England stole Ireland's game plan and did it better than them

England’s famous win over Ireland showed that last year’s Grand Slam champions are far from unbeatable, thanks in part to some great tactics by coach Steve Borthwick.

“It looked like Ireland and England had switched shirts,” explained Sam Larner to Bernard Jackman in this week’s episode of analysis show Beyond 80.

“Pretty much everything England did was almost directly copied from what Ireland had been doing in the previous games.

“Ben Earl is essentially playing like a back” – Beyond 80 | RPTV

Beyond 80’s Sam Larner breaks down how impressive Ben Earl’s performance was against Ireland. Watch the full analysis show now on RugbyPass TV

Watch now

“Ben Earl is essentially playing like a back” – Beyond 80 | RPTV

Beyond 80’s Sam Larner breaks down how impressive Ben Earl’s performance was against Ireland. Watch the full analysis show now on RugbyPass TV

Watch now

“For example, England made Ireland miss 25 tackles. Ireland hadn’t missed that many tackles in the whole world cup and the whole Six Nations so far. If you think, they’ve played New Zealand in that time, they’ve played South Africa. They haven’t got anywhere near that number of missed tackles.”

A standout performer for England was forward Ben Earls, who appears to be playing without a number on his back.

“He was absolutely exceptional. In the tournament so far, he’s made the second most meters.

“We have to go all the way down to number 18 on the list to Alan Wainwright before we find another forward. So Ben Earl is essentially playing like a back, he’s playing like a centre, and he’s been unbelievable in terms of the carries that he’s making.

England’s changed smart kicking game also came to fruition, with the numbers telling an interesting story.

“One of the things England did was they kicked a lot less, they kicked less than 30 times. In fact they only kicked 21 times. They also passed 164 times, so at no point in that 11 game stretch have they passed more than 160 times and kicked fewer than 30.

“So it was a completely different game plan from England. And I’m not sure if Ireland would have necessarily been expecting that. We all knew England were evolving something different, but I think what they’ve actually shown up with is astonishingly different.

“I also think that Alex Mitchell was a fantastic part of England’s game on Saturday. His average pass length was 8.2 meters, further than any of the other two scrum halfs on the pitch, and that just helped England get on the outside of Ireland’s defence and also cut down a lot of numbers.

“So obviously if you can pass 8 meters compared to 6, you might knock out one or two defenders staying in close to a ruck and that was massively important for England to just get round on the edge to play this expansive game plan that they have.”

Defensively England’s work rate was impressive too, as the Felix Jones defence setup looks to be taking shape.

“Ireland’s game plan has been built on really small, short passing, so less than 5 meters. In every single game they’ve had more than their opponents. In this game they had 49 and England had 84, so England were not only able to steal that part of the game plan, but stop Ireland from using it as well.”

Jackman and Larner have broken down all of round four’s Six Nations matches, including how Italy upset Scotland, so you can watch that now on RugbyPass TV or the RugbyPass Youtube channel. 

Six Nations

Brian O'Driscoll

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