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Ben Youngs reveals the tactical tweak that might have seen England beat the Boks
By Josh Raisey
Though South Africa had their share of tough matches on their way to winning the World Cup, winning all three knockout contests by a solitary point, they looked to be in the most perilous position against England in the semi-final.
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While Jacques Nienaberās side led from the third minute onwards in the final against the All Blacks, they only led for the final two minutes against England the week before in a match in which they were trailing 15-6 in the final quarter. In fact it was only in the final ten minutes that they gained any kind of ascendency at the Stade de France following RG Snymanās try on 69 minutes.
That was obviously the crucial phase of the match though, and it has left England ruing where they went wrong and what they could have done differently.
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One area the Boks were comfortably dominating in the final quarter was the scrum, which was nothing short of a penalty machine through Ox Nche and Vincent Koch come the end of the match. England faced more scrums than they would have wanted in that phase of the match, and scrum-half Ben Youngs recently voiced the sideās regret that they were not able to tweak their tactics to lower the number of scrums, or at least change where they were taking place on the field.
Youngs, who recently retired from Test rugby as Englandās most capped player, was not part of the matchday squad against the Springboks, but explained recently on The Rugby Pod how Steve Borthwickās side were not able to execute the required tactical change.
āSo the South Africa game I really thought, with ten minutes to go until RG Snyman scored, I really thought weāre going to do this, weāre exactly where we need to be,ā the 127-cap England international said.
āBut when he scored, youāre thinking āright, all the momentum is with South Africa, we donāt want set pieces.ā I think tactically up to that point we had been brilliant in terms of going to contestable kicks. But we had to change. We should have gone to kick it long, stay away from contests, because as soon as you go to contests it only takes one knock-on- scrum. Boot it as long as you can, let them mark it, thatās fine, they can have a scrum pen in their own 22. But as soon as we started going to contestables on the half way, landing it on half way, that is when the message was coming on but we werenāt able to adapt. That was the bit where if we just made that little change, maybeā¦ maybe. Iām not saying we would have done it, they are a phenomenal team.
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āIt was a tough one to take that one.ā
The final few minutes of the match played out exactly how England would not have wanted it to, with Handre Pollard kicking a penalty from half way following a scrum penalty. That scrum came from a knock on by Freddie Steward (maybe the only mistake he make in a sensational performance) while chasing a short kick. Had the kick gone longer, the result may have been different.
England lost by one point. So did France and the All Blacks. Yet out of those three games only England had the brains to play knock out rugby and came nearest to beating the Springboks. Hats off to them.
Except it all came unstuck in 10 minutes. Thatās the risk when you play not to score tries. The Boks have tried this for years and the ABs would almost always score a try in the last 5 minutes of the game. Which is why Rassie developed a very aggressive transition attack. Obviously with considerable success but still inconsistent. England will have to evolve, I donāt think Borthwickās style is going to be good enough to beat Ireland, France and NZā¦
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England done by RSA in the last two WCs. The rest is chatter
Blatant official bias and favoritism is now āa tactical tweetā? How quaint.
Ah mate. I missed you. Now I had my chuckle for the day. And also knowing that there are people out there with bigger issues than me makes me feel better about myself
You make me feel normalā¦ā¦you complete mešš¤£
Love you matie. Canāt wait for your next āpostāš
Summary: āour Gary Owens should have been deeper.ā Yawn. Sad! Perhaps England need to reflect on the fact that theyāve only scored a single try (and a kick charge down at that) against South Africa in Six RWC games across 25 years (brutal stat). Maybe score more tries? Maybe itās not the kicking game thatās the problem?
Its not a great stat, but its pretty common in knock-out rugby between the top world cup teams. In 4 finals South Africa have scored 2 tries. England have 1 try in 4 finals. In 6 games v NZ, South Africa have scored 3 tries, going back 28 years. 2 of them were in a third place knock-out in 1999. New Zealand have scored 7 tries in those 6 games.
Maybe tries arent the only way to win?
Iād love to tell you youāre right, but this year they did the best they could. Had they tried to play more, they would have lost to Fiji (that is if they even reached the quarter finals).
They played brilliantly with the cards they were dealt with and even if I agree it is boring rugby, it is the rugby that could see them through.
Letās just hope that the game plan will change now that Borthwick has more time on his hands to build a team and not only try and save what could be.