Six Nations finale against Italy was a helter-skelter end-of-season romp with anthems – but England are on the up
Welcome to Twenty20 rugby union. Proper Test matches are not supposed to be like this, with such a greedy emphasis on keeping the scoreboard clicking without necessarily doing the nitty gritty. Never mind the quality, just keep checking the Roman numerals. It is not the way international players are trained to think.
No wonder England occasionally struggled for rhythm in the bright lunchtime sunshine. Ultimately they got to their half-century but, in many ways, it was their least satisfying fixture of the championship, a helter-skelter end-of-season romp with anthems. Chris Robshaw would have loved his injury-time try to have rounded off a 60-point margin of victory but there was only a brief moment when it looked likely to happen.
Too often they seemed to forget that the smartest way to skewer average teams like Italy is to be direct before flinging it hopefully wide. "Earning the right" is the customary phrase and England did not always pay their dues. By far their most dangerous passages came when they played it straight rather than loose, when Mike Brown, Luther Burrell or Manu Tuilagi took it up the middle to commit defenders. It felt an odd decision to remove Burrell prematurely; the big Northampton centre has been one of the players of the tournament and did not obviously seem to be injured.
It was just as well from England's point of view, then, that Italy also seemed affected by the unusual arithmetic of the occasion. How much harder the visitors would have had to work had the Azzurri played the way they used to: keeping it tight, scrummaging remorselessly, stopping England from gaining much tempo. By attempting to match their opponents at glorified sevens, they played straight into English hands.
Sure, there were flashes of excellence, normally when Brown and Owen Farrell were in the vicinity, but New Zealand would probably have nudged 80 points in similar circumstances. The precision, the ruthlessness, the artfully applied scalpel: England did not show enough of it here and will not win a World Cup, their ultimate aim, until they do.
In that respect Stuart Lancaster and his fellow coaches still have a fair amount of work to do. Jack Nowell finally scored a Test try but his solitary dart against a tiring defence was the only try contributed by England's two wingers in the tournament. Jonny May can be relied upon to produce the odd spark of unorthodox brilliance but he is turning inside and running sideways too often to be the consistently lethal threat he should be. He was not at his best here, which will have disappointed no one more keenly than himself.
Between now and the World Cup next year, Lancaster will probably examine some of the other options fizzing around: Christian Wade, Marland Yarde, Tuilagi and the Bath flier Semesa Rokoduguni may yet feature on the wings at some point, although Chris Ashton still has a lot of ground to make up. A six-day turnaround from the Wales game may well have led to a few more heavy legs at the Stadio Olimpico but the All Blacks will be a much sterner test of their attacking prowess than a distracted Italy, whose players are currently unsure what their domestic playing structure will look like next season.
If the management are honest – and they surely will be – they will acknowledge that England left too many points out on the field in this Six Nations too often for comfort. The 14 tries scored by Robshaw's side in five games has been bettered once – in 2009 – in the past nine seasons but at least a couple more should have been racked up in Scotland and a few more slipped through their fingers against Ireland and Wales. Here, a slightly ambitious pass from Farrell gave Mako Vunipola too much to do with the line beckoning and May was unable to react quickly enough when his best opportunity finally arrived in the left corner.
Then again, England have done an awful lot right this season. They are still young and scored more tries in this 80 minutes than they managed in their entire Six Nations campaign last season. Had the closing moment of the French game turned out slightly differently they would now have completed a grand slam. As Lancaster correctly stressed the future still looks excitingly bright; when injured Lions such as Dan Cole, Tom Croft, Alex Corbisiero and Geoff Parling are also back in business it will be fascinating to see what heights this squad can reach.
It should not be forgotten, either, that Farrell is now up there with the world's best kickers; marksmen like that can win you games whether you score tries or not. England need to be peaking next year, not this, and no one with a pair of eyes can dispute they are heading in an upward direction. They will not need telling that sporting life has a tendency to get even with teams who start believing their own publicity.
Furthermore, they have already gone a long way towards restoring the faith of a previously jaded public. The next crunch fixture between England and Italy will be in the heat and humidity of inland Brazil in the football World Cup in June. Would Roy Hodgson settle for playing a little bit loosely at times and still sticking seven goals past the opposition? You bet he would. Reported by guardian.co.uk 5 hours ago.
Welcome to Twenty20 rugby union. Proper Test matches are not supposed to be like this, with such a greedy emphasis on keeping the scoreboard clicking without necessarily doing the nitty gritty. Never mind the quality, just keep checking the Roman numerals. It is not the way international players are trained to think.
No wonder England occasionally struggled for rhythm in the bright lunchtime sunshine. Ultimately they got to their half-century but, in many ways, it was their least satisfying fixture of the championship, a helter-skelter end-of-season romp with anthems. Chris Robshaw would have loved his injury-time try to have rounded off a 60-point margin of victory but there was only a brief moment when it looked likely to happen.
Too often they seemed to forget that the smartest way to skewer average teams like Italy is to be direct before flinging it hopefully wide. "Earning the right" is the customary phrase and England did not always pay their dues. By far their most dangerous passages came when they played it straight rather than loose, when Mike Brown, Luther Burrell or Manu Tuilagi took it up the middle to commit defenders. It felt an odd decision to remove Burrell prematurely; the big Northampton centre has been one of the players of the tournament and did not obviously seem to be injured.
It was just as well from England's point of view, then, that Italy also seemed affected by the unusual arithmetic of the occasion. How much harder the visitors would have had to work had the Azzurri played the way they used to: keeping it tight, scrummaging remorselessly, stopping England from gaining much tempo. By attempting to match their opponents at glorified sevens, they played straight into English hands.
Sure, there were flashes of excellence, normally when Brown and Owen Farrell were in the vicinity, but New Zealand would probably have nudged 80 points in similar circumstances. The precision, the ruthlessness, the artfully applied scalpel: England did not show enough of it here and will not win a World Cup, their ultimate aim, until they do.
In that respect Stuart Lancaster and his fellow coaches still have a fair amount of work to do. Jack Nowell finally scored a Test try but his solitary dart against a tiring defence was the only try contributed by England's two wingers in the tournament. Jonny May can be relied upon to produce the odd spark of unorthodox brilliance but he is turning inside and running sideways too often to be the consistently lethal threat he should be. He was not at his best here, which will have disappointed no one more keenly than himself.
Between now and the World Cup next year, Lancaster will probably examine some of the other options fizzing around: Christian Wade, Marland Yarde, Tuilagi and the Bath flier Semesa Rokoduguni may yet feature on the wings at some point, although Chris Ashton still has a lot of ground to make up. A six-day turnaround from the Wales game may well have led to a few more heavy legs at the Stadio Olimpico but the All Blacks will be a much sterner test of their attacking prowess than a distracted Italy, whose players are currently unsure what their domestic playing structure will look like next season.
If the management are honest – and they surely will be – they will acknowledge that England left too many points out on the field in this Six Nations too often for comfort. The 14 tries scored by Robshaw's side in five games has been bettered once – in 2009 – in the past nine seasons but at least a couple more should have been racked up in Scotland and a few more slipped through their fingers against Ireland and Wales. Here, a slightly ambitious pass from Farrell gave Mako Vunipola too much to do with the line beckoning and May was unable to react quickly enough when his best opportunity finally arrived in the left corner.
Then again, England have done an awful lot right this season. They are still young and scored more tries in this 80 minutes than they managed in their entire Six Nations campaign last season. Had the closing moment of the French game turned out slightly differently they would now have completed a grand slam. As Lancaster correctly stressed the future still looks excitingly bright; when injured Lions such as Dan Cole, Tom Croft, Alex Corbisiero and Geoff Parling are also back in business it will be fascinating to see what heights this squad can reach.
It should not be forgotten, either, that Farrell is now up there with the world's best kickers; marksmen like that can win you games whether you score tries or not. England need to be peaking next year, not this, and no one with a pair of eyes can dispute they are heading in an upward direction. They will not need telling that sporting life has a tendency to get even with teams who start believing their own publicity.
Furthermore, they have already gone a long way towards restoring the faith of a previously jaded public. The next crunch fixture between England and Italy will be in the heat and humidity of inland Brazil in the football World Cup in June. Would Roy Hodgson settle for playing a little bit loosely at times and still sticking seven goals past the opposition? You bet he would. Reported by guardian.co.uk 5 hours ago.