WHY LESS CAN MEAN MORE WHEN IT COMES TO INTERNATIONALS
IF FAMILIARITY can breed contempt, rarity can breed excitement, anticipation, unpredictability, nerves, muddied thinking and unlikely heroes. All of which we saw at Twickenham last night in an extraordinary 25-25 draw which toyed with your emotions. If England played New Zealand every year, we possibly wouldn't get matches like last night and that would be a shame because they increase the currency of Test match rugby and therefore rugby generally. Less can often mean more although that is a maxim Union treasurers can struggle with.
Familiarity is a big, often unspoken, issue in rugby, especially up here in the northern hemisphere. Top players oppose each other constantly in the three professional leagues and European competitions and then gird their loins again in the Six Nations every February and March.
Then there is the financially driven maximisation and proliferation of Test matches. Wales and England always seem to be playing Australia or the Boks while Argentina are usually grappling somewhere with the French. The Wallabies and Ireland are always playing New Zealand somewhere in the world whether it be Dublin, Auckland, Chicago, Hong Kong or Japan.
What was that famous Neville Cardus cricket quote “Trent Bridge was a lotusland and it was always afternoon and 360 for two.” An element of Groundhog Day creeps in.
Just one major fixture has happily escaped this quasi routine status and that is England v New Zealand despite it being the biggest pay day of all for the concerned parties. Before yesterday these two sides had met just twice since 2014 and one of those contests was an unscheduled World Cup semi-final. Slightly odd but let's not fix what isn't broken. It's the making of the fixture.
The build-up is much more intense, the media articles feel fresher and sharper, the excitement more palpable and genuine. And then we come to the nerves. That strange metaphysical state of gut wrenching, vomit inducing, heart pounding, adrenalin pumping, anxiety which combines hyperactivity with sudden paralysis of mind and body. Most mortals have been there and lived to tell the tale. But it's not pleasant.
I'm a big supporter of Jack van Poortvliet but he was struggling badly with nerves in the first half yesterday, making small mistakes and little hesitations that would never happen if he was in Leicester colours and that were absent in his previous appearances in a white shirt.
A bad call from referee Mathieu Reynal early on when he clearly didn't knock on at the base of a ruck and another 50-50 call when he probably hadn't lifted the ball when turned over didn't help but one thing piled on top of another and he endured a mare. He will come back stronger but it might take a little while and the England camp putting a big arm around him this week.
Twickenham last night with New Zealand in full cry was a totally alien environment for the young scrum-half and they preyed ruthlessly on that. He wasn't the only one to struggle, far from it. How sloppy were the big name England forwards coughing up endless penalties and making a mess of things when camped on the New Zealand line in the opening 65 minutes or so.
There were much better scoring options out wide on a couple of occasions but they were ignored and the positions of strength blown. But at scrum-half there is no hiding place.
The thing about meeting so rarely – by modern day standards anyway – is that the players and moves aren't so familiar. You can study all the match footage you want but that's not remotely the same as tangling in person with your opposite number for the first time.
There is a little mystique and mystery around which is a rare thing these days and a good deal of thinking on your feet is required. Rugby intellect as it is now called, rugby nous to you and me.
Yesterday for example England had no answer for large swathes of the game to New Zealand's confidence and slick execution of their high risk cross field kicking game. Yes, New Zealand have occasionally used the tactic but not as the centre piece of their game and from so deep in their territory. It caught England by surprise even though New Zealand repeated the dose time after time.
England often seem to struggle when teams go off script and use the backs when they are expecting forward confrontation and vice versa. And that introduces the subject of leadership which has vexed Eddie Jones in recent seasons. We are not talking about the captaincy armband per se, but the ability to think on the hoof and lead by example.
“Familiarity is an unspoken issue in rugby, especially up in the north”
Eddie once, reportedly, suggested that it was an education thing – state v private – although in fairness I rather think that comment was taken a little out of context. Let's not go down that rabbit hole because it's much more likely to be a coaching problem, or to be precise, an over coaching problem.
Yesterday was much more a case of needing to employ your grey matter and playing what is in front of you which – glory be – is what happened in the final exchanges when England played with the handbrake off and demonstrated what very fine players they are.
That last 15 minutes, playing in extremis and relying on instinct – but with years of hard yards on the training ground and good intelligent coaching as their bedrock – is the template for England. They need to play with that electricity and focus more often.
Do that and Twickenham will regularly rock again, as it did yesterday from the moment centurions Owen Farrell and Brodie Retallick led the teams out on their big day and big Sam Whitelock stood at the sharp end of the New Zealand phalanx as they went through the haka. Those three and Manu and Aaron Smith were the five starting survivors from ten years ago when England won at Twickenham. They don't get to play each other very often but when they do… it tends to be a bit special. Less is more.
