SMITH ‘PLAYED IT TOO SAFE’

MARCUS Smith stood accused of a ‘safety-first mentality’ despite pulling the strings on one of England’s great comebacks.

Clive Woodward was livid with the young flyhalf’s decision to kick the ball dead and “accept” a draw with the final play of Saturday’s game.

No matter that Smith orchestrated England’s great escape from 25-6 down with eight minutes left to play, Woodward felt it reflected a team weakness.

Hailed

Woodward wrote. “If I’d been the England coach I’d have gone absolutely mad.”

Being accused of conservatism is a new one on the Harlequins man.

“If he’d a Quins shirt on he wouldn’t have accepted the draw,” added former teammate Mike Brown.

For 70 minutes, England were definitely lacking, given a rugby lesson.

During that time Jones did feel that Smith was not as aggressive in leading the attack as he needed to be.

But given the way the 23-year-old dug England out of a hole late on, Jones was not about to bag him for ending the game.

Easy

“It’s easy to make a decision on the sideline but the players understood that [referee] Mathieu Raynal was penalising very heavily the attacking ruck,” said the Aussie.

“The players made the decision to not put any more money on the table, to pick up and leave. I don’t have any qualms with that.”

Never before had New Zealand held a 14-point half-time lead and failed to win.

Smith made that possible with his break, a show-and-go followed by that trademark goose-step of his, which led to the first of two Will

Stuart tries, either side of a beauty by Freddie Steward.

Smith took full advantage of New Zealand being down a man in the dying moments and converted Stuart’s second.