Jamie George has revealed that Marcus Smith was under team orders to kick the ball dead and accept the draw with New Zealand.
England’s fly-half came in for heavy criticism from Sir Clive Woodward and former England stars Matt Dawson and Mike Brown for not going for the win with the final play of last week’s Twickenham clash. The trio blasted the “safety-first mentality” of Eddie Jones’ team, with World Cup winner Dawson saying “it blew my mind that England wouldn’t even have a go” against 14 players.
As the man who put boot to leather, Smith became the face of that decision, despite having done more than anyone to rescue his side from a harrowing defeat. But George has now set the record straight, confirming the option to not roll the dice after the buzzer was a collective one.
Asked if the decision to kick it out had been made before New Zealand restarted following Smith’s game-tying conversion, George said: “We were clear we wanted to kick it off, yeah.
“I know there is a lot of criticism around it and I can understand it. On the field at the time, from where we had come back from, was incredible. We did have a length of the field try at one stage, and it doesn’t happen that often against the All Blacks. Once you do it once they will smart up.
“We would have been confident we could break it down but it is always dangerous to play in your own half. The risk was probably too high at that point so I think it was the right call. It is a decision that was made and everyone backed it at the time.”
That doesn’t alter the sense among many that England lacked the ambition to go for broke when a draw still meant the All Blacks retaining the Hillary Shield. Even Ian Foster, coach of New Zealand, said: “If we flipped it I would have liked our guys to have had a crack.”
With world champions South Africa at Twickenham on Saturday, England have spent rather less time addressing the final five seconds than the first 70 minutes in which they were lucky to only trail 25-6.
“We maybe needed to show a bit more courage from the start,” said George. “It wasn't through a lack of our effort; our ill-discipline took away from our intensity. And we fed them rather than going at them. We can't be like that again and we know how big the test is this week.”
George is in contention for a recall to the starting line-up despite having returned to action half way through his 10-week recovery from breaking two bones in his foot.
“Pain varies from day to day and it’s getting better with time,” he said. “Any opportunity to represent your country you are going to grit your teeth and get through it.”
