England’s team sheets are beginning to resemble Mastermind questions. They’ve started but can they finish? So many tight games have now been lost in the closing stages that the bench is becoming the first place to look for a glimpse of how a coach is thinking and how he might be looking to approach the next game.
Steve Borthwick had to been seen to do something after Saturday’s near-miss against New Zealand and, sure enough, other than switching the jersey numbers of his two centres, the only personnel tweaks are among the replacements. Gone, for now, is the 6-2 bench split, to be replaced by a more familiar 5-3 configuration, which now includes Luke Cowan-Dickie and Ollie Sleightholme.
Cowan-Dickie, fit again and hungry to reboot his international career having missed out on last year’s World Cup, is there specifically to try to bolster England’s physicality and scrummaging effectiveness in the latter stages of Saturday’s Autumn Nations Series game against Australia. It was one of the areas that undermined England in the final quarter against the All Blacks and Borthwick needs as much hard-nosed resilience in his 23 as he can muster. “What I will say is that we want the scrum to be better than it was,” he said.
Sleightholme showed up well off the bench against New Zealand in Auckland in July and definitely has the pace to make life tough for leg-weary opponents. His presence will also hopefully serve to remind England of the need to keep playing, rather than simply parking the bus if they find themselves ahead entering the decisive phases of matches.
It is not so much the substitutions England are making, though, as their rationale and their timing. Taking off the in-form Marcus Smith when leading by eight points was Saturday’s most glaring case study. The big question, then, is whether Borthwick makes those kind of decisions in advance or relies on the match situation and intuition? He insists it is the latter.
“It’s the feel you get within the game. I always look at what we need on the pitch and where we need fresh legs to add intensity to what we’re trying to do. I’m weighing those things up all the time.”
The definitive proof will be in the pavlova this week. The smartest money would appear to be on Smith ending up at full-back at some stage with Sleightholme on one wing and maybe Tommy Freeman shifting into midfield. There has been excitable chat about the attacking implications of Henry Slade and Ollie Lawrence’s supposed positional job swap but given they regularly interchange roles anyway it hardly amounts to a radical makeover. Wise & Morecambe and Hardy & Laurel, anyone?
More pertinent is how England can collectively improve their management of the later stages of games. Borthwick correctly attributed the root cause of their failure to nail New Zealand to the back-pedalling late scrum that ultimately failed to serve up George Ford’s last-gasp drop-goal on a plate. “We didn’t give George the platform he required. So that’s a frustration,” the head coach said. “It’ll be something we’ll do better in the future.”
There is also the small matter of what Sir Clive Woodward used to call “TCUP” when he was presiding over England’s fortunes. Thinking Correctly Under Pressure, among other things, means not giving away small but costly penalties that can transform the entire flow of a tight game.
“The big factor that stands out in so many ways is around discipline,” Borthwick said. “We conceded one penalty in the first 40 minutes and two by 60 minutes. But then there were five or six in the last 20 minutes, including several in their half. It allows the opposition into our half and you spend the next period defending.”
England are also wary of Australia proving to be tougher nuts than some expect. “They certainly have some power in their pack,” said Borthwick. “They also rank exceptionally highly on stealing opposition lineout ball and they rank really highly on winning scrum penalties.”
Starting XV George Furbank (Northampton), Immanuel Feyi-Waboso (Exeter), Ollie Lawrence (Bath), Henry Slade (Exeter), Tommy Freeman (Northampton), Marcus Smith (Harlequins), Ben Spencer (Bath); Ellis Genge (Bristol), Jamie George (Saracens, capt), Will Stuart (Bath), Maro Itoje (Saracens), George Martin (Leicester), Chandler Cunningham-South (Harlequins), Tom Curry (Sale), Ben Earl (Saracens).
Replacements Luke Cowan-Dickie (Sale), Fin Baxter (Harlequins), Dan Cole (Leicester), Nick Isiekwe (Saracens), Alex Dombrandt (Harlequins), Harry Randall (Bristol), 22) George Ford (Sale), 23) Ollie Sleightholme (Northampton).
Which further helps to simplify the equation. If England get pushed around their own pitch and the penalty count soars into double figures, they will be in potential trouble regardless of who finishes the game at 10.
Borthwick says Ford “has been a model to the other players of how you handle disappointment”, but he does not want to be repeating that same mantra next week. England’s current specialist subject – losing tight games – urgently needs some revision.
