SHOWING LANCASTER HOW IT’S DONE
The captain wearing the No7 jersey had a decision to make. His side were three points down with not long to go and had just been awarded a penalty within range. Did he go for the three points that would have tied the scores or go for a lineout and a move which, if successful and followed by a conversion, would have left their opponents needing to score a try to win and with little time to manufacture it?
Richie McCaw opted for the lineout. New Zealand were trailing South Africa 20-17 at Ellis Park in Johannesburg in July with six minutes to go having been largely outplayed. They had in the week worked out a strategy for such an eventuality, reckoning the game would be close and would more than probably come down to a play close to the end.
It was not just a lineout they went for, but a rehearsed one. While their head coach Steve Hansen had spent much of the week railing about the failure of the lawmakers to protect sides trying to defend a driving maul, the All Blacks were on the training field devising a ploy that would optimise their chances of scoring a try from an attacking lineout. They stacked the front and back with jumpers but the ball was thrown into what became a hole in the middle that was filled by McCaw running from the scrum-half position for a try that looked remarkably simple but was the result of planning.
So when another captain with seven on his back, Chris Robshaw, was put in the same position against Wales at Twickenham on Saturday, although there were three rather than six minutes remaining, with his side trailing by three points and opted for a lineout rather than attempt to tie the scores, the assumption was that England had been working in training for this exact moment and that they had a routine that would surprise Wales.
Er, no.
Robshaw stood at the front of the lineout, received the throw and was bundled into touch. Where New Zealand had expected to score in Johannesburg, England merely hoped, the difference between black and white. Robshaw made the wrong call because England did not have a move that enhanced their chances of scoring a try, one that days of analysis by Wales would not have revealed. The surprise was that there was no surprise. Perhaps they were trying to be counter intuitive, but England had by then unravelled.
At the point when they should have taken control, seven points ahead with Wales forced to play three players out of position behind the scrum, they lost their grip. Wales’s bench, especially behind the scrum, seemed to lack game-changers, reflecting the injuries they had already suffered, but it was Lloyd Williams, a scrum-half playing on the wing, who made the try that brought them back into the game; in contrast, when England lost Ben Youngs and Billy Vunipola, two of their most effective players on the night, the fault lines were exposed.
The reaction to England’s defeat has verged on the hysterical, as if the hosts had a divine right to win. Their head coach, Stuart Lancaster, is a strict headmaster on the one hand but too nice on the other, not up to it along with Robshaw. Why was all this not pointed out before the match when the common belief, and this column was no exception, was that England would win? It is not as if they have been knocked out of the World Cup, even if no side has gone on to win the trophy after losing a pool match. The obituaries have been written when they are still very much alive.
It has been asserted many times this week that England lost the match, something that was not said in Johannesburg after McCaw’s try a couple of months ago. Just as New Zealand’s skill then was applauded, so Wales, by going wide rather than straight as England’s defence expected, Jamie Roberts supplying the pass to Lloyd Williams, created the try that brought them level, skilful play under pressure.
While invective has been heaped on Lancaster, his opposite number Warren Gatland has not received the credit in reverse. Had Twickenham followed up an approach to him made in 2007, he would probably now be among the hordes who sleep in the House of Lords such is the difference he has made to Wales despite the lack of impact made by the regions in Europe during that time and, in recent years, in the Guinness Pro 12.
Under him, Wales have developed New Zealand’s trait of seamlessly being able to replace players despite not having the same depth or quality to call on. During the last World Cup final, the All Blacks were down to their fourth choice fly-half, Stephen Donald, who interrupted a fishing holiday to answer an injury crisis. And kick the penalty that brought the Webb Ellis Cup back to the country after 24 years.
Wales had at Twickenham that same ability to stare adversity in the face and not back down, a granite hardness that England lacked, chiselled in Gatland’s image; it won them the match. Wherever he has gone, Gatland creates an environment of self and mutual belief, getting players to reach heights they did not think they were capable of. He has an experience Lancaster, in his first World Cup campaign, lacks and if England fail to make the last eight, Lancaster should not be summarily dismissed. While both coaches have a strong management team, no one is in any doubt that Gatland is in charge and calls the shots. Lancaster has to make himself seen in the same way.
It is a wonder that a French club has not been waving a cheque in front of Gatland, inviting him to fill in the amount; Italy should offer to double it. Wales under him have risen to second in the world rankings and if, unlike Lancaster, he has not tasted success against his native New Zealand, he has, despite assorted disadvantages, led Wales to their most consistently successful period since the 1970s. Never mind Robshaw’s brain fade at the end, Wales earned the victory at Twickenham.
Gatland ensured his team enjoyed the moment but no more. He knows how fortunes in a World Cup can oscillate, up one match and down the next. When you have climbed one hurdle, you have to look only at the next one. For England that is Australia at Twickenham, a fixture they have won in the last two years.
SPOTLIGHT WILL BE ON THE OFFICIALS
The heat will be on and not just on England. One report this week, citing “refereeing chiefs”, claimed Wales kicked three penalties that should not have been awarded. Saturday’s match official Romain Poite, a strong official who in the past has not been afraid to make tough calls against the home side, including sending Paul O’Connell to the sin-bin at Thomond Park, has been warned, but what should be remembered is that one of the buzzwords of the tournament organisers is integrity. It has to be seen to apply on Saturday: a knockout stage without the hosts should not be considered unthinkable.
What the “refereeing chiefs” did not talk about was that England were fortunate not to be down to 13 players during the last quarter: Brad Barritt’s late tackle on his opposite number Scott Williams, which ended the Welshman’s tournament, not only went unpunished (the penalty would have been well within the range of Dan Biggar) but was not replayed on the big screen, while Tom Wood received a retrospective yellow card for kicking Liam Williams in the head who then went off with concussion. And, as the former South Africa referee Jonathan Kaplan pointed out, some dubious scrum penalties that earned England six points.
Who decides what is shown on the big screen at Twickenham and thereby influences referees? Hansen raised his concerns about this last year and the integrity of the tournament demands that the hosts are treated the same as all the other 19 participants. The host nation has enough going for it, home advantage, no short turnarounds and, in England’s case, their usual training base. If that is not enough, so be it.
IS THERE NO ROOM FOR MAVERICKS IN WORLD RUGBY?
One topic this week has been how modern players are more programmed than their amateur counterparts, the result of the vastly increased time they spend together. Those with a maverick streak tend to be overlooked: Danny Cipriani was left out of England’s squad, Danny Care has been reduced to a tackle bag, James Hook was only called up by Wales this week and Quade Cooper seems to be deemed by the Wallabies too big a risk for major opponents.
It used to work the other way: David Campese, feted now, was hardly a hero in Australia when he blundered on his own line in 1989 and handed Ieuan Evans the try that won the third and decisive Test for the Lions. “Not a team man” was among the mud flung his way.
Stuart Lancaster has been criticised for, it seems, leading his players rather than giving them a long rein. Before the last World Cup, Warren Gatland, reflecting on a failure to follow up the 2008 grand slam with another Six Nations title, said that a problem was that he had tried to empower his players, to get them more involved in decision-making off the field because in the heat of the battle they were the ones who had to make the calls.
It failed, he said, because the players were more comfortable with being told what to do, with having everything laid down for them and someone clearly in charge. He reversed the policy before the 2011 tournament and the result is history. Lancaster, reportedly, feels the same way and a theme running through some of their big matches on his watch is that there is a response when they trail at the interval, as they did in Cardiff last February, and a tailing off when they are ahead and the opposition tweaks its approach, as happened last Saturday.
England struggled to deal with the unexpected at Twickenham, just as Wales had at the Millennium Stadium, and so rugby union at the top level has come to resemble American Football, revolving around a few plays that have been honed on the training ground that provide the element of surprise.
New Zealand are different. After the early World Cup exit in 2007, their then head coach Sir Graham Henry decided the players had not been given enough responsibility and created a looser framework for them to operate in. Along came the World Cup.
In 1978, on the eve of a Test against Wales at the old National Stadium in Cardiff, a group of All Blacks plotted what to do should the game, as they expected, go down to the wire and they needed a kick to win. They waited until the captain, Graham Mourie, had gone to bed, knowing he would disapprove, and worked out a way to con the referee into giving them a penalty.
There they were in their hotel practising diving techniques, led by the second rows Andy Haden and Frank Oliver. And, sure enough, with a couple of minutes to go and New Zealand trailing by two points, Haden launched himself out of a lineout as if he had been charged at by a bull and up went the arm of the referee Roger Quittenton. The boot of Brian McKechnie did the rest. “We just couldn’t lose,” said Oliver years later. “We had to do something and practice made perfect.”
UNDERDOGS BITE AND BITE HARD
A Feature of the World Cup so far, although the final two rounds may be different as injuries and fatigue kick in, has been the defensive effort shown by the emerging nations.
There have been 14 matches between tier one nations and those in tiers two and three. One produced a notable shock, Japan’s victory over South Africa, and Canada pushed Italy all the way, although given their lowly position in the world rankings, can the Azzurri be described as tier one?
There has yet to be a cricket score, although Australia’s 65-3 victory over Uruguay may reflect the England XI’s top order, and work has clearly gone into not just defensive formations but tackling technique: Namibia holding the All Blacks to 24 points in the second half is something that would have been well beyond them in the last tournament.
The minnows have performed better in the second half in five of the 14 games, although four failed to score a point after the break. Fiji held Australia to 10-10 in the final 40 minutes while Japan had trailed the Springboks at the break.
Some of the collapses, most notably Georgia’s against Argentina, were down to yellow cards. The trend is upwards even if only one of the 13 losing margins was in single figures, Canada against Italy. They need more exposure.
WORLD CUP DECISIONS ARE FAR EASIER FROM THE STANDS
Stuart Lancaster has been criticised for his selection against Wales, in particular the decision to drop George Ford for Owen Farrell at fly-half, but you can understand his dilemma.
One newspaper on Saturday had a panel of experts giving their views on the selection, three for Ford and three for Farrell.
The former England coach Sir Clive Woodward was among those opting for Farrell, quoted as saying he was a player as hard as nails with a big-match temperament. In his own newspaper column a couple of days later, he wrote he would have gone for Ford to maintain England’s attacking threat.
Decisions, decisions. The World Cup is a much better place if you get them right.
STILL WANT MORE?
• Get all the latest World Cup news on our special site, where you can get the latest standings, results and fixtures on our digital wallchart, listen to the latest edition of our World Cup podcast and even enter a competition to win VIP tickets to the final and experience the coin toss.
• Robert Kitson on why the Rugby World Cup schedule is unfair, and how it can change.
• England choked under pressure against Wales with mind-numbing decisions, writes Graham Henry.
• And to subscribe to the Breakdown, just visit this page, find ‘The Breakdown’ and follow the instructions.
