It’s taken me nearly two days to get over the shock of the England game. Never before has a game of rugby made me feel happy, sad, ecstatic, confused, angry, shocked and amazed within forty minutes.
Firstly, congratulations to Wales. They didn’t play pretty rugby, but on this occasion, doing what needed to be done worked well. They closed out games and had the ability to understand where to play and how. A few big shifts from influential leaders, Wyn Jones in particular, really showed their class.
Secondly, a massive congratulations to the England women on another Grand Slam. They displayed tremendous professionalism throughout the tournament and have paved the way for other unions to professionalise their respective female teams. With England leading the charge for female development across international rugby, it is safe to say that it won’t be many years until we have a fully professional Six Nations.
Scotland, wow. Who knew they had 15 identical players? I say this because the 15 that went in at half time, were certainly not the 15 that played the second half. If they were, then give me some of Gregor Townsend’s motivational speech to listen too before the gym because that stuff is clearly the best pre-workout on the market.
But England, boy… oh boy. They have, as Jones called it: “a problem”.
From an armchair viewers point of view, England lacked leadership. Similarly to Clive Woodward’s after match thoughts – there wasn’t a player under the posts who had gathered his troops around and barked orders like a general. There wasn’t a moment where the captain – or leaders in the team – stepped up to make a big call and change the patterns or regain some composure.
There never seemed to be anyone who wanted the game to calm down, gather the ball and play safe rugby. Drawing parallels with the ’03 World Cup team, England missed key voices – no Johnson, Dallaglio, Hill, Wilkinson, Greenwood or Robinson. There wasn’t a coach running on the pitch to show/ direct the players to something that they clearly missed.
Jones understands that leaders take time to develop, but with 4 games left until the first World Cup match, there is not long to get it right.
(Picture credit of The Independent and the BBC)
Tales of time 