FEATURE How England reverse-engineered unlikely attacking change

Six Nations Championships pitched after a season which includes a British and Irish Lions tour or Rugby World Cup are notorious flatliners. Players are fatigued mentally and physically, and the only number on the ‘up’ tends to be the injuries suffered in the five rounds the tournament lasts.

The 2024 Six Nations went against type and provided a welcome breath of fresh air in its second half, with one side beginning to mature on the international stage [Italy] and two others [France and England] adding considerable flesh to the bones of a tactical reset after the World Cup.

Italy will be celebrating the first Six Nations in which they finished with a 50% record of two wins, two defeats and one draw, while both England and France will be cheered immensely by the positive attacking auguries of the last two rounds. Between them, the two European giants scored 15 of a combined total of 29 tries in their final two matches.

Cometh the hour, and the traditional northern hemisphere big boys reasserted themselves in no uncertain terms. They fully justified the ‘Probables’ status I gave them before the competition by finishing in the top three, and as also – probably – the two most dangerous attacking teams in the competition by the close of play.

For Les Bleus, it meant a journey of rediscovery. In the second of two statistical analyses, I illustrated how France’s ability to score from kick and turnover returns had fallen through the floor with Maxime Lucu filling in for Antoine Dupont at scrum-half. Their 2023 average of 2.4 tries per game scored from ‘unstructured’ attack had plummeted to just 0.3 per game in the first three rounds.

The ailing patient jumped off the operating table and back to life with three unstructured tries in the last two rounds. Four tries originated, if not quite ‘from the ends of the Earth’, at least from positions inside France’s own half. By the end of the Six Nations, the French were kicking slightly less [an average of 28 kicks per game] and holding on to more ball – from 45% possession after three rounds to 51% by the finish.

My mid-season analysis ended with a summary: “The coaching staff urgently need to get the French rugby public back onside, and committing to attack will be a key criterion in selection for Fabien Galthié in the last two rounds of the tournament.”

Defence coach Shaun Edwards’ evident dissatisfaction after the narrow win over England hinted heavily the new movement was underway. In a post-match interview on ITV, he said: “I thought our attack was fantastic, particularly our maul, driven line-out. We dominated, we did very well in that area.

“But I was very disappointed with our defence. I thought the England attack was all over us, particularly their midfield, so we have got a lot of work to do. You should not have to score 30 points to win a game, as exciting as it is.

“We were missing tackles, not being aggressive enough. A lot of tries are being scored in modern-day rugby but I thought today was probably our worst defensive performance since I’ve been here. We cannot always rely on [ourselves] to score 30 points every game if we want to start winning trophies again.”

The French backline in the last two rounds was packed with excellent attacking players starting out of position. Fly-half Thomas Ramos is typically shielded in the second line of defence as a full-back for his club Toulouse, while debutant centre Nicolas Depoortère plays exclusively at 13 for Bordeaux but featured at 12 for Les Bleus. With that midfield group, it was left to Edwards to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.

Steve Borthwick’s England likewise made big positive strides on attack in the final two rounds. England dominated the line breaks 8-2 against the modern masters of possession Ireland in round four. Only five of England 16 major attacking possessions ran for more than four phases, and the kick-return was England’s chosen weapon of [counter] attack. England had six primary kick-return platforms and made significant yardage, clean breaks or scored tries from all of them.

The selection of George Furbank ahead of Freddie Steward at full-back sent a clear message from Borthwick. The England coach was marching against type in the interests of building a formidable new offence.

Size, expertise in defence and under the high ball was being sacrificed for attacking fluency. When Furbank was injured early in the match at Lyon, it was not Steward who replaced him, but Harlequins playmaker Marcus Smith. That gave England three backs who had played a significant portion of their career at 10 [George Ford, Henry Slade and Smith]. It connected the attack together and offered a strong cohesive ‘glue’.

England then added a second progression from win over Ireland. Where the chosen platform of attack was the kick-return at Twickenham, in Lyon it was early-phase set-piece, and that meant double trouble for the suspect French midfield defence.

It is a simple score and it is based on Gaël Fickou’s need to cover the inexperience of the man inside him, Depoortère.

With all three of France’s big, mobile back-rowers inside him [from left-to-right Charles Ollivon, Greg Alldritt and François Cros], Depoortère should really be able to leave England’s first receiver Slade to them and move out to Ford [circling behind Slade]. He sticks on the Exeter distributor instead and that creates the defensive scenario no 13 wants, trying to mark two attackers on different angles. In the event Fickou looks in on Ford and that allows Lawrence to glide by on his exposed outside shoulder.

Six minutes into the second half, England scored another first-phase try from lineout founded on the unfamiliarity in the French midfield. This time Fickou was a helpless onlooker as the bond between his 10 and 12 fell apart with alarming ease.

Alldritt has once again been sidelined as a defender and the gap between Ramos and Depoortère is far too wide as England prop Ellis Genge receives the ball in midfield. That commits the two French backs to ineffective arm-tackles on Ben Earl – and if the Six Nations has proven anything, it is that half-hearted tackles will never be enough to stop the rampaging Saracens number eight. As soon as Earl links with Smith on the pass, it is curtains for the French cover. If he had any hair left on his head, Shaun Edwards would have been pulling it all out on that play.

England also demonstrated they were able to stay in good attacking shape for the first three or four phases from set-piece.

On this occasion, Alldritt is able to cover the deficiencies of his inside backs and make the first stop on Earl, but England are still able to generate lightning-quick ball at the first two rucks. Moreover, they are unafraid to sit right on top of the defensive line to use it constructively.

The first two receivers [Ford and Slade] are playing flat on the advantage line, and that in turn pulls in the last two defenders towards the Exeter man and releases Tommy Freeman for a gallop down the right.

On next phase, England were in better shape on attack than Les Bleus were on defence.

England are going to catch a retreating tight forward [number three Uini Atonio] in the process of regrouping and play through his area on the next phase off lightning-quick ball. The men in white converted the bust by Earl three phases later via a second try for Ollie Lawrence.

The theme of twin receivers playing hard at the line off sub-three-second ball recurred for England’s fourth try.

This time it is Ford and Smith playing flat and transferring instantly through the hands, to create room on the right for Freeman to score a maiden try for his country.

The final two rounds of the Six Nations contained liberal doses of the unexpected. Italy won twice to emerge in credit. Both England and France managed to reverse-engineer some significant changes of course, which seemed unlikely at the midpoint of the tournament.

The scene has been well and truly set for two climactic summer series, between Ireland and South Africa in the Republic and England and the All Blacks in New Zealand. England may not yet be world-beaters, but they will give the Kiwis all the hurry-up they can handle in July. Iti noa ana he pito mata, as the Maori saying goes. ‘From the withered tree, a flower blooms.’