Me, myself and I: England's split personalities are their strength and their weakness
DISCLAIMER: This article does not, nor does it attempt to, explain the utterly madcap result at Twickenham on Saturday afternoon. For that, please see Ben Smith’s excellent analysis of Scotland’s Finn Russell-inspired comeback here.
If you’re still struggling to digest or process what went on yesterday in south-west London, you’re not alone. It was one of the most bizarre 80 minutes of rugby you’re ever likely to see. Everything England excelled at in the first half vanished in the second, and everything Scotland struggled with before the interval was like taking candy from a baby after it.
If ever the cliché “a game of two halves” were to be used genuinely and without raising dull groans from everyone in earshot, this was it. It does, however, lead on to the subject of this piece.
England are suffering from dissociative identity disorder, known more commonly as multiple personality disorder.
Do England exhibit two or more “discrete identities or personality states” that are accompanied by memory loss that is not caused by drugs, alcohol – hang on, what was in England’s half time water bottles? – or medications?
There is no doubt there are two very different approaches to games that England have taken over the last six months, and both of them are significant alterations on the style with which Eddie Jones had England playing with earlier in his tenure.
That early style, with two playmakers at 10 and 12 and an ability to generate quick width and turn the corner with the pace of Jonathan Joseph, seems to currently be dormant. Sometimes Henry Slade will move inside to second receiver and you think it might resurface, but it is often just a decoy or a way to use Manu Tuilagi on an out-to-in line.
It’s there and we have all witnessed it since 2016, but for now it seems as if the other personalities have taken the driving seat.
We then have England’s kick-heavy, territorial approach. The consensus has been that this personality has really begun to exert itself since the beginning of the Guinness Six Nations, due to the success it achieved against Ireland and France, but there’s evidence to the contrary of that which we will come back to in a moment.
The final personality is all about the brute power. It loves to load up on physical carriers and attempt to pummel the opponent into submission. England deployed it against Italy to remarkably advantageous effect.
Continue reading below…
Watch: Ben Youngs reflects on a breathtaking Calcutta Cup match at Twickenham
So, to recap, there’s the dual-playmaker with width personality that currently seems to be dormant, the pragmatic and risk-adverse persona that loves to go to the boot, and then the menacing power-oriented identity that is all about being direct. You could call them Paul, George and Ringo.
If you examine some of the key statistics indicative of playing style, there is far less of a divide between what England did in the Six Nations and November tests, than has been talked about in recent weeks.
If you take the average passes made by starting centres during a game, England made 5.5 during the November tests and actually increased that in the Six Nations, making 6.4 per game. It’s worth noting that is heavily influenced by the game against Scotland, where Tuilagi and Slade combined for 18 passes. If you exclude that game, England’s Six Nations average drops to 3.5. It is a significant drop, but both figures are relatively low in comparison to other nations, with Grand Slam winners Wales averaging 8 per game as an example. To see the major divergence for England, you need to go back to the June series in South Africa, where they averaged 11.3 passes per game.
It would be remiss not include Elliot Daly in this conversation, with the full-back having been an incumbent in the team throughout these three international windows and one of the great positives he brings to the England team is his ability to pop up in the midfield as a second receiver or as a creative influence linking with the two wings. If you add his passes to the mix, England averaged a total (centres + full-back) of 15.7 passes in June, 9.5 in November and 13.6 in the Six Nations. Daly has bumped those averages by 4.4, 4 and 7.2 respectively.
It’s a mark of both Daly’s increasing comfort level in the 15 jersey and also that the Wasps man is picking up some of the slack when the centres have had different roles in the team, particularly with his ability to draw defenders on counter-attacks and then unleash support runners.
Some other numbers which have not varied that noticeably between the autumn and the Six Nations are back row passes, with England averaging 8 per game last year and 9.2 over the last seven weeks. One interesting facet of this is that Billy Vunipola averaged 5.8 passes per game during the Six Nations, however if you take the Scotland game out of the equation for a second, England averaged 7.5 back row passes per game and Vunipola alone was responsible for 60% of them.
Kicks from hand were surely up during the Six Nations, right?
Slightly, with 29.5 per game in the autumn and 33 in the Six Nations, and England’s ability to execute that sort of a game plan was validated by their possession percentage across the windows increasing from 42.25% to 43.8% and their territory moving from 41.75% to 48%. Neither possession nor territory is necessarily indicative of wins in the modern-day game, but to be able to increase those numbers, particularly possession, whilst also kicking more is impressive.
How about cutting it up by wins and losses, rather than international windows?
In wins over the last three international windows, England’s centres have averaged 5.1 passes, with that bumped to 10.1 with Daly’s involvements. In losses, England have averaged 8.5 passes in the centres and 14 after you add in Daly’s contributions. On the surface, that seems like less passing is a good thing, but that second set of data is extremely polarised. In the losses to New Zealand and Wales, England’s starting centres had just 1 and 3 passes respectively, whilst in the two losses to South Africa, they had 13 and 17. It is unlikely to be coincidence that there was much more balance in the seven wins over the same time period.
Focusing in now on just the Six Nations and November windows, when England have had the services of defence coach and transition specialist John Mitchell, England have averaged 35 kicks from hand in losses and 30.7 in wins. If you take the game against France out of the mix, which was by any judgement unusual, with France picking players out of position in the back three and allowing England to repeatedly attack them in the kicking game, the number drops to 27.4 kicks from hand on average in wins.
Lastly, from a statistical standpoint, the games where England opted to kick more heavily have generally returned a lower number of turnovers conceded.
Game | Kicks from hand | Turnovers conceded |
vs South Africa | 35 | 12 |
vs New Zealand | 37 | 12 |
vs Japan | 22 | 16 |
vs Australia | 24 | 16 |
vs Ireland | 32 | 11 |
vs France | 47 | 21 |
vs Wales | 33 | 13 |
vs Italy | 24 | 16 |
vs Scotland | 29 | 18 |
Again, the game against France proves to be a bit of an anomaly, but otherwise the trend of kicking more resulting in less turnovers rings true.
It can’t be proven statistically, nor will it be something Jones would ever publicly admit to, but it certainly looks as if England kick more and pass less against teams they consider to be more of a threat and play a more high-tempo, open brand of rugby against teams they don’t perceive to be. That’s nothing revolutionary, with teams having always done that to one degree or another, but the rigidity with which they stick to one particular style in a game has, at times, been problematic.
These contrasting styles of rugby, or personalities to maintain the analogy, don’t really seem to get along. They don’t pop up in the same game, helping one another to exploit certain scenarios, they watch on, waiting orderly for their turn.
Then there is England’s fourth personality and it is by far the most worrying. It’s the devil on the shoulder, feeding insecurities and urging them down the wrong path.
When England were struggling to break down Wales’ excellent back three in Cardiff and get around the line-speed the hosts were bringing close to the ruck, this personality – call it John – exerted itself. There was no adaptation on the fly, no diagnosis of what was going wrong and no formation of a plan to counter that.
Against Scotland, it seemingly did away with any and all of the positives of the other three personalities, tying them up at half time and deciding that only it could create the requisite chaos for England to throw away their 31-7 lead. Not before he nipped into the Scottish changing room and called them all a bunch of skirt-wearing, fried Mars bar-eating jessies, mind.
It’s a self-destructive personality and analogies aside, it’s a troubling trend of not being able to deal with adversity on the pitch.
The loss to Wales was understandable, Cardiff is a hostile environment for any team, let alone arch-rivals England, and the hosts were on course for a Grand Slam, but that doesn’t take away from England’s approach of repeating the same mistakes in that game and somehow expecting different results.
As for the draw with Scotland, England were simply unrecognisable after the interval. Momentum is at times an unquantifiable variable in sports, but to completely disintegrate in the fashion they did was shocking to even the most seasoned of sporting fans.
And it’s this demon lurking at the back of the minds that should worry English fans in an otherwise fairly productive Six Nations.
The three styles – or personalities – of England have all had success over this Rugby World Cup cycle and if Jones picks the right one for the right opponent, then England are capable of beating any side in the world. You would like to see a bit more in-game flexibility, but the truth is that that has not been required too often over the last six months. The game against Wales was the only one that felt like it required adjustments to be made and the fact they weren’t, and the game was lost, should prove a learning experience for the players and coaching staff moving forward.
That meltdown against Scotland, though. That was something else.
If England switch off like that in Japan later this year, that could be their Rugby World Cup over. Diagnosing what was at play there will be paramount for Jones, because it is something which could derail all of the positive work that he and England have put in over the last three years.
It will raise questions over leadership and captaincy, not to mention the role of the players as decision-makers on the field.
England have the ability, they have the depth and they have the array of talents to beat opponents in different ways, but it has to be pieced together by the players as much as the coaches, because there is very little the coaches can do in the stands during the heat of the battle. If England can nurture that in their senior leadership group on the field, they will be a match for anyone later this year.
Watch: Jack Nowell gives an honest assessment of his performance in the Calcutta Cup
Comments on RugbyPass
Who's Jarrad Hohepa?
1 Go to commentsSo let me get this straight. Say you have the dominant scrum. You are 99% sure you can go for a scrum pushover try on the line to win the game. The opposition knows it too. They give away a silly tap kick instead. You are now not allowed to scrum. This is ridiculous! *%@ing the game up as usual! The fact that the attacking teams are not allowed to scrum from a held up over the line is just as ridiculous. Really world rugby? Careful people might start a rebel league called True Rugby or Real Rugby.
72 Go to comments12 subs during a game? How has that been allowed to happen NB? I hate when the game goes in this monopolistic direction closing up shop, it just becomes non sport. Btw have you seen anything of how Liam Coltman was tracking for Lyon? He has just signed to return to Otago though we have a couple of young hookers developing here. He was a popular gentle natured character down here and I’m glad to see him back but maybe he will be a mentor primarily?
4 Go to commentsGreat breakdown and the global politics always confuses me a little. The southern hemisphere seems to be left out a bit but I wouldn’t even know where to start with fixing it. Club challenge could be a step in the right direction
4 Go to commentsSince he coached Free state, from that time onwards, I maintained he was the coach for the Boks. A nice, no nonsense guy with an excellent brain, who gets results.
11 Go to commentswell - they only played against 14 men and had the TMO team on their side - and still should have lost… so actually that makes sense.
32 Go to commentsSouthern hemisphere Rugby is exactly that, boring. Northern Hemisphere Rugby is soooo much more entertaining and better with better players.
2 Go to commentsIf he was to be cited for a dangerous behavior, then it’s natural that he should be. Then NTamack too, yes? And I’ll add a good whataboutism - Yeandle eye-gouging on Richie Arnold: not cited. Eye-gouging. Not high tackle. Eye-gouging. It was on French TV, with French TV directors.
5 Go to commentsReally poorly written rambling piece ..
4 Go to commentsIt was so boring
2 Go to commentspersonally I’d go with : 1. France 2. NZ 3. England 4. Ireland 5. Scotland
32 Go to commentsAndy everything becomes easier with experience therefor counting etc straight after a match becomes easier when you have 100+ caps vs 17 which is the experience you speak from.
160 Go to commentsGetting rid of the Dupont Law is a good thing and ought to have been done months ago! Officially getting rid of the croc roll is a good thing. The law about no scrums from a short arm is well intended in terms of speeding the game up but it’s an overreaction to a clever yet calculated gamble that could have blow up in South Africa’s face if they conceded a penalty from the scrum that was set after Willemse took claimed the mark in the World Cup QF.
72 Go to commentsRassie The GOAT
11 Go to commentsOf their 5 big matches in RWC Scotland and NZ were the easiest. They took a 12-3 lead against NZ and after the red decided it was best to hold the lead and take chances that came. None came and it was tight but they dug a lot deeper in the other two knock out matches. They had trounced NZ in Twickenham in a fixture that NZ must now regret. Psychology was clearly with SA in the final as a result.
32 Go to commentsMy favourite line/exchanges from Chasing the Sun 2. News headline: “SA. The last hurdle in ABs World Cup glory”. Something like that. “You’re all just a hurdle. A hop, skip and a jump”. Coming from Rassie and Jacque. Basically - nobody thinks you’re going to win. You’re just a pushover team. Nobody respects you. When the camera shows the players faces, you can see the effect. You can see the rev meters (die moer metertjies) firing up. Mitchell said he felt it prior to the 19 final. He said to Eddie watching the teams warming up that it was going to be a tough day at the office. Wave a red flag in front of South African, and you can expect a reaction. This is not unique - many teams rev themselves. And Bok teams in particular. With horrific consequences (discipline, poor thinking under pressure) because that’s the drawback to using emotion right? But what this Bok team does better than many since 2007 is channel the emotion and stay on task. Despite the emotion. Why, because while Rassie might play mind games - he talks about creating a safe environment. Listen to his recent honorary doctorate acceptance speech. While he uses psychology he creates psychological safety. He’s a damn fine coach. Can’t wait for Pretoria. It’s going to be a hummer.
11 Go to commentsWhat Rassie does for SA is big. It has helped people to unite and see we can win with the right people in place.
11 Go to commentsTerrible conditions for young players to express themselves just enjoy it guys. As a saffa great to see Ausie youth looking good. Wow SA have some great talent also.
2 Go to commentsYes, another example of French tv directors ensuring that incidents like this are swiftly glossed over for the benefit of their teams…
5 Go to commentsThe prospect of the club match ups across hemispheres is surely appetising for everyone. The reality however, may prove to be slightly different. There are currently two significant driving forces that have delivered to same teams consistently to the latter champions cup stages for years now. The first of those is the yawning gap in finances, albeit delivered by different routes. In France it’s wealthy private owners operating with a higher salary cap by some distance compared to England. In Ireland it’s led by a combination of state tax relief support, private Leinster academy funding and IRFU control - the provincial budgets are not equal! This picture is not going to change anytime soon. The second factor is the EPCR competition rules. You don’t need a PhD. in advanced statistical analysis from oxbridge to see the massive advantage bestowed upon the home team through every ko round of the tournament. The SA teams will gain the opportunity for home ko ties in due course but that could actually polarise the issue even further, just look at their difficulties playing these ties in Europe and then reverse them for the opposition travelling to SA. Other than that, the picture here is unlikely to change either, with heavyweight vested interests controlling the agenda. So what does all this point to for the club world championship? Well the financial differential between the nh and sh teams is pretty clear. And the travel issues and sporting challenge for away teams are significantly exacerbated beyond those already seen in the EPCR tournaments. So while the prospect of those match ups may whet our rugby appetites, I’m very much still to be convinced the reality will live up to expectations…
4 Go to comments