England spinning out of control as they get ever more desperate
WHERE are you, let’s be having you’ are the infamous words shouted by Delia Smith at half-time during one of Norwich’s relegation battles. Throw this rant forward 16 years and Delia could be asking the same question of England.
Eddie Jones’ men are individually and collectively so far from their best, and we are witnessing it on the most brutal of stages. Two pre-tournament potential Lions captains in Maro Itoje and Owen Farrell look to be playing with deep angst and frustration. Itoje, in particular, who has always walked a tightrope with officials, has been refereed off the pitch. A wonderful, dominating player seems to be forcing his game, desperately trying to make a difference, but in doing so becoming a one-man penalty machine.
But it is not just Itoje. England’s penalty count for the last three games is 41. International coaches target fewer than ten a game. And England have played Italy, where a maximum of six or seven should be a target. It all points to something deeper, and unsettling, within the side.
Discipline underpins all team sport but it does not just refer to the laws of the game. It is accountability to turn up and to do your job. In rugby union it is to run the right lineout drill, the right backs shape, to target the shoulder of a certain defender, to create space, to constantly communicate both sides of the ball. When discipline is lost, sides flounder.
They are being squeezed by both the referee and themselves. In desperation to change the game in their favour, they are spinning out of control.
There is, of course, a French elephant in the room. But put referee Pascal Gauzere’s decision-making in the defeat to Wales aside for a second, if that’s possible. England had recovered to make it 24-24. After all that effort to drag themselves up to parity, they imploded, showing the lack of clarity of thought and the stress levels in this team.
This talent-laden side playing at their finest would have recovered, consolidated and then blown past the opposition. More confounding still is, at times, they were at their blunt-force best, as shown in the lead-up to Anthony Watson’s try. This glimpse of a high-tempo, collision-winning England that we have come to know must leave the coaches and players scratching their heads.
They will naturally point to Gauzere’s refereeing, and rightly so. He has subsequently admitted fault but this will not appease England nor does it change the result. The Louis Rees-Zammit knock-on for the second questionable try is tough but, slowed down under the TMO’s microscope, there is an argument to let it slide.
But his handling of matters around the first try was, to put it mildly, appalling. To allow Farrell time to talk to his team, while acknowledging Dan Biggar’s request to notify him when time restarts, felt almost complicit. Farrell’s outrage was fair but his remonstrations fell on deaf ears as the Welsh trotted back to the halfway line.
These decisions would unsettle most sides, and many would certainly not have recovered. Which makes England’s response as impressive as it is disappointing.
It leaves Jones with more questions than answers. How does he unwind his team from this tight, fraught unit, insistent on self-flagellation?
How do the players, facing so many appalling comments on social media, unravel themselves from the grip of outrage and frustration? In a Six Nations like no other, it will require an extraordinary response.
After all that effort to drag themselves up to parity, England then imploded