NICK CAIN
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NOW comes the acid test of England‘s attacking progress. When Steve Borthwick side face New Zealand in Dunedin on Saturday they will be confronted by a team which will not leak soft tries in the way the Japan did in Tokyo a week ago.
England will have to show guile, cohesion, patience, as well as flair, if they are to score tries against New Zealand – and eight Red Rose touchdowns is not likely to be part of the script.
This is not because the All Black defensive line is impermeable, because, if England are good enough, they will find holes – however, with the exception of South Africa, there is no team which matches New Zealand when it comes to Scrooge-like scramble defence.
The intention here is not to rain on England’s 52-17 parade in Tokyo, because they took their chances well on a hot day on a hard, fast pitch. However, there is no disguising that six of their eight tries owed a great deal to the leeway they were given by a disjointed Japanese defence.
Marcus Smith scored after the Japanese line parted like the Red Sea after a dummy by the fly-half, which followed on from a long lineout throw fielded by Ollie Lawrence. Next, Immanuel Feyi-Waboso strolled over unmarked from a Smith cut-out pass after Japan were left hopelessly short of numbers out wide. After that Henry Slade scored from an accurate but almost unchallenged Smith cross-kick, while Alex Mitchell scooted over untouched after the Japanese fringe ruck defence bought his dummy.
The Japanese lapses continued after the break with Mitchell drawing two tacklers before putting Ben Earl over scot-free, and concluded when Harry Randall was given an open door to the try-line with no sign of any Japanese guards at a ruck.
The balance between attack and defence is much more acute in top tier international rugby, and England can expect very few of the ‘gimmes’ they were given by Japan to be replicated by New Zealand. It is why the basketball scoring we saw in far too many Premiership matches last season does not serve England well in either defence or attack – making defence too fragile and attack rewarded too easily.
It is a lack of rigour that England will have to address against New Zealand, and it also applies to discipline on the field. England’s coaching team must address the issue ahead of the two-Test series, especially after the two yellow cards they received against Japan – Smith’s for a late challenge, and Charlie Ewels for a dangerous tackle upgraded to a red card on review – were not due to pressure.
England were penalised 15 times to Japan’s 13 by French referee Luc Ramos, and with that sort of preamble going into an away series in New Zealand they can expect to be under close scrutiny by referees Nika Amashukeli (Georgia) in Dunedin, and Nic Berry (Australia) in Auckland.
Keeping disciplinary errors to a minimum is mandatory rather than optional if England are to beat the All Blacks.
Last, but not least, as stated in this column frequently, England’s scrum has to be rock-steady. That means having veterans Joe Marler and Dan Cole, the best two props in the squad, ready to endure two 80-minute shifts.
Borthwick should have learned from England’s late scrum collapse in the World Cup semi-final against South Africa, after he replaced loose-head Marler and tight-head Cole, that the bench back-up is too vulnerable, and that he cannot weaken his scrum.
This is made even more pressing because New Zealand consider the scrummaging strength of their props to be at a high point, with powerful starters Ethan De Groot (loose-head) and Tyrel Lomax (tight-head) backed up by giants like Tamaiti Williams and the 22 stone (140kg) newcomer Pasilio Tosi.
The All Blacks have clocked that England are reliant on two veterans to make their scrum competitive, and they will aim to push the dial into the red – while Marler and Cole’s mission is to force them to blow a gasket by producing an unyielding 160 minutes.
The scrum is not always a decisive factor, especially with the erratic refereeing it is subjected to – but any side not prepared for the strongman battle to be decisive is always in danger of being smashed, and having its attacking game neutered.
Borthwick is living dangerously in that regard.
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