In some respects this has been a revolutionary England tour. Not so much in terms of the series outcome, with New Zealand already reunited with the Hillary Shield, but in the way England have positively embraced the whole experience. They have visited schools and children’s hospitals, presented a more upbeat face to the world, sought to play more dynamic rugby and generally been the most polite of guests.
No one has even contemplated jumping off a ferry into Auckland harbour, let alone throwing any diminutive Kiwis around in the name of late night entertainment. All of which is starting to disorient their hosts. “Am I dreaming this?” wrote the columnist Chris Rattue in the New Zealand Herald before the second Test. “It feels as if the extreme heat has gone from our dislike of English rugby.” He went on to add that Steve Borthwick “seems like a genuine bloke”, that there had been “no annoyances to wind our fragile egos up” and that New Zealanders “might even have got over the unhealthy Wayne Barnes obsession (I think.)”.
Stop the clocks. Talk about a major newsflash. But all banter-driven jokes aside, a genuine shift has taken place. England’s erstwhile “white orcs” have set out to distance themselves from the baggage of past regimes and made themselves a little harder for even their sworn enemies to dislike. It has not softened their determination to win; they are just more open, finally, to thinking more flexibly about how they might achieve it.
Not everything is perfect. It never is. But what has been most refreshing on this trip has been the collective willingness to challenge a few sacred cows. Suggest to the captain, Jamie George, for example, that New Zealand never lose at Eden Park and it makes him even more motivated. “You have to respect the record they have there – because it is incredible really. But at the same time it is a field with grass on it and two sets of posts. They have 15 players, we have 15 players. Let’s have a go. Do we want to be the team to put our hands up to be the ones to break the record? Absolutely, that is why we are here.”
Admittedly, this was before the management belatedly disclosed that George Furbank had a bad back and would be unavailable, with Freddie Steward wearing 15 instead. If there was one player who made an impression on the All Blacks in Dunedin it was the Northampton full-back, a key figure in his side’s attacking shape and defensive structure. Steward, whose last game was on 19 May, has a pretty tough act to follow.
That said, it does not alter England’s overall intent or desire to throw the entire Eden Park sink, along with all other available kitchen utensils, at the home team in their traditional fortress. It will not be easy. Even the last English side to play there, the previously all-conquering Red Roses, came up fractionally short two years ago in the women’s World Cup final.
As ever it will demand accuracy in all facets of the game, an ability to create and take sufficient chances and serious physical commitment against opponents looking to pose a more direct threat to counteract the flying mega-blitz defence England deploy. Which will also be tricky unless England’s set piece starts to wobble. “We’ve spoken to World Rugby about how the scrum will be officiated so we expect a good, clean contest for both teams,” said England’s scrum coach, Tom Harrrison.
But there is also a bigger picture at play. Let’s say New Zealand do grind out another narrow win, their 49th in succession at a venue where they have not been beaten since Jean-Luc Sadourny’s “Try From The End of the World” secured France victory four minutes from time in 1994. For some it will still not be enough, particularly those marketeers who argue rugby needs to guarantee a more consistently vivid attacking spectacle to retain its popularity in this part of the world.
New Zealand Perofeta; Reece, R Ioane, J Barrett, Tele’a; McKenzie, Christie; De Groot, Taylor, Lomax, S Barrett (capt), Tuipulotu, Finau, Papali’i, Savea. Replacements: Aumua, Tu’ungafasi, Newell, Vaa’i, Jacobson, Ratima, Lienert-Brown, B Barrett.
England: Steward; Feyi-Waboso, Slade, Lawrence, Freeman; Smith, Mitchell; Baxter, George (capt), Cole, Itoje, Martin, Cunningham-South, Underhill, Earl.
Replacements: Dan, Rodd, Stuart, Coles, Curry, B Spencer, F Smith, Sleightholme.
That faint whirring you can hear is the sound of old All Black forward legends spinning vigorously in their graves but the chorus of influential voices keen to modernise the lawbook grows louder. As New Zealand’s chief executive, Mark Robinson, said this month: “I think we’ve still got to do more work on the product on the field. We have to keep evolving to create a product where great games are not a rarity. They need to be commonplace. There needs to a high entertainment value, a high sense of jeopardy, a higher degree of uncertainty around the outcome and consistency of what a fan turns up and sees. That’s absolutely at the heart of it all.”
The digested read is that Robinson believes the game, particularly in smaller markets, has little choice if it is to generate enough new income to keep the lights on long-term. Rugby still matters in New Zealand but to fewer New Zealanders. Its various tribes are also split. Some diehards would not cross the road to watch Super Rugby, preferring to pay to watch their local sides in the National Provincial Championship. Equally, there is a rising demographic who have emigrated to New Zealand to start a new life and don’t care in the slightest who starts at first five‑eighth for the All Blacks.
If that sounds like sacrilege to old-timers it is also the reality. Eager to see how Fin Baxter fares against Tyrel Lomax in the opening scrum or whether England’s can tighten up their unglamorous breakdown basics? The second Test should have much to satisfy the purists but according to those charged with balancing its books, if rugby ignores the simultaneous need to engage younger hearts and minds it risks storing up serious problems.
Which might be why this tour has felt so quietly encouraging. It has been absorbing, regardless of Borthwick’s understated manner and the absence of artificial hype. “There is not a Borthers version of ‘Southgate you’re the one’ yet and I can’t imagine he is mad on it,” said George, one of several football enthusiasts in the squad. But as they prepare for Auckland’s garden of Eden, the squad vibe has not been healthier for a while. Even a major collapse at the end of an absurdly long season will not erode the respect English rugby is regaining.
