In the end all the speculation and talk of the gamble surrounding Sam Burgess and Owen Farrell and the England midfield came to nothing. The pack had the game won, but England lost because they don’t know who they are.
At half-time the wonder was that Wales were in the game: after 60 minutes England should have been out of sight and when the Welsh backline looked something like a Saturday night sick bay there should have been no way back. Instead, Wales realised they were wrong to try to take England on in a battle of strength. They started to string a few passes together and suddenly realised they were the side who could find space on the outside and the game was there for the winning.
What a turnaround. After a messy first 20 minutes it was obvious that a combination of England line speed in defence, the power of the pack and the speed out wide left them, time and time again, with space outside the Welsh defence. The problem is that two passes were never strung together, because distribution is not this England’s strength.
The lineout purred relatively smoothly. The scrum got the upper hand. Today we should be talking of Tom Youngs becoming a Test player of quality, but we won’t be. Now all the speculation will be whether England’s set piece has come on enough to get past Australia. It will need to or they will be out of the World Cup.
As a coach I had issues with the midfield selection, believing that George Ford probably paid for the sins of others. Every side plays better and more comfortably on the front foot. England more so because the balance and athleticism of the back row and the locks, especially when they are Courtney Lawes and Joe Launchbury, is best displayed. Getting a nudge at the set piece or in the maul also helps the playmaker and when there is only one, as there was against Fiji a week ago and again last night. Back-foot ball is disproportionately damaging.
England don’t pass the ball well in attack and when the only distributor is also the only kicker among the first or second receivers it creates extra problems in that the opposition flankers and centres know who they are going for. Fiji knew they had to get to Ford and that’s what they did, making the outside-half’s life, which he prefers to live on the gain line, a constant problem.
On the front foot Ford’s tactical kicking is on a par with anyone’s. On the back foot the task of landing a kick on a patch of green can be near impossible, the two wings sitting back, waiting for what they know is coming and then running it back. They reduce the kicker’s target area to something so small that the odds on pulling the back three around and out of position are minimal and if they look comfortable it appears to reflect poorly on the kicker, making him look as though he is hoofing the ball away rather than kicking with the aiming of getting the ball back.
And Stuart Lancaster wanted power not panache – understandable perhaps when 18 stone centres are wandering around – so the reasoning was that it made sense to go for 14-stone Farrell rather than 12-stone Ford. And to an extent the operation was a success; just a shame that the patient died.
Farrell was solid and didn’t miss a kick all night. Unfortunately for England, Dan Biggar didn’t either – the drip, drip of three-pointers keeping Wales in the game when they were under the cosh of an England pack winning penalties of its own with such regularity at scrum time.
Then England started to make some strange decisions. Ford came on for Burgess with Farrell shifting to inside‑centre. Why? Burgess had shown considerable discipline, only once being pulled out of position defending a ball to the front of the Welsh lineout. If either centre wasn’t contributing, it was probably Brad Barritt. Then, three minutes from time and three points down Chris Robshaw elected for touch rather than the points and a draw. A ballsy shout. Right up there with the Japanese call against the Springboks. Only the attacking call was followed by the dullest, a throw to the front and England, predictably, were bundled into touch and, one poor lineout later, out of the game.
Lancaster went into this game knowing that a win would vindicate him, a defeat would leave him having to lift his team to beat Australia to stay in their own World Cup. In the end that gamble didn’t matter. The game was lost elsewhere.
