Ben Smith on track for earlier return than expected for Highlanders

As Eddie Jones showed us in 2022 and 2023, great coaches don't stay great forever. Mallet was a properly world class coach in 1998, and never hit the same heights after that.

His words in 2019 before the RWC final that he now says should have resulted in Eddie's firing:

"Was Saturday’s sensational World Cup semi-final win over New Zealand England’s greatest ever performance? Yes, unquestionably, would be my answer."

So let's fire the coach one game later? Duh!

The reality is that Ireland are a settled team with tons of continuity, an established style, and a good depth chart, whereas NZ are fundamentally rebuilding. The questions are all about what Razor is doing and how far along he is in that program.

NZ are very close to really clicking. Against England all of the chatter is about how England could have closed out a win, but failed to do so. This has obscured the observation that NZ were by far the more creative and effective in attack, beyond the 3-1 try differential and disallowed tries. They gave away a lot of unnecessary penalties, and made many simple errors (including knock-ons and loose kicks). Those things are very fixable, and when they do so we are once again going to be staring at a formidable NZ team.

Last week we heard the England fans talking confidently about their chances against NZ, but England did not end up looking like the better team on the field or the scoreboard. The England defense was impressive enough, but still could not stop the tries.

Ireland certainly has a better chance, of course, but NZ is improving fast, and I would not be surprised at a convincing All Black win this week. It may turn on whether NZ can cut out the simple mistakes.

SA has beaten NZ four times in a row, including in the RWC final.

I don't think the addition of Spencer for Mitchell helped from that POV but one player should not make such a big diff!

Interesting question about Skelton's role next weekend Miz. From what I hear he may start from the bench, which would be a bit of a waste.

Haivng said that I feel you are heaping rather too many ashes on your own head as an Aussie in that last couple of paras!😅

But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.

The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.

Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

If the chase is perfect and the defence is numbered up then it needs to get sent back. From memory they have not really developed a plan for what to do if they take the ball on/in the 22 with a good chase and no counter attacking opportunity.