FEATURE Why England can still be a force to be reckoned with

It is very hard indeed for a true rugby follower to accept either of rugby’s traditional superpowers, England or Australia, as underdogs at the group stage of a World Cup. Between them they won three of the first five tournaments up until 2003, but since then the well has run dry.

England have reached two finals (in 2007 and 2019) and Australia one (in 2015) but since then, a desert of underachievement by both nations over the past two or three seasons had, on the eve of the 2023 World Cup, dropped the Red Rose to a lowly eighth in the world rankings, with the Wallabies languishing one spot below them.

Coaching mirages have appeared and vanished with frightening regularity during that period for both countries, with the life-giving water of fresh ideas mostly a figment of the imagination.

Both of their last-minute head-coaching appointees – Eddie Jones with the Wallabies and Steve Borthwick with England – had some cause for celebration after the first round of matches at the group stage, which saw Australia beating Georgia by 35 points to 15 and England overcoming Argentine with some room to spare, winning 27-10 despite playing all but three minutes of the game with only 14 men on the field.

Both Jones and Borthwick will be relieved. It was Eddie’s first victory in six outings since his return home after being sacked by the RFU, and the big Cumbrian’s fourth in 10 attempts after replacing Jones in the England hot-seat.

Both men referenced a couple of areas of improvement in their post-match pressers. For Jones it was the scrum and the attacking kicking game:

“Our attacking kicking was really good. We put [right wing] Mark [Nawaqanitawase] in a number of situations where he really caused the opposition a lot of trouble. Those [the kicking game and the scrum] were two key and promising areas for us.”

For Borthwick it was defence and the kicking game, as implemented in all its forms by his No 10 George Ford:

“I’m sure you [the assembled press] all know there is a higher incidence of drop-goals at World Cups than there is in Test rugby outside of them, and I thought George [Ford] took the [three] opportunities really well today…

“I see his all-round ability as top-class – to run, pass, kick – all top-class. His ability to think clearly in the highest-pressure circumstances is exemplary.

“When he was kicking those drop-goals, he had more time. When he was kicking those high balls, it looked like he had more time. He has more time than other players do, and that is the sign of a top-quality player.”

The common denominator was the influence of the kicking game. For Australia, it is becoming a weapon in attack. The Wallabies have two outstanding aerial receivers in the form of Nawaqanitawase and Suliasi Vunivalu, and they make liberal use of them on the kick-pass to the corners or the quick lob over the top of the line against shorter opponents.

But it was England, rather than Australia who took the most definitive stride forward on the first weekend of the competition. Where the Wallabies overcame a second-tier nation two spots below them in the world rankings, the men in white beat the Pumas – a side ranked two places above them, and one who were installed by popular opinion as the favourites to win pool D. Moreover, they did it with only 14 men on the field, after Tom Curry’s red card in the third minute of the game:

A low ball-in-play match (just under 32 minutes) showcased ‘the best of Leicester’ in all facets of the game.

• Set piece: England won the scrum penalties by two to one while enjoying a 100 per cent return on their own lineout throw – tick.
• Kicking game: they launched 43 kicks for 1074 metres (Tigers were the only side in the Premiership to average over 35 kicks and 1000m per game in 2022-23) – tick.
• Defence: they made 147 tackles at an impressive completion rate of 86 per cent while building 27 fewer rucks than their opponents – tick.

The most impressive aspect of England’s effort was the way in which the kicking game, featuring a high proportion of contestable kicks, protected the defence – either by winning the ball back directly, or by denying any opportunity for a significant return at source.

Another dose of meaningful stats:

• England won all four of the contestable kicks launched by Argentina for a 100 per cent return.
• They achieved positive outcomes on 12 of the 18 contestable kicks that they sent skywards themselves, and 67 per cent represents a significantly above-average dividend.
• Among those positive outcomes, England (partly) balanced the books in the 9^th minutes, by drawing a yellow card on Santiago Carreras for a charging foul on Ford in the action of launching the ‘bomb’; they added four more penalties and six other first touches from situational spin-offs during or after high kicks.

Let’s take a look at some samples, where England did the basics on kick and kick-chase very well indeed; and other areas where they have further scope to improve on counter-attack from the turnover shrapnel derived from them:

From a box-kick by No 9 Alex Mitchell, England are not able to achieve either of their primary directives – to get first touch to the ball by the main chaser (fullback Freddie Steward) or to latch their first jackler (No 8 Ben Earl) on to the first tackle successfully and manufacture a turnover. Nonetheless, this scenario still represents a ‘win’ for the men in white (dressed in blue).

Steward doesn’t win the ball, but he makes the tackle as the first man up. Earl doesn’t pilfer the ball, but he does achieve a five-second slow-down in the recycle. When the ball finally emerges it is both laboured and uncontrolled, and the England D is set up more coherently than the Argentine attack for the next phase:

Ollie Chessum is in the line of sight between the Argentine scrumhalf and his target pod, and a handling error duly results. So far, so good. The problems begin with England’s efforts to convert the resulting five-on-two overlap:

Joe Marchant’s pass stops Elliot Daly in his tracks, and by the time he has regripped the ball precious time has been lost, and Jonny May no longer has a free run down the right side-line.

In the voluntary absence of England’s only other naturally left-sided back (Exeter’s Henry Slade) Daly has a critical role to play moving forward in the tournament, but England still need to learn how best to utilise his passing talents:

This time the boot is on the other foot, with Steward catching a high ball from the Pumas safely. England again have a favourable countering situation with the width of the field available, but in order to get the ball out to May on the wide right it has to move through Daly, not Manu Tuilagi in the passing chain. Daly can make that long cut-out delivery off his left hand, but Manu can only give it straight to Marchant, and the chance evaporates into the thin air of the Stade Marseille.

The final sequence derives from a scrum rather than a kick, but it still announces very much the same theme:

On this occasion England are in good shape with Ford playing behind a pod of forwards and Daly alongside him. If May keeps his depth on the right touch-line there is the option of a kick-pass off Daly’s left boot, and if the ball is moved by hand there is every likelihood of a penetration deep into the Pumas’ 22, but a promising picture is roughly ripped up when Earl unaccountably kicks the ball straight into touch.

Both of the under-pressure head coaches of England and Australia will be relieved that a long-awaited ‘W’ in the win-loss column has kept their critics at arm’s length – at least for the time being.

The Wallabies put away Georgia with reasonable if not outstanding efficiency, but it was the Red Rose’s triumph over Argentina which really caught the eye. Despite being reduced to 14 men for all but three minutes of the game, Borthwick’s England not only withstood the Pumas’ challenge, they pulled away from it steadily where it mattered, on the scoreboard.

Nobody will be too worried that all their 27 points came from the boot. That doesn’t matter, at least for now. They only conceded one try themselves, and the England contestable kicking game and defence worked in well-oiled harmony throughout to deny Argentina easy opportunities to counter. The Pumas were gradually squeezed and suffocated into submission.

It was the closest Steve Borthwick and his assistants have come to replicating their Leicester template successfully on the international stage. England controlled the kicking game at both ends of the field and they set up countering opportunities off the pressure they created, even if they could not take them.

Notice was served that as fast as Australia are developing their attack, England’s defence may be improving even quicker. If those two countries meet at the quarter-final stage, the battle will distinctly historical in character and we will hear the Judge’s gavel – the defence and conservative gameplan of the old country pitched against the youthful attacking vigour of Eddie’s New Age protégés. That would be a battle for the ages indeed.