LONG READ Mick Cleary: 'England need to get angry, with themselves and with their coaches.'

In the week of Guy Fawke’s perhaps we should have expected this bonfire of northern hemisphere vanities. Ireland’s Friday night Horror Show was followed by another instalment of the English Nearly Men at Twickenham, as long a running production as Agatha Christie’s Mousetrap. So close, so far away. It’s déjà vu all over again. Whatever we might think of the occasional sparkle and devil and trickiness of England’s play – well, Marcus Smith’s at any rate –  there are simple truths that have to be acknowledged and addressed. No more talk of lessons and learnings. No more a sense of feeling hard done-by, of little things going against them, no more ifs and buts and maybes. No more straw clutching. No more accentuating the positives. Read the room, England. Read the scoreboard, England.

An autumn of defensive blunder might well presage a winter of discontent. Springboks next, gulp! Then Japan and Eddie Jones – Come Back Eddie, all is forgiven?  We’re not there yet, thank goodness. But with Ireland and France to open the 2025 Six Nations campaign, the potential for regime-changing unrest is real.

England need to pull their finger out. If there is any truth in the maxim that you learn more from a loss than a victory then England ought to be Masters of the Universe by now, garlanded with awards and PhDs. If England take refuge in the good of their game – their five tries, the effervescence of Marcus Smith – then they are doomed to this Groundhog cycle of eternal disappointment. The groan that greeted the news that George Ford was coming on (not his fault at all), the initial reaction being triggered by the understandable feeling that it was to be for Marcus Smith, shows just how strained  that umbilical cord between team and England supporter actually is at the moment. The mood is one of frustration. That can quickly turn to mutiny if certain things are not righted. There is not a bottomless well of goodwill that the cash-hungry RFU can plunder. Certainly not at sky-high prices.

This was the Wallabies in opposition. And, God bless their green socks, at least we might now look forward to a semblance of a decent Lions tour but even so, Australia are neither the All Blacks or the Springboks. The Wallabies were shredded in the Rugby Championship. They are rebuilding from ground zero. Superstar Joseph Sua’ali’i was their 17^th debutant of the season. Australia had no certainty about them, no identity, no form. (Well, they do now and might we all be thankful for that in a rugby world of shrinking horizons). Yet they picked off England when the opportunity arose. They were ruthless, clinical and poised, at no time more so when constructing and then delivering their match-winning try. Yet again, England were too flaky in Red Zone time, the final quarter when they crumble at the death as they did when all they had to do was receive a re-start and defend a scrum 42 metres out. Hats off to the Wallabies and Max Jorgensen for zipping home after a wondrous no-look out-the-back flip-on from Len Ikitau.

England have lost six of their last eight matches. The world champions are next in town. Sure, victory then, improbable as it seems, would provide some balm to what are fast becoming traumatised England minds.

Yes, it was a terrific bit of finishing. But, come on, five tries conceded  at Twickenham, where England had a defence that was about as useful as an empty rifle at Rorke’s Drift, more Three Little Piggy dwelling than fortress. 35 tackles missed, 30 of them by the 50 minute mark. 13 line-breaks given up. We thought that the Aled Walters and Felix Jones coaching upheaval might have an effect. And now we know that it has. The coaching set-up should be under as much scrutiny as the players, perhaps more so. The All Blacks used to have a coaching trio of Graham Henry, Steve Hansen and Wayne Smith. That’s the IP benchmark. How would you rate England’s against that?

It’s facile to believe that these sort of things right themselves. They don’t. England have lost six of their last eight matches. The world champions are next in town. Sure, victory then, improbable as it seems, would provide some balm to what are fast becoming traumatised England minds. They’ll be on the psychiatrist’s couch for ever and a day at this rate.

Defeat at the death for England. An unbelievable finale 😳#ENGvAUS | #AutumnNationsSeries pic.twitter.com/lCsCL11Isc

— Rugby on TNT Sports (@rugbyontnt) November 9, 2024

One tangible thing that has to happen is for England to ditch their out-and-out commitment to blitz defence. As things stand, it’s become a liability, all risk and no reward, mana from heaven for the sharp instincts of the Wallabies for whom counter-attack is in their DNA. Time and again we saw gold shirts just step inside over-committed defenders, even around the breakdown where England were so desperate to generate speed off the line they forgot the basic rule of sport – look first and play what is in front of you. Twice England bit in on the Wallaby carrier to leave clear runs to the try-line for Tom Wright and Jorgensen. The final blooper was committed by Marcus Smith, shifted to full-back when Ford came on. Smith is no-one’s idea of a JPR so why the hell fiddle about with such crazy substitutions, invite this very scenario? Of course, the Harlequin did manage to trigger some clever counter-attack from the rear but that misses the point. He was doing that from the position he should be entrusted to fill from first whistle to last – fly-half.

Should we allow ourselves a little ray of sunshine to penetrate the gloom? Nah. That way self-deception lies.

The blitz defence is not a world-shattering secret system unearthed by this regime. It is one way to defend. That’s it. There are others that can be used, even in the same game. In fact, the best teams do exactly that, witness the All Blacks on Friday night. Press, hold off, drift, see what needs to be done.  The blitz is assuming cult-like status for England. Felix Jones honed a dogs-of-war defensive set-up that suited a particular South African mentality. Perhaps he realised that was coming down the line. Something is afoot in the state of England. Henry Slade, supposedly the Commander-in-Chief, has looked all at sea.

Should we allow ourselves a little ray of sunshine to penetrate the gloom? Nah. That way self-deception lies. England need to get angry, with themselves and with their coaches. I know that’s an old-fashioned, dated sort of response but they need something to happen, someone to question whether they really do need to continue with the blitz, whether they should be slaves to the box kick, whether they need to empty their replacements’ bench as if by rote. The Finishers have become the Falterers.

Saturday was great entertainment for those who savour sport in the raw, the ebb and flow, the defiance of the odds, the hope and the deflation, and the plunge of the knife at the death. England fans might struggle to see it that way, of course. For them, the Twickenham skies matched their mood. And the ‘Boks are headed their way. Those Last Chance Saloon doors are being to twitch.