World Cup final. Moore looks at Carling and says: ‘Well, we made poor decisions in that game.’ I thought there was going to be a stand-up row in my first team meeting.”
Best, though, was smart. He flattered some egos and told the team they had more to offer than driving mauls and scrums. “We were hard-nosed about winning it again but were also determined to play a better style of rugby than we did in 91,” confirms Winterbottom, the straw-haired colossus of the England back row. “Realistically that side should have won four grand slams.” After England had weathered an early storm to beat Scotland 25-7 in Edinburgh and then hammered Ireland 38-9 at Twickenham, even so, nothing was guaranteed.
To say France were revved up in Paris, having lost a feisty World Cup quarter-final four months earlier, was an understatement. “They had publicly said they wanted revenge,” says Simon Halliday, the outstanding Bath three-quarter playing his last season of international rugby. “I remember standing in the tunnel underneath the Parc des Princes alongside the French team. They’d clearly been doing something in their changing room that had caused them to be sweating buckets. They looked very, very aggressive. Brian was walking up and down our line saying: ‘Look at them. It’s one-in, all-in.’ Standing there thinking: ‘Are we ready for this?’ was probably my abiding rugby memory.”
Sure enough, it kicked off big style. The Irish referee Stephen Hilditch eventually sent off two Frenchmen, Vincent Moscato and Grégoire Lascubé, but England’s forwards had collectively pledged to stay cool. “Had we reacted and started swinging like the French it could have all gone tits-up,” Winterbottom says. “I remember Brian saying: ‘If it kicks off again, hold me back.’ Wade Dooley was the same. It was more a mental game than anything else.”
The upshot was a 31-13 victory, followed by a 24-0 drubbing of Wales in the final game. England’s overall tally of 118 points and 15 tries were both records and they conceded only two tries. “We played some bloody good rugby,” Winterbottom says. “We got our game together and managed to unleash the likes of Guscott and Underwood but it was the whole mindset of the team that stood out.”
Fast forward to this weekend and the boys of ’92 are similarly unanimous: if the 2017 side emulate their predecessors they should be properly proud. “I think it would be a monumental achievement,” Winterbottom says. “It took me nine years just to win one grand slam. Given this side are so young, it should also be the platform for them to move on and really dominate. They could become the best England side ever.”
Best, though, knows from experience not to take Ireland lightly: “I remember us losing 17-3 in 1993. In all honesty, we were lucky to get three. They blew us off the park. Before the match even the armed police guarding us were saying: ‘Jesus, you’re big. Take it easy on our boys.’ Then Eric Elwood kicked off, the ball came down with snow on it and they just piled into us. I remember thinking: ‘We’re going to do well to come out of here alive.’
“As the concierge at our Dublin hotel said to me the next morning: ‘There’s been many a dream lost across the Irish Sea.’ Everyone is eyeballs out to stop you but I hope and pray England do it this time. I would say they’re not as good as the 1992 squad because that was a special crop of players but they’re young.” Win or lose this weekend, England’s rosiest days could be ahead of them.
• Peter Winterbottom is organising the Clock to the Rock charity cycle ride in September. Click here for further details.
Paris match
The proposed merger between Racing 92 and Stade Français feels like a defeat for European professional rugby. If a city the size of Paris cannot sustain two Top 14 clubs, where does that leave some of France’s smaller provincial sides? Moreover, quite apart from the looming redundancies on the playing side, what about the two sets of fans? There is also the uncomfortable fact, for those in charge of safeguarding the integrity of the league, that the two clubs are due to meet on the season’s penultimate weekend. Imagine, say, Bristol and Bath amalgamating this week and their respective backers trying to sell it as brilliant news? These are increasingly significant times for all those involved in shaping professional club rugby’s future.
And another thing …
This column is dedicated to the memory of our Guardian colleague, Dan Lucas, who passed away suddenly over the weekend at the age of 31. Dan loved his rugby and his ceaseless enthusiasm was a particular example to us all. As recently as Saturday tea-time he was in charge of our minute-by-minute blog on the Calcutta Cup match at Twickenham, signing off with the words: “Join me next week for the final round. Bye!” You will forever remain with us in spirit, Dan.
