You can’t fault him. George Ford was given his opportunity; George Ford duly took it. But it was not the kind of occasion to render any findings definitive. Not that that was his fault. Alongside his indefatigably excellent skipper, Ford was the best player on the field, finding space in the Samoan defence even with time up. Had his team-mates’ handling been sharper he might have orchestrated a rout. If only it had ever been that kind of evening.
As wave after wave of drizzle began to sweep across Twickenham, it was clear that playing in this, the “sandwich” game between the more established of the southern hemisphere’s powers, was to become the thankless task it so often is for the untested, rather than the golden opportunity. Wave after wave of drizzle, accompanied by the kind of waves that don’t wash so lightly over the exposed – those made of furious Islander flesh and bone. Throw in the floodlit nature of the contest and that other, most contemptible wave, the Mexican, which started its sweep as early as the 15th minute, and you could understand if this were not the game Ford chose for his big chance.
But while others around him struggled with the wet ball, the torpor of the occasion and the shaken confidence of this England team, Ford made of it what he could. He buzzes round a rugby field with a heads-up precision, never happier than when directing matters with ball in hand. We have seen it at club level. It is the very foundation on which calls for his inclusion have been based; it is what most marks him out as different from the taller, more belligerent alternative that England have settled on recently – an eye for a gap and the pace to go through it.
He looked the most confident of England’s players, making his first notable intervention with a sweet punt over the head of David Lemi, after Owen Farrell, playing at centre to accommodate him, had fumbled an awkward ball with his first touch. Ford is a playmaker, but he knows how to manage a game too. England’s best moments in those thankless early stages, when the game was live and Samoa in the mood, featured Ford.
His partnership with Farrell hit its high point at the end of the first quarter, when he looped round his old mate, who took the ball to the line and released it sweetly in what was the highlight of his own performance. Ford collected and fed Mike Brown, who combined with Jonny May to send the latter away to the line.
That was England’s only try of the first half, but early in the second their nerves were finally settled – and again it was Ford who saw beyond the ground-level carnage. His cross-kick to Anthony Watson was one of those that qualifies as a kick-pass, so sweetly and unerringly was it delivered on the hoof. Daylight on a wet, floodlit night had been established.
As impressive as all of this was, though, it was the manner in which he handled the obvious attention the Samoan minders had reserved for him that spoke volumes. Each of their back row sought him ought at some point or other, ball held well out of his reach. Each time he took them on, hardly with a text-book tackle, but enough gusto to stop them at the point of contact.
And then there was the way he handled their attentions when in possession himself. The most obvious instance of this came early in the second half, when Jonny Leota rushed up to clobber him high with a hit he saw yellow for. A penalty had already been awarded elsewhere, and Ford leaped matter-of-factly to his feet, without so much as a plaintive glance at his assailant, and rushed off to the mark, ready to play. The boy has spirit, too.
Can we answer the big questions yet, the ones that stand between him and the berth so many of England’s fiercer critics would like to see him fill as a matter of course? We can’t from a contest like this. Those who have watched him for Bath have seen him implode at the tee. He is plenty young enough for this concern to be overcome, but Stuart Lancaster is preoccupied for now with the World Cup in less than a year. He clearly feels more confident with Farrell lining up those crucial kicks against the big boys, even without any meaningful game time behind him, such as he has lacked this autumn.
The experiment of playing him at 12 was not positive. The problem is less his positional awareness or technical gifts for the new position, but, as it has been all autumn, that patent lack of match fitness. At his best, he can playmake, as he showed in the last Six Nations, but off form his lesser pace extrapolates itself into an ugly clumsiness that does him a disservice. He did not shine here again, never less than when Ken Pisi went straight through him in the second half and he kicked the ball away in an offside position.
At the moment, the virtue of playing Farrell at 12 is purely to have him around to kick the goals, which makes it a serious one. But as well as Ford kicked here, it was not the kind of high-stakes occasion for us to judge whether he might be able to assume those responsibilities any time soon. He really needs to start against Australia next weekend. Probably won’t, though.
