'Play France, South Africa... I don't think they get away with that'

OK lets look at the England SA games particularly in the World Cups. I cant really speak for the intermediate games as i haven’t really watched them. But i will say in 2019 England tried to play a fast and loose game against SA defense, they lost the game 32-12.

So they decided in 2023 they would play a similar game style to how we played in 2019. They played high, close to the edge and hard hitting, they lost the game again. The reason for the first loss was lack of energy and too much focus on ABs. Then in 2023, they had an insufficient depth to combat ours. It came close but they didnt have the energy to get over the line.

England have skills but do they have the squad depth? Australia have been good but what with change of coaches regularly they haven’t quite found a rhythm yet. England have had Borthwick for about three years, so they are somewhat more settled. They have been consistently better than Aus over these past few years. However Aus are not the benchmark right now

Like Biggar, I thought ENG lacked sufficient power to take chances and whilst you could argue they missed 3 golden chances to score with the held up tries and IF-W’s catch being knocked out, this was offset by the brilliance of Earl & Pollocks tries, which the bigger, more powerful players would not have scored.

Ultimately, ENG have realised they can’t beat SA playing them at their own game, so they have created a game plan that defends differently with the 5 x7 swarm defence over the 80 mins and the the wider runners breaking lines (like Earl), whilst holding AUS to one of their lowest scores in the last handful of games (and the intercept was fortunate also).

ENG have moved away from the traditional game, which is how Dan Biggar is still thinking. Once you realise we are not trying to play the game he thinks, then you will start to see this game plan and it’s new strengths.

The NZ game is going to be super interesting.

Against New Zealand it will be okay. Aside from Parker who is bigger, they try and base their game on speed + skill with Savea at 7 then Lakai at 8.

Sititi off the bench for Parker in the second half is the likely substitution, Pollock could be a great move to counter this.

England won vs France, and it was a day France did'nt converted.

The false dawn has begun…