Nick Cain – the RFU should call off their plan for autumn showdown

The England team rescued and brought back to rude health by Eddie Jones is in danger of being sold down the river next season. That the RFU are responsible for putting their momentum in jeopardy, rather than some nefarious Southern Hemisphere plot, beggars belief. However, by courting the support of the Rugby Union for an extra autumn international to be arranged against the on November 4, that is exactly what the RFU have done.
The stampede for cash at the RFU seems to know no limits, with plans to schedule an international between the top two teams in the world outside the autumn window going ahead without any reference to club partners, Premiership Rugby.
Cue uproar and recrimination. The upshot is Premiership Rugby are demanding 50 per cent of the match income, or refusing to release England players from their clubs.
That is exactly the same percentage that the avaricious All Blacks have demanded, so the arithmetic in the proposal hatched by RFU chief executive Ian Ritchie does not add up. Nor does too much else about this proposed fixture. Which is why, even in the unlikely event that the RFU can negotiate a way to giving smaller slices of the pie to those two ‘stakeholders', and still gorge themselves silly on the proceeds, they should abandon the plan.
If the RFU were doing the right thing for the England team they would forget about the All Blacks. Or, at least forget about them as far as 2017 is concerned. If player welfare is truly at the core of the RFU's credo they would already have taken into account that by November most of England's leading players will be banjaxed by the brutal season that is currently underway.
We know from the past experience of every tour in the professional era that by the time the clubs get back their England players in July they will be running on empty. This is because the gruelling demands of a Lions tour will have followed hard on the heels of England's failed bid for a double Grand Slam and world record.
One of the reasons why head coach Jones has taken a relaxed view of a relatively benign autumn 2017 series against Australia, and is because it affords him the chance to rest some of his leading players following the Lions tour.
On current form there could be as many as 20 England players involved in the three Test Lions series against New Zealand this summer. That's why wheeling them out again for their opening match of the autumn campaign against New Zealand would be punitive in every sense. They would be playing against an All Black side, which, apart from ceding home advantage to England, would have everything in their favour.
New Zealand would come into the fixture having played two Tests each against Australia, South Africa and Argentina – with an additional Test against Australia – in the Rugby Championship between the end of August and October 21. This would ensure that they came into the Test against England not only battle-hardened, but also on the wings of a timely two-week break.
By contrast, England's senior match squad would not have played together since March 18 in Dublin. That means a seven-month break from playing together as a Test side before being expected, in their first autumn outing – with no time for a warm-up Test – to recuperate and hit the ground running to beat the world champions.
In terms of the preparation required to beat New Zealand it is the equivalent of manacling both hands behind your own back. Even then, you would not exclude Jones' team doing a Houdini act and emerging triumphant – but it would be the furthest of long shots.
The reality is that, given a level playing field, England have a team with enough strengths to beat New Zealand. Add to that the home advantage they will enjoy when the teams play their next ratified international – at Twickenham in autumn 2018 – and the odds should be in their favour.
Before the autumn internationals got underway at the start of this season – with England and New Zealand again not on each other's fixture lists – Jones said publicly that he was tired of how everybody copied the way New Zealand play. He advocated instead that coaches should find their own way of playing, and in England's case making sure it made the All Blacks feel so uncomfortable that they were beatable.
Ireland got there first, with their landmark win over New Zealand at Soldier Field in Chicago shattering the aura of invincibility that had grown around Steve Hansen's side. It had been puffed up by three wins over a Wales touring side that competed for one and a half Tests, and augmented over the course of an unbeaten 2016 Rugby Championship campaign in which New Zealand's Southern Hemisphere rivals were all at a low ebb.
That the Irish were able to out-hustle, out-muscle, and hit harder on the counter-attack than the All Blacks, to bring their 18-Test record winning run to an end, showed that some of their tactics could be turned on them successfully.
What has also been intriguing are developments in England's game from the autumn into the current Six Nations campaign which indicate that they were also working hard at emulating New Zealand in areas where, until now, the All Blacks have enjoyed exclusive rights.
The keys are to be found in New Zealand's ruthless finishing. Their concern is not dominance in terms of possession or territory – they average about 50 per cent in both areas – so much as the quality of the breaks and support running, and the precision of the execution, especially inside the opposition 22.
The All Blacks are expert at scoring tries from set-pieces in, or near, the opposition 22. Whether from line-outs or scrums their strike rate is exceptional. During the autumn series, despite being hard pressed by Ireland and France, they still averaged almost five points (4.7) from set-piece ball compared to England's two points.
They also averaged more points off line-breaks (3.7 to England's 3.1), and were far more effective at the breakdowns, where, by committing only two men (at 50 per cent of rucks, compared to England's 36 per cent), they create a numerical advantage whether in attack or defence.
However, this Six Nations shows England are catching up. Following a shaky start against France, the quality of their attack has improved incrementally. They took more of their chances than Wales in the Cardiff cauldron, and their second-half break out from the no-tackle trap saw them eventually swamp .
However, it was the All Black-like accuracy of the way they cut to shreds last weekend that indicated they are capable of another quantum leap under Jones. Of their seven tries, three – 's and both 's – were scored from set-pieces deep in the Scottish 22. Jonathan Joseph's hat-trick also came from sustained phase play in the Scots red-zone, while his spectacular second try, and his line-break and offload to put Anthony Watson over, both came from smooth off the top line-out catches by Courtney Lawes a few metres outside the 22.
England have also taken note of how New Zealand's bench has consistently given them a lift to get them over the line in the last ten minutes of close games, with Ben Teo's winning try against France a case in point. Jones may have rebranded his bench as ‘Finishers', but their mission of adding impact and energy in the last knockings is another leaf from the Kiwi book.
If England have set out their stall saying, ‘anything the All Blacks can do, we can do just as well', it still leaves them without a clear point of difference with which to drill into the world champions.
So, where do England find the multi-threat ‘Z Factor' Jones wants to use to get under New Zealand's skin? The answer lies in the bludgeoning size and power they can muster in the pack, and utilising it in a similar way to that employed successfully in the past against New Zealand by South Africa.
The England eight that finished the Six Nations is almost half a stone heavier (2.8kg) per man than New Zealand's autumn pack, and the gap the All Blacks count on in conditioning has narrowed rapidly. Heavy-duty driving mauls used to be an English speciality, and there were signs against the lighter Scots that they are gaining traction again.
Get George Ford or to stick the ball into coffin corner, send in the lurchers on the kick-chase, and crank the siege-machine into action at line-outs and scrums deep in the New Zealand 22. Let Billy Vunipola pick up quick strikes at the base of the scrum and blast round the corner, or concentrate on pick-and-go drives up the middle, Argentina-style, which expose the All Blacks for committing only two men to rucks.
Jones said earlier this season, “The great thing about the Kiwis is their simplicity”. This was in praise of the rapid running-passing game they have unleashed for the last 30 years from unstructured passages of play. By the same token the great thing about England's grinding forward power, whether scrummaging or mauling, is its simplicity. It also relies on kickers with the accuracy of a Jonny Wilkinson, because to kick loosely to the All Blacks is to invite trouble.
The England head coach has stated his belief that to be a great attacking team you first need an extraordinarily good set piece.
New Zealand's is very good, while Jones said before the start of the Six Nations that England's was still short of the required rigour. Based on this campaign, England's pack drill is still a work in progress – but it is another area where significant gains have been made.
The target for Jones has to be to combine those traditional English forward strengths with the commando hit-and-run tactics New Zealand have mastered. The blend he is working on could result in a new style of English rugby which will have the priceless asset of keeping the Kiwis guessing.
Playing New Zealand on November 4 would undermine that strategy by revealing England's hand before it has been fully developed. The fact that Jones will have little time to work on it further between now and then, with the Six Nations over and the Lions looming large, should make the match a non-starter.
Commercial interests do not always dovetail with what is best for the England team, and on this occasion the RFU overtures to the All Blacks are misplaced, and should be kicked into touch.

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