It is easy to forget this was supposed to be the most open Six Nations in years. England, by retaining their title with a week to spare, have already cantered up the hill like a runaway Cheltenham Gold Cup favourite, leaving several notable records in their wake. Another grandstand finish in Dublin and they can enter the special enclosure reserved for the most elite of champions.
This was hardly Scottish rugby’s proudest weekend but, by anyone’s standards, the ruthlessness with which England carved up their stricken old rivals to equal their highest Calcutta Cup winning margin was impressive. Challenged to play with the tempo, controlled power and accuracy that had previously eluded them, they answered a good few questions with their 61-21 victory, which contained seven tries.
Even if they now finish second at the Aviva Stadium, this is the first time England have claimed back-to-back Six Nations titles while New Zealand’s record for the most successive Test wins by a major nation has been equalled. Under Eddie Jones, though, the only way is relentlessly upwards. In the dressing room on Saturday night there was relatively little back-slapping, with the players unanimous they will not settle for any less than another grand slam and an outright world record.
“We talked about it,” said Dylan Hartley, under whose captaincy England have never been beaten. “We have two options – on one side there’s failure or you can kick on, get better and hit those lofty heights. We don’t want it to be a loss that wakes us up and makes us work harder. We’ve only equalled a record; we’d like to go one further.”
Regardless of Ireland’s defeat in Cardiff on Friday night, in other words, the visitors will be approaching Dublin with an unchanged mind-set. It is 25 years since England last won consecutive slams, a feat beyond even the great Welsh sides of the 1970s, and given Ireland defeated the All Blacks as recently as November there is a clear incentive to supersede New Zealand’s 18-Test run as well. In an ideal world England would be looking forward to a showdown with the All Blacks this year but the global calendar has decreed otherwise. Absurdly the world’s top two ranked teams will not have met for four years when they finally do late next year.
Saturday’s outcome has at least ensured a few more Englishmen will be rubbing shoulders with their Kiwi friends on this summer’s Lions tour. If Friday night in Cardiff was bad news for one or two Irish contenders, the Calcutta Cup proved a horrendous black hole for some fancied Scottish hopefuls. On this evidence Warren Gatland can hardly take Finn Russell ahead of George Ford, for all the Glasgow fly-half’s attacking elan, while Jonathan Joseph, Joe Launchbury, Courtney Lawes and Joe Marler also enhanced their claims significantly. Unless Ireland, as has happened in the past, mount a late surge there is a decent argument for 17 English squad members boarding the plane south.
The midfield is a particularly fascinating area now that Ford, Owen Farrell and Joseph, who completed a hat-trick of tries off first-phase ball that even Jeremy Guscott would have coveted, are really starting to purr. In the event of Jonathan Sexton receiving an untimely bang, Gatland needs a fly-half other than Farrell capable of slotting seamlessly into a Test match and Ford’s instinctive relationship with the latter gives him an obvious advantage. Playing outside them, says Joseph, is to enjoy five-star service. “When the sun’s out, the forwards are on the front foot, it’s a dream. It makes our job on the outside so much easier because the way they play creates massive amounts of space for us. All we have to do is hold our feet, pick the right holes and the rest is done.”
Given Joseph was left out of the Italy match and was last seen going through the motions for a losing Bath side against Bristol, this was also a decent advertisement for Jones’s motivational methods. The coach was still demanding more at half-time when England led 30-7, already beyond the reach of injury-depleted visitors, urging his players to be “ruthless” and “behave like the No1 team in the world”. No side finishes off mediocre opposition more reliably than the All Blacks but carry on like this and England will not be miles behind.
It is further evidence of the “attitude shift” that Jones has been looking to instil. In Oxford during the fallow week the players had what Ford describes as “an honest meeting” to discuss why, results apart, they had not played to their full potential. “We weren’t down in the dumps by any stretch of the imagination but what we talked about was how to get better in our performances,” confirmed Ford. “The big thing from that meeting was how we start games. We had a good two weeks’ preparation and we could feel a good performance brewing.”
All it needed was an early catalyst, foolishly provided by a rash tackle by Fraser Brown on Elliot Daly which was fortunate to attract only a yellow card. In the blink of an eye Joseph had outpaced a flat-footed Alex Dunbar, Farrell had dismissed any notion of a lack of fitness by slotting both the conversion and a subsequent penalty and Scotland were looking at an instant 10-0 deficit. When more slick interplay from Farrell and Ford set up Joseph again in the 24th minute to make it 20-0, a Scottish victory was marginally less likely than the Loch Ness monster appearing in the River Thames.
From there it was simply a matter of how many points England would score. For once England’s much-vaunted “finishers” had only cameo roles, although Danny Care gleefully pocketed a brace of tries. Scotland, by then, were ravaged by injuries, had a scrum-half on the wing and, despite two tries from Huw Jones, looked utterly deflated. Vern Cotter, their coach, compared the experience to the day his Clermont Auvergne side lost 46-6 to Saracens on the same ground but there is also increasing evidence to suggest the Six Nations is becoming harder work for away teams.
Aside from Rome and England’s last-gasp success in Cardiff, the home team have won every other fixture, something for England fans to remember en route across the Irish Sea. Jones’s side, though, have all but forgotten how to lose and are showing no desire to shake the pleasurable habit. Nor do they need to fret about bonus points. A high-quality Six Nations tournament already has worthy champions.
