England's overrated pack need to find some steel or risk being done by Scotland again
Since England’s demoralising 61-21 win over Scotland in the 2017 Six Nations, Gregor Townsend’s side has put together a five-year run that has seen the Calcutta Cup remain north four times.
Whilst Townsend’s side are renown for wanting to use a lot of width in attack, the last two wins in 2021 and 2022 have really been built on defence, grinding out a four point win at Twickenham and a three point win at Murrayfield.
They limited England to a tryless showing two years ago and last year’s contest saw just one conceded to Marcus Smith on a short side scamper.
Scotland have been very comfortable without the ball having refined a tight defence that is disciplined making reads and staying non-committal until they need to.
In last year’s Calcutta Cup fixture they logged a 94 per cent tackle rate, offering very little for England to work with.
At the same time England’s attack has been blunt, which played into Scotland’s hands as they soaked up pressure and then removed the threat by creating turnovers or forcing errors.
No 8 Matt Fagerson was an important piece for their defence last year, defending the midfield channel on shorter line outs and handling England’s sizable ball carriers, either loose forwards or centres.
His 13 tackles at a 100 per cent completion was only bettered by Hamish Watson, who had 14 from 14, while Fagerson’s carry game lays a platform for Scotland’s gain line when they need it.
In the first half the home side had all of 28 per cent territory and 38 per cent possession but went to the sheds up 10-6, which speaks to the ineffectiveness of England’s power game which was nullified by the Scots.
Kyle Sinckler, Tom Curry, Sam Simmonds and Luke Cowan-Dickie were asked to carry hard a lot but were often met with two-man tackles, robbing them of forward momentum at times by holding them up and making a mess of the breakdown.
A lack of ball movement from England’s engine room meant the one-out runners were swallowed up by the purple wall. Just two offloads were attempted by the starting forward pack, with a total of 22 passes between them on 57 carries.
England’s pack last year was overrated, the big names had minimal impact and in some cases were a net negative.
Itoje’s performance at Murrayfield was soft for a player of his calibre, lacking strength over the ball, execution of clean outs, and generally showing no enthusiasm for the contest until the latter stages.
England need their best player to get into the niggle, disrupt play and win turnovers at the breakdown which was completely absent against Scotland last year. An Itoje with fire can lead their pack out of their two-year Six Nations malaise by making a nuisance of himself.
Steve Borthwick will need to instill a better in-game work ethic and inspire more dynamism out of his players or Scotland’s hard working forwards will happily chew them up again.
England’s pack last looked ruthless when Borthwick was in charge as forwards coach in 2019, so he might just be the man to find that level again and reform this pack into a hungry bunch instead of the slapdash pack that we saw last year.
The team was fourth in dominant tackles and fourth in turnovers won in the last Six Nations, two areas which England would like to be better in.
Last year’s England backline at Murrayfield was undermanned but was also a makeshift lineup lacking balance by playing nearly all the outside backs out of their best positions.
The midfield of Henry Slade at 12 and Elliot Daly at 13 did not really work well with Marcus Smith, while fullback Max Malins on the right wing and centre Joe Marchant on the left just illustrated how warped the thinking had become.
Evens so, England could have easily won the match, they were up 17-10 with twenty minutes to go, but two cross-field kicks in quick succession drew a penalty try when Cowan-Dickie batted the ball directly into touch.
The England hooker copped a lot of blame but their inexperienced back three did not handle the situation all that well, leaving the front rower all alone to cover the edge. The pinpoint kicks from Finn Russell manipulated their pendulum and created a mismatch.
Ill-discipline cost penalties that then allowed Scotland to work their way in position to kick the go-ahead penalty. Scotland really did not play all that much with ball-in-hand to secure the win, scoring two tries from launches within two phases.
The midfield had three carries and zero running metres between them. Hogg and the wingers took a lot of carries on kick returns or in Van der Merwe’s case, first phase, but not much else outside of that.
It was a very compact attacking game by Scotland that just let England tire themselves out. Scotland’s gritty forwards outplayed them, in defence and in the details around the ruck.
That kind of performance and result cannot happen again for England and the RFU have said as much by ending the Jones era early. England haven’t lost three years in a row to Scotland since 1972.
If this pack is outplayed again by Scotland for a third straight year, many of the experienced names could start having their places questioned. That means big names like Itoje, Genge, Sinckler.
Because if you can’t handle Scotland, how are you going to deal with Ireland or France? It’s an untenable position for the RFU to stomach.
Billy Vunipola was left out of Borthwick’s squad but many more stars could have faced the chop and perhaps could still yet.
The playing group need to open the Borthwick era with an emphatic win as much as the RFU do, as they will be next in line after Jones’ sudden departure.
Comments on RugbyPass
After their 5/0 start, I had the Crusaders to finish Top 4 only…they lost the plot in Perth but will reload and back themselves vs 4th placed Rebels…
3 Go to commentsBoth nations missed a great opportunity to book a game that would have had a lot of interest from around the world. I understand these games can’t be organised in 5 minutes but they should have found a way to make it happen. I don’t think Wales are ducking anyone but it’s a bad look haha.
3 Go to commentsIt will be fascinating to see the effect that Jo Yapp has. If they can compete with Canada and give BFs a run for their money that will be progress
1 Go to commentsFollowing his dream and putting in the work. Go well young fella!
3 Go to commentsPerhaps filling Twickenham is one of Mitchell’s KPIs. I doubt whether both September matches will be at Twickenham on consecutive weekends. I would take the BF one to a large provincial stadium so as not to give them the advantage and experience of playing at Twickenham before a large crowd prior to the RWC.
2 Go to commentsvery unfortunate for Kitshoff, but big opportunity potentially for Nché to prove he is genuinely the best loosehead in the world, rather than just a specialist finisher. Presuming that if Kitshoff is out, it will also give Steenekamp a chance to come into the 23? Or are others likely to be ahead of him?
1 Go to commentsA long held question in popular culture asks if art imitates life or does the latter influence the former? Over this 6 nations I can ask the same question of the media influencing the thoughts of its audience or vice versa. Nobody wants to see cricket scores in rugby, as a spectacle it is not sustainable. With so many articles about England’s procession and lack of competition it feeds the epicaricacy of many looking for an opportunity to pounce. England are not the first team to dominate nor does it happen only in rugby, think Federer, Nadal, Red Bull or Mercedes, Manchester Utd, Australia in tests and World Cups. Instead of celebrating the achievements why find reasons to falsify it pointing towards larger playing pool, professional for a longer period or mitigate with the lack of growth in other nations. Can we not enjoy it while it is here and know that it won’t last for ever, others coveting what England have will soon take the crown, ask the aforementioned?
6 Go to commentsShame he won’t turn out for the Netherlands now they’re improving. U20s are Euro champs and in the U20 Trophy this year. The senior sides gets better every year too.
3 Go to commentsWill rugbypass tv be showing these games?
1 Go to commentsWell where do you start, the fact that England have a professional domestic league and Ireland’s is fully amatuer, that they have fully seperated professional squads at Fifteens and Sevens (7’s thinly disguised as GB), and Ireland have fully pro Sevens squad who loan some players back to the Semi-Professional Fifteens squad (moved from amateur for only a year or so) for a few games at 6N & RWC’s. The Women’s games is a shambles, and is at risk of killing itself by pushing for professionalism when the market isn’t really there to support it outside one or two countnries..
6 Go to commentsWayne Smith's input didn't have as much impact on the last final as Davison's red card for Thompson. England were 14 points up and flying when that happened.
6 Go to commentsBilly's been playing consistently well for 2 - 3 seasons now and deserves a look in at the top level. Ioane and ALB are still first choice but there needs to be injury cover and succession. His partnership with Jordie gives him first dibs you'd think. Go the Hurricanes.
3 Go to commentsIt’s not up to Wales to support Georgian Rugby. That’s up to International Rugby and Georgia. I sympathise with Georgia’s decent attempt to create this fixture. But for Wales the proposed match up is just a potential stick to beat them with and a potential big psychological blow that young Welsh team doesn’t need. (I’m Irish BTW.)
3 Go to commentsCale certainly looks great in space, but as you say, he has struggled in contact. At 23 years old, turning 24 this year, he should be close to full physical maturity and yet there exists a considerable gap in the power and physicality required for international rugby. Weight doesn’t automatically equate to power and physicality either. Can he go from a player who’s being physically dominated in Super rugby to physically dominating in international rugby in 1 or 2 years? That’s a big ask but he may end up being a late bloomer.
29 Go to commentsIf rugby wants to remain interesting in the AI era then it will need to work on changing the rules. AI will reduce the tactical advantage of smart game plans, will neutralize primary attacking weapons, and will move rugby from a being a game of inches to a game of millimetres. It will be about sheer athleticism and technique,about avoiding mistakes, and about referees. Many fans will find that boring. The answer is to add creative degrees of freedom to the game. The 50-22 is an example. But we can have fun inventing others, like the right to add more players for X minutes per game, or the equivalent of the 2-point conversion in American football, the ability to call a 12-player scrum, etc. Not saying these are great ideas, but making the point that the more of these alternatives you allow, the less AI will be able to lock down high-probability strategies. This is not because AI does not have the compute power, but because it has more choices and has less data, or less-specific data. That will take time and debate, but big, positive and immediate impact could be in the area of ref/TMO assistance. The technology is easily good enough today to detect forward passes, not-straight lineouts, offside at breakdown/scrum/lineout, obstruction, early/late tackles, and a lot of other things. WR should be ultra aggressive in doing this, as it will really help in an area in which the game is really struggling. In the long run there needs to be substantial creativity applied to the rules. Without that AI (along with all of the pro innovations) will turn rugby into a bash fest.
24 Go to commentsSouth Africa rarely play Ireland and France on these tours. Mostly, England, Scotland and Wales. I wonder why
2 Go to commentsIt was a let’s-see-what-you're-made-of type of a game. The Bulls do look good when the opposition allows them to, but Munster shut them down, and they could not find a way through. Jake should be very worried about their chances in the competition.
2 Go to commentsHats off to Fabian for a very impressive journey to date. Is it as ‘uniquely unlikely’ as Rugby Pass suggests, given Anton Segner’s journey at the Blues?
3 Go to commentsSad that this was not confirmed. When administrators talk about expanding the game they evidently don’t include pathways to the top tier of rugby for teams outside of the old boys club. Rugby deserves better, and certainly Georgia does.
3 Go to commentsLions might take him on if they move on Van Rooyen but I doubt he will want to go back, might consider it a step backwards for himself. Sharks would take him on but if Plumtree goes on to win the challenge cup they will keep him on. Also sharks showing some promising signs recently. Stormers and Bulls are stable and Springboks are already filled up. Quality coach though, interesting to see where he ends up
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