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Four issues England must address before facing the All Blacks again
By Josh Raisey
In a contest as close as England’s with the All Blacks on Saturday, there is no need for Steve Borthwick to throw out the playbook following a 16-15 defeat.
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There were many positives that England’s head coach can take into their second Test at Eden Park on Saturday. With that said, there were some red flags.
England captain Jamie George vowed after the match “We’ll do a lot of honest work this week and make sure we go to Eden Park fully prepared. We’ll learn and we’ll grow and we’ll get better.”
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England’s attacking transformation between their loss to Scotland and win over Ireland in the Six Nations this year proves how quickly a team can smooth out any concerns, and Borthwick will be hoping for a similar level of growth this week in some areas.
Some things can be fixed in a matter of a couple of sessions, while some may be slightly more deep-rooted. Here are four:
Goal kicking
Almost every kicker has an off-day with the boot from time to time, but when your predecessor was the seemingly metronomic Owen Farrell, you are likely to be judged by the standards set by Test rugby’s second-highest point scorer.
That’s the problem that Marcus Smith faces, as does George Ford and Fin Smith. No matter how well he played against the All Blacks, taking the ball to the line in a way the soon-to-be-Racing 92 flyhalf cannot, the performance of most No.10s will ultimately come down to the brass tacks of how well they kicked.
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A record of two from five is not up to scratch at Test rugby, and worse still, the manner of the misses is all the more alarming. While Smith’s missed conversion for Immanuel Feyi-Waboso’s try was forgivable, his penalty misses in the opening minutes of the first and second half were less so. In a game that was decided by a solitary point, the importance of those wayward kicks is magnified.
The positive for England and the Harlequin is that this issue could simply have been a bad day at the office. After all, Handre Pollard was not much better from the tee against Ireland later that day, but Rassie Erasmus nor the Springbok will be particularly phased.
Smith will no doubt be assiduously labouring away on the training paddock to make sure that display was just a minor blip, but if there are early signs of creaking again, Borthwick may have to act swiftly.
Bench boost
A feature of Borthwick’s tenure as England boss so far is that he likes to make early substitutions in the second half, chiefly in the pack. Not once during the Six Nations did the starting front row see the 55th minute as a collective, for instance. Saturday was no different.
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Now there is a welter of statistics that drive the decision-making process regarding substitutions that we outside the England camp are not exposed to, but surely the old-fashioned eye test still has some credence.
Chandler Cunningham-South in no way looked like a player that needed to be taken off on Saturday. He began his second half by smashing into Stephen Perofeta before carving his way through the All Blacks’ defence in the build-up to Feyi-Waboso’s try. That followed a first half where he had a hand in Maro Itoje’s try. His match came to an end after only 50 minutes, however.
There was a tactical justification for removing the flanker, but it did not pay off, nor did any other changes in truth. In contrast, the bulk of Scott Robertson’s alterations seemed to boost his side, which helps explain why the hosts were able to control the final ten minutes of the match.
There is always an element of risk to making changes as, even if a team is struggling, the devil you know is sometimes better than the devil you don’t. While every coach dreams of their bench making the kind of impact South Africa’s Bomb Squad did against Ireland, on this occasion England’s failed to provide a spark.
This is something that can theoretically be remedied in a week, but may come with time and experience for Borthwick.
Chandler Cunningham-South is a force of nature 🌪️#NZLvENG pic.twitter.com/gE9hKJEjmw
— England Rugby (@EnglandRugby) July 8, 2024
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Neither England nor the All Blacks were particularly efficient at keeping hold of the ball for long stretches. While both sides found ways to cough up possession in a variety of ways, a reliable source of turnovers for the All Blacks came from targeting isolated English runners.
Scott Barrett and co were able to sniff out any instance where an Englishman was taking the ball into contact without a cavalry ruck-hitters to secure possession, and they duly punished them.
Tom Curry was therefore brought on to provide a touch more dynamism to the pack at the expense of the high-flying Cunningham-South. The ‘Kamikazee Kids’ duo with Sam Underhill had proven to be fruitful in the past against the All Blacks, and Borthwick was hoping for something similar.
Bizarrely, this move worked out too well as Curry conceded a penalty within minutes of coming on for diving straight over at a ruck after latching onto George Martin as the Leicester Tigers lock took the ball into contact.
Borthwick clearly identified this issue in-match, and while he was not wholly successful in finding a solution, he has all week to do so now.
The obvious answer is a change in personnel, but, as seen in Dunedin, that will come at a price in other departments of the game, as shown with Cunningham-South’s departure. But England’s starting set of forwards were not exactly lacking in speed, so it may well be a case of sticking with what they have (albeit with an enforced change) and tightening up any loose bolts heading to Auckland.
Scrum time
The phrase ‘no scrum, no win’ exists for a reason. England have had worse days at the scrum in recent memory, but this was still not a great day for England’s forwards in that department.
Borthwick’s front row did enjoy some success, but the All Blacks got the upper hand in the final quarter, which contributed to them being able to close the game out.
The visitors were not helped by losing all 95 caps-worth of experience in Joe Marler in the opening stages, with the uncapped Fin Baxter being thrown in at the deep end. Things will not get much better with Marler now ruled out of the second Test.
George highlighted this as an area to work on after the match, and though tough, it seems do-able for Borthwick and his coaching team. After all, this was not a demolition job by the All Blacks.
England tighthead Kyle Sinckler was keen to stress how such issues can be resolved in the space of a week.
“The scrum, they will be disappointed with the outcome,” Sinckler said as a pundit for Sky Sports. “But when it comes to the scrum, it’s just tiny little adjustments and they can fix that in a week and obviously, working with Tom Harrison, they’ve got massive experience in that front row so I believe they can fix that in a week.”
The ABs let England into the game with some very poor tactics. All the steam is taken out of rush defence by simply kicking the ball instead of running it. ABs can do that with even more comfort this week without worrying about Furbank running it back.
If DMac can show some discipline and only look to go wide when England have too many forwards on the ground they can win comfortably. If they resort to the Super Rugby inspired madness of last week’s first half they will be looking at their first loss at Eden Park for 30 years. You would think a brand new ABs team that has only been together 10 days with a new coach has more potential to improve than England from one week to the next, but if the ABs end up chasing the game against that England D things could go pear shaped.
England need another 10 tests to really become the finished product they are after. The point is they are making progress week in and week out and they are only getting better. Expect an improvement from both teams this week and with the margins so tight its really about who improves more. First 20mins will be vital and England need to do their best to maintain parity in those moments. If they can take a lead into half time and find more impact in the second half than last week then they will win. Expect the AB’s to be about 10% better than last week so will be really difficult.
10 games! Try more like 2 seasons before being just competent. Not only does this group need to get good and adapt to any weakpoints that get found, but their backups also need to be nearly as conversant (that sort of thing can wait, its more of a WC leadup priority)!
The number is irrelevant though, they are in a good place, not like they were last year, or Eddie was, or Foster before that. The point is that all they want to do is make that progress each week (they don’t have the pressure of the Boks or ABs).
I don’t think any teams expected improvement is going to have anywhere near as much effect as the ole game of chance. No fun in predicting that though, so I’d say personal changes would be first up in changing the outcome this weekend. ABs have to make a big one at 9, doesn’t look like they will at 6, but I would normally still have expected a rest (might not have actually been a concussion failure of the HIA process) for Finau. Don’t like the grunt the other options give so was excited to see a new lock push Barrett out. Really got no idea if Razor will play his had so soon. I would replace Underhill based on that performance, but wasn’t he the flanker that just returned in his first game in the prem semi? I liked his performance there and then again in the final. Is Curry possibly better?
I can’t see England getting much gains from tactical changes in such a short time (10% improvement is probably what they want over the next 2 years, not one week). Possibly mental improvement if it wasn’t condition that reduced their defensive ferociousity in the 2nd half. I can’t see Razor changing anything tactically, like playing more in tight or close, he may just get the players coming out better this weekend though.
It was the All Blacks first game in 2024, it's been what? 8 months? Since they last played, and with a different coach in charge.
They are going to improve much more than 10% this weekend and England will need to be expecting that.
There is a reason they rarely play the first test of the season at Eden Park and put their record there at risk.
A Great TEST Match. English Very strong. Good enough to
beat any team in the World on
Saturday. All blacks only really
Dominated the match in the last 5 minutes
Thanks to a miss kick to the back field by B.B. But All Blacks will be a lot better this week.
Bad luck England
I’ve actually really enjoyed watching England play since the world cup. Borthwick has them playing decent English rugby. They should have made the final of RWC2023 (but they just couldn’t get enough impact from their bench). Eden park will a great test for them to see if they can hold their nerve. Just like the Bok they play a brand that is poison to NZ rugby and I imagine given enough games it will (just like the Bok) win them 2 out of 5 games against the ABs. It’ll be a fascinating watch. IF NZ can unpick the defence it will be over by the 50 minute mark. But England’s defence seems unbending so I’m picking a close game that could go either way. Nic Berry is ref so that means hands all over the ruck will be ok and the scrums will be a lottery.
That might be a fair thing to say, but I think it could also lose them 2 out of 5 games, by going away from what their real strength is (they say).
There is just so much intricacy in the game of rugby these days I feel man, I can see something as innocuous as a different ref changing the result greatly.
There’s an awful lot of what England must do and what went wrong on here
There’s a lot that the ABs need to do too
I see Brian Moore losing it over scrums
He has ever since Sean Fitzpatrick introduced him to the dirt time after time after time.
Our bench strategy was dodgy. Took off players still playing well and replaced them unnecessarily with lesser players that killed our tempo namely, Chandler, Mitchell, Smith. This cost us the world cup semi final when we could have kept our starting props on. There is of course merit to bringing on fresh blood at 55 but that assumes the players coming off the bench are nearly as good. In key positions for England, they are not. Fin Baxter managed to play for nearly the entire match, surely Chandler and Mitchell could do another few mins and I don't ever see the point of subbing your fly half unless you're losing badly or the game is in the bag. Marcus should stay on. Fin Smith is a great kid who may be an England legend one day but at the moment, he's not making any impact.
Yeah, I’m not sure what on earth the author is talking about. Subs are always premeditated. Crazy.
True about Fin, but he new he had to right. He paced himself, and as CCS new he was going to get subbed, he also paced himself. You can argue that was why he had so much impact.
On the topic of scrums - England’s front row is nothing special. I’d like to see some new fresh faces emerging sooner rather than later.
As the no.5 team in the world, England is only really capable of building to another WC campaign in 2027. And maybe a 6 Nations shot next year or so (although you can’t see this England team consistently beating Ireland or France) - so I’m not sure why we’re (I’m) not seeing any new talent in the tight five worth writing home about. The old guard is well Past or approaching past their prime. Which is why a messy NZ still pipped them to the post.
The fact that England is clearly unearthing some excellent loose forwards - they’re going to be hamstrung by this old tight five as time goes by. We’ve got some fancy looking bits and bobs on an old engine.
Lol how is the tight 5 old?
Think we'd all like to see some new prop talent mate, we haven't got much though!
Props are a problem area for England, especially at TH. This has been compounded by Genge being injured and Ben Obano being banned atm. Borthwick is basically forced to persevere with the aging Marler and Cole, which isn’t the worst thing, but there is a drop off between England’s first/second choice and 3rd etc.
There’s talent emerging at the U20 level, but still a little too green to introduce this year though, perhaps we may see some new faces briefly during the Autumn internationals.
As an aside, I’m surprised Rassie isn’t doing likewise given the age of his squad.