LONG READ England and their Chief problem

Steve Borthwick needs to get himself out to Missouri and urgently. Missouri, I hear you ask? What on earth for? It’s full of hogs, homophobes, redneck asshats and appears to be governed by Trump’s Taliban. Mind you, on the upside, Senator Josh Hawley has a face you’d never get tired of slapping and when the ice caps finally melt, the ‘Mother of the Midwest’ is going to have some stunning, waterfront properties out there on its mighty, eponymous river.

Mercifully, though, Steve doesn’t have to fret on any of this. All he has to do is hustle over to Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, sit down over a cold Michelob with the Chiefs’ Head Coach, Andy Reid, and ask him one question: namely, how does his team manage to haul their butts out of the bonfire every other week when the flames are licking around their pants? Because, right now, the Chiefs appear to be playing in fireproof overalls while England’s jockstraps are scorched to a cinder.

Reid’s team are 9-0 this season and could quite comfortably be 4-5. In fact, the last twelve times the Chiefs have been involved in a game decided by eight points or fewer, the Swifties have won, ahem, precisely a dozen times. If they’re behind in the closing stages, they find the end zone or bisect the uprights; if they’re ahead, they somehow block the clutch field goal or pick off the quarterback. Right now, however improbable the odds, they’re a safer bet than death or taxes.

England, on the other hand, can snatch defeat from almost any victory. New Zealand this autumn was a coffin lid they’d closed, allowed to yawn open and couldn’t nail down again despite being handed two hammers and a bag of nails. Australia was a game they, effectively, won three times over yet still contrived to come second. Factor in two lumpy near-misses during the summer and a bullet through the boot in Lyon at the back end of the Six Nations and you’re looking at five wins – famous wins – that’ve up and gone like a fart in the wind.

Are we comparing like with like here? In fairness, we’re probably not. The Chiefs are the back-to-back Superbowl champions and boast a roster of players and coaches who can all finish each other’s sentences. You don’t lick luck off a stone and closing out matches is ingrained. England, on the other hand, have a trophy cabinet that’s as empty as a pocket and a coaches’ box with a revolving door, more of which in a moment. Essentially, we’re comparing a shiny quarter with an unpolished dime.

But the fact is the best teams find a way, the chilling irony being that England’s next assignment is against the Kansas City Chiefs of rugby. South Africa, as we all know, famously won a back-to-back World Cup in Paris last year by squeaking three knockout games by the sum total of three points; the obvious question being ‘how’ and the equally obvious answer being ‘thinking and executing under pressure’. The truth is always simple, as it should be.

So, from England’s perspective this past fortnight, nail the game-clinching penalty shot. Dress rehearse an armour-plated drop goal routine. Catch the restart when the clock’s in the red. And don’t jam in the wider channels and leave whippet-quick Wallabies with an unguarded run down the rails. There. Had England got just two of these four details right – and the details, invariably, are everything – then this autumn they’d be two and zip and, hey, bring on the World Champions.

Which, in turn, begs the question why haven’t England been a yard in front in their last two games? Because, defensively right now, they’re a jumble. To head back to Missouri for a moment, what’s often bailed out the Chiefs this season hasn’t necessarily been Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce but their junkyard dog defensive unit. Conversely, what’s done for England, certainly this autumn, has been eight tries conceded in two games. They’re falling off too many collisions. They’re not shutting down enough offloads. The blitz appears to be a scattergun. In short, they’re shipping too much grass and way too many points.

Which brings us to the coaching set-up. Felix Jones blew in on a waft of fanfares with his ‘out-to-in’, World Cup-winning, hard-hat defence which, he said, would take some two seasons to set in impermeable varnish. Within seven months, though, Jones has walked away leaving his painting unfinished. We know not why, although, supposedly, he’s still working for the team ‘remotely’. If you know what this means or how it works, I’m all ears. Certainly, England have no idea.

Senior Assistant Coach, Richard Wigglesworth, was asked this week whether he’d been in contact with Jones. ‘I’ve not spoken to him’, he said. Okay, well has Jones been delivering – or been asked to deliver – any analysis or data, the more so this week given it’s South Africa? ‘I don’t know. I believe he is working with us behind the scenes but we’ve not been in touch with him personally,’ Wigglesworth said. Henry Slade, one of the lynchpins of the defensive system, was asked a similar question. ‘We don’t have any contact with Felix,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure if the coaches do or not.’ Let’s be very polite here: this is something of a head-scratcher.

So, in his stead, we have a long-standing chum of Steve Borthwick, the likeable Joe El Abd, who’s moonlighting from an already onerous day job with a team – Oyannax – who’re currently thirteenth in France’s ProD2. Look, Joe may well grow into the role and become a major coaching force in Test match rugby but, right now – and understandably so as England and El Abd make each other’s acquaintance – the defence looks ‘ragged’; Henry Slade’s word, not mine. Certainly, if you’re shipping 42 points in your own back garden, you ain’t going to win too many games.

Yet, as we know, England hoiked off Marcus Smith against New Zealand and shunted him to full back against Australia. Granted, he ain’t Patrick Mahomes just yet but the impression is passable. Besides, if Smith’s the virtuoso who’s trusted to conduct the orchestra for an hour, why hand the baton to someone in the final movement of the concerto and ask Marcus to fill in on First Violin? Again, it’s a genuine head-scratcher.

Look, Steve Borthwick’s team don’t appear to be a million miles away here. They’re sorely missing Alex Mitchell and I’m missing George Furbank; the more he’s involved, the better England look. But we can all recall what happened back in March the last time a spluttering England came face-to-face with a well-oiled Green Machine in their own backyard. This one, though, could get ugly, especially in the final quarter when the benches are empty and the South African screw turns in the scrum; indeed, odds of 4/11 on an away win brutally reflect where the two teams are, not least when it comes to closing out a result.