OUTSPOKEN AND UNMISSABLE… EVERY WEEK
A big part of playing the game at the highest level is rugby intelligence, and in international rugby I consider it to be far more significant in how effective players are than performance stats. You certainly need a good number of players who have it in any squad that wants to be successful, and judged on yesterday's England defeat by Australia in Perth, I'm not convinced they have enough of them.
The coach is part of the search for players with rugby intelligence, because he selects the team. You also have to ask where England's attacking game has gone, because it seems to have disappeared.
Look at the carries that Samu Kerevi and Marika Koroibete made for the Wallabies compared to Joe Cokanasiga. This England team is not as poor in terms of ability as its results indicate, but if you have a Cokanasiga in your side then that guy has got to touch the ball in good positions at least 12 or 15 times a game. It means that there has to be a strategy to bring him into play, and I cannot understand why England are not doing it.
It seems obvious when you look at how much Koroibete and Kerevi want the ball in their hands, and how effective they were when they got it in Perth. It should be exactly the same with a guy who is as big, powerful, and fast as Joe – who would want to see him coming at them full speed?
As a professional player you have so much time to practise different scenarios, whether it's moves involving a power runner like Cokanasiga, or how to play with 14 men, or how to get those line-out or scrummaging drills down so that you can do them blindfold, and always capitalise when you are five metres out.
If you look at New Zealand they have that capability, and they also have plenty of rugby intelligence when it comes to taking their opportunities. The Tom Curry break that led to a scoring chance in the firsthalf should have been finished off, but instead of scoring seven points.
England had to make do with three from an Owen Farrell penalty – and then they let Australia off the hook again by almost immediately conceding another three from a scrum penalty.
Some comments can come back to bite you, and that's the case with Eddie Jones, saying that the Barbarians game had no relevance. Well, it did, because you had a 14-man Australia side repeating what a 14-man Barbarians side had already done to England.
These England players probably need to be harsher on themselves, because the yellow cards from Jonny Hill and Billy Vunipola were gifts to Australia. It may look like a good team on paper, but they have to front up – and Jones has to be brutal before the Second Test in Brisbane and say, “some of you guys could be playing your last games”.
“Jones needs to tell some of his players they could be playing their last games”
That message to some of the older guys was also there when you look at what Henry Arundell and Jack van Poortvliet did by making such a tryscoring impact in such a short time.
England need more aggressive harder running from everybody, where they are doing everything to break the line, and playmakers like Farrell and Marcus Smith need runners in numbers to distribute to.
Having a 10-12 partnership of Smith and Farrell is not the same as the one between George Ford and Farrell, because those two knew each other's game inside out. Smith is used to having a powerful runner outside him at Harlequins, whereas Farrell is another distributor, and you get the impression that he is not the boss in the England backline. All I would say is that if you are picked to play for your country in the way you do your club – as Smith has been – and if he is a fly-half who likes plenty of touches, then give him more of the ball, because that's how you will get the best out of him.
England need to play smarter. If you go 14-9 ahead with a try and a penalty, but then lose your way after conceding a yellow card like Billy Vunipola's – and concede two tries during the next 10 minutes – then you have to recognise that you cannot put yourself in that position and expect to win international matches.
The Wallabies played direct rugby at pace in the final quarter, and now the danger is that if they spread the game and play a little looser, as New Zealand have often done successfully against England, they could clinch the series.
The only positive that England can take away is that the two tries in the last couple of minutes showed that they have got the counter-attacking capability to hurt Australia. However, if you looked at the 30-28 scoreline but didn't see the match, you might think that it was a humdinger. In fact, England were well beaten, outplayed again by 14 men.
The England head coach and leadership group will now have to show how good they are, and how much rugby intelligence they have, by turning around a flattering scoreline and making it a winning scoreline in Brisbane. I don't see that Jones can make too many changes to his lineup, so it is up to the players to react.
For more exclusive stories and all the detailed rugby news you need, subscribe to The Rugby Paper website, digital edition, or newspaper from as little as 14p a day.
If you look at the way Jack Nowell looks for work off his wing and gets himself involved, it makes me wonder why Joe Cockanasiga isn’t doing something similar on the other wing.
Smith, for me, is not the answer at fly-half and playing Farrell with him clearly doesn’t work and neither did the return of Care. God alone knows what the final centre pairing is going to be, given the revolving door of duos we have seen. Steward is pretty solid at full-back and we need to have Arundell get more time on the field, although starting him in the next test is a step too far. Lightning pace and footwork is more effective late on against a tired team and he’s a talent we need to cosset and nurture. Come to think of it Smith’s best England performances were off the bench. I can’t believe Ford is not in the equation and Farrell has been excellent this season at Saracens. So for me, it’s either of them at 10 and Smith back on the bench.